Just had to share -

- this email I just got my my pal, Matt Skaggs. I just wish I was the one who actually wrote that book (sigh).

Hey - I saw your book on an endcap at Borders today!

Writing Assistance

After ten years my day-job just folded (sigh) so while I'm gainfully unemployed I'm looking for any writing gigs anyone might know about, or any publishers who are open to novels (gay, straight, smut, non-smut, whatever). Any help whatsoever would be very appreciated.

M.Christian
zobop@aol.com
mchristianzobop@gmail.com

Touching Praise for FILTHY

From Amazon (review by Donovan Brown):

Erotica That Reads Like Literature

I have enjoyed M. Christian’s work for a long time. His solo collection Dirty Words and his two multiple-author anthologies co-edited with Simon Sheppard, Rough Stuff and Roughed Up, are among my favorite volumes of erotica.

Which brings me to Filthy: Outrageous Gay Erotica, a new collection of gay erotic stories by M. Christian. To say this is a great book is an understatement. It runs the gamut of emotions, from anger to sadness to ecstasy to envy.

Here are capsule reviews of some of my favorite stories from Filthy…

“The Greener Grasses” in one short story captures the entire paradox of trying to reconcile a leatherfetish lifestyle into the humdrum world of 9-to-5 jobs and dishes to be washed more than volumes of scholarly non-fiction ever has.

“Flyboy” is a wistful tale of a man who has two lovers, one flesh and blood and one as big as all outdoors. Guess which one gets him in the end. You might be surprised.

“Love” reads as a tender valentine to all the gay men, imaginary or otherwise, who have inspired the author over the years to create his amazing tales of erotica.

“Suddenly, Last Thursday” is a haunting, harrowing riff on Tennessee Williams’s play Suddenly, Last Summer.

And “Friday Night at the Calvary Hotel” is an amazing tale that gets my vote for one of the top ten best short stories ever.

Filthy transcends its genre of erotica and enters the realm of literature.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Going To Miss You, George

On Rejection Letters

"I am sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just do not know how to use the English language."
- San Francisco Examiner rejection letter to Rudyard Kipling.

TV Shows You Might Not Have Seen ... But Should: Top Gear

From Meine Kleine Fabrik:

We might not agree with Clarkson on the environment, Mays on politics, The Stig on fashion, or that Hammond's new haircut looks good, but Top Gear remains one of our all-time favorite shows. Love cars, hate cars, or just not care that much about them, Top Gear is always loads of fun.

Wikipedia:

Top Gear is a BAFTA, multi-NTA and Emmy Award-winning BBC television series about motor vehicles, mainly cars. It began in 1977 as a conventional motoring magazine show. Over time, and especially since a relaunch in 2002, it has developed a quirky, humorous style. The programme is estimated to have 385 million viewers worldwide and 11 million viewers each week, with one episode (Series 7 Episode 5) having 21 million viewers in the UK on BBC Two. The show is presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and The Stig, an anonymous test driver. In 2007 it was one of the most pirated television shows in the world.

Welcome to Weirdsville: Things That Shouldn't ... But Still Do ... Go Boom

If you like my Welcome to Weirdsville stuff then head on over to the always-fun Dark Roasted Blend for a new article on exploding lakes, busting toads, and suicide bombing ants.

Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: Staying Fresh

(the following is part of an ongoing series of columns I did for The Erotica Readers & Writers Association on the ins and outs and ins and outs and ins and outs of writing good smut)


This month’s Streetwalker comes from a suggestion by the wonderful Adrienne here at ERA. When I asked her for some possible topics to cover she gave me: “How about plot ideas, how to keep works fresh and unique and advice on where to look for plot/character inspiration?” If anyone else has any ideas for columns, by the way, please feel free to zap them to me and I’ll consider them.

Now I’ve sort of touched on keeping an eye out for story ideas before, but it bears exploring a bit more. Keeping your work fresh is more than a little important for any writer, especially for smut authors.

For me, stories are everywhere – and to be honest I don’t think I’m special. It’s all a matter of keeping your eyes open, but most importantly PLAYING with the world around you.

It should be obvious that in order to write about the world you need to know something about it, but what a lot of people don’t seem to realize is that sitting in a coffee shop, scribbling away in a notebook while you ponder the imponderables of human nature isn’t likely to yield anything usable. Getting your hands dirty, though, will.

By that I mean really exploring yourself as well as other people. Look at who you are, why you do what you do – both emotionally as well as sexually. The same goes for the people around you. Spend some time really thinking about them, their motivations, their pleasures, or what experiences they may have had.

Dig deep -- ponder their reactions as well as your own. Sharpen your perceptions. Why do they say what they say? What do people admire? Why? What do they despise? Why? That last question should almost always be in your mind – directed outward as well as inward: why? This depth of understanding, or just powerful examination, is a great tool for developing both stories as well as characters.

