Intermission, while I catch up

I'm way behind on just about everything. I have a pile of novel edits here that I need to deal with - that's two novels of friends and one of my own that needs a total stripping & rebuild (just mine, not the books of my friends!). Those being substantial novels of more than 60k, I'll need to stay in my own headspace for a while and focus.

Also, there's the new book. As I keep saying - if I'm silent, I'm busy. When I'm really busy, I'm really silent. Three books is enough to make me shut up for a fair while.

In the meantime, check out "Drive", a film I enjoyed much more than "Cowboys and Aliens", which I saw the day before. Interestingly, both try to pull off the Taciturn Mysterious Stranger Coming in to Rescue the Day, but totally differently. "Drive" works where "Cowboys and Aliens" fails quite horrendously (I actually physically cringed while watching C&A and if it had been a book, it would have been a DNF).

In positive news, I have finished the plotting (main plot and sub-plots) of one of my WIPs and expect to finish the book in first draft definitely in the next 2-3 months. Usually, once I know how it all resolves, it's just a matter of sitting down to do the work. Daily wordcount targets help. Social media tends to get in the way of that. And I'm not even sure how interested people will be in my rambling on about those books - two of them aren't mine, so I can't really talk about them, the third one is a trainwreck, and I'm weird in that I really hate whining about how hard it is and how stupid I was in making those choices. And the fourth one is planned for the mainstream, and from what I hear, publishers and agents hate authors talking about books that are aimed at the mainstream. Also, in the case of number 4, I could be totally delusional, the book sucks and won't work and ends up shoved in a deep drawer.

And, randomly and as a signal boost, here's a link to a contest from the Historical Novel Society. Deadline for the first bit: 30 September 2012. It would be great if rainbow books would make a strong showing. I'm not sure I'll have anything that fits (and definitely no full book that fits the description by those deadline), but it's an interesting contest nevertheless.

On a sidenote, I'm getting really sick of cold, grey, drizzling "spring" weather. It can get spring any time now, please. There's only so many months of clutching a hot tea mug I can stand.

Beating the deadline

We've officially beaten the deadline at work, and some things I was fretting over worked out just fine. I guess over-fretting is better than under-fretting in any case. I'm just getting ready for my four-day weekend around my partner's birthday, which should see some relaxing and some catching up.

Right now, I'm using the quiet time at work to proof-read (again) the complete Dark Soul collection for the print edition. I'm 2/3 through my print-out, and there's enough I want to change (repetions, mostly, and a minuscule amount of "flab", or empty sentences) to make the extra pass worthwhile. Ideally, I'll finish that particular project today or maybe early tomorrow.

In house news (and you wouldn't believe how much thought and energy went into house-related things recently) I've decided to hire a lanscaper (landscape architect? What are they called in the UK?) to draft a concept for the garden. Nobody ever had a concept for that garden, and what concept somebody might have had was never followed through - there are abandoned plants in the back, overgrown by now, that were never taken out of their plastic pots, so nobody ever bothered to actually put them in the ground...

So I'm sucking it up and decide to treat the total re-vamp of the garden as a necessary re-vamp of the biggest room in the house. I've seen some samples of plans on the website, and while all that looks really outrageously expensive, it also looks like I want it. After visiting a friend's house over the weekend (and sitting in her garden), I really want a place outside to work and have guests.

So, the same brain that puts together stories is now mostly concerned with what kind of plants I want in the garden and whether to rip out the large white rose tree... bush ... forest - or cut it back and try to save it. For the most part, I've settled on more camellias, a bonsai display area (meaning I need to acquire some outdoor bonsais), and a hazelnut bush/tree. I also have a concept for a sandstone patio in my head, but whether I can afford the kind I want remains to be seen. And then big planting pots with herbs and maybe a raised bed or two (fresh potatoes taste awesome, after all). So, the older I get, the more I turn into the archetypical Taurus - happy mostly when surrounded by pretty and expensive things and both arms up to elbows in soil or with lots of plants around me. (Speaking of which, I need to get one for the office.) Also, Spring makes me restless - stuff is growing and flowering already, and the sense is very much of "now or never" or "now or next year", and I'm impatient.

On the writing front, it's quiet. I'm in editing mode, and I hope to switch over to research mode over the weekend. I got the second part of a DVD documentary on my setting, so that'll need watching and should put me back in the mood to write my WWII novel. The good news is that I've already researched so much that basically nothing in the first part of the documentary comes as a surprise.

And of course, I have a few novels to fix and a pile of developmental edits.

The long weekend is perfectly timed.

The dignity of labour

Today I'm staying at home to oversee the total revamp of my front garden - which involved putting up a brick wall instead of a moth-eaten fence, ripping out a cracked concrete walkway that kept one of the walls of the house nice and wet, put in drainage and rip out a number of old, berserking plants that were killing everything else and also made a gamely attempt at eating the house's foundations. With an Indian sandstone path laid (framed by bricks), plants and roots removed, gravel laid and a storm drain installed, it's all looking very good at the moment. My house is no longer the one with the ugly front in the terrace.

I'm rather looking forward to "Day Two" of the work, which involves planting a new tree (I'd say camellia) to structure all that empty space, and possibly removing the last bit of wood fencing in favour of another brick wall, and after that, I'll install a hanging basket with some flowers because the front of the house does look a little empty now. It's one of those things I've saved for and that completely transforms the front of my house. Also, the builder, who's currently doing a really good job in the front is going to give me a quote for a porch and revamp of the garden in the back, which then means I'll save money to have that done later in the year. To be honest, I really want a space outside the house where I could work if I wanted (especially in summer), and it was planned since we bought the house. It's a great house, but basically needed some investment in windows, boiler, front and back. Bathroom and kitchen are projects for next year, once I've secured the funding, as they say.

So, that's really where my mind is at the moment (that, and wrapping up the edits of Dark Soul 5). However, there's a huge plagiarism debate raging in our little corner of the genre, kicked off by, as usual, Dear Author, on this post with 500+ comments.

After the "he did - he didn't", "you meany - you ignorant asshole" cycles of the usual plagiarism debate appear to have run its course (Godwin's law, the invocation of Nazi Germany was fulfilled, I'm "happy" to report), some people seem to be dismayed that TJ Klune "is getting away with it".

Personally, my own interest in the debate is that it quickly moved into the "quality debate", which I have a much bigger interest in, because, frankly, I believe the main thing holding back our genre at this point is the lack of quality editing, which includes teaching authors how to be better and eventually grow into real writerly heavyweights who can stand on the same bookshelf as good, solid, mainstream writing.

Plagiarism is an appalling act (I'd call it a crime, but technically, it isn't, I believe), but what strikes me most about it is that plagiarists are actually pretty unhappy. Let me explain. The last big plagiarism case I followed was the rip-off of James Bond and other novel series by the Big Guns into a book called "Assassin of Secrets". Little, Brown, NOT a small publisher, was fooled into buying what sounds very much like a "best of" of Ian Fleming and his peers. So, it happens to much larger houses than the very young publishers in the m/m space - which is not me insinuating that the current thing IS a case of plagiarism, and in the following, I'm moving away from that specific case entirely. It was just a starting point for some more fundamental thoughts.

Bear with me, I'm pulling this whole thing together in the end.

Plagiarism has happened in our genre before and it's not a trait of indie publishing at all, or the fault of any specific publisher.

What I found striking about Markham (or even Manning, quoted in the Dear Author article right at the start) is that plagiarists are actually really miserable people. Markham's career is ruined - I don't imagine he can ever publish another thriller.

There's a long article about the fall-out from the Assassin of Secrets blow-up (ETA: I've located the link), that details why Markham did it, what he felt, how it has affected his real life. There's a lot of self-loathing in there, fear of failure, and fear of rejection.

I don't think plagiarist are totally sane, well-adjusted or happy people. Based on articles and from what I've learnt watching cheaters and thieves, it's usually not them being brazen-balled egomaniacs (yes, some writers are sociopaths, but I imagine they are rare, because writing requires a level of introspection/self-critique that I don't think many sociopaths have).

It's them being terribly afraid that they'll be found out, and they can't even enjoy the fruits of their labour, because they know it's not THEIR labour. They are not writers. They are just thieves. Every time they get an email saying "I loved your book" should feel like a red-hot needle piercing their heart. They know they cheated, that they haven't achieved anything but fooling some good people and wasting everybody's time. Deep down, plagiarists are very unhappy people, even if they sell a lot of books, even if they get away with it. The fear of being found out and the fundamental knowledge that they act like scum ruins those sweet moments of success. In a funny way, plagiarism is its own true punishment.

There's a lot of dignity for a writer in writing; in working hard, in being disciplined, humble, critical, in doing all the work as it should be done. We're the last artisans - we'll be left when everything else is being manufactured by machines. Every piece we do is a piece of craft that bears witness to our growth as people and to every month of commitment to our craft.

I think we as writers can learn much from the Japanese "do" system - where constant practice strives towards perfection, even it it might never get there. Practicing one craft with discipline, humility and diligence is its own reward. In Kyo-do, the path of the bow, students take weeks and months just to learn how to stand properly, and I've heard that in traditional Kyo-do, you don't actually shoot your first arrow before you've gone through two years of practice. Writing can be the same - we write a lot before we're anywhere near aiming for a publisher.

