So I was watching the rough cut of a documentary about anime cons last night, and one of the voice actors being interviewed (Greg Ayres - a friend of my good friend Jan) was relating an event that happened during a panel he was holding on how to chaperone your children at an anime con - or some such topic... Anyway, one of the mothers present was complaining that Hentai should not be represented at the con; and Greg noted that she was wearing an "I love YAOI" shirt; and so he asked why she should not have a problem with YAOI and yet have a problem with Hentai. The mother became quite upset as the audience started laughing... She demanded to know what one one might have to do with the other. So Greg asked her what she thought YAOI was. She said her daughter had told her that it stood for - "YOUNG ATTRACTIVE OUTGOING INTELLECTUALS".
I laughed so hard I almost pissed myself.
Yep, by that definition I might not "write" YAOI, but I sure do write about "Them".
Monday, June 15, 2009
I guess I should read Elric...
Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?...
Michael Moorcock (b. 1939)
13 High-Brow, 1 Violent, -3 Experimental and 5 Cynical!
Congratulations! You are High-Brow, Violent, Traditional and Cynical! These concepts are defined below.
Michael Moorcock is one of the most influential fantasy writers of all times, his impact rivalling that of Tolkien's. Perhaps China Miéville described it best when he said: "I think we are all post-Moorcock." Apart from being the editor of New Worlds twice in the 60s and 70s, thereby being instrumental in bringing on the so-called "new wave" of science fiction which changed all fantastic literature forever, Moorcock's own work has been an inspiration to more recent writers. He is also known for not hiding or blunting his views on fiction which he regards as inferior, a trait which has lead him to apply harsh criticism on authors such as J R R Tolkien, C S Lewis an H P Lovecraft.
His most popular work are the Elric books. Elric was originally conceived as a sort of critical comment to or even parody of R E Howard's Conan, but the character and his world soon grew to form a tragic and somewhat fatalistic drama. Elric's world is, in turn, only a small part of the huge Multiverse, a set of stories from all sorts of worlds (including our own) which is forever locked in a struggle between the two powers of Law and Chaos. Whenever one of these powers is threatening to become too powerful, an incarnation of the Eternal Champion, a group of warriors possessing the same spirit, is forced to fight to maintain the delicate balance between the two. Moorcock has worked several of his heroes into this cycle of books, including Hawkmoon, Corum and, of course, Elric.
Moorcock's stories are often stories about warriors, however reluctant they may be, and are usually explicitly violent, even if the purpose of all the hacking and slashing is to free humans and other beings from oppression and, ultimately, fear. There is little happiness, though, for those who are forced to do the fighting and all they can hope for is a short time of respite, sometimes in the town of Tanelorn, the only place in the multiverse that the eternal struggle between Law and Chaos can't reach.
It should also be mentioned that, even though Moorcock has done quite some experimenting in his days, it can't be ignored that a major part of his books are traditional adventure stories that become more than that by their inclusion into a grand vision. A little ironically , perhaps, for an author who has criticized the "world-building school" of fantasy, Moorcock achieves much of his popularity through building, if not a world, a world vision.
You are also a lot like China Miéville
If you want something more gentle, try Ursula K le Guin
If you'd like a challenge, try your exact opposite, Katharine Kerr
Your score
This is how to interpret your score: Your attitudes have been measured on four different scales, called 1) High-Brow vs. Low-Brow, 2) Violent vs. Peaceful, 3) Experimental vs. Traditional and 4) Cynical vs. Romantic. Imagine that when you were born, you were in a state of innocence, a tabula rasa who would have scored zero on each scale. Since then, a number of circumstances (including genetic, cultural and environmental factors) have pushed you towards either end of these scales. If you're at 45 or -45 you would be almost entirely cynical, low-brow or whatever. The closer to zero you are, the less extreme your attitude. However, you should always be more of either (eg more romantic than cynical). Please note that even though High-Brow, Violent, Experimental and Cynical have positive numbers (1 through 45) and their opposites negative numbers (-1 through -45), this doesn't mean that either quality is better. All attitudes have their positive and negative sides, as explained below.
High-Brow vs. Low-Brow
You received 13 points, making you more High-Brow than Low-Brow. Being high-browed in this context refers to being more fascinated with the sort of art that critics and scholars tend to favour, rather than the best-selling kind. At their best, high-brows are cultured, able to appreciate the finer nuances of literature and not content with simplifications. At their worst they are, well, snobs.
Violent vs. Peaceful
You received 1 points, making you more Violent than Peaceful. Please note that violent in this context does not mean that you, personally, are prone to violence. This scale is a measurement of a) if you are tolerant to violence in fiction and b) whether you see violence as a means that can be used to achieve a good end. If you are, and you do, then you are violent as defined here. At their best, violent people are the heroes who don't hesitate to stop the villain threatening innocents by means of a good kick. At their worst, they are the villains themselves.
