"I didn't make him for YOU!"

[elfs]

So, on the advice of many, I have begun shopping around some of my older work to newer venues. I've been reposting the Journal Entries to usenet, twice a week (Monday and Thursday), and I've been posting Aimee' to Stories Online. I'm going to have to figure out how to automate the process for SOL, because while there are only 10 chapters to the first Aimee' novel, the Journal Entries serial is 290 episodes even before I add any.

It's only been a week, so I've received all of one piece of email from the SOL crowd. The gist of the email was simple: Nobody on SOL was ever going to read Aimee because while there might be girls and dragons later on, the M/M scenes in the first three chapters were "too disgusting" for anyone to bother reading more.

Ah, well. There's a lot of competition on SOL, and there are a number of "open" universes there as well, where writers have been building out the series with their own notions and, of course, pecadillos.

I much prefer people who enjoy all the polymorphous perversity in my writing. Much better than one pompous homophobe.

Comments

[norikos-author.livejournal.com]

I've got a submit_to_sol.rb script -- want it? I don't claim it's _elegant_; it was hacked up in a couple of hours to the point of 'good enough'.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ooh, of course I want it!

[fallenpegasus]

I twigged as soon as I saw your LJ name there.

Are there more Noriko stories?

[norikos-author.livejournal.com]

There's one waiting for editing and polishing, but I've been concentrating on the stuff I do with Vel for now.

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

Eh, our "Prudence" still gets a large number of hits, both on SOL and on our own page, even after we introduced the MM element, and it gets a rather nice amount of fanmail, too... though not so much from SOL. On SOL, mostly you get ratings, not feedback. Usenet gets you feedback.

I won't say we've never got negative feedback on account of including a MM scene or six, but it's generally not a big deal, and we get far more positive than negative. Those who "won't read it because MM stuff is disgusting" aren't exactly on my list of highly desired readers, anyway... I prefer to avoid interaction with narrow-minded homophobes. I have, however, had one person tell me that their feelings on the subject actually changed after reading those scenes, because our portrayal of the people involved brought it home very strongly that they were _people_, and suddenly if felt wrong to think of them as somehow less than other people just because of who they chose to love. That was one of the nicest compliments we've ever received. :)

[kengr]

That's a fun sort of feedback to get. I got a similar comment from a reader about one of the stories on my website. They said they hadn't really understood transsexuals until reading what my character was going thru in the story.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

I'm curious. Do you get as many negative comments about F/F themes?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Nobody ever gets negative comments about FF scenes. Those are a staple of porn. Even if you depict the characters as utterly committed lesbians whose interest in men is as present as a solid homophobic reader's interest in men, your average male reader doesn't believe it, thinks he can get in there and even if he can't he's still willing to watch.

[ladyerin.livejournal.com]

hmm...Aimee was the first of your stories, and the first that wasn't your grocery store love novel story that involved Sex......seems to have kept me hooked on your writings for nearly 10 years now....

[blaisepascal]

From a mailing list I'm on, I hear some strange things about feedback/comments from SOL. One person got email urging him to leave SOL because his stories didn't have sex in them.

Personally, I recommend you save all the complaints that you don't write the type of story that the reader wants to a file and review it periodically. I think "/dev/null" is a good name for the file.

[datapacrat.livejournal.com]

I don't know much about SOL, except that it's the only site I can find with a complete archive of the stories by (another) one of my favorite authours, Lazlo Zalezac ( http://storiesonline.net/auth/Lazlo_Zalezac ) - which definitely include M/M scenes. (I first saw 'John Carter' posted to usenet, and looked at it thinking it was a Burroughs fanfic - and, even though it was completely different, still enjoyed it thoroughly.)

[kengr]

Lots of authors complain about the weird "feedback" from SOL.

Heck, you lucked out. A bunch of authors were getting spammed with Bible quotes and the like...

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Heh. I get Bible quoters now and then. They entertain me.

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking of changing opinions I read the M/M journal entries purely to get the ongoing story and character development... at first. Now I find I quite like it, and feel similarly about the bondage scenes even though I have no desire whatsoever to get whipped. Sleeping with a guy is another matter though, not a bad shift for someone who began by thinking of himself as purely straight (not homophobic though, I never had any problem with gay men)

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

What the ?!?

I read a little bit of Aimee. I found it disturbing, not disgusting. And that wasn't due to the M/M aspects...

Some people.