a sense of joy and then a panic

A National Book Awards interview with winner Denis Johnson:

Q: What drew you to the story?
DJ: I have no idea.

Q: How does the book compare to other prose you’ve written?
DJ: It’s longer and, despite what anybody says, more conscientiously plotted.

Q: Were there moments in your writing process where you worried the book wouldn’t work?  If so, how did you press on?
DJ: Well, I’ve never thought about this before, but now that you ask, it occurs to me I don’t have much interest whether any of my books work or not.

Q: If there is a common thread among this year’s fiction finalists, it might be that all of the books employ interesting narrative structures and scopes.  Although Tree of Smoke moves, for the most part, chronologically through its storylines, you’ve given the reader a sweeping, multifaceted, and expansive narrative.  Did you conceive of such scope before beginning the book, or did the symbiotic relationship between the subject and structure emerge more intuitively?
DJ: I'm fond of quoting T.S. Eliot, who somewhere said he was concerned, while writing, mainly "with decisions of a quasi-musical nature."

Q: Finally, when you were writing Tree of Smoke, did you have an audience or ideal reader in mind?  If so, who?
DJ: I write for my wife, my agent, and my editor.

photograph: karen o (yeah yeah yeahs); credit: laist.

I have been told by a friend that I need to find my audience. Not a demographic, but a special page in the catalogue of the diseased - a particular emotion. I think I know what it is: liberal idealists who have been let down by society, but keep the faith (who keep the car running, so to speak); people who see monsters in the dark and call them for what they are. People who dig things up. People who, in spite of it all, want to believe. Fiction for jaded politicos and strong pessimists. "Love Song", but not the Cure or the 311 version, the Jack Off Jill version.

Two things happened to me today.

1. I received unsolicited carrot cake with cream cheese icing. It was probably the best carrot cake I've ever had. Moist.
2. "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs came on the Saturday night music video show (for the subalterns who spend their weekends delaying homework, not partying), Rage: "they don't love you like I love you".

I see this as a sign that I should continue Ilium, and not lose hope.

First of all, the creatrix was bad and redid her livejournal, wasting precious time.  Sadly enough userpics may be next.  What can I say!  My overall mood changed.  We'll see, we'll see...

What I really wanted to say, however, was that I think I know the genre I like - "social science fiction", or "soft science fiction" - "concerned less with technology and space opera and more with sociological speculation about human society."  I mean, that's what Ilium is. 

However, this genre is really way too stuck in the Cold War.  It's like every work considered "seminal" has something to do with a rejection of the Soviet iron curtain - they're all obsessed with rejecting sameness and artificial equality and totalitarian control.  I suppose that's a problem other SF has too - Philip K. Dick, for example.  For that matter, it's also a problem that political science has - the Cold War is what these professors grew up with, so that's what they're still convinced is the most important historical factor in shaping modern affairs.  It's a little ludicrous - the world has changed quite a bit since then, and is still changing at a phenomenal pace.  Not only that, but the Cold War was not the decisive "thing" in the lives of people from parts of the world that did not equal the West or Russia, even in the '50s. 

Ah, the age-old problem: the Western-centric outlook.  It definitely exists in SF.  It makes me wonder what SF looks like in "other countries".  I know there's this one Indonesian writer whose name I've forgotten who writes very... horror-inspired speculative stuff, with sensible doses of Islamic mysticism thrown in.  I read some of his short stories once - it was one of those paperback books on my parents' bookshelf that was really too old for me, but I tried.  One story that stuck with me was about a guy who made a deal with Ismail (Gabriel in Christianity, I believe) because he was going to die and his tongue and hands were saying all his sins and he realized he was going to hell (that's one of the most frightening things in Islam, the idea that your body parts will admit to all the sins you forced them to commit when you're being weighed on the scales of judgment) - and he thought he was homefree, and then Ismail said that his daughter would have to die instead.  And the rest of the story consists of the guy running his daughter frantically around Java, trying to keep one step ahead of Ismail.  One scene I remember in particular was him looking out at night and seeing his daughter in a tree swing, swaying back and forth, then looking at the tree and realizing that the tree was Ismail.  God, it freaked me out.  They're still on the run in the end.

I'll admit, though, that "perestroika" is a really cool word.  What the hell is with people taking really cool usernames on lj and producing either: nothing, or, crap? 

Above quote by Thom Yorke, in describing Radiohead's upcoming (much anticipated!) seventh album. 

