MELJEAN: So, here you publish the conclusion to your alien action figure story.
MISSY: That’s right! I’m so excited. It was lots of fun.
MELJEAN: Well. Okay. Let’s see it then.

MELJEAN: Hopefully, next they’ll get naked.
MISSY: Stop your dirty talk!

MELJEAN: ‘Enigmatic’? Someone has been reading WAY too much fanfiction.
MISSY: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
MELJEAN: Hehe, that’s right. You don’t even have the Internet yet. I guess the fanfiction person is me. Tee hee.

MELJEAN: Oh, real subtle. Like Lara could ever hide from Mulder when those giant boobs are probably poking him in the back.
MISSY: Shut up!
MELJEAN: You know, you are taking this way too seriously. You do know these things aren’t real, right?
MISSY: Duh.
MELJEAN: Because there is lately some concern about people who read romance novels being able to tell the difference between reality and fiction.
MISSY: So what?
MELJEAN: Well, over at Squawkradio, when this was commented on, many people talked about reading romances, and starting young and screwing up expectations for real life. And those people were talking about starting at thirteen. You started five years earlier than that.
MISSY: What’s your point?
MELJEAN: Huh. Considering that I’m almost 28, pretty damn normal, have a really healthy relationship, and am pretty damn aware of reality, I guess I don’t have a point.

MELJEAN: Look at Mulder and Scully. They don’t care about her. They just totally want to get nekkid and do it.
MISSY: …maybe that reality check is more urgently needed than you think.
MELJEAN: Shut up and tell your fricking story.

MELJEAN: They are going to put the body in the CAR? You need to do a little more research. I don’t think that’s proper police/FBI procedure.
MISSY: Who cares?
MELJEAN: Me.
MISSY: God, you’re such a bitch.

MELJEAN: Wow. That was…unexpected. And kind of came out of nowhere.
MISSY: I don’t like the word ‘nowhere’. I always read it as ‘now here’ instead of ‘no where’.
MELJEAN: …
MISSY: What? I totally set up Angela’s appearance in Part One!
MELJEAN: *cough god cough from cough the cough machine cough*
MISSY: Actually, an angel. And where are her ribbons?
MELJEAN: Hmmm, good question. I totally love that issue of Angela/Spawn when they are together in the dark and their chains and ribbons are entwined. That was hot.
MISSY: Yeah.

MELJEAN: What’s that weird sandy stuff?
MISSY: I think it’s blood.
MELJEAN: Oh. Okay.

MELJEAN: Uh…why is Lara Croft on the ground in the back?
MISSY: Angela totally knocked her out when she left.
MELJEAN: …why?
MISSY: I don’t know. That’s the way the pictures were. What do you want me to do?
MELJEAN: Coming up with a logical explanation is good.
MISSY: Okay. Angela realized that when Lara was raiding a tomb she stole some ribbons. Angela punched her out and got her ribbons back.
MELJEAN: All off-screen?
MISSY: Yeah. So what?
MELJEAN: That totally cheats the reader.
MISSY: Well, Soooooorrrrrry!

MELJEAN: Hahahahah! I’ve got a better explanation!
MISSY: Oh, god, it’s going to be dirty.
MELJEAN: Well, look at her! Hahahaha!

MELJEAN: Of course.

MELJEAN: Hey! You cheated and used a filter for that effect!
MISSY: I couldn’t help it. I almost used the ‘Reticulan’ filter. But, it didn’t look right.
MELJEAN: Still. Still! Cheat!
MISSY: Shut up or I’ll whack you!

MELJEAN: Ah, finally. That was totally stupid…and back in the closet for you!
MISSY: Noooooooooooooo!
MELJEAN: Bwahahahahahaha!

Note 2: Missy is my inner child, the one who read romances in the closet. I review books with her sometimes; you can check those out here [ETA: Oh, god -- WordPress upgrades have effed up the formatting on those reviews. I'll try to go in and fix them in the next week or so.]

MELJEAN: Hey, Missy! Wanna come out of the closet?

MISSY: Yay! Ooooh, what’s all this?

MELJEAN: Your sister and niece took some pictures at home — and when they came up for a visit, they showed them to me. I thought you might have fun telling a story with them.

MISSY: Whoo hoo! Thanks!

MELJEAN: Did you intentionally censor her giant tits?

MISSY: What? God, you’re talking already? Shut up and enjoy the story!

MELJEAN: Meee-ow!

MELJEAN: She has a lot of dust on her head.

MISSY: She’s an explorer, a tomb raider! You think she only explores clean tombs?

MELJEAN: How did she change her clothes so quickly?

MISSY: ….

MELJEAN: Maybe she should try her chest as a weapon.
MISSY: …..
MELJEAN: Alright, alright! Shutting up!

MELJEAN: Since when has Rogue been a runaway weenie?
MISSY: This is the movie Rogue, not the comic Rogue.
MELJEAN: Ah, that makes sense.

MELJEAN: Hahahahahahaha! Do you know what that looks like?
MISSY: What? He’s attacking her.
MELJEAN: Hahahahahaha! Hahahahahaha!

MELJEAN: Her skin torn off? Killed with a massive dose of jizz, more likely.
MISSY: You’re gross! God, why do you have such a dirty mind?
MELJEAN: It’s your fault! You read too many smutty romances.
MISSY: There wasn’t any jizz-killing in them! That’s all your screwed up mind, not mine!
MELJEAN: Huh…you got me there.