Along with studying the world, pay attention to good work no matter where you find it. A lot of writing teachers tell students to get intimate with the classics – which I agree with, but also think it’s equally important to recognize great writing even when it’s on the back of a cereal box. Read a lot, see a lot of movies, watch a lot of TV – and pay attention when something good, or great, comes along. Don’t dismiss anything until you’ve tried it, at least for a little while. Examples? Romance novels, comic books, documentaries, sitcoms, cartoon shows, old radio shows, pulps, westerns, and so forth. There’s gold all around you, if you dig around enough

Not for the fun – playing. Look at that guy sitting over there, the one by the window: Heavy, messy hair, chewing with his mouth open – easy to peg him as lonely, creepy, or even seriously perverse. Easy is a shortcut, easy is dull, easy is lazy. Instead try seeing him as something completely different than your initial assessment. Maybe his mind is lovely and musical. Perhaps his touch is gentle and loving. Who knows, maybe he’s a sex magnet – with more boyfriends/girlfriends than he knows what to do with.

Say you’ve stumbled on a particularly good book, show, series, or whatever. Great, bravo, applause – now write something like it. Who cares that the show will never, ever look at your story, or that the medium is long dead (like radio drama). Do it anyway. Have fun – PLAY! Get into the habit of automatically either writing your own version or fixing what you see as a flaw in the original. If you’re reading a book, stop halfway through and finish it in your mind – and then when you do finally turn that last page was your version better? If not then what did the author do that you didn’t?

I love coming attractions, the trailers for movies. Watching them, I always make up my own movie based on what I’ve seen. Sometimes it’s better – at least I think so – sometimes not, then I look at what the director did better than I did when the flick finally comes out.

Playing and watching, studying, that’s the ticket. If you keep your mind sharp, notice details, and examine yourself and the world around you as well as challenging and playing with story ideas, then writing a story for a very specific Call for Submission or for some other strange project will be easy and your story will be original and fresh.

Setting The Record Straight

Steve Williams (thanks) over at Suite 101 has given me an opportunity to try and set the record straight regarding the whole Me2 controversy:

Author M. Christian, an established and highly praised writer, talks about his acclaimed works and his career to date, offering aspiring writers his sage advice also.

SW: Can you give us some deatails about your book please?

M.C: The book called Me2, which was totally and completely written by myself, the real and bonafide 'M.Christian' and not written by some person claiming to be the real 'M.Christian'. It is a novel about identity and existence. Although the book has been marketed as a horror story, it also has elements of surrealism, humor, and plenty of social commentary. Similarly, even though the book has a gay male focus I think it would appeal to readers of any orientation, as its message is extremely universal: who are we and are we in control of our lives?

Everyone, gay or straight, likes to think they have a certain uniqueness, but do they really? 'Me2' deals with this by exposing the idea of a copy or fake, a second 'you' that appears apparently out of nowhere and begins not only to take over your life but also becomes a better 'you' than you ever could. How would you react to that? Would you try and quickly change your life, become someone less easily imitated? But then what happens when even this new 'you' is similarly copied -- or is the fraud, your doppleganger, just doing what you're doing ... down to your panicky change of life?

And it gets even worse from there.

SW: For aspiring writers, what would you say were key things they could do to improve their writing?

M.C: Boy, that's a difficult one, mostly because I believe each writer is different, with unique things that do (or don't) work for them. I have no problem advising folks on smut, for instance, because that's writing for a specific genre. But in general:

Don't read about writing and don't take writing classes (except for mine, of course). I've noticed a lot of would-be-writers spend way too much time on theory and little to no time on actual practice. A writer writes, and each time they do they (hopefully) get better. And have fun! If writing is painful then you're not doing it right. Don't try and outdo someone else or become the next Dickens or Kipling, just do things that you like and that you enjoy. Once it gets easier then you can try to push yourself even father but when you're just starting out you need to get comfortable with language, structure, flow, etc.

For God's sake don't dismiss genre fiction. Good work is good work, if it was written for The New Yorker or a Saturday morning cartoon. Learn to recognize good -- and bad -- work and learn from it. If you read something good then learn from what that writer did. If you read something bad then learn what that writer did wrong.

Play games with your own creativity. If you like a TV show then try writing an episode. You don't even have to write it, just imagine the story and the dialogue. If you're watching a movie or reading a book, stop half way through it and finish it yourself -- was your ending better or not? Why was it better or not? The big thing is to have fun!

Don't write thinking about money (there isn't any) or awards (they are like hemorrhoids, every asshole gets one), or fame. Instead just think about the books you love and do something like them -- repay the debt, so to speak.

SW: Do you see gay fiction becoming more mainstream in the future?

M.C: Only if readers buy them. Like with gay issues in our culture, queer books have become more common, but money is what matters (sigh). I think one of the best 'tricks' to further mainstream gay characters and issues is to simply make them part of any book's world or to emphasize similarities and not differences -- create a bridge between so-called 'gay' fiction and every other genre. So, yeah, I think queer books are becoming more mainstream but I think there's still some distance to go -- mainly because readers need to throw down their bucks to keep the genre going. Without money it could slip back into being just a tiny niche.