John Grant: Gulliver Unravels: Generic Fantasy and the Loss of Subversion

Another interesting aspect of Generic Fantasy is that no one is responsible for it. Ask any self-designated fantasy reader and they'll tell you that what they really like is the cutting-edge stuff, not the pap which the publishers churn out in its place. Ask any publisher's editor when they're in their cups (traditionally an easy enough situation to engineer) and you'll be told that s/he can't personally stomach such garbage, but it's what the market wants: left to their own devices the editors would publish nothing but Helprin, Nabokov, Pynchon, Barth, Le Guin, Tepper, Borges and whichever writer has just asked them the question and whose synopsis is at this very moment, purely at the marketing department's insistence you understand, destined for the office shredder. Ask the writers and, with a very few extraordinarily honest exceptions, they will assure you that what themselves are writing is not Generic Fantasy but the true, dangerous, intellectually subversive stuff -- Jonathan Swift with all the sea elves, lisping dragons, good-hearted-but-constantly-getting-into-scrapes rite-of-passage kitchen-boy monarchs-in-exile, comic-cut trolls, Hoirish leprechauns, under-hormoned princesses, Dark Lords, sorcerers and the rest of the stomach-wrenchingly overfamiliar crew there purely as embellishments, as bell-ropes pulling different bells.

So nobody's really responsible for Generic Fantasy, just as nobody's really the father of a bastard.

I have a recurring nightmare, a terrible fear, and it goes something like this. One day I open up a copy of some magazine like Interzone and start reading the lead fiction review. The beginning of it reads:

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (presumably a pseudonym) recounts the improbable adventures of a man who sets sail on various sea voyages, where he meets strange folk. Some of these folk are big, some of them are small, and some of them look like horses. Swift should have realized that he thereby left very little room open for anything by way of romance, because Gulliver would have practical difficulties pursuing his passions with either the very little or the very big women, and the author bridles at the notion of letting his hero frolic with the horses. This lack of romantic potential leaves the novel without any passion at its core, something Swift should have thought about before he began this plaguey novel.

I had great hopes of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, since the blurb told me it was about a young woman going down a rabbit hole, and the similarity of "rabbit hole" and "hobbit hole" could not be, I thought, coincidence. However, the young woman in question proves to be a vapid Victorian miss, and her adventures underground are devoid of all logic. According to the press release there's a sequel on the way tied in with a popular board game, and perhaps Carroll will have more success with that.

Turning now to Dragonspume Chronicles of the Sorcerer Kingdom Ancients Volume 6: Sword of Blood by Jerome E. Housename we discover a real pearl, a delight of a book, a volume that according to its publisher's justified claim is better than Christopher Tolkien at his best -- one of those novels that shows us what fantasy should be ...

My nightmare, of course, is not that this review should exist but that I should read it, nodding my head in brainwashed agreement.

...

I also have many recurring nightmares, about Ilium, and how it would be construed, let alone marketed.  Would it attract the loathing that Eragon does?  Or would it be noticed at all?  I want it to be subversive but not parodic, and not a soulless political allegory.  Which it definitely isn't, so now here I am fearing that it isn't subversive enough, or... something.  Lacking. 

Christopher Paolini doesn't seem to enjoy science fiction, as a rule.  Therefore he writes fantasy.  I do enjoy science fiction, more than fantasy, but I don't have the brains for science fiction, and therefore I write fantasy.  Which is quite sad, really.  Ugh, I hate saying that I write fantasy.  Speculative fiction has such a better ring to it, but how pretentious of me to say that I write anything when I'm not published?

Blah, I'm just in a need-validation-gonna-die mood.  It comes in slumps.

“You writers sure like your pretty phrases.  There’s a few in your last book.  Real pretty.  So pretty they almost seem true.  But, of course, they’re not true, they’re just pretty.  The funny thing is that you still haven’t learned that writing well is the opposite of writing pretty phrases.  No pretty phrase is capable of expressing truth.”
- Javier Cercas; The Speed of Light

"So God finally gave up.  He said I just can’t do any more.  But what I’ll do, he went on saying, just to make things a little better, is I’ll give all the people without faith, all the people who still feel lost and confused and troubled in the world, a God of their own.  This God will sit on the left hand of me, and he’ll be the God of all things that go wrong... It will be his job to look after the sinners and the losers just the way they are, and not try to turn them into saints.  He will offer them comfort when they are down, and make it possible for them to rise to their feet again and run the race one more time."
- Keith Lee Morris; The Greyhound God

I. From Paul Brooks, former editor of Houghton Mifflin (which published Rachel Carson's The Edge of the Sea and Silent Spring), about Rachel Carson:

Born in 1907, she had made her own way by her talent, persistence, and early awareness of what she wanted to do. She was going to be a writer... she assumed that the way to become a writer was to major in English. But in her junior year, fascinated by a compulsory course in biology, she switched to that field. Had she abandoned her dream of a literary career? Only later on did she realize that, on the contrary, she had discovered what she wanted to write about.