Experimental vs. Traditional
You received -3 points, making you more Traditional than Experimental. Your position on this scale indicates if you're more likely to seek out the new and unexpected or if you are more comfortable with the familiar, especially in regards to culture. Note that traditional as defined here does not equal conservative, in the political sense. At their best, traditional people don't change winning concepts, favouring storytelling over empty poses. At their worst, they are somewhat narrow-minded.
Cynical vs. Romantic
You received 5 points, making you more Cynical than Romantic. Your position on this scale indicates if you are more likely to be wary, suspicious and skeptical to people around you and the world at large, or if you are more likely to believe in grand schemes, happy endings and the basic goodness of humankind. It is by far the most vaguely defined scale, which is why you'll find the sentence "you are also a lot like x" above. If you feel that your position on this scale is wrong, then you are probably more like author x. At their best, cynical people are able to see through lies and spot crucial flaws in plans and schemes. At their worst, they are overly negative, bringing everybody else down.
Author image by Catriona Sparks from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Moorcock.jpg Click for license info.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Return from Jamaica and Couldn't Have Said it Better
Ok, I returned from Jamaica on Monday - not Sunday night as originally scheduled... Long story there, but it doesn't really need telling. So anyway, I slept for about 18 hours. Then I lazed about for a day. Today - Wednesday - I woke up and said I was going to write. So guess what, I wrote. Heck, I'm still writing. I only paused to check my e-mail and discovered the link below from a friend and I had to share.
I will at some point write a wonderful and thoughtful blog about my thoughts on Jamaica and how very very blessed I am to have the fans I do as represented by the truly lovely souls who accompanied me to Jamaica. To those people who went - and even those who just wanted to go - thank you. And to those who went, the trip worked as hoped: I am jazzed about writing. So I'm sure you guys want to see that and not blog posts on things that already happened.
Jan sent me this link to Neil Gaiman's blog. I laughed and cheered and knew I had to share. I couldn't say it better myself. Thank you Neil.
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html
If the statement "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch" doesn't make you laugh, you're probably part of the problem...
I will at some point write a wonderful and thoughtful blog about my thoughts on Jamaica and how very very blessed I am to have the fans I do as represented by the truly lovely souls who accompanied me to Jamaica. To those people who went - and even those who just wanted to go - thank you. And to those who went, the trip worked as hoped: I am jazzed about writing. So I'm sure you guys want to see that and not blog posts on things that already happened.
Jan sent me this link to Neil Gaiman's blog. I laughed and cheered and knew I had to share. I couldn't say it better myself. Thank you Neil.
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html
If the statement "George R.R. Martin is not your bitch" doesn't make you laugh, you're probably part of the problem...
Monday, May 4, 2009
Jamaica the before
Well, tomorrow we leave for Jamaica! Yeah!! There will be seven of us on the trip. It's going to be really cool. I'm finally going to see what's left of Port Royal, and see how badly I described the cliffs of Negril. I will let everyone know how it went when we get back. I should finally get the new web site up then. With any luck we'll have pictures.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Middle Names are Private - Gods Damn It!
I was out surfing today for online locations to buy the RBW books in order to give people non-Amazon options on the new AP site. So I come across some interesting reader social networking sites - Shelfari and Library Thing which people might want to check out. Anyway, I happily found Brethren on Library Thing, but they list the author's name as my entire name. Not as W.A. Hoffman. Not as Wynette A. Hoffman, but with my entire fraking middle name spelled out.
I am really confused as to where whoever made the entry got it and how they associated it with the book. Lightning Source doesn't have it. Bowker doesn't have it. Therefore no official listing info for my books should ever show it. I don't post it on my site. I don't use it. I have never used it in a pen name. So WTF? Maybe the Library of Congress lists it. I don't know.
The deal is, since it's not the correct author name associated with the novels, it makes them difficult to find if someone is looking for them based on that reference. So it's a professional discourtesy and doesn't do the books any good to use that name.
It dusturbs me that someone felt the need to use my entire name - and obviously had to go to some trouble to find it. That's just creepy. And rude. It's like they're saying, here read these books, by this person whose social security number is... Just, really, WTF?
If you know my middle name, do not ever refer to me by it. Period. It's like a legal cypher code for me - like the little number on the back of your credit card. It's an old family name that's just part of my heritage and embedded in my name. No one has ever called me by that name. It's only on official pieces of documentation. It's a thing I occasionally tell friends if they ask what my middle initial stands for. It has nothing to do with me as an author. I have never used my full middle name on anything I've published. I'm not about to start.