What I learn about myself while writing (and trying to write better) is astonishing. I wouldn't learn any of this if I'd rip off a book or a story. I'd feel the other artist's passages like burning coals in my flesh (that's how I feel about some rewrites one editor did to one of my books, and once I have the rights back, I'm reversing that change). Above all, I'm aiming to be a better writer and the best I can, and that's a process of self-discovery and self-discipline that knows absolutely no shortcuts.

So, to bring this to an end - I absolutely believe that plagiarism needs to be called out and named and shamed and punished. (And, again, I'm not commenting on the current suspected case.)

At the end of the day, however, even the undiscovered and unpunished plagiarist suffers from their actions, because although they want to be nothing more than writers, they know they aren't real writers. They are impostors who are so terribly afraid and so weak and conflicted that only another writer's strength can provide enough armour. But it's not their armour, their strength, their beauty. They are like the guy in Greek myth, who, cursed by the gods, dies of thirst surrounded by water.


ETA: I've located the link/source to the Markham piece.

Little token of affection from the London Tube

I bet London's transport network is a field day for epidemiologists (sp?) worldwide. The kind of nasty you can pick up because your neighbour coughs his or her lung out over your shoulder is impressive. Now, I do have the typical Taurus (I've been told) constitution; very hard to kill, generally, but my weak area is the whole breathing apparatus plus sinuses. I went to work first day with really bad sinuses, then they cleared up over a few days, and then my boss's boss fell ill. Then my boss. Over two weeks, it's been closing in, and I've done my level best to fight it off. Everybody's coughing and sneezing - same on the tube, bus, train.

It was only a matter of time. And the problem in my job is that I have to be sharp enough to catch a missing "bn" for "billion" in a financial edit (it does make a difference when editors mess up). What I edit every day requires me to be 100% sharp. Even 80% would do it (as long as I'm not the last pair of eyes on the edit). Today, I'm down to 50%, which means enough coherence to read a bit and go to the supermarket to acquire some soup (and remember to take the change). And write a quick blog update. But otherwise I'm woozy and headachy and surrounded by used paper tissues. It's a sorry sight.

To add insult to injury, the slice of vegetable quiche I found in the shop tastes like cardboard. Which is probably more my fault than its maker's; taste buds are on holiday while my brain's dribbling out of my ears. So I'll stick to mainlining hot tea, coffee, orange juice and cough syrup. Sounds like a balanced diet to me.

Yesterday, the rest of the plot for my space opera came together - which, as usual, led to a discussion with my partner. Now, bless him, he's patient and supportive, but he's incredibly focused on plot, and unless it's an awesome plot, he's all "bleh" about it. Anything. Books, films, and definitely my (or his own) writing. The gods were having a laugh, teaming me up with a 100% plot person. So, after some digging on his part, I told him the plot for the space opera novella I'm working on. And then we had a bit of a shouting match over the ending. He wants me to end it where my very specific ideas have run out (very much the dark moment in the story, where things look really bad). Whereas I do like to get characters out alive and halfway happy. I do think the main character kinda deserves it, too.

So there's the argument between a plot-driven reader and a character-driven author. The author wants to reward the characters for a "good effort" and all their struggles by showing them a way out after the big "oh shit" moment. The plot-driven reader can't care less about the characters and is totally focused on the twist ending - up to the point where he really only wants the twist and no real "afterglow".

I'm not yet sure how to resolve the issue. When I tell him that I don't actually *have* a clear ending, I get "yes, you do! You told me the twist, and every word after just weakens the impact! You'll ruin a perfectly good story" as a response. No use telling him that I'm still 10-15k away from the ending, and books change as I go along, with pieces falling into place before me like in a jump-and-run arcade game (anybody still play those?).

I honestly don't know; my brain's too mushy to work out a solution to that issue right away. In the end, I'll have to trust Mister Muse to put the missing pieces into place. It's not like I can sell a gay sci-fi story to the mainstream, regardless how kick-ass the twist is. If fantasy readers are unready for gay characters, then mainstream sci-fi is probably the last bastion of the "clenchies" as I like to call the "YIKES, GAY CHARACTERS!" homophobic fanboys out there.

On a side-note - the friend whose book I was proofing/helping to edit when I wrote the last few updates has landed a Big Name agent with it, so if anybody kept their fingers crossed for my friend, thank you. The goods vibes helped. :)

A Writer at University

I've recently talked to one of my co-writers, and realized that writing is really largely overcoming obstacles. They can take a number of shapes, really, most are probably mental in my case. (They can be physical - I knew a writer once whose arthritis was so bad she could only type for 30 minutes per day, talk about serious limitations!)

Thankfully, my ego is pretty resilient overall. It's probably a layer thing. The outer layer is me going "Yes, I'm FUCKING AWESOME". The next layer down holds my insecurities. It's a big layer, and the inner critic lives there, too. That's the place where reviews hurt, especially when the reviewer says out loud what I was feeling down in my guts but didn't know how to fix. This is the place where I keep half an eye on my Amazon rankings and Goodreads reviews.

But at the core of it, deep, deep, down, there's a place that nothing can touch, and that's what powers the Muse. I'd reasonably confident that I'll always write, because I've always made up stories. It's integral to me like the spine or the skull bone. Nobody can remove it. I don't think it could even be damaged by outside forces. If we use the metaphor of a nuclear reactor (I've recently used that in my writing, so it's a close one), the radiation is always there. Whether I turn it into anything sellable is a different matter - and the plutonium core absolutely does not care. It's happily emitting radiation, whether anybody does anything with it or not, it'll just go on doing that because that's its nature. The best answer to "why do you write?" for me is "because I cannot not." It's my birth defect, or my calling, it is really what it is.

Now, a situation I recall from university becomes truly bizarre. I started university studying German Literature (made kinda sense at the time) in addition to American Studies and my major in History. Still getting my head around how this whole writing and novel thing works, so I figured some help from academia might be nice.

So we're doing the "get to know you" bit at the start of a German Lit course. 99% of the people there said they were studying German literature because they always liked to read (or were good in German at school). I, the dissident, admitted to being a writer and trying to learn some tricks from the pros.

Response from the lecturer running the course: "OH MY GOD! You should immediately drop out, because if you stay, you will realize that every story has already been written, and so much better by the Grand Masters of Literature than you could EVER HOPE TO BEEEEE!"

Let's not even begin to talk about how a man (who's made his life and career in academia by talking about the work of writers to the uninitiated) tells a creator to a) either not get involved in literary criticism as it would surely break the writer's heart; or b) give up writing and despair over his own inadequacy at the very start of his career in the face of the masters.

In other words, why play chess; you'll never beat Deep Blue. Why run; you'll never beat Usain Bolt. Why cook, if that Michelin star is WAY out of your league.

And surely, if all stories in all possible permutations have already been told, surely we've run out of stories way before Shakespeare. Sorry, Faulkner, what you did was a complete waste of your time ever since Ovid.

Also, I hadn't been aware that gay military sci-fi romance was so big in the Middle Ages.

Okay, I mocked the asshole lecturer enough now. I just dread to think how many young writers might have believed him, if only for five minutes, thanks to his Position of Authority. But then, writers do it because they must, so the real writers will have been okay, anyway. I'm just sorry for the moments of doubt this guy has left in his cynical wake.

And every story has a moral. I did exactly what the dude wanted: I dropped out of German Literature (now, having dropped out of the German language too, this has an ironic double edge) and turned towards American Studies, where one of my favourite lecturers ran this course: Creative Writing (my first CW course).

Of rabbits and wolves, and bridge trolls and knights

Today I was pointed at this most excellent post by Marie Sexton about the Muse and its natural enemies, and how sometimes, when the Muse gets wounded, it crawls away to die.

Read the full post here.

This is an incredibly powerful post about the power of the "haters". The wolves out there. They might take many shapes - for me, the wolves are people who harrass authors, who demand to know who we sleep with, and who sticks what into whom, all so that we are "legit" in the eyes of the wolves - or "trolls" as I like to call them.

The trolls are the demons lurking under the bridge. They eat the unwary. Sometimes, they injure the valiant during the combat. Sometimes, they take an arm or a leg. Passage into the next story, the next project, was rarely bought so dearly, has rarely left such gaping wounds. Some knights still soldier on and continue onwards, others don't. Others stay the fuck at home.

The problem is that the trolls don't just live under bridges. If the questing knight KNEW the trolls were under that bridge ahead, he could "weapon up", put on the helmet, change from the gentle steed to the charger, and lower the lance, armoured in his heart and body and ready to do battle with whatever comes. (Yes, knights in the Middle Ages didn't travel fully armoured and ready, they did have to change before the battle.)

The trolls I'm talking about today don't live under bridges. They live in forums, where they tell people to boycott publishers who are not policing the gender of their authors, and they live on mailinglists, and blogs (some even write blogs), and comment on blogs and hang out at any place where a juicy, unsuspecting knight might pass by. They have nothing more to offer than snark, nasty attitude, ignorance and hatred. Some of them even believe that knights quest for the "easy money".

Trolls attack the knight's horse if the knight himself cannot be brought down. They attack the knight's squire, his lady, his friends, even the peasant who told the knight which way to take.

They do it "because". I'm not sure what soul-sucking darkness lives in them so that they revel in the mayhem they can cause.

But to trot out the metaphor further: Being a troll or a knight, is, ultimately, a choice, but we can remember (and take heart in) that it's not the troll that might, eventually, reach the grail castle. Trolls are obstacles to overcome. In Campbell's The Hero's Journey, they are Threshold Guardians that try to scare us and test us and that look ghastly and mean, but ultimately, they don't matter. They have no real power.

