Tuesday, June 10, 2008

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.

Monday, June 09, 2008

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.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

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.


Wednesday, May 28, 2008

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]

Sunday, May 25, 2008

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

Thursday, May 22, 2008

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.

Monday, May 19, 2008

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 …."

Monday, May 12, 2008

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-.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

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.

Monday, May 05, 2008

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