SW: Finally, do you have any new stories in the works? If so, can you tell us a little bit about them?

M.C: Thanks for asking! I already mentioned that I have two novels coming out very soon: Brushes is a mainstream/romantic/erotica novel about a famous artist and the people who surround him; and Painted Doll is a cyberdelic noir story about a woman on the run from the mob who hides under the identity of a quasi-dominatrix. In the meantime I'm working on a new novel that should be out in another year, having a great time with a wonderful artist adapting one of my stories into a comic book, and wasting way too much time on my writing blog and my fun blog of weird and unusual things.

Still More Me2 Evil

Even Ryes from Rainbow Reviews has been tricked by my impostor!

He looks just like you. He acts exactly like you. Every day he becomes more and more like you, taking away that what was yours until there's nothing left. You may think you've met your match ~ or your double ~ but that's not even close.
Me2 is a psychological thriller about self and identity, written in a unique and interesting structure. The book starts off with an unnamed narrator who works at Starbucks. The narrator mentally labels the Starbucks customers by the flavor/cup sizes of the coffee they order and the personalities he associates with those coffees. This is not different from the way he views the world in terms of brand names. His description of himself also doesn't distinguish him from other men like him. His daily activities are routine, and he even gives his looks a name: a Boy of Summer look.
One of his Starbucks customers tells him about aliens, or clones, amongst us. They blend in with everyone else so you can't tell them apart. He starts wondering if there's someone out there trying to copy him in order to blend in. Suddenly, he starts seeing himself everywhere, and he's not sure why. Parts of the book read like dream sequences as his paranoia grows and he confuses small details like which car is his and which house is his.
The idea planted in his head about doubles and clones begins to consume all his thoughts and he comes to the conclusion that people really are copying details of himself to take over his life. As a result of all this, he begins questioning his identity and wondering what makes him different and what makes him an individual in a world operated by brand names and labels.
Me2 is set up with eleven chapters and three epilogues. Each of the chapters are titled (in order) "Me," "Me2," "Me3," "Me4," etc. The narrator of each chapter is not necessarily the same one from the previous chapters. The epilogues lead up to the publication of this novel, with an amusing letter from the editor to M. Christian (or whoever wrote this book).
Me2 is a well-written and well-thought out take on the issue of identity, and Christian writes with gripping and clear prose. He delivers the "horror" aspect without fail and executes a wonderful build-up. Me2 is an excellent novel that provokes thought and introspection; highly recommended.

What Else Do I Do?

One of my (too often neglected) hobbies is photography. If you want to see some of the weird things I’ve shot, or just scanned, check out this Flickr group. Enjoy!

When Will The Horror End?!

Yet again that damned plagiarist has conned a reviewer into thinking that he is me!

J. EDWARD SUMERAU (via Metro Spirit):

The latest offering from M. Christian — “Me2” — poses a bit of a dilemma for the average reader. While it contains an intricate plotline leading readers deeper and deeper into psychological consideration, it is constructed upon a narrative style that is often jumpy, tense and hard to follow. The end result is an intriguing argument buried in a difficult format.

M. Christian is of course a variety of voices wrapped into a single moniker. Whether found in erotic collections of the straight or gay variety or in horror compilations and psychological intrigues, Christian holds power over a voice deeply original in a time where conformity is all too common. Having found his work in collections such as “Dirty Words," “Speaking Parts” and “Best American Erotica," it was about time that Christian offered a vision of the contemporary world in the form of a longer offering.

The dilemma arises in the context of the story. The premise is simple enough: A young man works in a coffee shop, dates other men and loves his little car. He even has the common push and pull relationship many grown men have with their fathers, but he is losing his mind. The question becomes whether he is losing himself or being taken by someone else.

Such a fascinating premise based on the notions of identity formation in a world of continual conformity and over-classification makes for a startling storyline in the hands of the craftsman.

The problem for many will arise in the format. Laced with interludes that often drag on without merit and paranoid reactions to the most inane of thoughts, the pace of the story tends to slacken at times, and as a result, the tumultuous occurrences of the characters are left in some form of limbo. As a result, readers may have to carefully take notice of seemingly obscure passages to make sense of the whole, and the story is a difficult read complete with intriguing insights worthy of notice.

With its attack on conformity and modernity in general, the book is an amazing argument in the tradition of Bret Easton Ellis’ “American Psycho” and “Lunar Park," and while its premise recognizes the former, its narrative is a bristly obstacle course reminiscent of the latter work.

In all these regards, Christian has offered a fascinating view of the modern world, and for those who make it through the pitfalls of the writing style, it will be an adventure well-worth the effort.

Further Me2 Outrage

Even Waymon Hudson from The Bilerico Project has fallen victim to the deceiver!

One of the many perks of writing for Bilerico is that we get sent things to review. That's how the book Me2 by M. Christian landed in my lap.