Anyway, now I have to contact Library Thing and ask them to correct it. And then look for other references to it.
I am really confused as to where whoever made the entry got it and how they associated it with the book. Lightning Source doesn't have it. Bowker doesn't have it. Therefore no official listing info for my books should ever show it. I don't post it on my site. I don't use it. I have never used it in a pen name. So WTF? Maybe the Library of Congress lists it. I don't know.
The deal is, since it's not the correct author name associated with the novels, it makes them difficult to find if someone is looking for them based on that reference. So it's a professional discourtesy and doesn't do the books any good to use that name.
It dusturbs me that someone felt the need to use my entire name - and obviously had to go to some trouble to find it. That's just creepy. And rude. It's like they're saying, here read these books, by this person whose social security number is... Just, really, WTF?
If you know my middle name, do not ever refer to me by it. Period. It's like a legal cypher code for me - like the little number on the back of your credit card. It's an old family name that's just part of my heritage and embedded in my name. No one has ever called me by that name. It's only on official pieces of documentation. It's a thing I occasionally tell friends if they ask what my middle initial stands for. It has nothing to do with me as an author. I have never used my full middle name on anything I've published. I'm not about to start.
Anyway, now I have to contact Library Thing and ask them to correct it. And then look for other references to it.
Monday, April 13, 2009
In Amazon We Trust - Not
I am really bummed about the whole Amazon debacle. In case you haven’t heard, Amazon first claimed an “adult” material policy and then a glitch to explain why they took the sales rankings and resultant search sales status away from every book in their list that contained gay material. This purported policy left explicit adult material still ranked as long as it was hetero. They are supposedly fixing it, but as of this writing my Raised By Wolves titles don’t have sales rankings, and Blood and Love & Benjamins (both het) do. Rest assured, the realization they had done this went viral on Easter, and Amazon was back peddling and claiming the glitch by last night. Thousands of people got in their face about it – thank the Gods.
I don’t think Amazon de-ranked every GBLT book in their database out of homophobia or caving to the right. As much as I thought that late last night, it really doesn’t make sense. Amazon is a liberal company, and the explanation from a former Amazon employee that I saw on one of the forums does make sense.
If this person was correct, the whole debacle was very likely caused by someone in Amazon’s dbase programming division making a booboo while trying to tweak their sales ranking logarithms – possibly for a new adult/explicit material policy - and screwing up by picking up everything tagged gay/lesbian/transgender/bi and equating it with “adult” – a category (not just porn) that is purportedly a problem area for Amazon’s system. (The e-mail sent round the world last night from Amazon customer service mentions a policy to deal with adult material. Perhaps this is a new policy they were looking at, and it was truly meant to apply across the board to all explicit material and someone goofed – as noted – and coded the tag pick up wrong.) Anyway, porn and material for mature audiences (“adult”) – whether it be romance novels, tell alls, graphic horror, former-addict bios, memoirs, Playboy, or nude-filled coffee table books, probably outsells everything – to the point that – according to the former employee – it takes over all the best seller lists and every search function if given a chance in Amazon’s system. I can see that. (It also means Amazon’s ranking system has some serious design flaws – but I can see how it could happen)
But this means Amazon is always screwing with the mature material numbers to deal with the problem. That really disturbs me. Ok, so it happens. So maybe they need to do that in order for the NYT best sellers promoted by the major houses to stay up in the rankings… lol Maybe they need to do that in order for anyone to locate anything literary… But it’s a lie, nonetheless.
Amazon is a boon to publishers because of their listing, ranking, and referral system. You sell well relative to other books in your genre, get good reviews, and a variety of tags, and your book is rewarded by being boosted in sales ranking and referred to more people. The system allows little-known books to get found, and popular books to snowball. But if they’re futzing with those numbers to suppress the true bestsellers, then that’s a problem even if the end result benefits a wider range of books.
It’s a lie. Maybe the world needs to know that nine out of ten people buy adult material. I definitely think the number of conservative, right-wing, religious zealots who now claim they will buy more from Amazon because it tried to censor the GBLT books need to know that they’re (the zealots) full of shit. IF this scenario is the case, I think the intolerant religious nuts should be told in no uncertain terms that Amazon is only trying to suppress adult material that MOST PEOPLE want, in order for them (the religious nuts) to be able to find their wholesome biblical stuff.
Whether or not that scenario is true, I don’t know what I think about Amazon right now. They responded to my query about my books (containing my threat to contact the ACLU) with a form announcement and apology about the “glitch”. They had a little response thing asking if their response solved my problem. I said “no” and sent them another e-mail saying how very disappointed I was, and that I wanted a public apology to all the effected authors and publishers, or I was going to take my business elsewhere and encourage others to do the same.
