Literary sex and Amazon

Something worth keeping an eye on for UK authors is the news released in the Bookseller yesterday that Amazon publishing plans to open a European publishing wing based in Luxembourg. Vicky Griffith will relocate from Seattle in the New Year and start building a team of editors and marketing personnel. There is a thought that Amazon may wish to acquire global English language rights with this move. Big name authors have not flocked to Amazon Publishing, and some US stores have boycotted Amazon published titles because of the required exclusivity on Kindle deals.

There’s an interesting piece I spotted in the in the Guardian by Lee Rourke here on why sex isn’t suited to the pages of literary fiction. I think he is saying it may well be suited to the pages of commercial fiction but I’d have to go and read it again to be sure. Why don’t you read it and let me know? I’ll go and dry my recently washed hair and then trot off up the hill to renew my car tax before I become illegal. and when I come back, I shall put my nose to the grindstone (or in this case the computer keyboard) and try and complete the remaining pages of Victorian Beauty.

New group and sex scenes

There’s a new space for authors to tell Guardian readers about their new book. Here’s the link:-http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2012/sep/05/authors-tell-us-about-your-work?commentpage=1#end-of-comments

Galilee Chapel, Durham

In the spirit of try anything once, I’ve put a few words up about Reluctance. The site declares it has come about in response to the articles in the Guardian about reviews and sockpuppetry, and has just been set up. Perhaps there’ll be no tangible result as far as I’m concerned, but it’s an interesting move in a world full of e-groups. As I write, there are something like 250 entries on the site.

Someone on the Guardian pages is claiming that accepting a free book in order to write a review is bribery. I can see their point, but I feel it will annoy a lot of people. They also claim that publishers have paid for reviews for years – it’s just that we never knew about it. There may well be more on this topic in the next week or so.

Our writers meeting didn’t have anything like enough time to discuss writing sex scenes –we only just got started, commenting on how sex was written in days gone by when it was time to depart. Hardy, as everyone probably knows, had Tess go into a wood and come out pregnant without writing a word about making love. (Tess of the D'Urbevilles)

I don't think that would do with today's readers. Our host had a copy of the notorious 50 Shades (which I still haven’t read, though I enjoyed reading the husband’s take on things : http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/31/fifty-shades-el-james-husband) and we wondered why the books have suddenly taken off (is there no phrase that suddenly seems like a double entendre?) as it has. Could it be that a generation has suddenly discovered erotic writing exists? Or because with Kindles they can be read in public with no one knowing?

After all, erotica been around as long as people have been reading and writing – check out the link for proof of that, should it be needed. But one wonders how people could have remained ignorant of it for so long. Perhaps the idea that reading has almost become a lost art has had something to do with it? And maybe – here’s a happy thought – maybe erotica will stimulate (Sorry!) those people in reading lots, lots more!

Cross Stitch 20 years on

our walk yesterday

I first read Cross Stitch twenty-one years ago, or thereabouts, and thought it was original and exciting. Last week I found a new copy in the library and took it home wondering how it would read, given that I'd be looking at it with a slightly different viewpoint since I've started writing my own stories now.

I read it in long snatches and found it entertaining, if a little heavy on the anecdotes about Jamie’s childhood, a tad improbable that Claire could actually kill a wolf with her bare hands, or meet the Loch Ness monster. But then, most readers would agree using a stone circle as a time machine is not a great pointer to a story based on solid facts, and read on with glee, which is what I did.

In general, I thought the book wordy for today’s world, but having said that, the writing is better than most, the storyline is entertaining and there are incidents of great charm as well as menace. I’ve followed Gabaldon’s volumes as they’ve been issued, and the latest and eighth volume is due sometime in 2013 - http://www.dianagabaldon.com/2012/08/written-in-my-own-hearts-blood/

Gabaldon has her own unique style, and I shouldn’t think anyone could replicate it, but she has advice to offer that is worth reading. Here’s a snippet from her on how to write sex scenes:

“Where most beginning writers screw up (you should pardon the expression) is in thinking that sex scenes are about sex. A good sex scene is about the exchange of emotions, not bodily fluids. That being so, it can encompass any emotion whatever, from rage or desolation to exultation, tenderness, or surprise.”

 Read the rest for yourselves: http://www.dianagabaldon.com/2012/07/how-to-write-sex-scenes/ while I start reading Dragonfly in Amber, the second volume in the Outlander series, and ponder which emotions my current hero and heroine are currently exchanging.