The book's theme is about the slippery nature of identity. The main character is a somewhat bland, generic gay man who begins to descend into madness as he thinks someone just like him, or a version of him, is taking over his life. This "copy", or whatever, of him (I won't give it away in case you read it) begins to take over his life, living it for him- and at times better than him.

Sound complicated and weird? It is. Really weird.

It book bills itself as a "horror" novel, but it is more psychologically twisted than scary. The concept is interesting, but the journey the writer takes you on to get there can be a bit annoying and frustrating.

Which might be the point.

The main character's dissolving sanity and paranoia at times make it hard to really get into the book or even care about the bland leading man. The book drives you a bit crazy with the way it is written, but at times that can be the most interesting thing about the story. You begin to go crazy along with the main character.

Each chapter begins with a kind of bizarre theory as to what is happening to the main character- ranging from evil robot copies, aliens, clones, twins, etc. It all becomes a little bit heavy and distracting, again cutting off the reader from really becoming connected with the story, except to go a bit crazy along with the lead.

It was a bit of a struggle to keep reading it times, but the over-all idea is an interesting one. I will say I found myself thinking about some of the bizarre theories and twists in the book when I wasn't reading it, but still found it somewhat tiring to read.

So if you want to go a bit crazy, then by all means, this is the book for you. It may not be the summer read you are looking for to take to the beach, but is worth a read if you like twisted, bizarre books.

The Neverending Me2 Terror!

Even my friend ... my friend ... Mari Adkins has fallen under the copycat's spell!

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you wake up and you're not quite sure yourself or that you're in your own home with your own personal things? M. Christian's Me2 is a lot like that. The reader is introduced up front to a superficial main character who has a superficial outlook on everything around him -- including his job, his friends, and the other people he encounters. Obsessed by how others perceive him, he goes through his days doing the same thing repetitively, almost mechanically. But then an odd man talks to him about Doppelgangers.

It's been said that every person has a twin somewhere on this Earth. Christian sets this idea on its ear and then some in his own personal style. Of course the narrator has a Doppelganger, the signs are obvious, and he is faced with the unimaginable horror of searching out his own uniqueness.

The story is engaging, although in places confusing -- and out of order. But I believe Christian has layered and sequenced his story this way for the purpose of keeping the reader unsettled, so he can't figure things out on his own or guess ahead.

Confessions of a Literary Streetwalker: What's Next?

(the following is part of an ongoing series of columns I did for The Erotica Readers & Writers Association on the ins and outs and ins and outs and ins and outs of writing good smut)


A fellow pornographer startled me the other day when she said that she wanted to be "the best erotica writer." I couldn't help but applaud and also be a bit disappointed. I mean, why stop there?

I mean erotica is fine and good and to reuse one of my favorite lines "it's been very, very good to me," but it isn't the only thing out there. Why stop with writing just smut?

Aside from the expansion of your potential sales arena, there are lots of other great reasons to try your hand at other genres. Erotica isn't just about sex, it's merged and melded with all kinds of other genres - mainstream, science fiction, horror, fantasy, and all the rest of them - or, it could be argued, erotica is nothing but those genres with the sex put back in. In any case, increasing your hand in other genres can't do anything but add something extra to your smut.

But we're still talking about smut. Okay, wanting to be great in anything is a noble effort but it's still trying to be big in a relatively small pond. Writing other things is it's own reward.

I know that's a scary thought, especially if you're either beginning to get comfortable with being an erotica writer or even building up some respectable credits. It's definitely not easy to jump into a whole new genre and basically start from scratch.

But you know what? Writing is hard. When it stops being hard maybe it's time to give up and do something else. No, I'm not saying that it never gets easier, just that writing is a process, and as with all good processes there's a good deal of stretching and straining that goes into it. Staying with just one kind of writing, or genre, is fine and fun but playing it safe and easy can make a writer lazy, and worst of all - dull.

Besides, you don't know what you might be great at. Sure you may be a fine and dandy erotica writer but you could be a real kick-ass non-fiction, horror, romance, mystery, thriller and so forth writer. You won't know until you try.

Certainly there's a chance of failure, of being rejected, but at least you would have done what few people have done: tried to stretch your ability, or writer's voice. Here's something else to think of: in all the world you're doing very few people would even dream of do, let alone have the courage to do - be a writer. That's the hard part. Trying to write something else, that's easy by comparison.

Pussy Happiness

If you want to make your girlfriend's pussy happy, check out my article on Cunnilingus for the Clueless over at Simple Love Secrets.

Here's a (ahem) taste:

Like a lot of sex acts, there's not a lot middle ground when it comes to cunnilingus: you either like licking pussy or you don't.

Some of those trepidations aren't due so much to preference as not wanting to look the idiot when a partner is hoping for a good time. Serenading your lover with a cheap harmonica rather than with a Stradivarius, so to speak.

