a sense of joy and then a panic

First up, we've got the "no duh" revelation by some guy at the New York Times that American Vietnam War fiction is not, in fact, popular in Vietnam!  Steinglass writes: "It shouldn’t have been so hard to find Vietnamese who could talk about O’Brien. He is, after all, a seminal Ameri­can novelist of the Vietnam War."  Man, Steinglass cracks me up.  Then again, my transformative moment came watching a documentary where this old woman in Vietnam were like, "Why would we hate you (Americans)?  We won the war."  I actually do like quite a few Vietnam stories (my favorite movie is Apocalypse Now), but I'm aware that my American-ness colors that opinion.

Moon Rat, aka Editorial Ass, gets asked about the gender of the main characters of the books she acquires for edits.  Do girls write books with female MCs?  (I don't).  Do girls read books with female MCs?  (I don't).  Kind of interesting to read the comments.  We've got things like "If [the book category is] adult and it's witty, MC's tend to be female" and "don't feel bad about acquiring all female MC's. You're balancing things out--helping readers get over their sexism one protag at a time! ;-)"  and "do you think there is a prejudice regarding women writers writing male protags?"  If so, FUCK.

Speaking of fuck, I really enjoyed this post about obscenities in writing.  In the narrative voice?  In dialogue?  Certain words off-limits?  Loss of "fire power"?  There are a few classist calamities in the comments over yonder ("it's a real turn-off for me, particularly since she seems a well educated and well-brought-up girl", Charles Dickens never swore, etc.).  I've definitely noticed that the profanity in my writing has increased as I've started swearing more.  I was so happy when I relocated the novel to a setting where people would still use my kind of curse words.  Related: winterfox's review of Richard Morgan's The Steel Remains.  Related Related: Torque Control's interview with Richard Morgan, where the comments get into a weird tangent about whether "frak" means Battlestar Galactica doesn't have balls or basic realism (I guess Richard Morgan doesn't watch non-premium cable...).

On the other end of the spectrum (maybe), I really wanted this article wondering where all the Christian writers went to be good.  It's kind of... melodramatic in a dull way and doesn't seem to know where it's going.  I wanted an article about Christian themes and Christian representations in books being published today, not which dead writer was exiled by which church and why.  But eh.  I offer it.

And finally, a post from last year by Jim Hines about rape in fiction.  The comments are really, really interesting - and all over the place.  On the one hand we've got "I can't think of an example where rape was handled well," and "I... put the book down, because I read for fun and escapism, and as soon as somebody gets raped, I'm not having fun anymore" [that comment made me :( in real life].  On the other hand we've got "I've read far too many posts on LJ, writer's mailing lists and articles aimed at writers that flat out state there is never a place for sexual assault in a book or story... Many people don't think rape should be part of fiction at all. I worry about that as well. Hiding from an issue and not addressing it as writers or readers isn't going to make it go away."  Guess which one I agree with???  Anyways, if these comments are any indication, I will probably make a lot of enemies halfway through book 2.  And it makes me wonder if I should back off, but I already know I won't.

Title from the opening of "Aisha" by Death In Vegas.  I always think I should introduce myself to my characters that way: "I have a portrait on my wall.  He's a serial killer.  I thought he wouldn't escape - Aisha, he got out."

The God Save Roman Polanski Movement is in full swing:

Jack Lang, a former French culture minister, said that for Europeans the development showed that the American system of justice had run amok.

While Mr. Polanski had committed “a grave crime,” Mr. Lang said, “he is a great creator and artist, and there’s a sentiment here that pursuing someone for a crime committed 30 years ago, in which the victim has decided to drop the case, is unreasonable, a kind of judicial lynching. In Europe, it would be unimaginable to punish someone in a situation like this.

And they're going to plead their case to Hillary?  This Hillary?  Good fucking luck.  I hope she roasts them like marshmallows.  And I don't even like Hillary.