Into the Woods with a Good Book #amreading

by Giselle Renarde

I have a little ritual I repeat from year to year.

Every year when we arrive at the cottage, the first thing I do is peruse the bookshelves.

The cottage is not our cottage, and so the books are not ours. The owners of the cottage are avid readers (of literary fiction in particular), and their new books quickly carve a path to the cottage bookshelves.

But, among the newer books are a host of older ones, the jazz standards of the cottage bookshelves. They're always there and I never tire of seeing them. Plenty of Canadian fiction: Robertson Davies, Stephen Leacock, Margaret Laurence.

A few years ago I read A Bird in the House. This year it was A Jest of God.

There's a reason I don't bring my own books to the cottage: I'm generally a slow reader, and choosing a book from the owners' shelves challenges me to read the entire thing in the span of a week.

You can't take it with you--the book, that is. This isn't a lending library.

So I spend the week reading.

At home, I start every day with a book. Now that I've kicked coffee, I brew a cup of tea and I sit and read for a while. But at the cottage that while stretches out, fills much of the day. Reading, eating, board games, DVDs at night. That's a family vacation at the cottage, and it's really something special.

If you'd like the inside scoop on this year's cottage vacation, I invite you to read my second book of correspondences, Hi Babe. It's just a little book of letters, the ones I wrote to my girlfriend while I was away.

This year's vacation was more eventful than relaxing--not at all what I'm looking for at the cottage. As much as I complain about the city, our family getaway proved that life follows you wherever you go. It even follows you into the woods.

Thank you, technology.

If you're at all interested, grab a copy this month from Smashwords, where you can get it for free during July's big ebook sale: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/879056?ref=GiselleRenardeErotica

Enjoy!

Fiction Intended to Titillate

by Giselle Renarde

I just started reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, and because I'm not too far into it I don't have much to say yet. But diving into literary fiction after reading a bunch of mystery novels got me thinking about the tears authors so often shed defending the integrity of genre fiction against those big bad litfic bullies.

A couple weeks ago someone found my Donuts and Desires blog by googling "erotica is for morons" and it made me laugh so hard. I laughed because I thought of all you guys, of how ridiculously intelligent you are. I'm not saying every erotica writer is an evil genius, but pretty much all the ones I know are. And some aren't even evil. Just really educated, well-read individuals.

To be honest, I don't feel much need to defend erotica anymore. I'm not sure I ever did, but after writing erotic fiction for 10+ years I really don't care if people think I'm a moron for writing sex. People can think whatever they want about me--doesn't seem to stop them from buying my smut.

But here's the thing: not every book I write is smut. My most recent novel, In Shadow, includes some suggestive content. There's sex it in. But the sex scenes aren't written the way I write sex in my erotica. In fact, I find the sex in In Shadow uncomfortable to read. That's how I intended it, but I know full well that one of the many things that drew me to literary fiction as a young reader was the suggestive piquancy of taboo sexuality.

My main character from In Shadow has repressed a lot of dark shit, and it comes back to bite her in the ass. Actually, it comes back to fuck her up the ass. But no sense splitting hairs.

Ebook retailers that refuse to carry erotica classify it as "fiction intended to titillate," and I guess that's fair... but when automated content reviews flag erotica as such, they're searching the text for keywords. They're looking for pussies and cocks. What if you write a book like In Shadow that's written using suggestive rather than blatant language? Is it erotica? Is it... not erotica?

I didn't classify my new novel as erotica, and now I kind of wish I had. I knew it would be harder to sell literary fiction than erotic fiction, but I figured my regular readers would find In Shadow lacking in erotic content. Most of the book is not about sex. But at the same time most of the book is completely about sex! It's about denying the sexual beast that resides inside the virgin. It's about the dangers of projecting one's sexuality onto another individual, and the even more inglorious dangers about projecting collective sexuality onto a marginalized population.

There's a lot going on in this book.

