~~ the liar! eeeeeeeeeee! adrian! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[reenka]

Um. I was all "eh" and depresso, slightly, from going to the campus bookstore. Bookstores still make me happy like nothing else, but it's always disheartening to realize that all these published writers, all this wastage of paper, and it looks like nothing I'd ever want to read, all of it. I mean, this isn't to say it's -crap-. Exactly. It just looks like crap to me, but what do I know?

Especially having spent way too long staring in morbid fascination at Anne Rice's most recent novel, remembering Ivy quoting her as saying she doesn't use editors. Oh man.
    Anyway, there's this silly veneration towards being a "published author" and being a "best-selling published author", no less, which makes me sick. Before fanfiction, where it's semi-accepted that a lot of it is bound to be crap, I was completely well-aware that a lot of books (and paintings and songs and so on) are bound to be crap, too. But I haven't read much actual bound matter lately, and it surprises me now to remember that Yes Virginia, Published Authors Can't Seem To Write For Egg-salad Either.

It's funny because people ask me "so are you published" when I say I'm a writer, and looking at the kind of stuff that -does- get published and put in the general literature & best-seller section (not to mention the horrendous crap-pile that is the fantasy/sci-fi section), I don't -want- to be part of that. It makes me not want to be published. I don't feel any particular honor in it. I do want to be read, but the idea that it says something about me, whether I'm published or not, is completely ludicrous to me at this point. All my favorite authors in fantasy lit are barely known. I do like -some- popular stuff, but I mostly don't, and quite the opposite in fact. I know I shouldn't judge the state of literature today by the awful bestsellers section of my smallish college Barnes & Noble, but it's -there-, and it's square, man.

So yeah, I hate hype, I dislike promoting books and the idea that promoted books are -good- books. I think you should find your own gems, discover your own Americas-- that's an important part of the pleasure of reading, the quest to find the gems in the sea of dross.
    Thus it is with reservation that I whole-heartedly implore anyone who has the vaguest trust of my taste in fiction to go out right now and get themselves a copy of `The Liar' by Stephen Fry.

It was apparently a huge best-seller in England when it came out more than 10 years ago, but who cares, right. It's hilarious, it's touching, it's cutting, it's challenging and entertaining and just brilliant in every possible way. The language sparkles, the characterizations are unforgettable, the surprises keep coming. It's the story (so far, I'm barely a quarter through it!) of Adrian Healey, 15-year-old fop in a boarding school in Cambridge. He's disillusioned with humanity & doesn't quite believe it exists, he's both flamboyantly insincere and facetious and angsty about it, and he's in love with this glowing specimen of male beauty called Cartwright, and he's basically fanon!Draco done one better and drowning in the awful Muggleness of the world.

The snark is killing me. The Englishness is killing me. The funny is killing me. THE GAY IS KILLING ME >:O I have found the Snarky Gay English Schoolboy Book Of All Time!!1 JOY TO THE WORLD!!1 This book could singlehandledly restore my faith in the state of literature today :D :D :D
~~