I need to remember when I sit down to write that, in fairy tales and "romances" (and that's where the word comes from, in Western literary canon), the knight has a name, and we all remember Percival and Galahad, but I couldn't remember the name of a single troll.

Rainbow Awards Winner

I saw yesterday that Dark Edge of Honor - co-written with Rhi Etzweiler - has tied (three-way) for best gay sci-fi novel in Elisa Rolle's Rainbow Awards.

That makes me (us) an award-winning author. :) (But seriously, I'm very honoured and more than pleased, especially for Rhi, who's an amazing talent and this was their first book - here's an author that deserves all the recognition there is, in any case. Great co-writer, extremely hard worker, good friend).

Also, this wouldn't have been possible without Deborah Nemeth, our editor, who helped us fix a number of pretty serious issues with the book (like, she made us completely re-write the last three chapters, which went from "WTF?" to "OMG" under her guidance).

And a great link that's worth watching for all blocked writers out there.

My week largely consisted of staring at a screen while blood was beading on my forehead. You really can't fault me for trying to break through this shit.

I did buy some "sex toys" from Cult Pens and promptly broke my new black Rotring Pro mechanical pencil (me and mechanical pencils have a long history of trench warfare, as the Faber Castell issue a couple weeks back has shown) just three minutes after taking it out of the packet. I broke it while trying to put in a mine from Koh-I-Noor (coloured mines, great idea, but they are going to break your MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE pencil, so stay the hell away from those mines, or at least only put them in a clutch pencil!).

On a sidenote, I'm officially in love with the Rotring tikky 3-in-1, which took me a while to figure out, but it's clearly magic and extremely useful for editing on paper.

Otherwise, very little else to report - sending off the first few Xmas presents and juggling a gazillion things (slight exaggeration, but I did stop counting at a million).

The shape of it

I've had a good think about my future in the genre, and I'm continuing to think. Right now, a double-track approach seems to make the most sense. The melodrama and the hate mob have driven me to reconsider whether I do want to stay in the genre. The messages of support and love and several versions of "don't leave me!" have made me reconsider how much power I'm giving the haters over my writing and the Muse.

Make no mistake, the Muse is still having dinner with the dodo, wherever they are. Not a wingbeat, no words, thoughts, or images coming from him, so as far as the writing urge is concerned, I'm currently "healed", like I haven't written a word in my life and can go happily on living without ever writing another word. There's an interesting calm in that emptiness, in the absence of story. Like a haunted house suddenly exorcised. A schizophrenic healed. Awakening after a night crammed full of dreams and nightmares. Deep breath - calmness - meditative silence.

It's odd not to be writing. All the time I have now for reading. The pre-Christmas stress seems manageable. Above all, I'm getting to bed at a reasonable hour. This is how "normal" (non-writing) people live. It's nice. No obsessing about word counts, no submission stress (I have nothing out there to sell, and nothing even remotely ready to go out anytime soon - the emptiness also characterizes the state of my projects folders).

I know, rationally, that I'll need to write the last parts of Dark Soul, but, as I said, not one wingbeat. I know, roughly, what'll happen, and that used to be a state I could rely on to carry the writing, but I've stared at a white screen long enough now to know that it's not that easy. I might have entered a prolonged dry phase (I've been dry for three weeks now). No writing at all. I've had a few of those earlier in my career. The longest was two years. I suffered like an animal in that time. Short dry spells can be anywhere between a few weeks and a few months.

I don't know, and I'm not going to stress over it. I'm just saying I'm pretty sure I can blame outside forces for it. The Muse asks "why bother" and "for what", whenever I get him to talk.

I'm working on finding an answer, but that's the rational part of me. What I want back is the ability to fall into my story and feel the passion for writing and for sharing a story with anybody outside myself (I'm happy to entertain myself, but I can do that day-dreaming without the hard work of actually sitting down and typing it all up. I can entertain myself with a novel-length day dream in one day and enjoy that for a week).

It doesn't help that everybody around me (in real life) tells me I'm "too good for that". Part of me knows, and that's why those words are gaining so much traction - I've done THAT dance before, I know the markets, I have the contacts, I can actually sell in the mainstream if I really, really want to. It means a lot of work and networking, might involve switching back into German, might involve building a totally new writer persona online. It's all daunting and complex and exhausting - last thing my Muse needs. I've been writing m/m because it's what I'm good at, what's natural for me, because it's fun and because of the readers.

But that doesn't mean I don't, ever, have mainstream ideas. And at the same time, I'm already pushing that particular envelope, and it might just be one more step to re-enter that realm.

For the moment, I've removed all "In the Works" projects from my website, because I think that some of the things I'm working on can go into the mainstream and those might need to go under a new pseudonym (I'm working on a few, but none has yet "clicked" for me), and because I have no visibility how many projects will actually happen. I had a pile of about twenty projects that I might potentially want to do, but after the last month, the life has been leached from all of them.

The artist as public property

It's always fascinating to me to explore just who we writers write for. In my personal case, I write because I have to.

When the Muse is his glorious, wing-beating self (imagine my Muse as a black-winged, vaguely human-shaped, vaguely male creature not unlike what I'd picture an angel as, but one of those kick-ass, sword-wielding angels, drawing a thunderstorm in one hand and soaring like an eagle when the energy is there) - there's simply no stopping. I know that the Muse is likely part of my own soul, some deep well of energy that I tap into when I work. Sometimes, writing has nothing to do at all with the Muse. Then it's just putting words on the page. Making the screen look untidy. Ruining perfectly good paper with ink scrawls.

When the Muse is involved, it's fire and fury and thunder. Then the book comes out in one piece, as if it has only been waiting somewhere else for the gates to open. It's lightning - indivisible, extremely powerful, and really interesting to feel pass through you.

So, in many ways, I write because I can't not. A book is a primal force that hits me like an earthquake. Tell that incoming train headed your way that you really don't quite feel like it. Hah. Good luck with that.

I can't refuse to write. I'm a writer, that's why I'm here for. If there's any reason or sense in human existence, mine is that I was put here to write my little black heart out (and help others do the same).

There've been some denizens of the lunatic fringe that think (and have said, although, crazy as they are, they aren't crazy enough to say that to my face) that my refusal to write in a certain genre is "holding my stories hostage". Yeah, so me writing is just giving people what they own anyway - like it's not me giving those stories to the world, but somehow TAKING something from those readers. Not just owing, but evilly withholding what's their due. To vid, read the "GRR Martin is not your bitch" post by Neil Gaiman.

(As a sidenote, these people are a tiny minority - while many have expressed dismay, they also respect my decision, whether it's permanent or temporary).

In response I want to repost (slightly rephrased and borrowing from other commentators for context) what I posted here:

Whether or not an author is "public property" and whether he or she owes readers anything is a question I've grappled with myself. E M Foster didn't write certain books because he felt he couldn't write about the gay subject matter. Kafka wanted all his work destroyed - everything we're reading of Kafka's has only survived because a dying man's wish was blatantly disregarded and a promise was broken. To read his work at all is to benefit from an act of treason. I'm on the fence about it, too. Kafka made world literature a richer (and much stranger) place, but on the other hand, those were his stories - he didn't owe us anything. At the same time, as a reader, I want to chain some authors to the desks and make them write book after book for me. As a writer, that same idea horrifies me.

In a way, we owe the Muse and the book to tell those stories (not that I could stop either). We got this gift, and I think we are obliged to to the best we can with it. As I keep saying to my writing “padawans”: Your Ego Doesn’t Matter.

Or, another analogy. I compare the job of the artist in his/her own community as that of the shaman to his/her tribe. We mediate, we heal, we walk the path into the imaginary/spirit world, wrestle and negotiate with spirits, and come back with gifts that heal/benefit the community. In return, the community respects us and feeds us (in my case, I do my own feeding, but the idea is to give something back to even out the relationship).

The last couple weeks have given the appearance that my “tribe” had turned toxic – on me and others like me. Handing over the hard-won kill to them, when all you see is clenched fists, is not easy. Personally, I’m not that selfless. So, the returning shaman, witnessing all that anger, turns on his heel and walks off to a less hostile tribe, sick to his heart over it.

In the mainstream, there are prominent writers writing under a variety of names that not necessarily reflect their physical, genetic gender. I’d never speculate whether Val McDermid is actually female or identifies as somewhere along the Rainbow spectrum (I frankly don’t know enough about the person), but there’s an example where the mainstream is a hell of a lot more accepting than I’ve seen the m/m community be over the last weeks. In the end, it’s the story that counts, and hopefully the author – without whom no story – gets their just rewards.

Of course, I’m hoping that the m/m community/genre will grow up. That we’re going to be less torn back and forth through what’s essentially some of the most odious residual traits of “fandom” (which, when it’s supportive, is very supportive, but when it’s bad, is VERY bad). What we need is a “level up”, to borrow a roleplaying term. If we ever want to hope to be taken seriously, this shit’s gotta stop.

I fully understand if people turn their backs in disgust. I received an email from a dear friend – one of the strongest writers in the genre – who is so hurt and disgusted she may never come back. This is collateral damage that many people will never notice, because few of those who left made the kind of blog post I did.

Bringing this to a close – I think we need to all be more accepting and tolerant, which, however, includes shutting up the haters, showing support to those who are under attack (whether we like them personally or not), and educating ourselves through all of this.

If the space is safe once again, the shamans will continue dancing and singing and bringing you those strange things from the Otherworld – hope, stories of love and overcoming darkness.

