SF Romance Rant

I think of myself as a writer in the romance genre. (This is a slightly different statement from "I think of myself as a romance writer.") That might not come as that big of a shock to many people. I've often discussed my own buying habits and my appreciation of the "hard" romance writers like Thea Divine, Robin Schone, and most especially Bertrice Small: that small cadre of women writers whose romance is heavily laden with explicit sex scenes. After all, I write science fiction laden with explicit sex scenes.

I've also often listed the writers I admire, and Small is up there because she writes convincingly, the way Bujold writes convincingly: seemingly without effort or stylistic intrusion, leaving the reader breathless, aroused, laughing, and tearing up in turn. I want to write with the scene-setting skill of Bujold, the romance of Mieville, the artistry of Helprin, the ballsy dialogue of Clute, the cluefullness of Stephenson or Stross. But ultimately I want to write what Bertrice Small writes, only I'm more comfortable on the bridge of a starship than I am in some 17th Century Irish castle. I'm no good at generating new sensawundas (a term apparently coined-- by Charlie Stross no less!-- in 1993) but I appreciate them and I like to think I'm good at being a tour guide to them: let me pull you in with the promise of nifty skiffy^[?] backdrops and wonderful characters and some good sex and, oh, by the way, here are some of the consequences of what we learned last year in functional neurophysiology.

It is inevitable, therefore, that I have read romance writers who have dabbled in science fiction, and I have to tell you, the results are completely fucking awful. There isn't a single romance writer out there whose notion of SF does not grow beyond watching a few episodes of Star Trek. The field of "SF Romance" is filled with Completely Pointless Jargon Meant To Convey The Future and utterly lacks any of that sensawunda that's so important to the genre I love. When the writer gets down to the details of having their characters interact, there's something about the setting that inevitably turns most romance writers cold and sterile, and their characters become even more wooden and unrealistic than they would otherwise.

Romance writers doing science fiction don't get science fiction: they don't get that to be interesting to a science fiction reader you can't just show characters doing the wild thing on a Paramount backlot set. You have to make the reader think, too. You have to offer that sensawunda.

I remember reading an essay by Howard Jacobson in which he wrote that Black Lace Publishing in their guidelines warned against comedy because, as he put it, "laughter is the operation of intelligence, an act of criticism, and the moment you subject porn to intelligence it comes apart like a mummified artefact exposed to light." I disagreed with Jacobson precisely because I think smart people are sexy and fun, and laughter during sex is a hallmark of intelligence, and it's entirely possible to be critical of the absurdity of sex while reveling in the pleasure of it all.

I think part of the reason I've never been particularly strong on selling The Journal Entries is that I don't see anyone else succeeding in this business either: of selling smart sex or sexy science fiction, the "real" kind that doesn't read like a bug-eyed monster media tie-in written by Kevin J. Anderson. I'm probably just too cowardly to try and go first.

Literary Lemonade

I finished Sterlings episode 3. The first time through it, I was really unhappy with it. Although I'd managed to get Polly and Rhiane into bed, there wasn't any energy in the sex scene I'd written.

I debated re-writing it, but decided instead to make lemonade out of a lemon. If there scene lacked energy, maybe I should keep it that way. A bad sex scene is as broadening and revealing to the characters as a good one. And it sets up all kinds of nifty unresolved conflicts. The fact that Polly got some of what she wanted only to learn that it would have been better to play all-or-nothing says a lot about her, especially when we finally get her into bed with the very kinky Lieutenant Zia Chi.

Two words about Polly: "Pronoun trouble."

Gym progress.

I hit the gym during lunch today, for the third time this week. I upped my weight and am now doing presses and flys with 30 lbs. in each hand, although my bicep curls are still at 25 lbs. I'm doing 105 lbs on the abs machine, and 120 on the shoulder pulls. I only have time to do two circuits, so I'm doing a modified round of chest, shoulders, arms, and abs. Yeah, I tend to ignore my legs, but given that I'm hiking up and down stairs all day I don't think that's a bad thing.

There's a cartoon by Donelan which shows a man lounging against a wall, apparently waiting for his date, and he says to his companion, "All I know is, he'd better get here before my pecs deflate." I no longer wonder what that means. This afternoon after the workout I took off my shirt and on the way to the showers saw myself in the mirror. I'd done my arms hard this afternoon and my biceps were huge. I could see the veins in them. It's a kinda scary sight; I was always the scrawny kid who hated sports. And my first reaction was "Huh. I wonder if Omaha will like this?"

Fortunately, they soon went back to normal, which is much bigger than they were three weeks ago, but not quite so Frankensteinian.

You've got to be kidding me.

Is there anything ironic about the President declaring this week to be National Character Counts Week? Especially since this week he also conducted fundraisers for George Allen, who's battling accusations of corruption and racism, and for Don Sherwood, who recently admitted to cheating on his wife, and whose adulterous lover is suing him for domestic abuse.