The darkness was all around as Harry walked through Quidditch pitch down towards his dormroom, random thoughts of blowing crossing his mind.
He had been shocked earlier when Deliara had told him she often dreamed about Snape involved in rimming with a thestral, but each to their own, she didn't know about his fantasies involving Draco.
One day he would discuss his feelings with Weasley, but not yet, he still hardly believed how aroused he could be by just thinking of Draco masturbating himself with a lube.
The night air was fresh and he sat down in a quiet location and began to stroke the fork he was carrying with him. Would Draco's cock feel like that to his arse?
What would Draco think of him if he knew how his cock grew hard as he thought of eating potato pie off Draco's beautiful nipple?
Harry rubbed the fork against his cock whispering Draco's name to himself. He knew he should stop and wait until he got back to his dormroom but desire overtook him and he came, screaming Draco's name into the night.
Meanwhile, Draco had not been able to sleep and had decided to go out in the night air. Quidditch pitch was such a beautiful place at this time of the night. He took a bite of the potato pie he was carrying and leisurely scratched his cock.
He jumped in alarm as he heard a voice in the distance. Was that Harry calling his name. He must be in trouble to shout for him with such desperation. He dropped his potato pie and ran towards the sound of his kitten's voice.
Draco stumbled through the darkness towards Harry. Panicked thoughts ran through his head. Was his kitten being attacked by a thestral. Was he about to be raped by Lucius dressed as Snape? His heart beat faster and he felt the pulse throbbing in his arse.
Harry, Harry, my kitten, screamed Draco. It's alright, I'm coming, I'll save you! Harry leaped to his feet in panic, dropping the fork and trying to untangle his trousers from around his ankles. He fell over, his bare nipple pointing in the air.
Draco! Harry gasped embarrassedly. What are you doing here? Weasley said you were in your dormroom engaged in some blowing with Deliara.
No, I was alone in my dormroom with nothing but my lube for company. I couldn't sleep for thinking how beautiful your nipple was, and how I would like to stroke my cock against it, and have you kiss my arse, and now I see your nipple for myself I realise that not even Snape has a nipple to compare with yours.
Oh, kitten, Weasley said you felt that way but I never believed him, I thought you loved Deliara.
What! That old thestral, I'd rather get involved in rimming with Lucius, a fork and potato pie than dream of blowing with her, Ooh, the very thought makes my arse curl.
Oh, Harry!
Oh, Draco, my kitten!
Cue soft music, sounds of blowing and rimming, soft focus and fade.........
~~

*laughs until she cries*
Here, make more. Let the arse-curling be fruitful and multiply :D :D :D

Comments

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

*feels sad* I remember reading 'the Liar.' WAH, man. Because it was just so fun and it goes, um, badly downhill. In my opinion. With some lifts.
But yes, badly downhill. Damn.
Ah well, publication=filthy lucre=actually being able to do this for the rest of my life instead of real work SQUEE! And you know, best way to get your original work read I know of.
But yes, sometimes the stuff that's out there? I could CRY. And I used to LOVE Anne Rice, man, love and revere and adore and I kept buying the books until I just had to accept that she was batshit crazy and the books were AWFUL AWFUL dreck.
My crazy literature optimism has to stop.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

*meebles* eeeeeeeep. *crosses fingers*
maybe it won't be...... too bad? i can't stop, anyway. heeee. it's addictive. also, another procrastinatory activity, and oh how i love those, oh yes.
yeah, i kind of still want to be published, but it's just sad because... well. this all is supposed to be "good"? that's just disturbing. they do have prettier covers these days, though. but maybe i'm just... not into rehashed-sounding boring plots about "real people" and "real lives" or whatever?
it's not surprise, of course. i bet there was always this much crap, it's just that you had to self-publish or go through a much more arduous process (in say, the 18th century), so only the most obsessive & mad of them got well-known at all. heh. and the most lucky.

yah, that's basically why i have to get On The Wagon. 'cause it's not as if i'm suited to anything else. but the whole idea that it's some sort of honorable badge is laughable. it continuously baffles me, the conundrum of whether it's that most people have no taste whatsoever or i'm just a freak who cannot understand the things that attract most humanity. or something.

or maybe reading & quality isn't important enough to people to bother looking for better, since they're in it for entertainment only...? maybe they don't want things that are over their heads, that challenge them, especially since the reading population is now so much huger than the 18-19th century-- and it's not just the moneyed intellectuals anymore, obviously. so of course the most popular "classic" stuff is dross, because the people reading it aren't the same segment of the population that made the "western canon" authors popular....?

hmm. i dunno whether to be upset that people are so resigned to their own dumbness or to be exasperated with myself for still wanting people to be "like me" just like they'd want me to be like -them-. or something :>

!!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

WAAAHHHHHHHHH!@!!$ELKJSDL:Kjf lkjclkjj
i know what you meant now :((
*wail*
the `libb' thing did me in :(( GOD I HATE COMEDIES WHICH SUDDENLY AREN'T FUNNY :((
*clings pitifully*

Re: !!