II. Part 1 of a new project I've come up with - translating things my father has written in Indonesian into English. Mostly so I can figure out what he wrote about, partly so I can keep up my Indonesian, and partly just to spread the word.  This is the opening paragraph called "'The West' and Serat Kala Tida." (Serat Kala Tida is a piece of famous Javanese literature, apparently)

Indonesian:

Pujangga pamungkas, Ronggowarsito, menjelang akhir hayatnya menulis Serat Kala Tida atau Puisi Zaman Gelap. Puisi sarat keprihatinan dan mungkin rasa putus asa ini kelahirannya memang mungkin tak terelakkan. Sejak runtuhnya Majapahit sampai ditulisnya puisi ini di tahun 1873, Jawa, pulau dan lautan sekitarnya digetarkan dan terkoyak-koyak oleh kobaran peperangan, kegaduhan pemberontakan dan aliansi-aliansi politik yang kacau. Di abad sembilanbelas, Jawa dan sekitarnya memasuki puncak tragedi sejarah.

English (or my best attempts at it):


III.  Professor Cooley liked my crazy 5-page memo.  Correction: he "really liked it".  When he came into the Poli Sci office to say my memo was on his door (when I followed him he just handed it to me though), he said I "should do something with it, like maybe a senior thesis topic."  Which is pretty awesome.  Although I was talking about a lot of stuff in the memo, it was all stuff that I feel pretty passionately about... the legacy of colonialism, modern colonialism, nationalism, the relationship between Southeast Asia and the West, statebuilding... I can do that.  I can be that. 

I love that he handwrites his responses to the memos, and that he writes long-ish responses.  And so many comments in the margins, from agreement to suggestion to tongue-in-cheek: I wrote how much I hated all of the readings and I had low expectations for the last one I reviewed, and he wrote, "I aim to please!"  Aw.  I like feeling validated.  He also wrote that many of the assumptions I was criticizing in the memo were unfortunately the assumptions that many in the international relations academic community are stuck in - assumptions, in particular, about third world countries and how they relate and compare to each other.  And while I don't like those assumptions, it's always more fun to write when you're trying to change minds, rather than preaching to the choir. 

i. Romanticism
While hatefully skimming the blog of kim's least favorite writer, robbiewriter, I noticed an interesting style of hers - romantic writing.  I don't mean romantic as in romance, but romantic as in... "sitting in the fire escape of my Manhattan apartment with a vanilla latte in one hand, a Montblanc pen in the other, hunched over my notepad and agonizing over final edits for the hundredth time, wanting this to be perfect".  Every word gives off this nostalgic vibe.  It's not necessarily all positive, but it's all very detailed and pleasant and/or chic, and if it's not - "Spanish ghetto", for instance, is an example of her being what she would call negative - it's somewhat forced and contrived, either that or it's a very tragic kind of negativity.  Like you're writing Wuthering Heights, over and over, in different times and places.  Everything is windswept with jagged cliffs at your estate where the horses ride. 

If I were writing that same scene, it would go more like this: "my back hurts like hell from making every meticulous little correction that the editor oh so sweetly 'asked' me to make, 'so this is marketable'."  I don't tend to go into food and drink or objects, not unless I'm trying to write really sarcastically.  But I always write sarcastic.  This article in Writer's Digest claimed that there are four styles of writing: comedic, romantic, realistic, and sarcastic.  I almost always write sarcastic.  Kim says she writes realistic, and robbiewriter writes romantic.  Don't know any comedic writers who aren't actually sarcastic writers.  Anyway.  I prefer not to think of it as sarcastic so much as ugly.  Because sarcastic sort of implies that I'm cynical and suspicious of everything I write about, or that I don't take it seriously, and that's not always true.  But I think I write ugly - unpleasant or grotesque or uncomfortable or unhappy.  I don't really write to make readers feel good - let me put it that way.  One of my favorite sentences comes from Memento Mori, otherwise known as "book 6": "Maybe it was because she was in the middle of the world, and the middle of the world was empty."  It comes off as very nihilistic, doesn't it?  Even when I'm being more optimistic, like in Blessed Are the Peacekeepers, it's not the same kind of materialistic...

ii.  Materialism
Just realized it.  It's materialism, not even romanticism.  It's materialistic writing.  Very popular nowadays, as evidenced by people who put brand names in their books' titles - Bergdorf Blondes and The Devil Wears Prada.  I didn't even know what Manolo Blahniks were until I read reviews for those chick lit books.  It's a very easy and convenient way to describe things, because everybody knows what Gucci means and implies, and it's also a good status-marker - both for your characters, and for yourself, as their writer.  I understand its place in some realistic fiction, but I don't like it, and I don't think writers should have to depend on it.  The problem is that you're describing people by corporations.  You're not even going to the trouble of describing how that pearl necklace looked.  All you care about, and all you want your readers to take from it, is that it's from such-and-such famous jewelry store.  See how good I am at coming up with brandnames off the top of my head.  When I write using brand names it tends to be very tongue-in-chic, like this, from Pep Ralies For Anomalies (that high school fan fic I sometimes mention): "He is your Banana Republic.  Leave your Old Navy loser boy behind!  You know, he's not even Old Navy anymore.  He's like... he's like Goodwill."  There's a difference between using brandnames to romanticize and using brandnames to criticize. 