MELJEAN: Rogue changed her clothes?
MISSY: Don’t ask me. Ask Echo and Jessica. They took the damn pictures.
MELJEAN: Why is she humping Jean’s dead body?
MISSY: I’ll kill you someday.

MELJEAN: Yay! Scully and Mulder! Will they have some hot ‘shipper action? I like Angela, too.
MISSY: I’m not dirty like that!
MELJEAN: Yes you are! I know you used to make your Barbies and Star Wars figures and He-Man figures do it.
MISSY: Shut up!
MELJEAN: Hehe.
(Special thanks to Echo and Jessica, who took these pics on a whim and gave me lots of material and about two gallons of tears from laughter.)

Now, I’m not an Anne Stuart fangirl. I’ll buy her books when I see them on the shelf, but I don’t usually pre-order. She’s one of those writers that produces books I always admire, but I don’t always connect with. Not always, but sometimes I do, in a big way.

I didn’t expect to with CATSPAW, because it didn’t sound like the type of story I’d usually enjoy. It was in this collection called THIEVES, SPIES, AND OTHER LOVERS and I don’t even remember how I got it, but I do remember I was living in Alaska at the time, in my dumb little studio apartment, and I can’t remember if the guy living with me had dumped me and flown off to Florida yet–and I thought I loved him, but, hey, I guess this scene has stuck with me longer than any feeling for that guy has.

In that scene, the heroine, Ferris Byrd, is telling the hero, Blackheart, why his past as a cat burglar is such an issue for her. She tells this story about when she was a girl, she saw a pair of red shoes in a store window. And although she knew that she could steal those shoes and never be caught, she didn’t take them.

And that was the blandest retelling of this scene you’ll ever see, because I’m writing it … and Anne Stuart is not. AND because there’s more to it than just a pair of shoes that Ferris Byrd (who used to be Francesca Berdahofski before she changed her name) didn’t steal. There was a girl who had very little, and who determined that her life would never be what her parents’ was, and that she’d never go without. A girl who could have easily taken those red shoes that she wanted so bad … but she didn’t. A girl who can never understand why Blackheart could steal, when a little girl who had nothing wouldn’t — and the little girl knew the only way to really escape her life was to earn her way out.

And still, I can’t begin to get across how fantastic this scene is. How Ferris’s character is revealed in a moment of absolute clarity, and the conflict in the book is illuminated perfectly, and you know every word in the book has been leading up to that scene and every word after it will have to deal with everything exposed in that scene, and as a reader, I’m sitting there thinking, “My god, that is writing done right.”

The writer in me is thinking the same thing, but suddenly that scene has become my personal pair of red shoes. I want to do that.

It would be easy, you know? I’ve got a good brain in my head. I could change the scene around, re-word it, play with it, and someone might say “This kind of reminds of that scene in that Anne Stuart book” but there’d be a lot of doubt. No one would really know, or prove anything. I could slip Anne Stuart’s red shoes into my book, and get away with it.

I’d know, though. That’d stop me right there, because I don’t handle guilt well.

But even if I didn’t stop, I’d also have to write this whole book around it to fit her shoes in, and it wouldn’t be just that scene, but a lot more I’d be taking. Because the red shoes aren’t THAT scene. There’s an unremarkable sentence in the first chapter that helps stitch the uppers to the sole. There’s the first kiss that makes the color more cherry than red. There’s the scene later, with Ferris naked except for the red shoes, and other scenes, with coffee beans and broken credit cards that are all nails in the heel. It all goes together–every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every scene.

And rewriting Anne Stuart’s book is going to be really freaking boring. I had a professor who once told me that writing is thinking (heh, I attribute that, even though it’s probably common knowledge — but this professor, he was one of those that made me really, really think, and I was taking his class as I was thinking about Demon Angel, and so the title of his book that he was making us read ended up in Hugh’s library, and Lilith made fun of it, because she would) but the last thing I want to do is re-think exactly that same things I did when I read Anne Stuart’s book. That kind of rewriting is not “rethinking” in the fun, transformative sense. That’s re-thinking, thinking the same thing again, being stagnant.

Oh yeah — and it was stealing.

I still wanted a pair of red shoes, though. So I got to work making my own — earning my own.

And it’s not like they are completely original, like I’ve made up the idea of shoes. I know I’ve been influenced by others, and I’ve brought in outside sources. Sometimes, I’ll write a scene, shape that heel, and then I’ll look at another writer’s similar heel and think, “Shit.” And then I’ll think about changing it, even though I wasn’t copying or lifting anything, just because it worries me so much. And sometimes I’ll rethink it … but sometimes, that heel is what the rest of the shoe demands, and anything else will make the design look like a piece of ass — or completely non-functional. So you move on, sometimes gritting your teeth, but trusting that, taken all together, it’ll be original, unique, and something to be proud of when it’s done.

More than anything, something that’s yours. And when you end up writing a scene that resonates with you like that scene in CATSPAW did, that has the same effect on you, there’s a very strange sense of humility and pride and love for what you’ve written. And, by god, you got it right. And there are sentences and paragraphs in there that you fight for, and you get it right. And even little phrases that you think, and rethink, and work at until they’re perfect, and you got it right with those, too. Then you finish it up, and you made your own goddamn shoes. And sometimes they pinch, and sometimes you can see where the stitching isn’t perfect, but they’re yours.