Ultimately I didn't classify In Shadow as erotica because I worried it wouldn't be blatant enough for a lot of my readers. And then I worried mainstream readers would pick it up and be like... Holy Anal Rape, Batman! (That's my favourite scene. Can you tell?)

Anyway, looks like I've got nothing to worry about. Turns out it's much easier to sell erotica than psychological fiction with a supernatural twist. I don't need to worry about readers accidentally stumbling across this one.

*sigh*

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Giselle Renarde is an award-winning queer Canadian writer. Nominated Toronto’s Best Author in NOW Magazine’s 2015 Readers’ Choice Awards, her fiction has appeared in well over 100 short story anthologies, including prestigious collections like Best Lesbian Romance, Best Women’s Erotica, and the Lambda Award-winning collection Take Me There, edited by Tristan Taormino. Giselle's juicy novels include Anonymous, Cherry, Seven Kisses, and The Other Side of Ruth.

Serious

By Lisabet Sarai

My brother and I stroll along Wingaersheek Beach in Gloucester, whipped by the chill April wind. My decision to live overseas and his aversion to travel don't leave us many chances to talk face to face. Every visit becomes a massive attempt at catching up.

“You're such a great writer,” he comments. I glow at the praise, coming from someone so massively creative. He makes his living as a songwriter and musician, leaving me in something like awe.

“So I don't know why you don't write a serious book, instead of this—this erotic stuff.” He doesn't say it, but I hear “porn” in his tone of voice. My spirits crash land, though it's hardly news that he feels this way. I really want him to be proud of me and my accomplishments in the world of publishing. Instead, he fundamentally disapproves of my work. The graphic sexuality embarrasses and disturbs him. (“I don't want to get turned on when I read,” he told me once.) Despite all my explanations about power exchange, trust and consent, he still believes that M/f dominance and submission is sexist and abusive. In addition, I strongly suspect he views any sort of genre fiction as something less than worthy. We are obliquely related to a very famous literary author whose long shadow falls over all our artistic endeavors.

“My books are serious,” I protest. “Sex and desire are serious topics. We can't understand the human condition without exploring our sexuality.” I don't know why I bother arguing, though. I'm not going to change his mind. And after all, he's hardly alone in harboring these opinions. Scads of people would label what I write “trash”. Some of them would go further, calling my novels “obscene filth”, even “the work of Satan”.

I shouldn't listen. But it's tough to avoid being influenced by negative evaluations, especially when they come from people close to you. My sister is more polite and less extreme than my brother. Still, she's only read one or two of my books (which didn't include BDSM), and shows no interest in reading more.

They're both intelligent, thoughtful people. If they view my work as “not serious”, maybe they're right.

I didn't choose my genre, though. It chose me. Despite my illustrious relative (by marriage), I never imagined myself making a career out of being an author. (Lucky thing...) Still, I've been writing all my life. Nobody showed me how, or particularly encouraged me, yet I created poems and stories from the time I was six or seven. Writing seemed a natural extension of reading, which was an activity in which I indulged at every opportunity. Stories to read, stories to write: one catalyzed the other.

Meanwhile, as I matured, love and desire became my mirror for understanding life. My early sexual and romantic experiences, especially my first (and thus far only) BDSM relationship, profoundly affected my view of the world, my philosophy, my spirituality and my sense of self. I was writing about desire, love and sex long before I ever considered publishing my tales.

My husband is less judgmental than my siblings. He enjoys erotica, though he has no tolerance for kink or for homoerotic content. Still, every now and then, he suggests I should switch to a more mainstream genre. “Why not write a mystery?”, he asks. “Or a science fiction novel?” I love both these genres, when done well, but I know already that if I turned my hand to either, I wouldn't be able to avoid adding at least some sexual content.

What about so called “literary fiction”? That's what my brother means by “serious”, I'm quite sure. I'd love to have the talent and vision of Barbara Kingsolver, or Sarah Waters, or Haruki Murakami, but I have no illusions. I don't think I have the necessary depth. Mostly I just like to tell stories. Most of my stories have at least a passing concern with sex and desire.