As they said in "Fight Club"... "you are not your bank account, you are not the clothes you wear, you are not the contents of your wallet, you are not your bowel cancer, you are not your grande latte, you are not the car you drive, you are not your fucking khakis."

iii.  Materialistic Romanticism
The same policy - that there's a difference between using brandnames to romanticize or criticize - applies to the other tools of writing too.  For example, that emphasis on food and drink and detail - I do that sometimes, it's true, but I still think that I tend to write ugly.  Even when I'm writing about warm cozy things that should make people happy.  Like in Ilium: Apostollein... "The Sophos family sat in their den that evening, basking in the warmth of the hearth and simmering in the juices of their dinner of mutton and potatoes au gratin".  That doesn't really make me happy.  I don't know what the difference is, but it doesn't.  Too over-the-top to be happy?  Too cynical sounding?  Maybe it's the contrast with what I had just written, about the blacksmith and his clanging hammer. 

iv.  Conclusion
Of course, all of this is simply a matter of preference.  How I write is definitely hateable and probably less marketable than what I'll now call "materialistic romanticism" (my poli sci gums are showing).  But I'm alright with that.  I'm just trying to make a book set 500 years in the future that's realistic and still understandable, and I'm going to do what it takes to get that done.  I challenge materialistic romantic writers who rely on contemporary allusions to "worldbuild" to write a science fiction or fantasy, one that does not have a protagonist who's from the modern world and does not feature two parallel universes, so they can slip back into modern lingo anytime.  It's harder than you might think.  Good thing ugliness transfers across the centuries.  Applicable at any time... because the world is always so damn ugly.  I learned that from A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster.  In fact, let's end with a quote from that book, one of my favorite books.

"The crush and the smells she could forget, but the echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life. Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it had managed to murder: 'Pathos, piety, courage - - they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.' If one had spoken vileness in that place, or quoted lofty poetry, the comment would have been the same - - 'ou-boum' . . . no one could romanticize the Marabar, because it robbed infinity and eternity of their vastness, the only quality that accommodates them to mankind." (146)

" What had spoken to her in that scoured-out cavity of the granite? What dwelt in the first of the caves? Something very old and very small. Before time, it was before space also. Something snub-nosed, incapable of generosity - the undying worm itself." (194) 

Well, I just finished my horrible two-page rape scene. I suppose it's not really a rape scene because it's not consummated. It's still pretty ugly regardless - I've never written one where the victim is fourteen. Oddly enough I've found that the song I've been listening to on repeat while writing this scene - which I actually rewrote once to place it in Andromache's perspective instead of Jason Peleus's, and thus I don't even say his name in these two pages, even though I make it clear from the previous scene that it's him, because Andromache doesn't know who it is - is "Behind Blue Eyes". I feel like both Jason Peleus and Andromache can relate to it, especially in the aftermath. It's odd.

no one knows what it's like to be hated, to be fated to telling only lies
but my dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscious seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
my love is vengeance that's never free

no one knows what it's like to feel these feelings like I do, and I blame you
no one bites back as hard on their anger
none of my pain will or can show through
but my dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscious seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
my love is vengeance that's never free

no one knows what it's like to be mistreated, to be defeated behind blue eyes
no one knows how to say that they're sorry, and don't worry, I'm not telling lies
but my dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscious seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
my love is vengeance that's never free

Interesting, ne? I like it when I find songs that I can split into both the victim and the perpetrator's perspective, it always makes me feel like I'm really supposed to be writing this, and it also makes me feel like I've written both sides well, without making yucky stereotypes, or worse, no explanation or feeling at all, usually from the perpetrator. The other song I've found that matches this is "Limp" by Fiona Apple - it goes with A Good Man is Hard to Find's domestic abuse motif. It's slightly amazing.