And they may collect nothing but one-star reviews on Amazon. The writing might be the clunkiest, shittiest thing in the universe. Your thinking might not be very original or rigorous. It might be a blog entry that no one reads, a journal article written for nothing but money, or an academic paper that your professor bleeds over, or a non-fiction piece that you sweated over and worried over and crafted with as much care as a mother with her newborn. None of that matters, good or bad, long or short, because you worked for it, and made every word your own.

Unless you didn’t. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do all of that typing.

I can imagine a couple of other things, though. I imagine that if I saw a scene in another book, with a former cat burglar and a woman trying to escape her past, that included a story about how she once didn’t steal a locket, my head would explode.

Because I wanted those red shoes so bad — but I didn’t steal them.

But it’s more than that. I don’t know how Anne Stuart feels about that scene, or about CATSPAW. Maybe she thinks its trash. Maybe she thinks the writing is awful, and worthless. Maybe she wrote it because she had to fulfill a contract. I don’t care; it means something to me. Readers own what they read, too — not in the same way as an author, but there’s ownership there. Maybe some guy who wrote about ferrets once upon a time is dead, and can’t care that someone stole his words — but somewhere, there’s someone who admired them, and who would care. (Maybe there’s a writer who obviously admired his words that should have cared, too.) And so, as a reader, not just a writer, to see someone else take what isn’t theirs just drives me crazy. To see them get away with it would be worse, because someone else might think, “Hey, look! Red shoes — I’m gonna get me some the easy way, too!” or even worse, “Hey, look! I guess that means there’s nothing wrong with getting red shoes the easy way!”

And there is always going to be someone who wants to take the easy way. Always. But if they know they can’t, if they know it’s wrong, that might stop them. If they still want to because they don’t care it’s wrong, maybe knowing there are consequences will stop them. Knowing that someone might rip away the label that isn’t theirs, and show them for what they are: someone with an empty closet.

But I’ve got a closet with red shoes. And although I still think hers are fricking awesome, I don’t need or want Anne Stuart’s anymore.

Now, I’m not an Anne Stuart fangirl. I’ll buy her books when I see them on the shelf, but I don’t usually pre-order. She’s one of those writers that produces books I always admire, but I don’t always connect with. Not always, but sometimes I do, in a big way.

I didn’t expect to with CATSPAW, because it didn’t sound like the type of story I’d usually enjoy. It was in this collection called THIEVES, SPIES, AND OTHER LOVERS and I don’t even remember how I got it, but I do remember I was living in Alaska at the time, in my dumb little studio apartment, and I can’t remember if the guy living with me had dumped me and flown off to Florida yet–and I thought I loved him, but, hey, I guess this scene has stuck with me longer than any feeling for that guy has.

In that scene, the heroine, Ferris Byrd, is telling the hero, Blackheart, why his past as a cat burglar is such an issue for her. She tells this story about when she was a girl, she saw a pair of red shoes in a store window. And although she knew that she could steal those shoes and never be caught, she didn’t take them.

And that was the blandest retelling of this scene you’ll ever see, because I’m writing it … and Anne Stuart is not. AND because there’s more to it than just a pair of shoes that Ferris Byrd (who used to be Francesca Berdahofski before she changed her name) didn’t steal. There was a girl who had very little, and who determined that her life would never be what her parents’ was, and that she’d never go without. A girl who could have easily taken those red shoes that she wanted so bad … but she didn’t. A girl who can never understand why Blackheart could steal, when a little girl who had nothing wouldn’t — and the little girl knew the only way to really escape her life was to earn her way out.

And still, I can’t begin to get across how fantastic this scene is. How Ferris’s character is revealed in a moment of absolute clarity, and the conflict in the book is illuminated perfectly, and you know every word in the book has been leading up to that scene and every word after it will have to deal with everything exposed in that scene, and as a reader, I’m sitting there thinking, “My god, that is writing done right.”

The writer in me is thinking the same thing, but suddenly that scene has become my personal pair of red shoes. I want to do that.

It would be easy, you know? I’ve got a good brain in my head. I could change the scene around, re-word it, play with it, and someone might say “This kind of reminds of that scene in that Anne Stuart book” but there’d be a lot of doubt. No one would really know, or prove anything. I could slip Anne Stuart’s red shoes into my book, and get away with it.

I’d know, though. That’d stop me right there, because I don’t handle guilt well.

But even if I didn’t stop, I’d also have to write this whole book around it to fit her shoes in, and it wouldn’t be just that scene, but a lot more I’d be taking. Because the red shoes aren’t THAT scene. There’s an unremarkable sentence in the first chapter that helps stitch the uppers to the sole. There’s the first kiss that makes the color more cherry than red. There’s the scene later, with Ferris naked except for the red shoes, and other scenes, with coffee beans and broken credit cards that are all nails in the heel. It all goes together–every word, every sentence, every paragraph, every scene.

And rewriting Anne Stuart’s book is going to be really freaking boring. I had a professor who once told me that writing is thinking (heh, I attribute that, even though it’s probably common knowledge — but this professor, he was one of those that made me really, really think, and I was taking his class as I was thinking about Demon Angel, and so the title of his book that he was making us read ended up in Hugh’s library, and Lilith made fun of it, because she would) but the last thing I want to do is re-think exactly that same things I did when I read Anne Stuart’s book. That kind of rewriting is not “rethinking” in the fun, transformative sense. That’s re-thinking, thinking the same thing again, being stagnant.

Oh yeah — and it was stealing.

I still wanted a pair of red shoes, though. So I got to work making my own — earning my own.