Whatever and whenever I personally will write, I honestly don’t know. The Muse is very silent right now. I will continue to act as a publisher and supporter in any case. What I will do is take a stab at the mainstream, quite possibly under a totally different name, I don’t know. It’s not something that will happen very soon. The damage that was done in a few days or weeks may take months to scar over, and may never fully heal. It's easy for attackers to move on, but the attacked live with the memories of shame, fear, anxiety, stress, horror and disgust for the rest of their lives. It'll always be there, sitting low in our guts.

Offering Sanctuary

Edited to add (5 January 2014): It's come to my attention that an unpleasant individual tries to instrumentalise this post for explaining/excusing her trans* phobic view - essentially calling upon me as a witness and as somebody holding the same position as her. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I'm not going to remove what I wrote, I'll bold the pertinent part, so you guys can see what I ACTUALLY wrote.

Further, this is my comment to her at her blog.


Dear Ann - I want to protest sharply you calling upon me as a kind of witness to strengthen your position - my position is nowhere NEAR yours on this issue, and I absolutely do NOT want to be seen anywhere near your position on this - I don't share it, I've never shared it, and you using a trans* girls death in this manner is frankly deplorable.

As a note - if you've READ my blog post you're referencing, I said I was ready to embrace AJ as a trans* person if he chooses to identify as such. I see no need in policing anybody's gender. AJ might have had had a change of heart. I'm quite happy to assume the best of people. 

Trans* identities are tremendously difficult, with ups and downs, and you do not get to be the "panty police". You can call authors whatever you want, fact is that the person you call straight or whatever might be a queer person who hasn't come out. You trying to FORCE them out, your long-standing attempts to "out" a male author of m/m for reasons that might have to do with his status as one of the best-selling and most beloved authors, etc, is deplorable. It's not your job nor your right to police people's identity, and I will NEVER stand on that same position with you. I'm not on your side. 

Using Leelah's death for this? For fucking shame. Leelah's suicide has hit me so hard I can't even talk about it. I don't know ONE trans* person who hasn't been suicidal, often multiple times. Most trans* people I know are cutters, bipolar, suffer from depression and have a host of emotional and mental issues.  Using that to make your point? Yuck.

Please refrain from sub-tweeting about me, making speculations, and trying to pull me into your spat. I've seen 6+ years worth of your spats, and I'm tired of the pattern. Ever since you harassed me on livejournal after I feedbacked one of your stories and you kept making passive-aggressive "sub-posts" (tweeting wasn't around then), I stayed WELL clear of you. Since then, you've harassed a good dozen of my personal friends in one way, shape or form. Please forget I exist. Better yet - go write something and stop that drama addiction. 

I have zero interest to be associated with you, and this is the last time I'll respond to your antics.

TLDR version: I disagree with you. I see your pattern. Leave me alone.

----Historical blog post follow, emphasis bolded -----------------------------------------------------------


Preface: Your response to my last posts have been overwhelming, emotional, touching, gut-wrenching and overall EPIC. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm hoping to catch up with the emails and posts at some point. I might need to sleep a little first.

The only hostility I've received afterwards came from people speculating that my last posts were "marketing ploys" to drive sales of Counterpunch and Dark Soul.

I have to say, those people are such accomplished cynics that I'm frankly awed. I guess being soul-dead like that doesn't even hurt any more, right? But I guess some people think Buddhist monks set themselves aflame because they are cold.

And I want to say a specific "thank you" to the gay men who have reached out. I've given the impression that I have been treated with nothing but hostility from the gay community. While I've had a couple unfortunate encounters (like Mr "I'm going home to have real gay sex now" and some telling me I only have body issues - yeah, rocket science - and need to get laid and my disquiet about my gender would get marvelously fucked away) - I've also received amazing, warm, genuine support, for which I'm deeply grateful.

I also want to add that I've been contacted by many, many trans and queer writers who are "under the radar" and who have experienced the same reprisals, doubts, and harassment. I wasn't surprised by any of those stories - saddened, horrified, but not surprised. I WAS surprised by how many we are. I said I knew of around 7-8 trans* and queer writers. We're getting closer to 20-30 now. I'm not counting the lesbians (double digits) and gays and bisexuals (loads). I don't keep a spreadsheet, but we are MANY, and I salute every single one of you. For your support, your work, your dignity in the face of adversity, I salute you.

I said all I can claim was "Freakhood" - no loving Rainbow family. I was wrong. There's been so much love and support from the rainbow people that I'm shocked and humbled and barely managed to sleep with my heart pounding so hard (and I'm eating my words; they are better with soy sauce). Thank you, guys, gals, and everybody in between. I'm proud of the community, of being PART of the community.

I'm also very, unspeakably (but I'm trying!), humbled by the support from our straight and/or cis-gendered allies. So many of you have reached out and spoken up. Thank you.

To all those who feel the reflex that I suppressed until my "coming out" - the reflex to stand up and speak up - and potentially shatter the identities you've built; it's OK to not do that. Nobody respects and loves you any less because you aren't "out and proud and loud." Please be safe. Do only what you're 150% comfortable with. You do much work behind the scenes, and we can see that and feel the difference, and it's appreciated. Nobody has the right to push you to where I was yesterday, staring down the cliff with only two options left: Jump or fall.

Before I start to sound like General Patton speaking to the Rainbow Army, I'll break it off here. I'm just saying, this experience has made me a better, humbler and less conflicted man and I'm offering the same support that people have shown me to everybody still out there, and I will continue to do what's right.

Which brings me to some house cleaning.

For the record, my posts were about the fall-out and effect of rampant transphobia and harassment on trans and queer writers. Why for us, "coming out" is more like death and a lot less like liberation. Why we don't want to be outed, why that destroys a very tenuous inner calm and peace that many of us have spent decades to build and achieve. I took the fall because my brothers and sisters were asking me to stand with them. I did not want to abandon Oleg, Bryl, and Danny - and all the others whose names I don't want to mention here as they are "passing", but I know they are watching and supporting.

Some people are congratulating my friends on "Finally he has stopped lying, finally he's out". Now, nobody has told me that to my face. To everybody who considered me a liar: Choose your weapon, and let's make an appointment. I believe early mornings are traditional. I'll bring a second. Either face me direct, if you have the GUTS, or shut up, you cowards.

Now, more house cleaning.

This situation was sparked by another author, AJ Llewellyn, outing himself as a trans man on his most recent blog post.

There has been wild speculation about the issue - others have made very convincing cases pro and con, and frankly, it's all out there on the table, and I'm too tired to join the chorus.

From what I understand (I don't have a PhD in Gender Studies, I can always be wrong), a person is trans once they claim they are. The trans community is extremely welcoming and open to to anybody joining. None of us would dare to question another's trans identity, because, you got it, EVERYBODY's identity is the result of an agonizing, often ongoing process. We would never turn on another trans* person calling them a faker or a liar.

Of course, this opens the community up to abuse and appropriation, when people claim trans status to enlist allies and to get a ready-made army to march for them. We embrace anybody claiming the label, because this is a mechanism that has, often literally, saved trans people's lives. If there's nobody else left, you can raise your hand and call for help, and you have instant allies. This process is VITAL and it's saving lives and sanity, and even possible exploitation doesn't give us the moral right to judge another. You say you're trans, you are. I believe we're a lot more enlightened there than most cisgendered people (some of whom have called me a liar... the mind, it boggles).

Now that AJ Llewellyn, a - to put it mildly - controversial character has joined our ranks, I am thinking back to my medieval studies. Let me explain:

In the Middle Ages, if you were a hunted criminal and managed to reach a church, you could claim sanctuary on hallowed ground. This meant that whoever was coming to enforce the law couldn't harm you and couldn't remove you from that sanctuary. As far as worldly law was concerned, you were untouchable.

Sounds like a great deal, right? A community is persecuting somebody for wrong/harmful behaviour, and all you have to do is claim sanctuary with a group who will immediately - reflexively, nobly - step up to defend you and protect you from punishment. A second chance. Awesome deal.

But the custom had a flip side: While the murderer or horse thief couldn't be hanged, he WAS subject to church discipline. That means: penance, some of which was pretty extreme. We're talking asceticism, flagellation, "mortification of the flesh", all those tasty things that made medieval spiritual life fun and games. The murderer/horse thief would have to atone for his sins, mend his ways, and subject himself to the rules of the church/order that he has fled to.

Personally, I'm ready to embrace AJ Llewellyn as a brother in trans.

I'm not questioning his new-found, brand-new identity, I'm not questioning that he's distressed.

I have my own history with AJ and it's not positive. I will emphatically NOT list his actions here. I believe we all know by now what they are.

But AJ has joined the trans community, and I welcome him.

But I am distancing myself - as strongly as I can - from AJ's behaviour (he has attempted to link himself to me in private posts, and I protest this link SHARPLY). Yet I cannot and will not doubt his brand-new identity. We trans people would rather be exploited than wrongly accuse one of ours.

AJ, welcome to your sanctuary. If you can mend your ways, do. If you achieve that, I'll be proud to call you brother. Right now, all we're giving you is sanctuary, because that's the code, not because we love you or even forgive you until you've shown that you can play nice and contribute, positively, to the community.

Here I stand, I can do no other

This is the blog post that I never wanted to write, but I owe it to all genderqueer and trans* writers and readers out there. I’m hoping that my experience may serve to make the “community” a safe place for us – others like me. At present, I don’t know if the aftermath of this – action, reaction, consequence, if I understand correctly – will allow my Muse to survive. After this, I frankly don’t know if I’ll have the strength to go on writing using this name and this identity. This Self.