So I guess that means I'm not “serious”, but I'm not sure I want to be either. I just finished reading Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas. The main character Meg has a contract to write a literary novel. Over the past three years, she has written, and then deleted, about 500,000 words. Every time she has a new idea, she builds it into the book. When she picks up the manuscript again, though, she finds she has lost all confidence in her original inspiration, and deletes it all.

Meanwhile, she supports herself writing science fiction books so successful that they've been optioned for a TV show, as well as a wildly popular young adult adventure series that has turned into a franchise. Every year she runs training workshops for other authors who want to ghost-write “Zeb Ross” books.

Because she can't seem to finish her “serious” novel, however, Meg considers herself a failure as an author.

I write books that make my sister blush and my brother squirm, books that Amazon bans, books that mean I have to hide my true identity and can't share my publishing accomplishments with many people. I'd love to get some recognition, but I'm not willing to twist my creativity into unnatural directions. I'm willing to sacrifice possible fame and fortune—or at least the respect of my family—for artistic integrity. If that's not serious, I don't know what is.

I'm a Book Snob (or What I'm Not Reading)

by Giselle Renarde

A book snob is not a popular thing to be when you write genre fiction.

In fact, there are a lot of things you're not supposed to admit when you're a genre fiction writer. I write erotica but I don't read it. (Don't tell people stuff like that!) I've never read a romance novel. (Don't!) A lot of genre fiction, even the bestselling stuff, is surprisingly poorly written. (Don't say it!)

At the start of my career, I used to wonder why established authors would say inflammatory things. Didn't they care about their reputations?

Ten years into my writing life, I kinda get it. You get tired of saying all the right things. It's boring.

So here I am, saying all the wrong things.

I love literary fiction. I just finished All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews and it knocked my socks off. Her writing style is is so unique, and the way she approaches difficult subject matter is spellbinding. This book is written with divinely humorous compassion, but the writing isn't lofty. It's not even particularly pretty. But this is a book that had me laughing and crying simultaneously. I am so in awe of Miriam Toews. I am so in awe of her work.

My girlfriend bought me another book while I was reading All My Puny Sorrows.

We were at my local library, looking at the shelf of books they were selling off, and she spotted a thriller she'd read and enjoyed. It was a #1 bestselling book by a #1 bestselling author. So she bought it for me, and we were both excited to share something. We really don't read the same books. She likes Nora Roberts, Stephen King. I'm into Canadian litfic. We both like autobiographies, but she goes for celebrities and I go for random queer people.

I started the thriller Sweet had enjoyed so much, and from the first page it sparked my editor brain.

That's never a good sign.

I had trouble paying attention to the story because I was too focused on awkward sentence structure and crappy word choices. It reminded me of the first revision I submitted on my first ebook. My editor (bless her heart--my book was certainly a challenge!) told me I needed to vary my sentence structure. There was too much. "She did this. She did that. She did some other thing." So I tried to mix it up like "Doing this, she did that" and what a disaster!

I could feel my editor cursing me under her breath as she wrote, "Pushing down her skirt, she pulled up her top? How can she be pulling up her top and pushing down her skirt simultaneously?" 

That's how I felt reading this bestselling thriller. I couldn't look beyond the messy language use to focus on the story.

There were things I appreciated about it. Chapters were short, which made me feel like a fast reader (which I'm not), and each chapter ended in some moment of "Gasp! What's going to happen next?" I always wanted to know right away, so I'd flip the page and read the start of the next chapter, then get swamped down by my editor brain evaluating the language.

I gave up after 54 pages. Maybe I'll go back, but probably not.  It reminded me of the kind of action/adventury crime show I might put on TV and half watch and half enjoy, but when I sit down to read words, the words themselves matter. The order of those words matters.