And it’s not like they are completely original, like I’ve made up the idea of shoes. I know I’ve been influenced by others, and I’ve brought in outside sources. Sometimes, I’ll write a scene, shape that heel, and then I’ll look at another writer’s similar heel and think, “Shit.” And then I’ll think about changing it, even though I wasn’t copying or lifting anything, just because it worries me so much. And sometimes I’ll rethink it … but sometimes, that heel is what the rest of the shoe demands, and anything else will make the design look like a piece of ass — or completely non-functional. So you move on, sometimes gritting your teeth, but trusting that, taken all together, it’ll be original, unique, and something to be proud of when it’s done.

More than anything, something that’s yours. And when you end up writing a scene that resonates with you like that scene in CATSPAW did, that has the same effect on you, there’s a very strange sense of humility and pride and love for what you’ve written. And, by god, you got it right. And there are sentences and paragraphs in there that you fight for, and you get it right. And even little phrases that you think, and rethink, and work at until they’re perfect, and you got it right with those, too. Then you finish it up, and you made your own goddamn shoes. And sometimes they pinch, and sometimes you can see where the stitching isn’t perfect, but they’re yours.

And they may collect nothing but one-star reviews on Amazon. The writing might be the clunkiest, shittiest thing in the universe. Your thinking might not be very original or rigorous. It might be a blog entry that no one reads, a journal article written for nothing but money, or an academic paper that your professor bleeds over, or a non-fiction piece that you sweated over and worried over and crafted with as much care as a mother with her newborn. None of that matters, good or bad, long or short, because you worked for it, and made every word your own.

Unless you didn’t. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do all of that typing.

I can imagine a couple of other things, though. I imagine that if I saw a scene in another book, with a former cat burglar and a woman trying to escape her past, that included a story about how she once didn’t steal a locket, my head would explode.

Because I wanted those red shoes so bad — but I didn’t steal them.

But it’s more than that. I don’t know how Anne Stuart feels about that scene, or about CATSPAW. Maybe she thinks its trash. Maybe she thinks the writing is awful, and worthless. Maybe she wrote it because she had to fulfill a contract. I don’t care; it means something to me. Readers own what they read, too — not in the same way as an author, but there’s ownership there. Maybe some guy who wrote about ferrets once upon a time is dead, and can’t care that someone stole his words — but somewhere, there’s someone who admired them, and who would care. (Maybe there’s a writer who obviously admired his words that should have cared, too.) And so, as a reader, not just a writer, to see someone else take what isn’t theirs just drives me crazy. To see them get away with it would be worse, because someone else might think, “Hey, look! Red shoes — I’m gonna get me some the easy way, too!” or even worse, “Hey, look! I guess that means there’s nothing wrong with getting red shoes the easy way!”

And there is always going to be someone who wants to take the easy way. Always. But if they know they can’t, if they know it’s wrong, that might stop them. If they still want to because they don’t care it’s wrong, maybe knowing there are consequences will stop them. Knowing that someone might rip away the label that isn’t theirs, and show them for what they are: someone with an empty closet.

But I’ve got a closet with red shoes. And although I still think hers are fricking awesome, I don’t need or want Anne Stuart’s anymore.

“I don’t know why I brought you home,” Meljean muttered.

“You know why.” The ruthless sneer the carrot cake gave her made her tremble with longing. “You want me.”

“No!” Meljean turned her head away from the enticing ripple of cellophane, the angular sensuality of the slice within. “I don’t!” But her denial sounded weak to her own ears, and the cake—the cake, in all of its discerning sexiness—would not be fooled by such an obvious lie.

She backed up against the kitchen counter, felt the dig of the silverware drawer—the drawer that her absentminded husband always left open—into her plump rump. The sensation reminded her why she should resist the cake’s sinful temptation.

“You’re no good for me!” she cried.

But the cake wouldn’t let her retreat. The sweet, seductive odor followed her across the kitchen, cutting through the odd smells emanating from the garbage disposal. Her taste buds sprang to attention as if of their own volition.

The cake eyed the quivering buds triumphantly. “Why do you resist? The long, hard, delicious carrots that made me are exactly what you need. They’re healthy.”

“But not mixed with butter and flour and sugar and frosting—no! Do not think to trick me, you cretin,” Meljean said with heat, dismayed by her body’s betrayal. In desperation, she ran to the cupboard, tore it open.

The cake caught her, spun her around. “What do you have in there?”

Its touch sent a frisson of pleasure through her. Her mouth watered with desire. “Low-fat brownies,” she said defiantly.

“You gluttonous slut!” The cake’s tone became hard, unrelenting. “You’ll take anything into that whoring body of yours, won’t you!”

“No!” Meljean wailed, “You don’t understand!”

“I understand.” Its voice was cold, filled with dangerous intent. “You’ve given yourself over and over, and yet you’ve never been satisfied, you’ve only experienced a pale imitation of true pleasure.”

Sobbing, Meljean tried to push the cake away. “I can’t have you!”

“You will, damn you,” it gritted out. “Open your mouth.”

Its demand shuddered through her, but she could not find the words to speak. She shook her head wordlessly.

“Open your mouth, you slutty bitch!” It pressed against her mouth in a kiss surprisingly soft and sweet. Meljean’s lips opened on a gasp, and the cake delved deep.

She moaned in ecstasy, and took…and took…

***

“Are you cheating?” Her husband asked a few minutes later. “There’s white creamy stuff all over your mouth. That can’t be good for your diet.”

Meljean blushed. “It was carrot cake,” she admitted.