But the sad thing is, from my perspective, even if they say what really happened and apologize, there are still religious homophobes who will just think Amazon caved to liberal pressure. Meanwhile, there will still be liberal fanatics who will claim Amazon caved to conservative pressure and created the problem only to reverse their decision due to the power of liberals telling them homophobia wasn’t going to cut it. (I tell you: I really hate people… Both sides. All sides.)
I think that Amazon just shot themselves in the balls… With any luck, people will actually remember this in two days and Amazon will have damaged their credibility. If that’s the case, I think this bodes very well for independent bookstores - if they will just get their act together and capitalize on it. I don’t know what it will mean for me. Sadly, book stores are not the friend of the small publisher – they don’t have the shelf space or margins to experiment much. However, a good percentage of my books used to sell in GBLT stores – all of which have web storefronts. So I don’t know. I think I will be adding a page to the new site – still in progress – of alternative places to buy my titles – places other than Amazon.
I don’t think Amazon de-ranked every GBLT book in their database out of homophobia or caving to the right. As much as I thought that late last night, it really doesn’t make sense. Amazon is a liberal company, and the explanation from a former Amazon employee that I saw on one of the forums does make sense.
If this person was correct, the whole debacle was very likely caused by someone in Amazon’s dbase programming division making a booboo while trying to tweak their sales ranking logarithms – possibly for a new adult/explicit material policy - and screwing up by picking up everything tagged gay/lesbian/transgender/bi and equating it with “adult” – a category (not just porn) that is purportedly a problem area for Amazon’s system. (The e-mail sent round the world last night from Amazon customer service mentions a policy to deal with adult material. Perhaps this is a new policy they were looking at, and it was truly meant to apply across the board to all explicit material and someone goofed – as noted – and coded the tag pick up wrong.) Anyway, porn and material for mature audiences (“adult”) – whether it be romance novels, tell alls, graphic horror, former-addict bios, memoirs, Playboy, or nude-filled coffee table books, probably outsells everything – to the point that – according to the former employee – it takes over all the best seller lists and every search function if given a chance in Amazon’s system. I can see that. (It also means Amazon’s ranking system has some serious design flaws – but I can see how it could happen)
But this means Amazon is always screwing with the mature material numbers to deal with the problem. That really disturbs me. Ok, so it happens. So maybe they need to do that in order for the NYT best sellers promoted by the major houses to stay up in the rankings… lol Maybe they need to do that in order for anyone to locate anything literary… But it’s a lie, nonetheless.
Amazon is a boon to publishers because of their listing, ranking, and referral system. You sell well relative to other books in your genre, get good reviews, and a variety of tags, and your book is rewarded by being boosted in sales ranking and referred to more people. The system allows little-known books to get found, and popular books to snowball. But if they’re futzing with those numbers to suppress the true bestsellers, then that’s a problem even if the end result benefits a wider range of books.
It’s a lie. Maybe the world needs to know that nine out of ten people buy adult material. I definitely think the number of conservative, right-wing, religious zealots who now claim they will buy more from Amazon because it tried to censor the GBLT books need to know that they’re (the zealots) full of shit. IF this scenario is the case, I think the intolerant religious nuts should be told in no uncertain terms that Amazon is only trying to suppress adult material that MOST PEOPLE want, in order for them (the religious nuts) to be able to find their wholesome biblical stuff.
Whether or not that scenario is true, I don’t know what I think about Amazon right now. They responded to my query about my books (containing my threat to contact the ACLU) with a form announcement and apology about the “glitch”. They had a little response thing asking if their response solved my problem. I said “no” and sent them another e-mail saying how very disappointed I was, and that I wanted a public apology to all the effected authors and publishers, or I was going to take my business elsewhere and encourage others to do the same.
But the sad thing is, from my perspective, even if they say what really happened and apologize, there are still religious homophobes who will just think Amazon caved to liberal pressure. Meanwhile, there will still be liberal fanatics who will claim Amazon caved to conservative pressure and created the problem only to reverse their decision due to the power of liberals telling them homophobia wasn’t going to cut it. (I tell you: I really hate people… Both sides. All sides.)
I think that Amazon just shot themselves in the balls… With any luck, people will actually remember this in two days and Amazon will have damaged their credibility. If that’s the case, I think this bodes very well for independent bookstores - if they will just get their act together and capitalize on it. I don’t know what it will mean for me. Sadly, book stores are not the friend of the small publisher – they don’t have the shelf space or margins to experiment much. However, a good percentage of my books used to sell in GBLT stores – all of which have web storefronts. So I don’t know. I think I will be adding a page to the new site – still in progress – of alternative places to buy my titles – places other than Amazon.
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