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lkh_lashoutsYep, another newbie, *coughs a bit and looks around nervously, feeling awed*
Hope I'm, you know, doing this right.
The beautiful snark here was single-handedly responsible for me staying sane when I recently got the Flu From Hell so a late and sincere thanks for that, *g*
http://www.writersdigest.com/article/laurell-k-hamilton/
Hope I'm, you know, doing this right.
The beautiful snark here was single-handedly responsible for me staying sane when I recently got the Flu From Hell so a late and sincere thanks for that, *g*
http://www.writersdigest.com/article/laurell-k-hamilton/
Quotes are in italics and bolded, I'm plain text.
"Hamilton is a genre writer to the core, and she was writing fantasy when fantasy wasn't cool."
Okay, I just have to interject real quick here and say Margaret Weis was writing fantasy when it wasn't "cool" - and her Raistlin is one of the most fantastic characters of all time, multi-layered and simple, ugly and gorgeous, all at the same time. So was Anne McCaffrey and, I don't know, hundreds, if not thousands, of other talented writers of all ages who wrote fantasy when it wasn't "cool."
Oh, and, you know - Tolkien and C.S. Lewis but I guess they don't matter in the long run?
I knew just based on this comment that this would be quite an interview for my brain to try to absorb - and we haven't even reached LKH herself yet.
"When I sat down to write this book, I wanted a character that could be as tough as the boys."
A tough character is a flawed character, a character who is as capable of doing a wonderful and brilliant thing as she is capable of doing something incredibly stupid and selfish, a character that we can connect to on some very basic visceral level. It's hard, if not impossible, to connect to Anita - she's not strong, not even vaguely, not even slightly, doesn't even seem capable of being strong when I force my way through any of these latest books. And I do read them, force my way through them, because I would love to look at Anita and think, hey, this chick is tough. But she isn't, because when she isn't dateraping her "sweeties" with the arduer, she's bitching and moaning about everything under the sun.
That's not tough - that's disgusting.
"I'm still learning new things about Anita and her friends."
Who likes to top? What the color of Anita's newest garter belt looks like? A new word to describe the exact shade of Nate's eyes?
(OT: I used to think garter belts were insanely hot but now they just make me headdesk because I connect them to Micah and Anita's stupid little twirly skirt - and then I always end up thinking about Micah's kickstand. Thanks so much for killing one of my favorite kinks, LKH.)
"One of the things I did before I started Merry was research mystery series, because at that time there were no fantasy series that had gone past five books. A lot of writers seem to get bored with their own series between books five and eight."
I've reread this comment three times very carefully and it still makes no sense to me and it's aggravating me because I can't even figure out why.
Also?
I've forced my way through two of the Merry books and I'm still waiting for the "mystery" portions.
"That lets you know how much it pre-dates Buffy."
I literally have no words.
I'm trying to find them, and they're not there - they've just run away from LKH, screaming.
I can see them running down the road, arms flailing and, oh, it breaks my heart.
"It was a fun series though it certainly got less fun as it went along. It became something you wouldn't watch as a family."
Okay, um, wow, *grabs a few words and drags them to her, ignoring the screams of gutdeep terror*
I have a lot of issues with S6 and S7 of BtVS but the characters developed and the plots kept moving and despite everything, I still connected to the characters even when I wanted to smack them. The first five seasons of this show (and especially the first three seasons) will forever go down as one of the most important shows to ever be produced, no doubt in my mind. Strong characters that were flawed but still capable of stepping up and doing incredible things, plots that sometimes weakened but were never ignored, writers who dealt with the consequences of the characters' sometimes stupid actions - the show made sense. And even with my intense dislike of the Spuffy nonsense, it still didn't disolve completely into horribly written and badly edited crappy scenes of "sex," the kind of crappy sex that makes even the worst visual porn hides its face behind its hands in horror because it is just that bad.
Oh, LKH, you've officially reached Rob Thomas level of headdesk from me - I honestly didn't think it could be done.