If you don't want to look like you're auditioning for a jug band rather than the Met, there actually are some techniques you can use to increase your confidence. Like a lot of "make yourself dynamite in bed" tricks, these are hardly guaranteed, but they may help you get over your nerves - so maybe you won't blubber your lips like an idiot on your girlfriend's labia when next you go to kiss her between the thighs.

[MORE]

Great News: The Very Bloody Marys is Back In Print!

M.Christian and the wonderful folks at Lethe Press are proud to announce that M.Christian's comic horror novel The Very Bloody Marys is back in Print!

Can San Francisco survive a marauding gang of Vespa-riding vampires? Before it's sucked dry, the city's only hope may be Valentino, who's only a trainee for the supernatural law enforcement agency, Le Counseil Carmin. Swept up in the whole blood-sucking business when his mentor goes missing, Valentino is called upon to deal with the menace of these "Bloody Marys." But Valentino soon realizes that, in order to dispose of the gang, he must go into areas he never dreamed of, deal with some very strange characters and learn the truth about the dark side of town.

The Very Bloody Marys is a comic horror novel about vampires, ghouls, faeries, and the undead that move around after dark. Part chase, part gallows humor, and all shivery excitement, this new story from the wildly imaginative M. Christian is funny, frightening, and very entertaining.

Order a copy today!

Lethe Press
Paperback
216 pages
ISBN-13 978-1-59021-035-2
$13.00

Still More Signed Books On Ebay

Here's yet another chance to own a signed M.Christian book. Just click here and see the anthologies I've been in that I'm selling on ebay.

The Terror! The Horror!

Again that hideous plagiarist has convinced yet another respectable site that he's M.Christian!

Not only that but he's actually duped them into posting an excerpt from the book that he's published under my name!

When will the horror, the terror end?!

From Gay/Lesbian Fiction Excerpts:

"What? What did you say? That's what I thought you said. No, no, it's okay, it's not that weird. I just don't get asked this kind of question very often.

"Well, if I had to guess, I'd say it probably had to do with technology, with a machine. It does sound kind of ridiculous, doesn't it? But that's what I'd think if it was happening to me. I saw too many movies when I was a kid, I guess. Something like that.

"There's just so much happening. Hell, I remember Liquid Paper, even black and white television. It feels like only a year ago that cell phones were like bricks; now you can swallow them if you inhale. I have an iPod now. I hold it in my hand and just can't believe that it can hold 5,000 songs. That's more than I've ever owned. 5,000 – and it's this big. Amazing.

"But that's nothing. Have you seen some of the stuff coming out of Japan? We lost the race. They won. Sure some of our stuff is okay – I think Macs are sexy – but what they're doing. It's all wonderful but also creepy.

"I saw this thing a week or two ago on a Web site – and that's something, too. When was the last time you read a newspaper? Pretty soon we won't have books anymore. Just screens and little beeping devices everywhere. Like bugs. Fireflies.

"What? Oh, the site. Yeah, it was one of those technology ones. Cell phones, new iPods, flat screen TVs, that kind of thing. I don't look at them very often, but I was just clicking around one day and saw this new thing they'd developed.

"It was really creepy. I said that, didn't I? Well, it was. Really. I mean I know they've done some great things, but this was over the top. It looked just like a woman. Perfectly. A Japanese woman, of course. But you couldn't tell it was a machine. Not at all.

"They had a video clip of it. This Japanese guy was talking to it – just like you and I are talking – and it was talking right back to him. I couldn't tell what they were talking about, of course, because it was all in Japanese, but the way it was moving … it was like she was a real, live girl. Lips moving, eyes blinking, she even raised her hand and brushed aside some hair, like this. Well, better than this because I'm not doing it right, but she did. It was … well, I'm not going to say it was creepy again.

"It looked so real. I mean it was real but she wasn't a real woman. Listen to me, `she' wasn't real. See what I mean? If I didn't know what was going on I'd think she wasn't anything but a girl.

"That's what I'd think was going on. I know it's stupid – that something like that robot could be walking the streets. But I tell you, and don't you dare tell anyone I said this, but after I saw that clip I had a nightmare. I know, it's nothing to be ashamed of, but I don't get nightmares, at least not since I was a kid. But I had one that night. It was a real doozy, too.

"No, I'm not going to tell you what it was. I said no, and I mean it. Yeah, I've heard that, too, but it's just kind of …embarrassing. Even if it will make it better to talk about it, I just – well, I don't want to.

"Okay, okay. Just don't tell anyone. Promise? I mean it. Alright …well, I was walking near 3rd and Spring, you know, where Crate & Barrel is? It wasn't exactly it, because there was a lot of things that didn't fit – like I remember a cop car was green, not black and white, but it's a dream, right? They don't make a lot of sense.

"I was walking down the street. It was sunny, I remember that. Sunny and hot. Hmm? Yeah, I guess I do have pretty vivid dreams. Color, sounds, things like being hot and cold. Don't know if that's really lucky, it just is. There were a lot of cars on the street, heavy traffic. Honking horns, engine noise – that kind of thing. Then there was this woman, older, kind of like … I don't know, an older Liz Taylor. Fancy, all done up. Pearls around the neck, Prada handbag – that kind of thing.

