Adrien-Luc

Hey--where outside of New Orleans? I grew up in Madisonville and Slidell, if you're familiar with those places, though I'm off in the boonies of Texas now. Nice to see a voice from somewhere around home. Oh, and hi. Welcome and such. ~goes back to lurking silently~

I listen to music, but have to be very careful when I do. I tend to have songs that help me get into a mindset for a certain character, but if they have lyrics, I have listen to adjust my mood and then turn them off. I can't listen to music in any language that I can understand while I'm actually writing, because I have a bad habit of listening to the words--I can't really block them out, and then they disrupt the flow of words in my mind. It tends to come as an avalanche that feels almost lyrical, so someone else's lyrics tend to divert the rush and throw off my rhythm, and can change or even ruin the tone of what I'm writing. Most of my music is either orchestral, or in English, Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, or Korean. I have to stick to the orchestrals, the Mandarin, and the Korean if I want to get anything done. The rest completely screws me up.

I was curious-- How do you feel about the pacing in a novel-length work? Some stories take you in slowly; you ease in gradually, learning the life and world of the characters, and the overall plight and goal both creep up on you. Others you dive right in, and by the end of the chapter you know the point of the entire novel--just not how the goal will be accomplished. Personally I prefer the easing-in approach--I suppose because it feels a bit like everyday life. You're meandering along, and then you get hit by a shitstorm (hopefully not literally). Reading stories that take you into the character's world first helps me feel more for them, know them as people before I join in their troubles and trials. But I can also get a bit bored with it, if the author drags it on too much. If I'm ten chapters in and still don't even have a tantalizing hint of what the major plot issue is going to be, it's likely I won't bother with chapter eleven. So I'm just curious, both in how you write and what you read. What's your preference: fast and dirty, or slow and sweet?

The only member of my family that's ever read anything of mine is my mother; the rest are a little too...."down home" for my style of dark sci-fi/fantasy. I never made the mistake of showing my mother anything again after she read a very tame passage describing a post-apocalypitc future (she didn't even know the main character was gay, and the passage wasn't graphic at all), and in response to my "do you think I could show this to a publisher?" question, she said, "I wouldn't show this to anyone, it's sick." Yay for conservative families. My friends, on the other hand, read my work rather often and have been known to prod me for new chapters until they leave poke-bruises in my ribs. They're my biggest supporters and they can be counted on to kick me out of a slump when I slack off on working on my novel, and know just how to deal with me when I get into "waaaaah, I suck so much" mode: stop coddling me and give me a swift boot in the ass. I hesitate in showing things to new friends, but when they find out that I write many will express an interest anyway, and will often have their own stories to share.

...drool? You've met my boyfriend, haven't you?

Thanks a lot for the welcome. I'll try to edge out of my corner to join in the discussions. You guys don't bite, right?

Ah....hi. ~looks a little sheepish~ I just joined a short bit ago in an attempt to give this "social networking" thing a try; I'm quite horrible at it, but I figured I might as well get out and try to meet other gay authors. And...now that I'm here, I've no idea what to say. I'm working on a novel, looking for an agent, and sometimes hopelessly stuck, but I suppose that could describe just about everyone here at one time or another. Erm...I'll think of something else later when I'm not fighting the urge to find a corner to hide in. Mostly, I guess, I just wanted to say "hi".