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I know, I know! It's like, 'HEY MY HEART WAS LIGHT MOFO! WHY YOU GOT TO BE RAINING ON MY PARADE?'
there there, my baby. Never mind.

[zionsstarfish.livejournal.com]

I made the mistake of putting 'Giant Squid' for 'type of food'.

o_O

hehehehahahahahaaha.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think whatever "level" you've reached writing-wise it must feel like you're not established yet...unless you're one of those people who always feels established even when you're crap (and they're out there too). Like I always thought being published was it, and I am published but don't feel any different or any better as a writer (sadly). So I though the problem was I'd only done mass market series and that wasn't "real." If I got a trade picture book or novel that would be real. I got the picture book but I still don't feel any more established (and in fact, still feel unworthy of plenty of fanfic writers. I met somebody I hadn't seen in a while and she knew how I wanted to write and be published and all that and I told her I had this trade book coming out and she said, "Wow. You did it. You made it." And I thought yeah, I did, but...it doesn't feel like it. Part of it may be that I know how I think some of the best parts of the book were taken out by the editor or...I don't know...maybe I'm just the type who's going to keep putting the goal line further away.

But anyway, yeah, speaking from "the other side" you are completely correct, imo, in thinking that being published isn't the mark of being a better writer. Anne Rice is a great example. I couldn't believe that thing she wrote about not having an editor.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think that satisfaction with one's writing (or lack thereof) prolly comes from within, and so on. I am always semi-satified and semi-unhappy. Less satisfied the more time passes. Like, in the first flush of writing, I either LOVE it or HATE it. And then I'm all semi-objective. People's opinion or whoever'd seen it doesn't seem to impact. So yeah, I always wanted to be a writer who publishes (what other kinds of writers -are- there to my 10 year-old self?) but it wasn't like... -important-. It was always somewhere on the horizon.

I want to improve my writing, and I practice, but that doesn't have to do with publishing-- that's separate, it seems to me. Publishing is like... so you don't have to waitress. Writing is so you don't go insane. Heee.

It's just my mother bugs me about it. And my relatives. It's like, they're trying not to sneer at the whole 'writer' thing, 'cause they're intellectuals (sort of), so it's all, yeah-so-prove-it. It's not about proving "it" to myself, which is prolly why I don't pimp myself & join contests or go to poetry slams & also why I'm not published. Heh.

I tell myself that, you know, I'm just waiting till I'm ready... like, when I feel that my skillz are good enough, then I'll stop writing the fanfic and get gritty. Or something. Like, right now I'm a small fry & I wanna be impressive. I wanna be huge. I WANNA BE SUPERMAN!! um.

yeah -.-

[tocomfortyou.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree! Every time I go into Barnes and Noble, I'm always drawn to the displays they'll have, or which books have the shiniest covers, or which ones I've heard about the most. And you know, maybe my taste in books is just too broad, but I haven't read an honest-to-god bad book in so long. Maybe your bookstores just suck. Hmm.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oh, ehehehe, I don't actually -read- them, see. I just look at their backs or flip through them a bit, or just see what they're about. Geh.
I never thought about having narrow tastes, but I prolly do. I pretty much think 95% of everything is crap anyway, unless it's brilliant in which case I completely go overboard in fangirling it :D :D I'm just exuberant, I guess....?

I'm also always looking for something -brilliant-, not just -okay-. I want excitement, intrigue, newness, originality. Otherwise it's dross :> :>
Unless it's got smut, in which case hey, bring it on >:D

[tocomfortyou.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha. Woo. You *do* have high standards, but I have low standards, so there you are. Me, I'll take a pretty cover and a nice font. No, really. I've bought books based entirely on the font. *sigh* Such is my life.