"She also had a dog. A little thing, one of those hyper purebreds, pulling at a leash. A white puffball. It was yapping, too. Barking at everything.

"When … when I was a kid there was this lady on our block with a dog just like that. `Pixie' she called it. I hated the thing. It bit – well, nipped, really – and never shut up. One day it got out, got hit by a car. I didn't see it, but the next day on the way to school I saw some blood on the street and knew that's where it had happened. Maybe it'd been better that I saw it, because the rest of that summer all I could do was think what it must have been like, guts and bones and all that.

"That's where the dog in my dream came from. Pretty obvious, really. So naturally the thing slipped off the leash and ran intro the street. Got hit – of course."

"But no guts or blood or bones, that kind of thing. It was – it was really weird. I mean, odd. Said `weird' too many times. But when the car hit the dog, there was this sound like … I don't know what it was like. Snapping. Grinding. Like that.

"The woman was shrieking, really wailing. Tears and everything. But when I looked at the dog there was nothing but springs, gears, electronic parts, metal. A machine, you see? Like a toy … a real toy poodle.

"But then I looked at the woman, the woman who owned the dog, and instead of skin on her face I saw it was plastic, like a mask, and her eyes were like those things at Disneyland. A robot. Her mouth was open, but inside was a speaker, and that's where her crying was coming from.

"I'm not telling it right. But that's what happened. It was … I kept thinking about it all day. Actually for the rest of the week. The sound she made, the way her skin looked – like a plastic toy. Her eyes clicked and clacked when they moved, but even though she was a … thing, she kept trying to be like a person. That was the worst of it. Not that she was a machine, but that she -- it -- was trying to be like a real, human, person.

"It was sad, that she couldn't ever do it. She could just go through the motions. Be the way she was programmed, I mean.

"Hmm? Oh, sorry, just thinking about it again. I just can't tell it right. It was … well, I keep wondering if the machines, like her, would think the same thing about me if they saw me. Just doing what I was doing, trying to be a person, and not doing it very well …."

Outrageous!

Even the folks at Redroom have fallen for my devious copycat. Is there no justice!?

Thank Goodness -

- another reviewer has seen through the deceptions of my impostor ... though Jame still gives far too much praise to my evil twin for my liking:

From Homomojo:

Frustrating.

If one word could describe my experience with Me2, the novel by M. Christian, “frustrating” would have to be it.

To be fair, I’ve had a lot of distractions over the past couple of months, so perhaps part of the experience is my fault. To accomodate this fact, however, I tried to read Me2 twice. Note the word “tried.” The second time was a no-go.

I did manage to complete the novel once–the first time–in furtive spurts. Which, as I think about it, somewhat resembles the manner in which it reads itself. As a story, it progresses in fits and starts. Just when it gets interesting, the novel fizzles back into one of the transcripted therapy sessions that begin each chapter. (That’s not metaphor–each chapter begins with an italicized transcript of what is evidently the main character talking with his therapist). For me, it just didn’t mesh as a story. It was far too slow and laden with descriptions that I just didn’t find compelling.

On the other hand, I did like what the author attempted to do in certain respects. There is an rhythm of lyric at points that made me want to read on. And the basic concept itself (which I won’t divulge for those who wish to read the novel) is done with an originality that I can only envy as an aspiring writer myself. But for a novel described as “horror,” I think Me2 fails. Perhaps it’s horror if the reader is a schizophrenic narcicist, but for me, I kept thinking “when is he going to get on with it?” I just didn’t find anything about it scary at all.

And the denoument of the novel really does it no favors. The ending is far too tiresome to read the first time around, let alone a second try.

I don’t know. Perhaps I’m too rural to “get it.” I can only say that at times I felt almost confronted by the somewhat tiresome exposition, and the manhattanite descriptions of characters. It was overly surreal, unrelatable, and repetitive, albeit with some passages of fine writing skills buried within. If I was grading this for a college class, maybe a B-.

It's too easy to forget -

- that we really are living in a weird and wonderful future.

From Grinding:

Curator Forced to Kill Out-of-Control Bio-Art Exhibit

The problem with bio-art is that it’s often made of living tissue — and sometimes living tissue gets out of control. That’s what happened late last week at a New York MoMA exhibit called “Design and the Elastic Mind,” where a tiny living jacket made out of stem cells had to be put to death for growing too fast and trying to burst out of its container.

The art piece was called “Victimless Leather,” and according to The Art Newspaper:

The artists, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, say the work which was fed nutrients by tube, expanded too quickly and clogged its own incubation system just five weeks after the show opened . . . Paola Antonelli, head of MoMA’s architecture and design department and curator of the show, says she had to make the decision to turn off the life-support system for the work, basically “killing” it.