Now, I don't want anyone thinking I'm saying thrillers are universally BAD or that my taste in fiction is superior to anyone else's. Everybody's got different tastes. And that's great because it leaves room for authors to find a niche. There is a reader for every writer.

I read literary fiction because I like it. It appeals to me. There are terrible litfic books, just like there are terrible books in every genre. Did I ever blog about The Postmistress? Because that book was awful (not that I finished it). But lots of people liked it, so there you go: tastes differ.

So are there good books and bad books? Or are there just books we like and books we don't like?

The Re-education of an Elitist Snob

By Lisabet Sarai

Literary erotica is a niche genre. Even the most renowned authors in this genre are virtually unknown outside that small circle of aficionados for whom the manner of expression matters as much as the mechanisms of coupling described. Secretly, we erotica writers may dream of seducing millions of readers with our tales, but most of us recognize the tiny likelihood that this will ever occur.

However, it appears that the world's indifference to my writing has turned me into something of a snob.

I care deeply about language. When I read, an author's ability to fashion graceful and evocative prose is as important to me as the plot or the characters. Perhaps as a consequence of my own focus on literary craft, I'm frequently disappointed by the quality of the writing in the books I read. As I've become more aware of my own strengths and weaknesses as an author, the foibles of others have become painfully obvious.

There's nothing wrong with being a discriminating reader. However, I recently realized that I've come to expect an inverse relationship between mass popularity and literary quality. This elitist attitude is partially supported by examples such as the Trilogy That Shall Not Be Named, but a bit of soul-searching reveals that sour grapes plays a role too. I write well (I believe) but my books remain obscure. Ergo, quality writing must be the antithesis of popular success. According to this logic, best sellers, especially best selling series, enjoy a huge market because they're poorly written. They stick to stereotypes, follow formulas, fulfill expectations, and employ simple language that doesn't tax their readers too much. If I were willing to compromise on quality for the sake of popularity (I tell myself sometimes), I could send my books to the top of the New York Times list.

Some recent reading, though, has convinced me that this is a fallacy. Several months ago, my husband and I bought a new load of used books at a library sale. When DH showed me his selections, I'm sure my eyebrows shot up. His stack included several titles by Janet Evanovich, creator of best selling Stephanie Plum mystery series: One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly... you get the idea, right? At this point, she's up to number twenty. We bought number five (High Five) and number eighteen (Explosive Eighteen). DH dove right into both novels, and obviously found them entertaining, but I was skeptical. How could anyone so popular be any good?

I resisted for quite a while, but one evening when I was too tired to tackle any of the more “serious” titles I'd been working on, I picked up High Five. In ten minutes I was laughing out loud. In twenty I was apologizing to my husband for impugning his taste. High Five might not be the great American novel, but it is a near-masterpiece of craft.

Ms. Evanovich's characters are quirky (to the point of being bizarre) and yet totally believable. They inhabit the ethnically mixed neighborhoods of Trenton, New Jersey, a place I've never visited but which felt concrete and plausible despite the outrageous events that take place there. Stephanie – twenty-something native of Trenton, a perennially broke lingerie salesgirl turned bail bounty hunter – jumps off the pages. Her wry, self-deprecating first person narrative draws you into her world of unpaid bills and doughnut dinners, car bombs and church bingo, smothering family and sexy guys with hidden agendas.

What I admired most about the book, though, was the dialogue. I'd consider selling my soul to be able to create such vivid, lively, hilarious conversations. Ms. Evanovich has an expert grasp of dialect as well as an enviable capability for giving each speaker a totally distinctive voice. More than once I had to stop and share some snippet with my husband, full of admiration – even though he'd already read the book, had in fact been the one who chose it over my reservations. He very generously refrained from gloating.

By the time I'd finished, I had to admit it: popular, mass-market fiction though it might be, High Five showed signs of true artistry, albeit employed for the sole purpose of entertainment. My elitist beliefs had been crushed. I can't dismiss best selling authors purely because of their success. They may write as well, or better, than I do. Genre and market do not pre-determine quality. And I can't use a focus on craft as an excuse for my own poor sales, either.