“I could make a joke about phallic vegetables,” he said, “but I suppose everyone reading this already has.”

“Probably.”

Meljean fell silent, torn between guilt and the sweet afterglow the cake had given her. Hubby searched through the fridge, then looked up with a frown on his face.

“Didn’t you save any for me?”

“It was a forced seduction,” Meljean said. “I had to take it all; I couldn’t resist.”

“Ah, well, that makes it okay.” Hubby rolled his eyes and walked away, muttering about books with bulbous lettering on the covers.

Meljean grinned, and grabbed the box of low-fat brownie mix from the cupboard. “God, I’m such a slut,” she said.

And also because this one seems oddly relevant, yet again. From the old blog, June 1, 2005:

In order to truly see a thing, we must understand it. An armchair implies a human body, its joints and members; scissors, the act of cutting. What can be told from a lamp, or an automobile? The savage can not really perceive the missionary’s Bible; the passenger does not see the same ship’s rigging as the crew. If we truly saw the universe, perhaps we would understand it.

– from “There are More Things” Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges (Trans. by Andrew Hurley)

Ah, Borges, I love you. You’re dead, but I love you anyway. I love lots of dead people, but not in a gross way. I’ll save necrophilia for my books.

You see, Borges, here’s the thing: I’m part of a crew on a ship called ROMANCE NOVELS—she’s a fine, pretty ship. Sometimes, I’m a passenger. And sometimes, I jump ship and take a cruise on LITERARY FICTION or HORROR or SCI-FI (that ship is more of a spaceship, but the terminology is all the same: starboard is starboard; plot is plot). I like those ships, too, quite a bit.

Oh, but when I’m on those ships you wouldn’t believe the things I hear about the ship ROMANCE NOVELS. Some of the things are true, but some of them are only true because, from across the water, the ship looks different than to someone who sees it as a passenger or a crew member.

Yes, it is true that every once in a while ROMANCE NOVELS springs a leak. Quite a few leaks, actually (but I wager the same thing happens on every ship). Every ship has its own shit to deal with; in the lower holds, wading through a few inches (a few meters?) of water isn’t uncommon.

And, yes, it is true that ROMANCE NOVELS was built with certain conventions; the passengers and crew of other ships call them formula and claim that the same storylines pervade all romance novels: boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl live happily ever after. I can’t argue that truth; all I can say is that close up, there is an infinite variety of ways to tell that story, and that the ability of the crew to work within those conventions constantly surprises me.

It is almost like being told: here, take this fabric and make a ship’s flag—but you have to use red (heroine) blue (hero) and purple (HEA) as part of the color scheme. Kinda like this:

I don’t blame them for imagining that this is the only kind of flag that can be made—they don’t see the ship like I do. The colors do sound pretty limiting, at first; but shades of red can run from pink to crimson; blue from periwinkle to cerulean; purple from lavender to …uh, really dark purple. And there’s no rule that you can’t use other colors, too.

So, Borges, I’ve made a flag, and I’m climbing the rigging to place it atop the mast, so that every person on those other ships can see it. I’m sticking to the rules, too. Whaddya think?

Hehehe. Okay, I don’t really think that. Wait a second—I do think that about people who dismiss my ship without ever having taken a trip on it. But people who have tried, but just got a little seasick? Those guys are okay.

…

God, my Photoshop skeels RULE!

The other seventeen? All about He-Man. I kid you not.

So, curious, I dropped by the old blog and checked out my He-Man post … and saw 982 comments, of which about 950 are spam. So, I plan to delete the post, but since I’d feel terrible if I deprived the world of a source of He-Man fun … and deny all of those Google searchers a place to visit, I’m reposting it here (where I have better spam control.)

Heh. I just realized that link isn’t going to work in about half a second. Anyway, from the archives of April 27, 2005 (my grandma’s birthday) I give you THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE … who just might have some unexpected sexual tendencies.

ETA: Comments turned off. He-Man is a spam magnet.

Everything My Heroines Need to Know, They Learned From … He-Man!

I’ve known this for a while, but Candy’s Sugar Glider MOTU post made it timely.

>>Note: Yes, I am an unapologetic dork. <<

He-Man was one of my first heroes. I might have loved She-Ra more, but we didn’t get FOX reception out in the boonies, so I had to make do with just He-Man. I was a Teela/He-Man ‘shipper long before I knew what relationshipping was. For a time, I was a She-Ra and He-Man ‘shipper, but I’ll get to the swift death of that in a moment.

Who is Teela? Teela is my model for what all heroines should NOT be when it comes to men, and what they should be when it comes to kicking ass. This is Teela:

I don’t know what the fascination with horn-booby-bustiers was, but I thought it was totally cool. Plus, she was a redhead. She was trained as a warrior, and she kicked serious ass. She was also the secret love child of the Sorceress.

Really, it doesn’t get much better than that. Except…When it came to men, Teela had a dildo brain. This is a great couple!

Prince Adam was totally cool. I mean, he was a PRINCE! and he liked to cook, and anyone with half a brain (instead of a dildo) could see that whenever there was trouble, Prince Adam disappeared and then there was lightning from nowhere and then out popped He-Man.

Huh. Doesn’t take a freaking genius, Teela!

I think her problem was that she had this weird notion that Adam might be gay. I don’t know why she should assume that just because a guy wears a pink vest and purple tights that he’s gay, but she did. Might it be the blond thing, too? I dunno. Adam is light blond when he’s Adam (as we all know is not acceptable in a romantic hero) but when he’s He-Man he’s dark blond (which is okay, I guess, because then it is called “tawny” or some shit like that.) Is Prince Adam gay? We’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:

But, look at the manliness of He-Man!