Ms Antonelli says the jacket “started growing, growing, growing until it became too big. And [the artists] were back in Australia, so I had to make the decision to kill it. And you know what? I felt I could not make that decision. I’ve always been pro-choice and all of a sudden I’m here not sleeping at night about killing a coat…That thing was never alive before it was grown.“

An Amazon Nightmare -

The terror continues as even more people have been tricked by my doppledanger!

Amos Lassen on Amazon:

The first book I read by M. Christian was "The Very Bloody Marys" which I loved. (By the way, M. you forgot to send me a copy of this new book--I actually had to pay for it). He has not let me down with his new book (so I suppose it was worth what I paid for it).

"Me 2" is engaging and fun as it deals with the nature of identity and whether it is worth keeping the one we have. In this twisted little book, one can find out who he really is, or rather who he is supposed to be. This is a thriller but not the usual ones. This one is twisted as it deals with the psychological aspects of identity and it literally scares. Christian uses the "Genetic Mirror Theory" which claims that everyone has a twin and in this case the terror seems very, very real.

The unnamed narrator is one of those gay boys that look like summer all year long. His gayness is not a problem, however. Being gay is just a part of him that guides the way he lives. Being gay to our narrator is not about sexuality; rather it is just about being. He is typical of the modern age in the way he reacts to others. He never really gets to know anyone and he judges people on face value. In fact, he does the same for himself. He is superficial and worries about how he looks and how others see him. His existence seems to be devoid of any real meaning and every day is like the day before and after. He works at Starbucks and his customers are simply cups of coffee. One day he begins talking to a guy who tells him all about fakes and doubles and he further states that there are people in society who are simply clones of others and they spend their time trying to perfect the imitation of someone else.

With his bug in his head, our coffee boy begins to wonder if he has a double and the idea consumes him to the point that he realizes that he does and that his double is tkin over his life. It is then that he begins to question just who he really is.

The nature of identity is not a new idea in literature but Christian makes it seem so and does so brilliantly. He causes us to question just who we are and further questions arise as to who we can be in a society of mass consumption. We do not get a good picture of America as M. Christian writes about the country in which we live and he paints it as a place where everything we do is beholden to both brand names and advertising.

Because of the nature of the theme, the book contains layering of ideas albeit extremely well written and very smart. Here is a world where what we know becomes suspect. The sense of dread that hangs over the novel is all too real.

At least this person has managed to see through my copycat's deception. Hurray!

Ann Regentin On Me, Me2, and You

Ann Regentin has written a brilliantly thoughtful analysis of the work "Me2" thing for the Erotica Readers and Writers site ... I just wish she was talking about me and not my nefarious copycat (sigh):

Beside Ourselves

Several months ago, I got an e-mail to the effect that someone had stolen M. Christian's identity to get a book published about stolen identity [Plagiarism Alert: Me2 novel by 'other' M. Christian]. I read on, at first horrified and then faintly uneasy, but as I had a serious cold at the time, exacerbated by prednisone and immune suppressants, I set aside my unease. I would deal with it when I felt better, but in the meantime, I posted the thing to my blog. It was the least I could do, regardless of what it was.

As you've probably guessed, it was a publicity stunt, a joke that was perhaps more corny than clever, but a book is a book and I did the obvious thing: queried here and there to see if someone would let me do a review.

The response surprised me. ERWA, obviously, gave me a green light, but not after some discontent was heard on the Writers list. A joke, maybe, but in very poor taste. Another place I queried turned the review down flat, with some there suggesting that they might not work with M. Christian at all in the future. At the very least, the publication would remain quiet on this one. Clearly, M. Christian had unwittingly struck a nerve.

Okay, it was a silly joke, but if we're going to tar and feather intelligent men for making silly jokes, we'll have to pluck every chicken in the Midwest. M. Christian is a good writer and an easy man to work with. I can overlook a bit of silly.

Not everyone agreed with me. There were a number of folks who had taken the whole thing at face value and were feeling tricked or even used, and they were angry about it. They just wanted to forget the whole thing.

I decided not to. I decided instead to think about why this story seemed credible in the first place. It was intended as an outrageous joke. It should have been taken as an outrageous joke. So what happened? Is it possible that we're writing in a time when someone could pull off such an identity theft? Are we writing in a time when a publisher would let a book go to print, even promote it, when such a theft might have occurred? Are we writing in a time when a writer in such a position would have little or no legal recourse?

Sadly, yes. That's the conclusion I've come to, anyway, and I have a fair amount of evidence to back me up. I even have some experience along these lines, not so much a matter of chronic problems, but more a question of a few, scattered folks who seemed bent on profiting from my work without actually compensating me in any meaningful way. This isn't a reflection on anyone whose site you'll find listed on my own, by the way. When someone pulls that kind of crap, I don't link to them.