"Sex isn't bad; it's a deity-given gift."
Yes, sex is wonderful and right and completely natural - I will be the first to happily defend every aspect of responsible sex between two or more willing adults.
But Anita doesn't help the traumatised young man in her care, the poor guy who has been loaned to others to be used sexually - she uses him to feed her own sexual desires and to play wife and then has a tissy when he actually goes near someone who might help him. When Richard doesn't want to have sex, she rapes him with the ardeur. She sexually feeds off jailbait without anything other than a split second feeling of 'wait, isn't this wrong?' that disappears before it's even fully formed.
These?
Are not responsible sexual acts between two or more willing adults.
The way she writes it, it's not a gift - it's a curse.
It's like when Megan McTavish called the Kane family's curse of being raped (first the mother character who then had a child of rape and then her younger daughter - who also had a child of rape) a "legacy," okay, LKH?
That's how completely atrocious this comment is to me.
"The only downside to the sexual content is losing younger readers."
Another comment that seems off to me even though I can't explain why.
The best attempt I can make is to say that I don't want a younger reader reading about blowing somebody's brains out either, even if that somebody is a vampire.
So, you know, I wasn't letting any of the younger readers in my family read these books even before they got swallowed up the Glittery Power of the Magic HooHaa.
Bottom line: These were never the kind of books to give as holiday gifts to "younger readers."
And just a side comment against this little nasty thing she has against the "prudes" - I especially don't want a younger reader to read any kind of sex scene where they spent a half a chapter talking about how they're going to do it but never use a condom because there's not "enough time" to get one on. There's no shame in being a responsible woman who runs around having sex with everyone as long as she shows that she takes the important precautions - and never once have I looked at Anita and seen any kind of responsible woman. Because, seriously, when I can't finish a sex scene because I'm cringing so much?
Epic amounts of fail.
"If you come to a scene where you don't know what 14th-century underwear looks like, don't stop and research 14th-century underwear. Just write 'underwear here.' The second draft is filling in those holes."
Yes, but you never seem to go back and actually fill in these little holes.
All you fill is Anita's magic cootchie.
There are only so many ways you can fill a cootchie before you lose my attention - it's capable of many great and wonderful things but in the end, it's just a cootchie, LKH.
"Hamilton is a genre writer to the core, and she was writing fantasy when fantasy wasn't cool."
Okay, I just have to interject real quick here and say Margaret Weis was writing fantasy when it wasn't "cool" - and her Raistlin is one of the most fantastic characters of all time, multi-layered and simple, ugly and gorgeous, all at the same time. So was Anne McCaffrey and, I don't know, hundreds, if not thousands, of other talented writers of all ages who wrote fantasy when it wasn't "cool."
Oh, and, you know - Tolkien and C.S. Lewis but I guess they don't matter in the long run?
I knew just based on this comment that this would be quite an interview for my brain to try to absorb - and we haven't even reached LKH herself yet.
"When I sat down to write this book, I wanted a character that could be as tough as the boys."
A tough character is a flawed character, a character who is as capable of doing a wonderful and brilliant thing as she is capable of doing something incredibly stupid and selfish, a character that we can connect to on some very basic visceral level. It's hard, if not impossible, to connect to Anita - she's not strong, not even vaguely, not even slightly, doesn't even seem capable of being strong when I force my way through any of these latest books. And I do read them, force my way through them, because I would love to look at Anita and think, hey, this chick is tough. But she isn't, because when she isn't dateraping her "sweeties" with the arduer, she's bitching and moaning about everything under the sun.
That's not tough - that's disgusting.
"I'm still learning new things about Anita and her friends."
Who likes to top? What the color of Anita's newest garter belt looks like? A new word to describe the exact shade of Nate's eyes?
(OT: I used to think garter belts were insanely hot but now they just make me headdesk because I connect them to Micah and Anita's stupid little twirly skirt - and then I always end up thinking about Micah's kickstand. Thanks so much for killing one of my favorite kinks, LKH.)