Admit it, Teela, you totally want to be ridden like that, don’t you?

Teela was just overwhelmed, I think, by the totally hot ways he used his sword.

A girl just has to be impressed by the way he uses that gigantic sword, the way he holds it, the way he shoots white beams of…something…off of it, the way he holds Skeletor aloft with the mightiness of it.Here’s a clue, Teela: just because a man is really blond and wears purple, doesn’t mean he’s gay! Wait until he pulls out his sword before you write him off, you dildo brain!

Admittedly, Teela was also the victim of the Big Misunderstanding. Her name: Adora/She-Ra.

I can totally understand how Teela might not realize that She-Ra isn’t going to be in competition for He-Man’s love. At first glance, they seem like the perfect couple:

It wasn’t until I watched HE-MAN AND SHE-RA: THE SECRET OF THE SWORD that I realized…Adam and Adora are twins! And now that I think about it, I can totally see the similarities:

Notice anything, Teela? Granted, She-Ra is changed by the ‘honor’ of Greyskull and He-Man is changed by the ‘power’ of Greyskull, but really! You’re the Sorceress’s daughter, you should have totally figured it out by now.

Or maybe you are worried about bestiality? I dunno why.

Okay, so that first picture is really weird, and that horn on Swift Wind’s head lends some credence to the idea that He-Man and She-Ra’s familiars are really just sexual playthings, but, c’mon, it’s a kids’ show!

So, Teela, this is what you need to know:

1) Not every blond man in pink is gay.
2) The sword has the power when it is used right.
3) The chick you are jealous of is usually the sister, so stop playing the bitch and get over it, already! (Particularly when the sister’s best friend looks like this:

Now THAT’S gay.So get over it, and get yourself some Adam/He-Man luvin’ already!

UPDATED TO SAY: Anyone want to take guesses on what is under that loin-cloth-thingy? A boner…or just boney?

As you progress through writing and revising your second and third novels, have you remained as much of a “pantser” as you were for the first? Has the preliminary stage of writing changed much now that you have the writing/editing/completion of two novels under your belt? If so, how?

I like to think that I’ve changed and learned from the process — I’ve written two novellas and two novels in this series, and gotten helpful and critical feedback on each. Now that I’m writing the third full-length novel, I am keeping my problem areas in mind (like pacing) and making an extra effort to fix it.

But here’s the thing: when I started DEMON MOON, I’d just finished DEMON ANGEL and was freaking out that I’d written a 140K+ novel (for comparison, the average single title for Berkley is around 90-100K, and my contract stated that it should be about 100K) and was determined not to do that again, not to go over 100K, or 120K at the most. And some of my freak-out was because I knew that the extra word count created an additional financial burden for Berkley, because it meant they were editing, proofing, typesetting, printing a book and a half … and I’m a debut author who really shouldn’t piss off her publisher.

But aside from that concern, there was just the feeling that I’d let it get out of control — that it wasn’t tight enough, that I could have cut more out. And when I’d proposed DEMON ANGEL, the entire Part One didn’t exist … it was all backstory. The book started with a prologue, and that was the scene in 1991 Seattle.

So I thought myself pretty much a failure technically, though I really loved the story.

(Okay, this is my writing style in action — the long roundabout way of explaining how I wrote DEMON ANGEL, in order to get to how I started DEMON MOON, and what I did/did not learn from it.)

At the time I sent out the proposal, I had the prologue and three chapters, but I wasn’t completely happy with them. Feedback from someone whose opinion I really, really trust indicated that Hugh was “sluggish” and she couldn’t see why Lilith had fallen for him and had such an obsession for him. The sad thing? She was right. Hugh was … not good enough, not at all equal to Lilith, and telling their history in backstory was not going to cut it.

So I got the contract, and then I freaked out for about a month … because I couldn’t go forward. Hugh wasn’t working, the romance wasn’t working, there were too many infodumps, too many references to events that weren’t shown, too much wrong. So instead of going forward, I went backward to 1217 and wrote the story of them meeting and that initial fascination … and I finally, finally really understood Hugh, and why he meant so much to Lilith. And I also learned a lot about Lilith that way.

But then there were 800 more years of fighting … and I needed to convey their changing relationship. And once again, I didn’t want to tell it, I wanted to really show it.

But I skipped those 800 years, and went back to the contemporary section, rewrote part of those original chapters so that Hugh wasn’t a slug anymore, and went from there. After that, it just flowed. At about 70K words I did have a panicky couple of weeks, because I realized the book was going to be longer than 100K … I thought maybe 120K. And I was following the general outline of my original synopsis … kind of. The BIG events in the synopsis are still the big events in the book — only the details have changed (and that’s because the medieval section allowed me a much better look into their characters, and opened up several new avenues (the symbols, the bargaining, the theme of rebellion) to pursue).

And all the while I was compiling a list of things in my head that I still needed to show for those In Between medieval and contemporary scenes.

Around 100-115K, I realized exactly how I was going to get my HEA (not every detail, but pretty much … I actually had an a-ha! moment while lying in bed one night). And I can’t exactly describe how I realized it … only that I was looking at the story, looking at all the threads, looking at everything that had gone on in this book and in “Falling for Anthony” — and I knew exactly what I was going to do with the nosferatu, and with Lucifer.