N:
you wanna make me sick, you wanna lick my wounds, don't you baby
you want the badge of honor when you save my hide
but you're the one in the way of the day of doom, baby
if you need my shame to reclaim your pride

when I think of it, my fingers turn to fists
I never did anything to you, man
no matter what I try, you beat me with your bitter lies
so call me crazy, hold me down, make me cry, get off now baby
it won't be long till you'll be lying limp in your own hands

R:
you feed the beast I have within me
you wave the red flag, baby, you make it run, run, run
standing on the sidelines waving and grinning
you fondle my trigger then you blame my gun

when I think of it, my fingers turn to fists
I never did anything to you, man
no matter what I try, you beat me with your bitter lies
so call me crazy, hold me down, make me cry, get off now baby
it won't be long till you'll be lying limp in your own hands

I know this kind of thing is very character-specific. It only works with "Limp" because Rod and Nike have a history of him saving her whenever she's in danger, to the point that she no longer knows how to save herself, and how well he protects her is what he's decided to use to measure his success in life, so it seems that he's starting to want to keep her passive and helpless, so that he still has a means for validation (first verse). Meanwhile, he takes out the rage he feels for the world on her, blaming her for being too good for him, as he sees it, blaming her for not wanting to have sex but constantly needing someone to hold her hand, blaming her for pissing him off, for telling him what to do, because if he blames anyone else, like the people actually at fault, he'll get fired (second verse). And both of them actually feel helpless, weak, out of control, completely miserable, and hateful (chorus).

My point is... writing rape scenes is very difficult and should be dealt with very, very carefully and deliberately. It usually takes me a couple days and/or at least six hours. And I've written a lot of them. In Musings of a Young World, there are two in book 1, two in book 2 (and the one at the end is really, really bad), one in book 3 (but it's male-on-male, zing), one real one, eight or nine dream ones, and lots of undertones and references in book 4, none in book 5 or 6 (amazing, I know - although 6 has a lot of rape threats), and five in book 7, as well as lots of graphic torture. They are, however, all near-rapes. They also almost all happen to the same person. You may think that's excessive, but I have a reason for it. It's only revealed in the end, because all through the series Rod and Nike are trying to figure out why it keeps happening, why she (and thus they) can't escape it. It turns out it's because she's an avatar of the goddess Durga/Parvati, and demons want to ravish her because she's so beautiful (more in a metaphysical sense than a physical sense), so they possess whatever willing body they can get to do it. I took that from many thorough readings of the Durga myth in Hinduism - she's created by the gods to destroy the buffalo-demon Mahishasura, and when Mahishasura hears about her beauty he demands that she be "dragged to him by the hair" if she won't come willingly. Of course, he never gets it, because Durga means Unattainable, and she's the most powerful being in the universe and kills all the demons, including Mahishasura. In book 7, when Nike's being tortured in prison, she gets pushed to the breaking point and Durga takes over and her body temporarily comes out of a coma, grows eight extra arms with eight extra weapons, flies back to Libya, and kills all of her captors.

That was a bit of a tangent. Just defending my decisions, that's all.

The point is, I've written a lot of rape scenes, and I like to think I am very deliberate about them. I like to think I'm not being gratuitous. I've never written what romance novels like to call "forced seduction" - the only time that the hero forces the heroine into anything, it's clearly marital rape and she does not decide midway through that "she can't fight the feelings he was forcing out of her". I mean, maybe you can write "forced seduction" without the book being trash, but I think it's hard.

Key 1: Research. This romance writer Judith McNaught excused her rape scene that some readers never forgave her for with this:

"I naively and erroneously assumed that we were all writing harmless fantasy and that it would automatically be perceived as such by readers. I had absolutely no idea back then that rape was an all-too-common occurrence in real life. I never imagined that there might be women who would read my book and be made to cringe with the real memory of real rape."

OK, that, to me, is utter bullshit. I'm not saying this isn't really what happened with her story (although I feel it's unlikely that she did not know rape happened, because that's sort of a logical gap right there) - I'm saying it's pathetic that she didn't know rape occurred in real life, and that it might be bad to write a hero who rapes the heroine, begs forgiveness, and then they fall in love. Where did she grow up? Did she have parents? Friends? Did she leave the house? I suppose McNaught also justifies it with the equally erroneous belief that if the woman orgasms during rape, that means it's not rape. Research can safely lead you to avoid mistakes like these, and many more!

Key 2: Perspective. Whose? Stick to one perspective, as usual, throughout the scene unless you know the characters inside out and really want it to be a mutual experience. The Rod/Nike scene in book 4, for instance, was a dual perspective, because they're my two central characters and would continue to be. It's probably easiest to write from the victim's perspective. However, a rape scene does not necessarily have to be from the victim's perspective. Let's all admit that one of the reasons we're addicted to Law & Order SVU is because the detectives spend a lot of time listening to the perpetrators' stories, listening for the real reason they committed sexual violence, because therein lies the motive, and thus the confession/conviction, and that's a morbid curiosity for a lot of us - what are they thinking? However, if you choose to write from the perpetrator's perspective, be very careful about not just going off the deep end with evilness. Unless you're actually writing an evil, bad-to-the-bone, spawn of Satan character, you can't get away with that. A grand majority of men aren't devilishly evil, after all, and a wide spectrum of men do commit rapes. Which leads me to my third point...