I’ve taken most of this from an email I sent a prominent blogger. I’ve changed names to protect the innocent and the guilty both.


The Call

I could quite literally write a book about my experiences and my thoughts on the matter. If something almost kills you, it's bound to provoke some Heavy Thinking. So apologies as this is going to be long.

I did not want to get involved in this at all. I've been "outed" several times on the internet. A former co-writer of mine who's seen me in RL has repeatedly outed me. I have been referred to on the internet as "one vicious tranny". A gay guy I've met in my London-based writing group has only recently outed me to a violently hateful group, then added smugly that he was now going home to "have real gay sex".

These experiences are rather typical, I'm afraid. It's why I only meet people in person as a writer who I trust to not go out there and tell the world who I "really" am (as we can see, my judgment is less than perfect - friends can turn to enemies rather more quickly than I like, especially when writers are involved).


Refusal to Heed the Call

This is not to accuse. I feel awful for first trying to stay invisible and secondly trying to ignore it, while my trans* friends were/are suffering because they are "out" about their status, while I was busy telling myself "I'm a writer, not a human rights activist".

Yeah, I guess Ezra Pound was just a poet, too.

The loss of "safe space" thanks to the rabid hate mob is probably at the core of the issue why I've put my stuff on hold. I originally bought into the myth how "tolerant" and "accepting" "our" "community" is. Well, it is, if you're gay and physically, born, genetic male. There's a worship of the cock going on I find a little disturbing.

Regardless - one thing I believe is incredibly important in this debate is to drive home - in some minds at least - the difference between "coming out" and "passing".


Crossing the First Threshold

For sexualities other than straight, "coming out" is a traumatic, cathartic rite of passage, that, yes, creates that "gay identity", which from then on is visible. I was very relieved when I realized, actually, I'm bisexual, and it’s OK to be that. I can love a person rather than a set of genitals. Being bi is, obviously, being under a "general suspicion" of cheating and being generally not trustworthy. Many lesbians tell a bisexual woman she's not "real" because she got her rocks off - even once - with a guy. Many gays call a bisexual man a "gay in denial". I do believe I never deceived anybody about my sexuality. I've gotten my rocks off with trans* people, with men and women, and it was fun every time. I'm not ashamed.

But yeah, "coming out" usually means that the enormous pressure that non-straight people live with is lifted. Wow, suddenly you float. The thing that made you consider suicide? Gone. People actually still smile at you. Some even call you brave - what a boost after you've spent most of your life cringing away and hoping that people will leave you the fuck alone, or at least not look into your head.

Now, "passing" is different. Trans* people live with this enormous pressure, but it never leaves. It's a miracle I'm alive. Between 16 and 21, I was constantly considering suicide. Then my mother died a painful, drawn-out death from cancer. And I thought "okay, throwing away a healthy, functional body is a waste and who are you to end your life when others are desperate to draw even one more breath and don't have that choice?"

Every time I considered suicide, I would remember my mother's face, just wisps of her gorgeous rich mahogany hair left, the skull visible as a herald of impending death, as she was weighing only 80 or 90 pounds. Who am I to kill myself when I'm healthy and not physically suffering?


Tests, Allies, Enemies

Then the internet. Online communities. I chose a neutral name (vashtan) and realized there's freedom in that. I've kept vashtan's gender neutral - I did not want to "deceive" anybody. Ever.

My first publications. Getting AlexANDER W. added into my German passport? HUGE rush. Unspeakable relief. The front was still lying, but the back - oh, the glorious back, the bit under "Pseudonym or Religious Name" - it finally spoke the truth. I'd become, legally, in a small part, black-on-green, Alexander W., ridding me in one fell swoop of a last name I've inherited from a wife-beating rapist father AND the wrong gender.

I was Alexander. I couldn't wait to tell everybody. The bloom rounded, tightened, seams began to appear. It was ready to burst.

I read everything about the issue. MTFs, FTMs, Intersex, intergender, trans*, genderqueer... suddenly I had words for that deep-seated unease that told me my very BONES were all wrong. Suddenly the "wow, YOU are a real man." Suddenly, all my games as a child - always the knight serving the lady, always the fighter, the bodyguard, the protector of the weak - suddenly made sense. Why even as a small child I bristled when somebody called me a "pretty girl". I wasn't. I was a boy. Imagine the heartbreak when boys at some point told me I couldn't play with them because I had long hair. I liked my long hair. I wasn't ready to give it up so I could play with the other boys. Non-conformist to the end, I guess. Boys had short hair, I refused to fit in, hence I was ousted.

Thus expelled from the boys, I tried to join the girls for company. They told me I was a boy - wild, physical, competitive. I also didn't give a toss about the current crush on some boy band. I just wanted to belong somewhere.

I didn't. I found, in the end, a bunch of outsiders who'd hang around me, because I had cool ideas and made up fun games. We were still the outsiders on the playground, but we were at least damned well entertained.


Ordeal

When my body developed, I prayed for it all to go away. I think the reason why I'm still here is largely because of one of the most powerful characters I've ever had. Silvio basically told me I was being a dumb asshole for staring at the pills in my hand and that my vertigo should at least keep me jumping from that bridge. Through all that, I've had friends (who had no idea - as far as they were concerned, I was just a bit of a tomboy), but as we've seen through things like Trevor and It Gets Better, friends sometimes aren't enough. I was a firm believer in reincarnation, but something always held me back from "trying again", as I called it back then. Reload. What's your return policy, universe?

For whatever reason, the male persona I built (or, arguably, that I am) helped me cope with the increasing pressure. Somebody calling me "Mr. Voinov" (which is just a translation of "Herr W.") takes the pressure off. It makes me smile, but there's always a tang of pain in it, too. Calling me "sir" is like if somebody tells you you're gorgeous and actually means it.

I'm coming back to "passing" now. To a trans* person, "passing" as his/her real gender is - unspeakably liberating. Suddenly, the pressure around you eases. You can BREATHE. You can even be yourself. I can't count how often I've been told I write "masculine", or even "hyper-masculine". I was told, when I started out, to write under a male pseudonym, as "the female style" is different - and women prefer books written by women, especially historicals. Or: "What woman cares about war, soldiers, or politics? They want woman issues." (Which, presumably, is about courtship, het sex, child-rearing and covering their husband's flank.) This drove me away from trying to make it in the historical mainstream - I never managed to get my head around "woman issues" - talk about biographical blocks.


Reward/Seizing the Sword

Fast forward a few years. Passing for male has quite literally enabled me to be a productive, positive member of human society. Give what I have to give - mentor, teach, give and write. I can give these because the pressure was off, the pressure keeping me contained, pressuring me into something I am emphatically NOT. If you expend all your energy fighting other people's perceptions, you have no energy left to do the important stuff, the constructive stuff.

Under such considerations, things like "I'll sell five more books if people believe I have a flesh dick dangling between my legs" aren't just laughably trivial - they don't even register. I've heard people say that they prefer women-written books to mine because "Voinov is clearly a male writer - like all of them, it's all heartless sex and violence, he just doesn't "get" romance." Some way of "passing", that! (But, hell, I take it.)

The thing is, tearing our protection away - negating our "passing" - is as traumatic as if a jeering mob out on the street were ripping your clothes off to laugh at the shape of your breasts or labia or dick and balls. I can't possibly express the amount of distress that my trans* writer friends have felt over the mob's desire to rip their clothes off. As far as I'm concerned, I have bigger balls and a bigger dick than a huge amount of born and bred males.

My sense of honour and personal integrity made me step up in defense of my trans* friends, most of whom have been bullied into submission and are scared of being made a target next. We'll all been there before. Most gay guys consider us women (I've heard some of the most vile, trans* phobic comments from gay men) – most women consider us women and do everything in their power to help society re-assert the gender binary. (Those are generalizations - I've encountered a lot of extremely supportive women of all stripes.)

While most gay men laugh us off as "not real men" (like I have to assert my masculinity to every gay man out there - even those I don't want to sleep with!), many women are truly vicious - "how dare she!"

I've always held the belief that the female hostility to trans* people is really a loathing of the traditional female role. Tearing our clothes off in public is a way to act against the "unlawful claiming of a more liberated gender". Men ARE more powerful in this society, and trans* men are seen as those refusing the female gender (while, in actuality, we're not refusing anything - it's not what we are and most of us feel an extreme disconnect to any perceived female role). We're damaged, freaks, deficient. Worse, we're cheaters, liars, impostors. We're claiming the "male privilege" not to be belittled, and maybe we even end up wielding power and authority and have respect. Yeah, how DARE we.

Some of us shrink away under the onslaught of hostility and pressure, cringing. So at war with ourselves, few of us are strong enough to fight against ourselves AND against the rest of the world. ONE of those battles is plenty.

Every time a specific prominent blogger attempts to out the most high-profile male-representing author in our genre, I want to rip her head off. Has nobody ever considered that this writer is actually who he says he is? Or would the fact that he's a prominent, visible, highly successful - and much-loved - writer in the genre have anything to do with it? The message to us trans* writers is, very much: Don't stick your head out, or we'll chop it off. Beyond a certain level of success, people are envious enough to jump on anything that makes a person vulnerable.