(For example, for those who have read it, this will make more sense if I mention something concrete (and it is kind of a spoiler, but not a ruin-the-story kind of spoiler) — At one point, I sent Colin away because he was taking up too much in the story and his character was too big and I needed him out of the way a little bit so that I could have just Hugh and Lilith together, showing how they work together and interacting on their own and having major relationship time, and I couldn’t see why Colin wouldn’t be popping in all the time because he’s Lilith’s best friend … so I thought, why not take advantage of something I’d hinted at in “Falling for Anthony”? And he went away. And that away became a critical point in the victory at the end — both the method of his leaving, and the reason behind it….and it was all because I wanted to speed up the story and get more Hugh/Lilith time.)

I went back and tightened and filled out those threads as much as possible, and then wrote to the end … and it worked.

Of course, there were still those In Between scenes to consider … and I made certain that not only did I try to reflect the changes that were taking place between Hugh and Lilith and their relationship, but also laying the initial clues for the victory later — so that there was no last minute revelation or deus ex machina (I HATE THOSE — nothing cheats a reader and the characters more than offering a solution out of nothing on a freaking silver platter) and everything had been laid out. Not obviously, of course … but there.

Then there were other decisions to make: like, should I put the medieval section and in-between scenes in chronologically, or insert them between other, contemporary scenes like flashbacks? Would that disrupt the narrative flow too much? How do I weigh the need of the story to have a constant forward motion against the odd, broken structure of the vignettes stuck in the middle, and a long Part One that reads more like a Prologue? How do I tie both parts together enough so that they don’t seem like two different books?

I don’t know that I wholly succeeded … and when I turned in the manuscript, I cut out as much as I possibly could because I was worried about the length so much. (I chopped out the scenes between 1666 and 1991, and those I’d left I’d pared far, far down). It turned out that my editor wanted me to put some of it back in … because everything was so tightly intertwined, that removing even one of those in between scenes ended up leaving an unexplained jump in the characters’ evolution — especially Hugh’s.

So that is one of the things I really like about pantsing — the natural evolution of the story, and the way it all ties together, and the way that I can pick up unexpected threads and weave them in and make them work in a way that surprises even me. Now, I do have a destination and specific points in mind, but getting to each of those points is somewhat up in the air … and took longer than I’d expected. I think that shows in the book — and I was aware of some of those issues … but I wasn’t sure of a way to change the structure without sacrificing something else, like scenes or dialogue that I considered very important to their characters. I’m still not sure if I could.

And when I got to DEMON MOON, I was like: No Way. Not again. I wrote a pretty tight synopsis, each plot point well established, and three chapters — and got the okay to continue. And I continued. I didn’t go back and forth like I had with DEMON ANGEL — the narrative was straight, the two flashback scenes coming out naturally from the flow of the story, everything was going well.

But, goddammit, the characters were fuller than I’d imagined, their relationship more complex, and there were things that I wanted to explore that wouldn’t change the plot I’d developed all that much, just enrich it … but letting them grow and exploring their world once again took a lot of time, and the world itself grew and became deeper as I went along.

I mean, what the fuck? Here I was with two stories in this world under my belt, and there was more here to look at? Although I do introduce new ideas to the mythology in the second book, especially about vampires, the base is still the same — Guardians and demons, nosferatu and vampires, free will and bargains — but at the same time it’s completely different.

I hadn’t expected that. And it wasn’t necessarily that I was changing the rules of the world (hell, no) but that Colin and Savi were so different from Hugh and Lilith, that the way they looked at the world and experienced it was so much different. And it reflected in their characters, and their interactions.

And I ended up with a 156K book that had some pacing problems in the second quarter. With feedback, I’m currently revising it and fixing that problem … but it’s not going to get any shorter, though I think the lull (created by a lot of fun dialogue, but not really much action) is pretty much taken care of.

So I think that’s where my pantsing creates a problem for me — I know where I’m going, but there’s a short lull where I’m figuring it all out and sticking in threads and issues that I have to unravel later … and sometimes the unraveling takes longer than I think it will. Because I really, really, really like to put my characters in absolutely impossible situations … and then make them get out of it, without resorting to a deus ex machina. And I think that if I was as smart as my characters, they’d get to it faster … but I’m not.

The ending of DEMON MOON is exactly what I’d planned at the beginning, and for the most part, the plot is exactly what I’d intended (there are a few details that changed, but nothing in the big picture). Yet it was still so long, and not a lot to pare away (though there’s some) … I don’t know what to make of that.

But going into this new book, I know that I have that tendency to write long, and to go deep. The plot in the synopsis is tight, but my characters are complete nutjobs, so it’s going to take some time to do that unraveling again…and little things might come up that I didn’t expect. But I know that, so I’ll push very, very hard to move them along. And the heart of the conflict is different, more character oriented than external-forces oriented (although there is a lot of that) so that might make a difference in the length (I think on the shorter side) and I have a one or two less subplots running through it (although there are plenty of those, too).

I don’t think I’ll hit 100K … probably 120K. I hope. And, frankly, if the story demands a little bit more, I’ll take it. If it is less, I’ll leave it. It may just be that *my* style of storytelling is always going to be slightly long. I don’t know.

Looking back, there are a couple of things that I could probably change in DEMON ANGEL, learning what I have in the year since I’ve finished it — but I don’t know if there would be significant changes. Tightening it up a bit, definitely, maybe clarifying a few details — but overall, the story is what I want it to be, the characters’ journeys are exactly what I want them to be — and the story and characters matter to me more than anything else, even if it means, on some level, the technical part suffers. And the book won’t work for everyone, but … yeah. It may be that I write with more enthusiasm than real craft — but craft is something I can keep working on, and will keep working on. I do want the books to be the absolute best they can be … and I learn a lot with each page I write and/or revise.