Key 3: Motivation. Of both the perpetrator and the victim. You're probably wondering what motivation the victim could possibly have - after all, she (or he) is the powerless, choiceless one.  But there are motivations involved - why does the victim respond in that particular way - by screaming, fighting back, crying, being paralyzed, etc.?  They won't all respond the same way.  Nike generally gives the same response - putting up a maximum fight - but not when it's Rod.  With him, she cowers and pleads and in the end she just gives up.  For the perpetrator, I'll give you a little hint: Power, Anger, or Sadistic?  Those are the three (main) kinds of rapes.  In shorthand, power rapists want to dominate the victim, but not hurt them.  Anger rapists want to hurt them, just to get the will to kill something out of their veins, and it's not about sex as much as with the others.  Sadistic rapists want to hurt them, because pain turns them on.  If the victim cries, a power rapist will either tell them to stop or block it out, anger rapists will hit them, and sadistic rapists will just enjoy it.  This is of course all generalization, but it's really important to figure out which one of these your perp is.  If you need help, I've found it's always useful to listen to music - the lyrics, that is. Chances are songs in your playlist don't have titles like "This is Why I Rape". But unless you only listen to John Mayer, or emocore, chances are there will be songs in there that sort of hint at similar feelings expressed by your perpetrator. Sometimes they're hidden under titles you wouldn't suspect - for example, Nirvana's "Polly" is much better than "Rape Me" - so you just have to go through your library. However, I swear it helps. It doesn't even have to be a male singer, or about sex.  See "Limp" above.  The songs I use a lot are:

* "Tear You Apart" - She Wants Revenge.  "I want to hold you close, skin pressed against me tight, lie still, close your eyes girl, so lovely, it feels so right/ I want to hold you close, soft breasts, beating heart, as I whisper in your ear: I wanna fucking tear you apart"

* "Stinkfist" - Tool.  "Just not enough, I need more, nothing seems to satisfy/ I said, I don't want it, I just need it to breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive/ finger deep within the borderline, show me that you love me and that we belong together (this may hurt a little but it's something you'll get used to)/ relax, turn around, and take my hand"

* "Closer" - Nine Inch Nails.  "You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you, you let me penetrate you, you let me complicate you/ help me, I broke apart my insides/ help me, I've got no soul to sell/ help me, the only thing that works for me - help me get away from myself/ I wanna fuck you like an animal, I wanna feel you from the inside, I wanna fuck you like an animal, my whole existence is flawed/ you get me closer to God/ you can have my isolation, you can have the hate that it brings/ you can have my absence of faith, you can have my everything"

* "Pet" - A Perfect Circle.  "Pay no mind what other voices say, they don't care about you like I do/ safe from pain, and truth, and choice, and other poison devils/ see they don't give a fuck about you like I do/ just stay with me, safe and ignorant, go back to sleep"

* "Polly" - Nirvana.  "Polly wants a cracker, thinks I should get off her first/ I think she wants some water to put out the blowtorch/ Polly wants a cracker, maybe she would like more food/ asked me to untie her/ a chase would be nice for a few"

* "Break Stuff" - Limp Bizkit.  "It's all about the he said she said bullshit/ I think you'd better quit it, let shit slip, or you'll be leaving with a fat lip/ I feel like shit, my suggestion is to keep your distance, cuz right now I'm dangerous/ we've all felt like shit and been treated like shit/ all those motherfuckers, they wanna step up/ I hope you know I'm like a chainsaw, I'll skin your ass raw/ and if my day keeps going this way I just might break your fucking face tonight/ give me something to break"

If you end up accidentally sympathizing with the perpetrator because the music is so good, don't worry - that's a good thing.  Try to keep that sympathy in mind when you write, so you're not writing a one-sided rape thriller (will the virginal heroine escape the evil lecher?), so you keep writing about real people.  Even if you never write from the perpetrator's perspective, you'll still be writing his actions, and those actions are vastly different depending on his motivation, as are his words, the way he does it, etc., and most importantly perhaps, if he's not going to disappear from the story after this scene, what he does next. 

Jason Peleus, for example, is a mix of a power and anger rapist.  He wants to claim something, to exert control over it, and to not lose it, because he feels that he's lost everything recently - his father, his rightful position at the head of the Centurion, and now his family heirloom pocket watch.  Andromache is thus completely objectified in his eyes, and he doesn't care if he hits her or hurts her.  There is no guilt that follows, only a desire to make sure that he really does stake a claim in her, just because he has an investment in her and doesn't want to lose something, again.  Rod is, in his one instance of committing sexual assault, a power rapist: he also wants to exert control over something, but whereas Jason Peleus doesn't know Andromache, he has made Nike a target in his mind, a symbol of perfection and beauty, and he doesn't actually want to hurt her - he doesn't want to bring her down so much as raise himself up - and he loves her and actually does value her feelings, so there's no end to the stream of guilt that follows.  John Smith is a sadistic rapist.  He's a rapist for hire and he gets off on pain, even more than power or sensation, which is why when Nike escapes him the first time he develops an elaborate revenge plot that will put both her and Rod through the most suffering he can imagine. 

