sometimes you just have to risk it all to get what you want

[intertribal]

I'm starting to think that writing about contemporary politics (a political thriller!) from the liberal perspective is like trying to analyze security and war from a constructivist perspective: goddamn near impossible.  Like a fish trying to ride a bicycle.  Etc.  My roommate says I will have bombs delivered to my mailbox if I publish this story, and I said nobody tried to bomb Margaret Atwood, but then again she could hide her true ambitions in extreme dystopia elements, which I'm not doing. This article suggests I take my cues from David Baldacci, whose ads I sometimes see on the metro, or apparently turn to legal thrillers (also check out the conservative author's covers sometime.  They are really very macho.)

Needless to say, I'm an Idiot Writer that does not think about readership and marketability until it's too late.

As you can tell from the novel's playlist, it's mainly a love story.  It's about the power of ideology, after all.  Really more It Can't Happen Here than anything with big block letters and the Capitol building engulfed in darkness and flames.  It's not really about the people with fancy titles trying to stop plots - I don't even know what the President's name is, and anyway, can anybody really imagine me writing something where a politician is portrayed as anything but a half-cocked, rambling lunatic?  House of Cards, this ain't.  None of the main characters have any real national power, although the protagonists are Johnny-come-lately political activists.  I also spend way too much time on interpersonal drama - I've been watching The L Word and goddamn if that isn't the best relationship drama I've ever seen, although I am not surprised at all that the only thing that's come close for heterosexual relationships is the psychotic and unpleasant Nip/Tuck - and rape culture and depression for this to be a true political thriller, I think.

1. "Filth Noir" - Zeromancer: Sometimes you just have to risk it all to get what you want


2. "Sometimes It Hurts" - Stabbing Westward: I hate myself when I try to get over you


3. "Hey Man, Nice Shot" - Filter: I wish I would have met you, now it's a little late


4. "Tensioning" - Sparta: The sky could fall, the bliss of beginning replaced with an ending


5. "Not in Love" - Crystal Castles (Robert Smith): And we were lovers, now we can't be friends


6. "Weapon of Choice" - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: I won't waste my love on a nation


7. "Is Your Love Strong Enough?" - How to Destroy Angels: Someone I could die for, there's no way I could ever leave


8. "Bodies" - Smashing Pumpkins: Love is suicide


9. "We Are The Lust" - Death in June: Hold the knife, bloodied, to the throat of love

Also, Glenn Beck's written another novel, and it's a (surprise!) dystopia - as far as I can tell, the UN appears to be committing genocide in the name of protecting the Animals of the Earth.

Comments

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

writing about contemporary politics (a political thriller!) from the liberal perspective

Yeah. It's always tricky trying to make sense of what often seems fundamentally nonsensical. To say nothing of trying to empathize with it, at least on paper. I've tried a couple times, in public no less (well, in at least one book that eventually got published) and I fear I've had at best low-to-middling success.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Sigh! I would love to hear more about your experience with the publishing/reception of such attempts, though. Quite frankly I'm having a tough enough time even finding left-leaning political books that aren't sf/f. I don't know if I'm just blind, though.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

The book in question, aka "my Africa book," was published (and did reasonably well, at least on par with my previous work) in the UK...but did not find a home in the US.

Although I'm not sure how reasonable it is to draw conclusions from this; there were other factors at play, and also, it's actually written to seem very like a conservative thriller until a sudden perspective shift on what's been happening roughly midway through (hey, thrillers need twists, right?) But it's fair to say that in today's dichotomized America there's a sizable built-in audience/market for present-day/near-future conservative thrillers, but no obvious liberal equivalent until you venture into sf/f and Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, Peter Watts, Jo Walton, etcetera.

On the other hand, that means a liberal thriller would be new and edgy, which the industry claims to admire, so I'd say it's still worth a shot, from a purely commercial perspective.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

in today's dichotomized America there's a sizable built-in audience/market for present-day/near-future conservative thrillers, but no obvious liberal equivalent until you venture into sf/f

Yep. I guess I have to admit I'm afraid of being accused of writing a polemic, or the politics overpowering the writing. But I guess that's on me.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of his stuff, so maybe I'm waaaay off the mark, but I had the impression that Graham Greene's stuff was political and more left-leaning than right-leaning (?) (Not the religion-oriented stuff, but like The Quiet American or Our Man in Havana) This, from the Wikipedia page on him:

The supernatural realities that haunted the earlier work declined and were replaced by a humanistic perspective, a change reflected in his public criticism of orthodox Catholic teaching. Left-wing political critiques assumed greater importance in his novels: for example, years before the Vietnam War, in The Quiet American he prophetically attacked the naive and counterproductive attitudes that were to characterise American policy in Vietnam. The tormented believers he portrayed were more likely to have faith in communism than in Catholicism.
In his later years Greene was a strong critic of American imperialism, and supported the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whom he had met.[34] For Greene and politics, see also Anthony Burgess' Politics in the Novels of Graham Greene.[35]

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, Greene is pretty liberal. Although I would venture that there are pitfalls avoided in writing about international intrigue compared to domestic (in that the crazies in this country all care less about U.S. foreign policy compared to say, abortion).

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

From a pragmatic point of view, I'll observe that you've established your chops as a writer, so agents at least will consider that as a plus as they consider your book. Again, another book I haven't read (yet, but intending to), but my understanding is that the politics in the background (and at some points in the foreground) of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao are pretty liberal. Anti-dictator, anyway, and Trujillo was your typical US-condoned dictator.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I can only hope...

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

That makes me very, very interested to read that book, actually.