So I guess the short answer was: Yes. I approach the newer books differently, with my flaws very tightly in mind … but I also think the execution is somewhat the same. I simply don’t know any other way to do it.

MELJEAN: Oh, real subtle. Like Lara could ever hide from Mulder when those giant boobs are probably poking him in the back.
MISSY: Shut up!
MELJEAN: You know, you are taking this way too seriously. You do know these things aren’t real, right?
MISSY: Duh.
MELJEAN: Because there is lately some concern about people who read romance novels being able to tell the difference between reality and fiction.
MISSY: So what?
MELJEAN: Well, over at Squawkradio, when this was commented on, many people talked about reading romances, and starting young and screwing up expectations for real life. And those people were talking about starting at thirteen. You started five years earlier than that.
MISSY: What’s your point?
MELJEAN: Huh. Considering that I’m almost 28, pretty damn normal, have a really healthy relationship, and am pretty damn aware of reality, I guess I don’t have a point.

MELJEAN: Look at Mulder and Scully. They don’t care about her. They just totally want to get nekkid and do it.
MISSY: … maybe that reality check is more urgently needed than you think.
MELJEAN: Shut up and tell your fricking story.

MELJEAN: They are going to put the body in the CAR? You need to do a little more research. I don’t think that’s proper police/FBI procedure.
MISSY: Who cares?
MELJEAN: Me.
MISSY: God, you’re such a bitch.

MELJEAN: Wow. That was…unexpected. And kind of came out of nowhere.
MISSY: I don’t like the word ‘nowhere’. I always read it as ‘now here’ instead of ‘no where’.
MELJEAN: ….
MISSY: What? I totally set up Angela’s appearance in Part One!
MELJEAN: *cough god cough from cough the cough machine cough*
MISSY: Actually, an angel. And where are her ribbons?
MELJEAN: Hmmm, good question. I totally love that issue of Angela/Spawn when they are together in the dark and their chains and ribbons are entwined. That was hot.
MISSY: Yeah.

MELJEAN: What’s that weird sandy stuff?
MISSY: I think it’s blood.
MELJEAN: Oh. Okay.

MELJEAN: Uh…why is Lara Croft on the ground in the back?
MISSY: Angela totally knocked her out when she left.
MELJEAN: …why?
MISSY: I don’t know. That’s the way the pictures were. What do you want me to do?
MELJEAN: Coming up with a logical explanation is good.
MISSY: Okay. Angela realized that when Lara was raiding a tomb she stole some ribbons. Angela punched her out and got her ribbons back.
MELJEAN: All off-screen?
MISSY: Yeah. So what?
MELJEAN: That totally cheats the reader.
MISSY: Well, Soooooorrrrrry!

MELJEAN: Hahahahah! I’ve got a better explanation!
MISSY: Oh, god, it’s going to be dirty.
MELJEAN: Well, look at her! Hahahaha!

MELJEAN: Of course.

MELJEAN: Hey! You cheated and used a filter for that effect!
MISSY: I couldn’t help it. I almost used the ‘Reticulan’ filter. But, it didn’t look right.
MELJEAN: Still. Still! Cheat!
MISSY: Shut up or I’ll whack you!

MELJEAN: Ah, finally. That was totally retarded…and back in the closet for you!
MISSY: Noooooooooooooo!
MELJEAN: Bwahahahahahaha!

MELJEAN: Did you intentionally censor her giant tits?
MISSY: What? God, you’re talking already? Shut up and enjoy the story!
MELJEAN: Meee-ow!

MELJEAN: She has a lot of dust on her head.
MISSY: She’s an explorer, a tomb raider! You think she only explores clean tombs?
MELJEAN: How did she change her clothes so quickly?
MISSY: ….

MELJEAN: Maybe she should try her chest as a weapon.
MISSY: …..
MELJEAN: Alright, alright! Shutting up!

MELJEAN: Since when has Rogue been a runaway weenie?
MISSY: This is the movie Rogue, not the comic Rogue.
MELJEAN: Ah, that makes sense.

MELJEAN: Hahahahahahaha! Do you know what that looks like?
MISSY: What? He’s attacking her.
MELJEAN: Hahahahahaha! Hahahahahaha!

MELJEAN: Her skin torn off? Killed with a massive dose of jizz, more likely.
MISSY: You’re gross! God, why do you have such a dirty mind?
MELJEAN: It’s your fault! You read too many smutty romances.
MISSY: There wasn’t any jizz-killing in them! That’s all your screwed up mind, not mine!
MELJEAN: Huh…you got me there.

MELJEAN: Rogue changed her clothes?
MISSY: Don’t ask me. Ask Echo and Jessica. They took the damn pictures.
MELJEAN: Why is she humping Jean’s dead body?
MISSY: I’ll kill you someday.

MELJEAN: Yay! Scully and Mulder! Will they have some hot ‘shipper action? I like Angela, too.
MISSY: I’m not dirty like that!
MELJEAN: Yes you are! I know you used to make your Barbies and Star Wars figures and He-Man figures do it.
MISSY: Shut up!
MELJEAN: Hehe.

(Special thanks to Echo and Jessica, who took these pics on a whim and gave me lots of material and about two gallons of tears from laughter.)