(Oh, and: I'm not including more specific instructions for the victim's emotion because it seems easier to write, but make sure to read the Language section)

Key 4: Language. This is the worst part, and by worst I mean hardest. It's a judgment call. You must, must, must have the scene flow, language-wise, with the rest of your story. No dramatic tone changes. Don't get weepy if you write like Tom Clancy, don't get graphic if you write like Nicholas Sparks. And watch out for sensuality. It doesn't belong if you're writing from most standard victim perspectives, and if you're writing from the perpetrator perspective, I would advise you not start writing like you're trying to jerk off the reader.  And although this is really up to the writer, I would suggest the following corollaries: a) try to have both emotion/thought and action, b) don't use words that you otherwise wouldn't use in the story, c) don't go overboard with listing off implications and consequences, even if you're writing from the victim's perspective - don't just start saying, "and everyone would be so angry and her father might kill himself" - I suggest finding other ways to stress the gravity of the situation, d) try not to use the same words over and over, and e) don't go overboard with cliche words.  I know it's hard to avoid, especially if you're uncomfortable writing it - all you want to use is "sob" and "invade" and "force" and "brutal".  But then you're not too far from making it a Lifetime movie.  I know, I know, you want to make sure everybody knows it's a painful, terrible experience.  But I would really urge you not to wax too poetic with the soft tear-felt words.  I've always believed it's better in rape scenes to err on the side of graphic than weepy.  Rape is violent.  It's not like breaking up with a boyfriend.  There's something inherently garrish and grotesque about it, and I am of the personal opinion that it's more of an insult to tuck the savagery of it in the shadows than to put it out in the open where the reader can be horrified.  Having said that, don't go so far as to make it The Clockwork Orange and glorify the rape.  Don't go on and on about the victim's beautiful, voluptuous body.  Most of all, don't make it comedic.  The only person who can get away with that is Joseph Heller, and him just barely.  Just barely.  Cormac McCarthy wrote a great scene in... what was it, The Crossing?  The narrators come across these two horsemen standing above a little girl, and they're just talking - there's no action at all, because it's implied the action is already done.  But you remember it because one of the horsemen says, "If they're old enough to bleed," as justification.  Yeah, it's unpleasant and may make you cringe, but it's supposed to.  Does the phrase "took advantage of her" make you cringe?  Probably not.  And you should write it in a way that makes your reader feel the horror, really feel it. 

I can't quote it directly, but there was an episode of SVU that sort of shows what I mean.  This guy's been murdered, and the girl who found him has just made the claim that he earlier raped her.  She says, "I take so many showers over and over and I never feel clean..." and sobs into Detective Stabler's shoulder after talking about how "he used to come into my room".  Detective Benson asks what position the body was in, and she stammers and says she doesn't know, then starts crying again.  Benson doesn't believe her rape story because it's so full of tropes, and doesn't think it's possible for her to not remember what position the body was in - "that's not the kind of thing you forget".  It turns out, indeed, that they had consensual sex, and she got mad that he wasn't taking her on a trip to Thailand or something and flipped out and killed him.  The point?  Avoid cliched language.  Put in the unpleasant stuff, because that's what actually sinks in.

Key 5: Plotting.  The nitty-gritty stuff.  You may be tempted to bypass most of this completely, but I don't personally think it's a good idea.  Writing without detail is generally a bad idea, and although you can stick to the realm of metaphor - like calling a penis a "seal man" - only do this if the rest of your novel is written similarly.  Where?  How?  What?  This all depends on the circumstances and the personality/mindset of the perpetrator.  Don't be all S&M with handcuffs and whips, ever, unless the rapist is a sadistic rapist, this is extremely pre-meditated, and the perpetrator has experience.  If your heroine escapes, make sure to leave her an avenue of escape or make her rescue realistic.  Don't stress this point too much, though, because I don't think anybody who doesn't have personal experience can really write about it with complete realism.  For the rest of us, unfortunately I would advise seeking out books or movies with realistic rape scenes.  Movies are usually safer, just so you avoid ripping off another author because you have no idea how to write the scene and the temptation is just to copy someone else's, because that distances the writing from yourself.  But there aren't a lot of movies that do a good job of this - and you can usually tell when it's realistic, even if you have no personal experience.  That means no Lifetime, no Beverly Hills 90210.  Yes to Law & Order, SVU, and Criminal Intent - those shows are very realistic, unapologetic, no-holds-barred, and there's a reason they have the parental discretion warning at the beginning.  However, here's a list of the most realistic rape scenes in movies - and consider this the "don't say I didn't warn you".  Don't watch these movies for entertainment or relaxation, consider it part of your research.  Yes, I know you don't want to see something like this - but if you want to write a rape scene in a reputable book, I really think you need to.  I would add Irreversible to this list, but I haven't seen it.  I would, though.  There's a 9-minute rape scene that makes most people walk out of the theater and is supposedly extremely gruesome.  It might cause an ulcer, but I bet it would help the realism and emotion of a rape scene. 