It's a bit of a hard lesson, but hopefully one I won't forget. After all, there are a lot of books out there that I might not have considered reading previously – but that I now understand might be worth a try.

Legitimizing Erotica

Erotica is written to be sexually arousing. If a story is not sexually arousing, then it cannot be erotica. Right? But sexual arousal is in the eye of the beholder-- in this case, the reader. Regardless of what gets the author off, if the reader is left without a sexual reaction to the material, it isn't erotica.

And yet, there are many stories and books published that contain sexual scenes and are not classified as erotica by the publisher-- or by the author, in many cases. Are those stories and books erotica if they have not been labeled as such? Well, of course-- if the reader thinks so. And the publishers (and authors) seem to go to great lengths to make sure readers will not think certain stories and books are erotica.

I've noticed an interesting trend in literary fiction, both in novels and short fiction. Stories that are published by highbrow literary publishers often contain some extremely raunchy sex. I can't be the only reader who finds some of those sex scenes arousing, yet the stories and books aren't labeled erotica. Why not? Publishers choose labels and market the books accordingly--but what role do the authors play in keeping that erotica label off their stories?

Two writers can write essentially the same story and it will be labeled differently. Two writers can write a similar stories about, say, a woman who enjoys rough sex and seeks out sex partners on a kinky adult website. Both writers can describe the sex in graphic detail, along with how much she enjoys it physically and emotionally. The stories can be identical right down to the concluding scene-- and that one scene will make the difference between whether the story is considered "erotica" or "literary fiction."

What would the difference be? Do you know? Here it is: If author A closes the story with the woman sprawled in bed, sexually satiated and musing over how grateful she is her vanilla ex-husband left his laptop behind when he moved out, the story will be labeled erotica. If author B ends the story with the woman being beaten to death by the psychotic anonymous lover she chose from the website, the story will be labeled literary fiction.

In erotica, women enjoy the sex. In literary fiction, women enjoy the sex-- and are punished for it.

Does that seem too simplistic? Maybe it is, but I've noticed the lovely hardcover books that are labeled "Hot New Literary Voices" (or whatever they're called) in Barnes & Noble often have explicit sex scenes and women who suffer for enjoying that sex. Sometimes the men suffer, too, but most often it is the women who are punished for being unapologetic sexual creatures.

Not every piece of erotica is filled with sexually satisfied people and happy endings. But sexually explicit literary fiction often has a layer of subtle (or not-so-subtle) misogyny that is not found in erotica. And I wonder if inflicting emotional and physical trauma on a character who enjoys sex somehow legitimizes a piece of fiction and elevates it to the realm of literary fiction. If that is the case-- what does it mean?

Author A can defend her story as literary fiction until she's blue in the face, but at the end of the day people are going to say she wrote a piece of smut because her protagonist acted like a slut. Author B never has to defend her sexually explicit story because her slut gets what she deserves in the eyes of a sexually repressed culture. Both stories are erotic, but only one is erotica.

Asking if something is erotica is a loaded question because it assumes a general acceptance of erotica as a genre. And it's not. I've gone back and forth on the subject, trying to figure out what it would take to legitimize erotica. And by legitimize it, I mean to get it out there on the front shelves of Barnes & Noble with the other lovely hardcover books, to have it reviewed in Publisher's Weekly and featured in the New York Times. With degrees in English and Humanities, I've read enough literature to see a pattern in literary fiction that suggests sex is, was and will always be bad. As an erotica writer, I've heard enough snickers and snide comments to know that the perception of erotica is that it's easy to write, meant only to get you off and is not to be taken seriously as literature. It's disheartening.

Answering the question, "But is it erotica?" is on par with "But is it art?" And the answer is as simple--and as complicated-- as: it is if you think it is.