Setting my own experience aside, I have seen evidence of this on a larger scale. The recent writers' strike was, to a great extent, about who gets to profit from new media uses of written material. There has been a sad but steady trickle of journalism scandals, and books published as non-fiction that probably should have been published as novels. There have been lawsuits involving writers like J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown over who had certain ideas first, whether a fictionalized account of a line of historical reasoning counts as plagiarism when an account has already been published as non-fiction and, most recently, about the difference between not-for-profit, online fan work and profiting from a printed version of the same material.

We are also writing in a time when authors are expected to do everything except print the book and put it on the shelves, and expected to do it all equally well. Being an author is less a question of being a good writer than of being a jack-of-all-trades. For example, a recent entry on an agent's blog indicated that as far as he was concerned, writing a novel and writing a query letter require the same set of skills. I have to ask, though, whether he would believe that any advertising copywriter could write a good novel, because a query is really advertising copy, and that's different from a novel. Writing a novel is also different from editing, copy editing, and running an effective publicity campaign. Those tasks were once handled by specialists. These days, not so much.

There are new possibilities now. With changes in how books are printed and distributed, New York isn't the only game in town, and it's no longer necessary to buy a physical press, as Anais Nin did, in order to create or become something different. We can even make money in new ways. An interesting blog, maybe an e-book or related affiliate program, can generate a reasonable amount of spare change, never mind a potential publishing contract

In short, we're living in a time when pretty much anything goes in publishing, including a certain amount of lying and cheating. I don't think, though, that Alyson Press would have done that to M. Christian once word got out, or that M. Christian would have published the sale information of the book in the way he did. Certainly he wouldn't have mentioned it so enthusiastically in earlier interviews and pre-release e-mails. Very different things would have happened had this situation been a real crisis. Unfortunately, the fact that this turned into a tempest in a teacup indicates that we might well have a crisis on our hands, just not one involving M. Christian and Alyson Books.

Sadly, the tempest has obscured an interesting, timely book, [Me2: A Novel of Horror] especially for erotica, even if it isn't necessarily erotica. If identity and personality are open to question or manipulation in an increasingly homogenous world, what does that mean for attraction? Are we falling in love with people, or with images chosen from a million, well-marketed possibilities? Where is the line between image and substance? Which of the two appeals to us more strongly, and what are the possible consequences? M. Christian poses these questions in a disturbing, thought-provoking way.

The book is also relevant to the point of irony where the resulting tempest is concerned, because I think the problems facing publishing are similar to the problems facing our narrator—or is it narrators? It's hard to be sure. Anyway, at the core of the publishing-related difficulties I listed is the desire on the part of nearly everyone involved, including writers themselves, to find or be the next big thing. Unfortunately, success like that isn't as easy to duplicate as writer self-help books claim it is, but the fact that the self-help books keep selling tells us how much we all want this. Agents and publishers set their criteria for both acquisitions and compensation on this desire, trying to minimize risk while maximizing benefit, and writers put up with an environment in which we can begin to believe even for a moment that Alyson Books would let a book go to press with M. Christian's name on it that wasn't written by M. Christian, simply because we want this badly enough.

Ours is a difficult, chancy profession, made worse by the fact that almost everyone can, in some way at least, write and even get published. It doesn't help that where things are published and by whom makes less of a difference than one might like to think. I've seen some darned good writing in personal blogs, and trite trash on the best-seller tables. So has everyone else. These days, being the next big thing isn't just about money, it's also about vindication. Vindication means different thing to different people, but whatever it means, it's usually important enough to sacrifice for.

What gets sacrificed, of course, is where the problem comes in, and it's not just an institutional issue. It's a personal issue, one that everyone in the industry must decide for themselves. There's no easy answer. Every approach has it's advantages and disadvantages, and every writer I know is coping in their own way. We're just going to have to get through this as best we can and see how the industry settles once we get used to what all of this new technology can do.

I'm not proposing changes here, sweeping or otherwise. That's not my job. What I'm suggesting is that we not shoot the messenger. Our discomfort with M. Christian's idea of a joke is what it is because of the context in which the joke was made, not the joke itself. "Wassamatta, your legs broken?" is funny when aimed at one's fit but recalcitrant teenager. It's offensive when aimed at someone whose legs are really broken.

Are the legs of publishing broken? I'm not sure. Certainly, the industry is changing, simply because communications technology is changing, and in the scramble to adapt, an environment has developed in which writers are worried. We see this kind of theft as a viable possibility, which makes it no laughing matter.

The book and the fuss surrounding its release have given me considerable food for thought, in part because I think I've met the narrator, or someone just like him. It's hard to tell, not to mention a disturbing experience.

I'm also writing in a climate of something just beyond unease but not quite into fear. There are stories, sometimes headlines and sometimes rumors, of writers losing control over the rights to their work in ways that rob them of compensation, and for a moment it seemed that M. Christian was one of them. He wasn't, though, and we'd prefer not to think about it anymore.

Clearly, I'm still thinking about it, and I probably will be for a while. Oh, and if you want to find out why I called this "Beside Ourselves", you'll have to read the book!

Ann Regentin
www.annregentin.com
May/June 2008