* Bastard Out of Carolina
* House of Spirits
* Crash (2004)
* Visitor Q
* Hero (not House of Flying Daggers)
* Casualties of War
* The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
* Brasilia 18%
* Oldboy

That's all for now, folks.  I leave you with a closing quote on the matter about director Sam Peckinpah's movies, which are often derided as having too much graphic sex and violence.  I don't necessarily agree with everything Peckinpah believes about men and women, but I think this reviewer's statement about his beliefs is astute and accurately captures why I have so many rape scenes, and why I'll defend their right to be in my stories till Gabriel blows his trumpets.  "Women are raped, Peckinpah asserts, because they can be. Their violation is a weapon in the masculine struggle. An essential point: Peckinpah’s men also violate each other. They simply use bullets to do so. This does not minimize the terrors of sexual violence. The horrendous nature of the act is the root of its effectiveness as a weapon. The profundity of the damage it causes is the source of its importance to the catastrophic struggle. Men, asserts Peckinpah, do not hold back from rape because nothing holds them back. The nihilism of masculine interaction has no boundaries. Everything is permitted. For Peckinpah to have excised rape from his world would have given masculinity a nobility of which it is undeserving. It would have demarcated borders where none exist. It would have turned his tragedies into lies."

I feel that I should post to prove that I'm still alive (I post, therefore I am). 

REALIZATIONS OF LATE:
* I do a lot of things because I feel I am obligated to do them to ensure future success in some amorphous career that does not yet have shape.  I minor in Econ.  I take Chinese.  I'm in the Journal of Politics and Society.  I take Statistics for Economics.  In other words, I resume build, and I hate it.
* On the other hand, I don't know if I'm truly cut out for a writing workshop/class either.  I don't even want to know what most people at Columbia write, fiction-wise.  Probably something along the lines of Kafka's Metamorphosis or a variant on the Amy Tan noun-infested cultural novel (The Kitchen God's Wife, The Bone Collector's Daughter).  Something serious and philosophical and/or demanding of respect for other reasons.  And me?  "Uh... I write fantasy."  "Are you serious?  Like Lord of the Rings?"  "Uh... no."  "Oh." 
* I really like arrogant guys.  I recognize this as a failing. 
* I somehow damaged my principal headphones because I tripped on their cord while they were plugged into my laptop, twice.  The second time evidently was too much.  Luckily the microphone still works, and I had a spare set.  Even more luckily, I didn't manage to actually pull my laptop off the desk... stupid motherfucker.  It's not like we can afford another one. 
* Chinese characters make my hands tingly.  I don't like to write them. 
* I think I've saddened my mother irreparably.  I told her last night that I want to work in Indonesia:

"I want to work in Indonesia, I want to live there." 
Silence cut across the phone and bounced across the small white-washed prison cell of a room, then floated out the windows into apartments across alley ways. 
"I made you sad, didn't I?"
"No..." her voice was hesitant.
"You're crying, aren't you?  I can hear you crying.  Big crystal tears rolling down your cheeks and splashing onto the floor, surrounding your feet, as you drown in your tears..."
"Oh, for heaven's sake.  I'm not crying."  She took a moment and then continued before I could tease her more, "I cried last night though."
"Why?"
"I was watching American Idol."
I started laughing.  She did too, but it sounded forced.  "And there was this one girl who had never cut her hair so it was down to her ankle, and was obviously very sweet.  And when she auditioned her mother, who also had this really long hair, was in the room with her.  I mean, they asked her to be there... the mother didn't want to be there.  So she sang, and she had a very sweet voice, but they told her no because she just stood there and sang, she wasn't American Idol material.  Of course, when she left the room she immediately burst into tears, and she went to her father, who was standing outside, who just held her stoically.  Not her mother.  She went to her father."
I bit my lip, wondering if she felt like I didn't go to her enough, if I wasn't grateful enough for what she did for me that she didn't want to do.
"And I just thought, how lucky she is that she has a father to do that for her." 
I sighed.  I didn't know what to say.  "Well... that's the way it goes," I said finally, listening carefully for any sounds that might indicate she was crying again.  "That's the way life is."  C'est la vie, as she would have said. 
And then, after another moment of silence, "I'm okay."  I laughed, considering.  "Well.  Sort of." 
But I had managed to make her laugh too, and although my thoughts briefly flickered back to weddings with no one to give me away, those thoughts were brief.