The Road Back

Frankly, I knew that launching Riptide would potentially "blow my cover". Who on earth is interested in trans* literature but a trans* person - and who at Riptide is clearly NOT a female? The fact that I'm being represented by an avatar, the fact that I'm not answering questions about my gender (and many tried asking them, which tells me it's something people feel they have a right to know about in detail) or what I think about women writing gay sex, or whether I get turned on when writing sex (yeah, sweetheart, want the number of inches too?) - all that immediately sparks suspicion.

The more visible I am - the more interviews I've given - the more that old pressure has come back. I've been told I'm too "soft", or "too gentle", or "too understanding", (or "too nice/generous") that a specific turn of phrase is feminine - up to my use of emoticons. People are scrutinizing everything I do - on Twitter, Facebook, there were people even re-posting blog entries from LJ that I've locked away to be only seen by friends. The pressure was mounting. Clearly, being anything but female draws suspicion, but I refused to be driven into neurosis by it. I am who I am, who I say I am.

The whole debate never considered the trans* issue. Just look at the words used: It was always "women parading as men", "women appropriating gay identities for gain and profit" or "women lying/cheating because they are sociopathic liars". It's like you're walking out in the streets, and suddenly, everybody's clothes are being ripped off and the crowd inspects us, naked, whether we pass. The border controls in the US are so intrusive that many US-based trans* people have stopped travelling. *I* am not going to fly to the US because I don't want some guy give me a body cavity search. The trans* body is more delicate, more complicated and a hell of a lot more fragile, even if you're built like an American Football player.

But while the debate went that way, us trans* writers were incapable of stopping it. Everybody speaking out on behalf of trans* writers knew that they would have their identity questioned. I was incredibly reluctant, because not only did I do a good job of "passing", but because I never saw myself as an activist for anything (I believe most of society's ills would go away if people were holding themselves to higher moral standards and realize that serving others means serving yourself).


Death

Basically, I didn't want to open myself up to the trans* phobia out there - I didn't want my gay friends to suddenly consider me as a "transman", which always means "not real man" (talk about worship of the cock) - always. Once that "trans* is attached, it conjures up images of a more or less believably mutilated female body, a more or less healthy mind inhabiting it. By being "trans", we're "less". Less strong, less healthy, less male or female. From "male" or "female", we turn into "not quite" and "less" in society’s perception.

I also didn't want to speak on behalf of trans* writers. We're still all individuals, and while I know at least, off the top of my head, 7-8 genderqueer/trans* writers – and boy, their talent, how much they have to give this community that hounds them so! - I'd never claim any kind of leadership here.

Basically, I was “passing” and working behind the scenes. Every trans* writer out there knows my status. I've encouraged writers to write and share their stories (rather than lock them away for fear of BEING VISIBLE and hence VULNERABLE), telling them the community was "safe"; people were "different here". Oh hell, was I wrong, and as the lynch mob of the M/M Goodreads Group and a number of bloggers and HUNDREDS of bigoted commentators descended upon us, my heart bled for my friends who went out there and fought or hid under the same old stone of crushing guilt and self-doubt.

It's not that we don't want to be "out" - I admire both Danny Juris and Bryl Tyne for the way they go out there and represent. My choice was different. I worked behind the scenes, working subtly, helping trans* people (you start to recognize them after a while, it's like gaydar, also, I'm really good at reading people), supporting my brothers and sisters, while still "passing" as male to a society and community I simply didn't trust to "get" it. Get me (yeah, and tell me I was wrong… I was not).

I simply refused to write emails or blog posts like this one I'm writing right now to every person out there emailing me who’d doubted what I told them. Doubted my integrity over the use of a pronoun – a use that has kept me sane and productive. This is stuff I almost killed myself over – I don't believe somebody paying 3-7 bucks for any given story I've written deserves to know all this or has a right to it, let alone a moral right in the interest of "customer transparency", as the moderators of the M/M Goodreads Group have claimed, to wild cheering and shows of support.

I believe that the exact geography of my genitals is my – very personal - privacy issue. Once you tell people you're trans*, the next question is about when you'll have the operation. My body then suddenly turns into the gore-encrusted battlefield of somebody else's gender perceptions, like it’s not my body at all, like I no longer have any power over it, and can’t be trusted to shape it when and how I want.

At the end of the day, a trans* person is only seen as valid once their bodies conform to what cisgendered people consider acceptably male or female. If you're not having the operation (because the attempt to make a dick always results in something that most trans* men consider laughably inadequate, let alone somewhat gross-looking) - you're not valid. At the very least, people want to know whether I've started testosterone yet. Which is a question like "do you still beat your wife" - once you step onto that battlefield, you can only lose.

I chose to act as I did not to deceive anybody. I did it to find a way to live in dignity. To not spend most of my time and energy fighting a battle I cannot win. You know, because every hour I spend begging for acceptance - from very often bigoted assholes - is an hour I don't spend writing.

I chose to live as a man over explaining - for the rest of my life - why people should please, please PLEASE "allow" me to be a man, if you please, if it's not too much of an imposition, if that's OK with you, sorry to disturb your ideas of male and female a little, there. There, there, let me be invisible instead so nobody gets their assumptions challenged.

Fuck that.

I'm a proud man, I've fought and worked extremely hard for what I have achieved. I'm not used to asking anybody for their leave to be what I am. I try to act as an ethical person, supporting my male, female, trans* and queer friends, writers or not. My mother taught me to live my life in a way that I can look at myself in the mirror in the morning, every morning. Whether I look in that mirror while shaving should be irrelevant.

I'm not ashamed of myself, or my friends. I don't believe I owe anybody anything. No born and bred male - or what I call "genetic male" - has to explain why he's a man. And no woman has to explain why she's female. It's just us who are questioned, exposed and harassed the moment we show one weakness, and people react shocked and have the BALLS to be OUTRAGED when we, like a hermit crab, desperately scamper to protect our soft bellies?

I've received so many emails - before I made the blog post – about "who or what are you really"? My policy has always been, if somebody asks me, personally, in private, what I am, I do the "bees and flowers" talk. Not because I don't want to lie, but because I believe people that are actually asking might actually want to know. And I have the hope that once everybody knows at least one trans* person, they will stop harassing the others.

Maybe it's time for the T in the alphabet soup to fight for our rights, but maybe it's clearer now why we don't. It's tearing away our passing, it questions the identity we fought so hard - often against physical violence, harassment, bullying, depression, addiction and all-round derision from men and women both - to build and maintain, as we have to, to have even a shot at sanity and happiness.

I've been tempted so often to tell those people "if you need to know the shape of my genitals, you are not my friend". Which is an, I believe, understandable response, but it's also really defensive.

I don't like hurting people like that. I *still* DON'T WANT TO HURT PEOPLE THAT HURT ME, can you imagine?

Sorry for the long, long, LONG diatribe - I want to make sure everybody understands where I'm coming from, my position, my experiences that obviously shape everything I am and how I respond to the threats to my identity. I've never seen myself as an activist or a figurehead.

I've received an email - from a gay guy - telling me "to come out and be done with it". He felt that my refusal to "come out" was the ONLY thing that drove me out of the genre and this way he wouldn’t be robbed of my stories. There it is - a gay guy who mistakes the roles and energies at work in "coming out" and "passing".

No, it's the prospect of being paraded naked in front of the jeering mob. No catharsis for me. No happy rainbow-flag waving gay family to welcome us. No gay identity to claim for us. All we can claim is visible, exposed, naked, soul-crushing Freakhood.

For me, "coming out" is the closest thing to destruction I've come in six years, after I stumbled, blind with tears (and I never cry), away from the London-based trans*men meeting, and considered whether I should just end it all under the Tube train on the way home. Boy, was that tempting.


Resurrection?

I'm still not sure how I should - need to - respond to it all. Do we trans* writers NEED a figurehead? Do I owe anybody to come out as a deficient male? Do I have to turn myself into a martyr for the baying mob, just because I'm writing some sexy, plotty stories about how people survive adversity and find love and redemption?

Do I owe it? Do I want to read a hundred comments pouring down the hatred of me and my kind when Dear Author posts "Aleksandr Voinov Comes Out as Trans Writer" [Please, Dear Author people, don’t use the word “she” or “her” when you do. Just this, please?]; do I deserve to be counted among those who are “Faking It” to quote the title of a blog post on Jesse Wave’s m/m review blog? Do I?

I'm not a Trans Writer. I'm somebody who, barely, survived the journey to be male, with most of my dignity intact. I have toughened myself up enough to not flinch anymore at "vicious tranny". Like a young guy who hears "faggot" the first time, "tranny" makes me flinch. But if you keep hearing it, you stop flinching. The vicious thing about such words is that it takes a lot of flinching before you can embrace a word like that.

I don't want to fight. I don't want to spend the next years - or even the rest of my life - explaining over and over why I'm a man and not a defunct female, why I'm a man, not an impostor.

But there are kids in my community – in my true community, my true family. One little guy from Finland whose blog posts (I see them on LJ) are all about how he can't stop vomiting from the stress the community is under. Somebody who clawed his way back to sanity and has repeated told me I’m an “inspiration” and he loves me. Do I owe it to Oleg to "come out"? Should I take the barbs and arrows and poison? Should I, being strong and dignified and, as yet, unbroken, step forward BECAUSE I am strong? Do I owe people a chance to break me, in public, humiliate me and deride my writing as that of an impostor? How many emails will I get that express people's disappointment in my "deceit"? Do I stand even a remote chance to explain all this while keeping my honour and dignity intact?

Those are the main questions right now.

And now that I’ve done it on my blog, will I flinch at "vicious, deceitful tranny" comments or can I take it, chin held high?