"One of the things I did before I started Merry was research mystery series, because at that time there were no fantasy series that had gone past five books. A lot of writers seem to get bored with their own series between books five and eight."
I've reread this comment three times very carefully and it still makes no sense to me and it's aggravating me because I can't even figure out why.
Also?
I've forced my way through two of the Merry books and I'm still waiting for the "mystery" portions.
"That lets you know how much it pre-dates Buffy."
I literally have no words.
I'm trying to find them, and they're not there - they've just run away from LKH, screaming.
I can see them running down the road, arms flailing and, oh, it breaks my heart.
"It was a fun series though it certainly got less fun as it went along. It became something you wouldn't watch as a family."
Okay, um, wow, *grabs a few words and drags them to her, ignoring the screams of gutdeep terror*
I have a lot of issues with S6 and S7 of BtVS but the characters developed and the plots kept moving and despite everything, I still connected to the characters even when I wanted to smack them. The first five seasons of this show (and especially the first three seasons) will forever go down as one of the most important shows to ever be produced, no doubt in my mind. Strong characters that were flawed but still capable of stepping up and doing incredible things, plots that sometimes weakened but were never ignored, writers who dealt with the consequences of the characters' sometimes stupid actions - the show made sense. And even with my intense dislike of the Spuffy nonsense, it still didn't disolve completely into horribly written and badly edited crappy scenes of "sex," the kind of crappy sex that makes even the worst visual porn hides its face behind its hands in horror because it is just that bad.
Oh, LKH, you've officially reached Rob Thomas level of headdesk from me - I honestly didn't think it could be done.
"Sex isn't bad; it's a deity-given gift."
Yes, sex is wonderful and right and completely natural - I will be the first to happily defend every aspect of responsible sex between two or more willing adults.
But Anita doesn't help the traumatised young man in her care, the poor guy who has been loaned to others to be used sexually - she uses him to feed her own sexual desires and to play wife and then has a tissy when he actually goes near someone who might help him. When Richard doesn't want to have sex, she rapes him with the ardeur. She sexually feeds off jailbait without anything other than a split second feeling of 'wait, isn't this wrong?' that disappears before it's even fully formed.
These?
Are not responsible sexual acts between two or more willing adults.
The way she writes it, it's not a gift - it's a curse.
It's like when Megan McTavish called the Kane family's curse of being raped (first the mother character who then had a child of rape and then her younger daughter - who also had a child of rape) a "legacy," okay, LKH?
That's how completely atrocious this comment is to me.
"The only downside to the sexual content is losing younger readers."
Another comment that seems off to me even though I can't explain why.
The best attempt I can make is to say that I don't want a younger reader reading about blowing somebody's brains out either, even if that somebody is a vampire.
So, you know, I wasn't letting any of the younger readers in my family read these books even before they got swallowed up the Glittery Power of the Magic HooHaa.
Bottom line: These were never the kind of books to give as holiday gifts to "younger readers."
And just a side comment against this little nasty thing she has against the "prudes" - I especially don't want a younger reader to read any kind of sex scene where they spent a half a chapter talking about how they're going to do it but never use a condom because there's not "enough time" to get one on. There's no shame in being a responsible woman who runs around having sex with everyone as long as she shows that she takes the important precautions - and never once have I looked at Anita and seen any kind of responsible woman. Because, seriously, when I can't finish a sex scene because I'm cringing so much?
Epic amounts of fail.
"If you come to a scene where you don't know what 14th-century underwear looks like, don't stop and research 14th-century underwear. Just write 'underwear here.' The second draft is filling in those holes."
Yes, but you never seem to go back and actually fill in these little holes.
All you fill is Anita's magic cootchie.
There are only so many ways you can fill a cootchie before you lose my attention - it's capable of many great and wonderful things but in the end, it's just a cootchie, LKH.
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