[la-trix.livejournal.com]

What are the odds? We both picked "fork" as a household implement!

Did you happen to read the excerpt from Anne Rice's latest (http://www.randomhouse.com/features/annerice/excerpt03.html)? It's truly, embarrassingly awful.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oh man. I'm a total Anne Rice non-reader, actually. I've tried to peruse her works fitfully through the years (I mean, she's so... -out there-)... I couldn't even get through `Interview with a Vampire'. I'm hopeless. Either that, or she's always sucked, eheheh.

Partly it's a question of kink, of course. I've gotten through many a Mercedes Lackey novel. I cannot turn my nose up, alas. Ahahahah. Omg, I read the one about the fire herald. Omg. That was. Owww. My brain. Owwwwww.

*weeps*
I remember back when I had my sad little romance-novel reading period around age 14-15, I found her smut. Ohhhh boy. I mean. That was the first I ever knew of S&M. And it was wrong. But boring. Wrong & boring. I think most of my experiences with kink-lit were tinged by that somewhat. Like... I'm too much of a girl. I was/am used to star-crossed romance & never-to-be longing looks. Not -too- much. I hated Regencies & Harlequins. But yeah. Not so much with the candles & the evil whatever (I've forgotten the "plot" entirely).

And I -sort- of maybe liked `Interview with a Vampire'. But it was still cheesy. I guess it didn't have telepathic horses in it. What can I say? Without telepathic horses, how could I have enjoyed it?? :D :D

[starlitefaerie.livejournal.com]

You know, I find that all the crap that gets published has the opposite effect on me and makes me want to be published. Like. Uh - I think: I'm a better writer than these assholes, why not? Why shouldn't I get published and kick their published asses! It inspires me, actually.

But seeing the crap can be rather depressing - much like reading the crap submitted by some of the people in my Creative Writing class. Like, excuse me - if you don't know basic punctuation at the age of twenty years old WHY are you in my class? Why? I knew punctuation at ten or earlier. I was taught it and never forgot it and some of these people are just - with the ouch. I want to cry and bang my feet against the sofa as I fill their stories with red or blue comments. And you know - these bad writers will end up writing for teevee, I bet, making loads of money. And the people in class who are amazing will probably take years to get their work published somewhere and make money.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

*sigh* i -am- oversensitive. i usually can handle semi-eh writing quality if the plotline/characterization/subject intrigues me, but so few things really intrigue me. so if it seems recycled, it goes into the "eh" bin too, even the critical successes that are written well.

i'd say i'm impossible to please, but then i squee so much over so many fanfics, so i dunno. then again, i have all this emotional investment now in harry/draco and i mean, i had a soft-spot for wizards & boarding schools & gay-boys-in-dorky-love to start with. i mean, i'm not really happy with what patricia mckillip or francesca lia block or as byatt do with their latest books usually, but i let it slide 'cause i'm convinced of their talent. so i'm just so nice and forgiving except when i don't care :/

i mean, nina kiriki hoffman doesn't disappoint me, but then she doesn't really do anything -new- either.
neil disappoints me all the damn time. hadn't liked a thing he did besides sandman & black orchid & stardust, and stardust wasn't up to his standards. *grumps*
i mean, there's no winning, 'cause if a writer always does the thing that works, i grow tired of it, and if they change too much, they're unrecognizable and i'm like, "well okay, -that's- boring". refreshingly, jkr is still improving though and fuck everyone who doesn't think so, i liked book 5 best. heh, but then i'm a characterization & ambiguity freak, and i think it's the most "adult", so yah.

and peter beagle... yeah okay, peter beagle. i mean, not everything he does is just genius or anything, but he always manages to do something different, and i think it's usually a success in different ways. yes. so maybe he's not playing the same formula but like, that's -good-.
.......maybe i'm just a negative nancy :> :>