And once it's over, can I still open a vein and WRITE FOR THOSE PEOPLE, keep telling that same story of hope and love triumphing over darkness? Can I? Am I strong enough?

And there I thought I could just write stories and entertain people. Tell them about hope, and love, and the amazing resilience of the human spirit. (And people are shocked I might tell those stories to an audience that will not tear me apart for what I am. Silly me, what am I thinking, withholding my only gift and talent from people spending a couple dollars while at the same time feeling entitled to know whether I have ovaries and what exactly I do in bed with my freak body.)

Bottom line - I hope the whole, sordid, undignified, toxic mess has at least led to some people questioning their assumptions about my tribe, my people, my friends and made the world on the whole less hostile for them. But me, I remain here, deeply conflicted. Is this worth the destruction of my identity?

And, will I ever reclaim enough of my dignity to write again with confidence and grace?

Will I?

Monkey has stopped dancing

This morning, I woke up with one decision crystal clear in my head. I've been spending the last three days with my friend R., who was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. We spent the last days talking through some heavy shit at times, about life, how we spend it, and what makes us ill, what keeps us going. What do we live for? We also laughed a lot, which is always a plus.

But this morning I woke up - and I'm quitting. That's the decision. In the last weeks, certain parts of the romance community have taken it upon themselves to harass and bully every trans writer in the m/m genre. People - my friends - have cried bitter tears, others have thrown away half-written or half-outlined stories. Others were so distressed that they have considered suicide.

Basically, I loved that community because it was so "tolerant" and "enlightened". I said that in all the interviews. That I love that sense of community. Never before as a writer have I had such close interactions with readers or bloggers. My interactions were limited to Amazon reviews and a rare email here and there before I became part of the m/m community. Wow, it's been fun. As writing is only a financial side gig for me (it's great when it covers the books I'm buying for research), that sense of community was the main thing I got out of it - something I've only recently realised.

Now that that same community has turned into a bullying, torch and pitchfork wielding mob that harasses my friends to tears, tramples on stories that haven't even been written yet, and drives artists to consider suicide, this is where I draw the line.

The very same community that cried crocodile tears over the "It Gets Better" campaign has now turned into the most vicious lynch mob I've seen in twenty years. Every transphobic asshole out there is having a field day. We'll soon have an Underwear Gestapo, taking monthly blood samples to monitor testosterone levels.

All trans writers I know in the genre are exceedingly distressed over this. My friends ask for their books to be delayed, are considering killing off their fiction writing altogether, because there's a baying mob screaming for blood.

It comes down to this: I don't want to write for bullies, for people driving my friends into considering self-harm. I'm not some monkey that dances when it sees a banana.

Now, I'm afflicted in that I have to write, but I have decided and resolved to put all m/m and gay romances indefinitely on hold.

There. Monkey has stopped dancing.

I will instead return to my roots, writing mainstream fantasy and thrillers and historical novels under a different pseudonym, which is still to be decided, but will not be released to anybody but my closest friends.

What does this mean?

Basically, that's it. As I've started "Dark Soul" and don't want to leave people hanging on the cliffhanger, I'm going to finish the mini-series (another 30-40k words), even though, it must be said, I'm reluctant as all hell about that.

I'm also going to finish a co-written project that my co-writer has committed herself to (because I can't leave *her* hanging), but after that, I'm throwing myself on the tender mercies of the mainstream.

After that, I'm done.

That means no more books in the m/m romance genre. Me and that genre are done, thanks to the nasties, the bullies, the mean assholes, thanks to the torch wielding mob of the Goodreads M/M Romance Group; and people like A.S., the old bitter troll that substitutes hatred and envy for talent and real passion; thanks to everybody who has sent a trans* writer an email demanding a geographic breakdown of their sexual organs because they are entitled to it somehow; thanks to everybody who has cornered and forced ANY writer out there into "admitting" and "telling the truth" and "coming clean".

I can't wait to share my stories with my new readers.

To my readers - I'm sorry, guys. I hope you'll enjoy those stories I'm leaving you. There's plenty talent out there, and I'm sure Riptide will help find you more great talent. I've heard they are good at that. :)

Counterpunch edits

I got the edits for "Counterpunch" yesterday, which all seem relatively minor--a couple typos, passages where the rhythm is off, house style things and that's pretty much it (I guess I'm just a clean writer overall, and "Counterpunch" has come out pretty clean overall). So that could be easy, right? Err, no. I've recently been on a bit of a "trip to the past" with regards to my style, which tends to mean paring the fluff down even more, using a tighter POV and overall better structure.

Which means, knives are out and I'm giving this book the full treatment once I have a moment. (Work at work is crazy. We're again under strength, thanks to holidays and people leaving. Which is somewhat unfortunate in terms of timing.) The biggest decision I have to make is how to deal with any potential connected work.

Right now, there are a couple "missing scenes" from "Counterpunch" that would make a good addition to the book. Originally, I was hoping to write a related project (possibly a novella), this month, but I don't think I can fit it in. I'm also thinking that that novella might actually belong to a potential sequel or might stand completely on its own. The main issue is, the novella puts everything that happened in "Counterpunch" into a completely different light, and it seems wrong to simply deliver that like an afterthought. So, potentially, that idea might be large, it might start where "Counterpunch" ends, and I'm running out of time on the "Lion" sequel and a number other projects.

A couple days ago, a good friend told me she has an aggressive cancer, which in many ways brings home mortality (apart from all the other emotions that I can't speak about--least of all in public. That's stuff that I need to work through on my own, really). From my family history, I have a good chance to get cancer, too, so at least I have a fair idea how I'm going to end.

As a writer, it made me think of all the books I really want to write. It's that old mind-game: If you only had a year to live, what would you write?

In my case, that's "finishing Dark Soul" (a project that's ~20 years old), "Lion 2", and the two WWII novels. So that's basically what I'm going to do, before I think about any short stories, novellas or sequels to anything else. The WWII novels especially have been heavy on my brain, so I'll focus on those for the rest of the year and likely all of 2012.

2011 has been an insanely productive period, but part of me thinks "stop messing around" - it's like I'm running to all these other projects largely because I'm scared as hell to mess up the historicals. I'm scared witless of getting any of that stuff wrong. It's time to turn around and face that particular tiger.

I have that one short story to write and "Counterpunch" to edit, and then I'll tackle those three books. It might even mean that that's all that's coming out in 2012 or even in 2013, but I'm OK with that. If I still have time to play, I'm sure I'll find some projects to fill up the rest of the schedule.

I'm not ill, I just feel rotten

I'm in denial about my health at the moment, but when I got up and my vision greyed for a moment I thought, "okay, maybe I do work from home today". I don't want to go into graphic detail, but I seem to have the cold from hell. Blood is involved, too. Headaches. Woozyness. It's not the "clutch blanket, hide in bed" kinda cold, but it's bad enough that the last thing I want is to commute, cattle class, into London.

So I'm working from home, surrounded by Lemsip, dressed in several layers of clothes I can strip really fast when I get too hot, and also food so I remember to eat. (Last thing I want do to with a raw throat is eat - also, my body goes "Uh, no, don't give me food, can't you see I'm BUSY fighting those virii/bacteria, idjit.") At least I'm mostly coherent.

On the writing front, "Father of All Things" went back to Carina on Saturday (12. Feb). It got a completely new ending, and rewrites of about 6-7k of text. Which sounds easy, but trust me, it isn't. That book will be out on 15 August.

Then Dreamspinner has just emailed me to tell me that "Scorpion" in now in the editing stage. I expect the whole manuscript to come back to me in the next 4-6 weeks. Working on that will kick-start "Lying with Scorpions", the sequel.

My boxer story (the fist fighter, not the garment or the dog) hit 10k yesterday. It might grow to anything between 30-60k, but I expect it to be in the mid-range of that, so around 40-45k. I'd love for it to turn into a novel, of course, because I love the main character, as random and bipolar as he is. Working title of that is "Untouchable", but I may yet change that.

Then I got a very insightful, well-written review from Book Utopia for "Lion of Kent". While I respectfully disagree about the relative quality of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and "Lion of Kent" (DADT is four years old and I'd be shocked if I hadn't developed as a writer in the meantime, plus, Kate Cotoner is hugely talented and really made the novella shine), there's a lot of food for thought in the review.

"This historical does what not very many in this genre really do for me – made me forget I was reading a historical. It’s not because of the lack of detail to create the setting. It’s the opposite. The story is just so well-realized that it never feels intrusive, never feels like I’m being reminded page after page that this happened a long time ago. It rings of authenticity, which is a credit both to the rather seamless prose and the meticulous structure of its presentation. There aren’t awkward information dumps, or pages of facts that have nothing to do with moving the story forward. I sank into this story as if I was a squire within Sir Robert’s household already, a natural extension of the world the authors created."

Read the rest here.

I'm apprehensive about writing the sequel to "Lion of Kent". It's not just the amount of research or the fact that, most likely, I'll be writing it alone, it's above all the extremely high expectations I have for that book. I'd hate for it to be any worse than "Lion of Kent".

Research for "Iron Cross" continues, but I'm slow on the word count. While I consider 1,000 words written on any story a good day's work, for "Iron Cross", 100 words is good work. I keep wondering if there's something wrong with my outline or plot that it moves so slowly, or if I'm lazy or procrastinating, but I don't think it's that. I may still hit my deadline with that - May.

Some thoughts on happy accidents

I've just blogged over at Slash and Burn here.

And as I type that, I'm getting closer to departure. I'll grab the taxi at 6pm, then fly out just before ten pm. I do hope to sleep a little, but the jetlag over five time zones should be interesting. Thankfully, I have Manna Francis to keep me company.

I see you on the other side.

Chicago

I would have thought I'd be more intimidated by Chicago. First time in America (which is both a geographical term for a continent and a childhood concept of "that's where all the cool stuff happens" - based on US culture on TV and the movies) - and it's very different to Russia (yeah, really).

First of all, I can talk to strangers - big help. But it's also the feel of the place. I was worried about immigration. During the Bush junior interregnum, several of my friends were treated less than stellar by immigration. Arriving at O'Hare, passport and customs and immigration form clutched in my hand, I was processed by guy who looked very much like a cop in the movies - that dirty blond, small beard, glasses kinda guy that I've seen a hundred times on screen.

I had my fingers scanned and my picture taken ("look into the camera"), but, to be honest, all the CCTV stuff in London is worse.

"Why are you here?"
"I'm on business."
"What kind of business are you in?" emphasis on "you", with a "what are *you* working as" tone - bizarrre.
"I'm a journalist."

By then my passport was sorted and I was too flight-dazed to follow the orders exactly which parts of my hands they were scanning in what order (pretty sure the others only had one hand scanned, but maybe we Germans are extra-scary - or I might have seen that wrong), he gave me the orders in German "vier finger," "linker Daumen" (four fingers/left thumb). Glimpsed at his name tag. German name.

I thanked him in German as I walked away, amused by the episode more than intimidated. Whenever I looked lost or hesitated to find my way around, some American would pounce on me and explain. I managed to find the trains to the city at O'Hare (more complicated than it seems) and got into downtown Chicago. I even managed to stop a taxi that took me to my hotel (which is no mean feat in London).

While it's strange and different, I would have thought it would be harder. (but then I'm a control-freakish worrier when it comes to my job. I just like being in control, flight-dazed and all). But of course, this is only the second day and things might start to look very different once I'm out and about for a few.

Lots of skyscrapers from where I am - I'm close to the Gold Coast part of Downtown. I do hope I'll be able to see more than the conference hotel. And dollars look like play money. Hard to take the greenback seriously if you're used to pounds and euros. Even Turkish lira look more like money.

And despite the long flight (eight hours), getting here is still bearable. I do want to come back as a tourist. That would be New York, Seattle, San Francisco (and Chicago unless I manage to see some stuff on this trip). Childhood names again. But I can even use this trip for To Catch a Spy.

Before I forget - on the plane, they put me next to a guy who was built in a way that made me feel like a small child. American footballer/superhardcore bodybuilder kind of guy. Enormous. Black. Biceps like thighs. Can't walk for strength kinda man.

I had the aisle seat, but he was invading my space - he couldn't help it, he simply didn't fit. And then on the other side of the aisle, a screaming toddler (where's my duct tape). I was resigned between being screaming at or cuddling up to the enormous man-tit in a tight t-shirt in my sleep (his wife was on the other side) for eight hours when the stewardess noticed the situation and offered me a seat in the back ("you're looking a bit squashed near the big bear there").

I ended up sharing the empty seat in the middle with a nice American dude who was working all the time - reading financial mags and working on the laptop). Even the toddler calmed down, so that trip was mostly a win. I read Manna Francis' "Control" - book four of the Administration series - which tided me over for much of the travel. Quick nap affterwards. The "bear" (I could see his screen from my position) was watching "Twilight" and "The Last Airbender". How such a big guy ends up watching kiddie programs was downright bizarre. He even watched "Twilight" to the very end, but stopped halfway through the Airbender. I guess there's a limit to pain in the frontal lobes a big guy like that can withstand.

Right, the sun is up. Second coffee brewed. Now shower, then pinstripe, then my first meeting with a tech company.

Revision request - novel surgery

I got a revision request - rather than a contract - from the publisher I subbed TCaS to. It all makes perfect sense, and is in line with what I thought I'd fixed, but apparently not enough. Time schedules being what they are, this will push back "Iron Cross" for at least another 4-6 weeks. That's the timeframe we're looking at to rewrite a significant part of the novel and then slot it back in and make it appear like there are no transplantation/surgery scars.

Hiding those scars isn't an easy job, actually. It has to be all natural and organic, but most of all, inevitable. However, if it had been inevitable, then it would have happened in Draft I, II and III. So that's the biggest sleight-of-hand trick - to make readers think that the book they are reading is the only possible version of that book. We hand them a bottle of water and need to convince them - with a straight face - that water can only live in bottles.

Again, this will mean a full print-out of the novel (a big folder of paper, it's around 90k), and then writing a synopsis by chapter. The beginning has to change, every scene needs to be slightly adapted, and one of the plots (granted, the smaller one), is flawed and needs more... more of everything.

I think that'll cost me a couple months, and since both Raev and me are busy with what they call "real life", this is going to be tough. Expect to read a lot of whining and bitching about it. In the end, however, I'm learning how to revise novels. That's a skill all novels will benefit from.

Talking about revising, I'm currently going through the galleys for "Transit", which is another chunk of work (at 98 pages or thereabouts). It has to be done.

First the current magazine issue, then "Transit", then "Scorpion", then TCaS, and Iron Cross. I'd wager that's my year taken care of. I have no idea how on earth I'll be able to slot in "Pawn" - there aren't enough hours in the day to completely edit another full-sized novel that needs some serious beta-ing from a Russian.

Well. Magazine work today, Transit and Scorpion this week. I'll see what happens if I just knuckle down.

Writing hangover

I did a little bit of work work yesterday, but when I wrote a bit, I hit a serious case of "The Flow", and it's just too painful to push that kind of inspiration away. So I wrote. And wrote.

I think writing 6,090 words in a day might rank among my personal best. Certainly means an output of around 600-700 words per hour, which is OK, it means I didn't actually waste a lot of time with other things. What else I did was some stuff around the house. Weekend is always the time to recalibrate and tidy up, too. Did away with one of the remaining piles of "stuff" that has been sitting there since the move, so the house looks more and more like I want it. Everything has or will have its place, and there's no build-up anywhere. That's nice. No flock of mugs that need to be herded into the kitchen, no pile of clothes waiting to be washed. I am turning into a tidy freak, but really, us Taureans just like structure.

So, yeah, I'm pretty sure "Scorpion" is now around 90% done. I have a last couple plot twists and two more confrontations (I like those), and the lovers are now, in chapter 17, still somewhat awkward with each other (which happens when your lives get shredded by circumstance and necessity), but they are doing good otherwise.

I might even conceivably bring the herd home today, but work work is really, really more important. Plus, there's this dull feeling in my skull that I associate with hangovers. Creative writing is pretty tough on that grey squishy matter, and my brain feels actually sore after that writing binge. But it's great to know I can reach that kind of output, even on my own, and especially when I know what's going to happen.

Yeah, so, Scorpion's now at just under 54k. I expect to type "the end" by next Monday.

And 6k later

I'm in the list-making stage of getting my reality under control. If I try and get control over anything, I start making lists. Sometimes, they are flow charts. They happen at work, in writing, and sometimes even turn into spreadsheets.

"Scorpion" has hit 36k. Which means I have more than half a novel. I'm currently adding to it at a rate of 500-1,000 words a day, which is not bad for a workday wordcount.

I'm awaiting news on two submitted novels and pushing hard for the third one, while researching the fourth. Keeping my head down and working. I also passed probation at work, sorted out my first visit (ever) to the US (I'm attending a conference), and will soon have to arrange my travels to Poland. Looks like I'll do a whole lot of travelling in this new job.

My first real "investigative" article was accepted at a prestigious financial magazine (not my own). That's definitely a writing credit I can add to that resume. Maybe the equivalent of the WSJ? I'd have to check circulation. It's a big deal and I'm proud my boss pitched it to them.

It's also great to hear that my style is "delightful" and my features "truly excellent". That's my livelihood (and the way I pay my mortgage), and my boss has those incredibly high standards that make me want to stretch higher and write as good as I can. And learn how to be better. I still have a huge amount to learn, but I'm enjoying the way there.

Been touching base with a few old friends again. My past is the main thing that keeps me rooted, but that's okay. I start to understand the "backstory". If I was a character, I was starting to figure myself out.

Been reading about homosexuals in the Third Reich, and the book has a huge amount of good detail, while doing a pretty good job of narrating the main points of it all. I'll read some more accounts, but I think in a few weeks I'll be so chock-full of details that the scenes and characters will chrystallise around them and then magic happens - and the story comes out.

Now off to do my 500 words today.

Progress

All journalistic assignments are done. This month, I was far less frantic and sleep-deprived than last time. I think I might get into a routine, even though finding an angle is always hard. Bloody angles.

My boss liked a piece I did on the side enough to offer it to the Big Magazine that our company is doing. It would be awesome to get a by-line there and be the only journalist in the world (or at least the internet) Who Has The Full Story. Nevermind it's a huge writing credit and will look very very good on my resume.

Ten days until my probationary period is done. Once I have the full rights of an employee, I also get access to pension plan and share scheme, and that seems pretty awesome, especially the shares.

Currently spending a lot of brain-power on re-jigging our personal finances - me, I'm preparing for either stagnation or a double dip in Britain. Both works well for us, but we can save even more money if we make some adjustments now.

Will also start investing on the stock market. I have some good ideas that I want to test. Beats putting them into a savings account that pays less than inflation takes away. Are you KIDDING?