Literary Clusterfucks 2013

she said it was bc they were disappointed that she broke up with the guy before the book came to press

That's always seemed like a hazard of the stunt memoir -- you sell the idea of having the experience while you're still having it (or even before you've had it), and then it has to live up to whatever your pitch was.

yeah i guess they couldve been on ellen or w/e together displaying their superior post feminist love

I have learned just how fine the line is between being an alpha male and being something else altogether.

also on a side note can people finally just stop it w this shit already, an alpha male is like not a real thing

excuse me! my mother was an alpha male

apologies not trying to start a race war

http://lhslive.com/images/alpha.jpg

lol @ jho. hi jho!

sup hs how u doin

ime alpha males are more like zephyr males or w/e

estela vmic otm as per usual ; )

I have learned just how fine the line is between being an alpha male and being something else altogether.

also on a side note can people finally just stop it w this shit already, an alpha male is like not a real thing

― lag∞n, Friday, 11 January 2013 01:58 (1 hour ago) Permalink

excuse me! my mother was an alpha male

― let's bitch about our stupid, annoying co-ilxors (darraghmac), Friday, 11 January 2013 01:59 (1 hour ago) Permalink

apologies not trying to start a race war

― lag∞n, Friday, 11 January 2013 02:01 (1 hour ago) Permalink

amazing

1234

literary racewars 2013

i admit in the midst of this rather dire thread i irl lold and sort of did a little celebration when i realized jonviachi was still engaged in fully defending himself against any and all race war accusations

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/01/10/the_cowboy_and_the_feminist_turns_out_to_be_a_story_about_abuse.html

ah, posted above n/m

lol same, it's the rift that keeps on giving.

xp to lagoon

Alisa Valdes ‏@MizAlisa
"It's amazing how many idiots have access to the Internet." My son, 11

He's not wrong.

So last month she started a blog of love letters between her and her new boyfriend.

http://thepassionletters.wordpress.com/

I mean...

Jesus H Attentionseeker.

Teardrops often remind me of children. They see a paradise that NO NO STOP IT I ALREADY HAVE DIABETES JUST FROM THAT OH GOD.

I'm getting echoes of Liz Jones and Nirpal Dhaliwal

why men and women have nothing in common except sex (according to the daily mail)

if i were getting echoes of liz jones, i'd move

Yikes, those letters

This inner calm was the very first thing I noticed about you the first time I met you in person. Do you remember? We met for coffee at a Starbucks near the Cottonwood Mall, ostensibly to “network”. You’d friended me on Facebook several months before, and we had an acquaintanceship based upon writing. I’d always known you were breathtakingly beautiful; that much is obvious from your photos. I know I had an interest in you that was probably inappropriate, given our age difference. But I also knew that you wrote beautifully, and I wanted to be your friend…at least your friend.
I almost didn’t show up that day, because I felt like such a predator. We’d been friends, but never flirted until I started that avalanche. You played back. It was fun. But we had yet to meet face to face. I texted you en route to that first meeting, told you I felt weird, like a creepy cougar lady. You LOLed back and reassured me. “It’s just networking, right?” you half-joked. Right, I thought. Riiiiiight.

execrable.

Alisa Valdes, June 14, 2011: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alisa-valdesrodriguez/christian-fiction_b_875112.html

Christian book publishing is flourishing. The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) reports an increase in sales from 2009 to 2010 of 4.6 percent, according to a November 22 article in Christian Retailing magazine. Eight of the 15 member houses reporting to the ECPA reported an astonishing growth rate for that period of 14.5 percent.

My sociologist father taught me well that in American society there is a constant pendulum swing back and forth between what Max Weber and others called "traditionalist" and "modernist" values. In fact, the red-state, blue-state divide in the United States could also be interpreted as the ongoing conflict between these two distinct and yet both very American values systems.

At times of economic hardship, such as the one we are all living through now, people gravitate toward the traditionalist values, in search of something stable, predictable, and certain. It is no surprise then, that as the nation's economy continues to fumble and fall, that readers are drawn more and more toward stories that speak of simpler times, traditional values, and selflessness.

In other words, long gone are the days of Sex in the City and other consumerist "chick lit," as readers turn en masse toward Amish romances and romances set in small rural Western towns. Many in publishing say chick lit is dead. I don't agree. Rather, I think chick lit has given up Friday night cocktails for Sunday morning services.

My sociology professor father compiled a list of values that are in constant conflict between traditional and modern societies that I as an author find of great interest at this crossroads in our nation's history. Reading through it is almost like reading a list of plots and themes that worked in women's fiction in the 1990s and early 2000s (modernist) versus those that intelligent writers would be wise to utilize now (traditionalist).

Under "economic structure" we find the following differences:

* Modernists (like Carrie Bradshaw) create goods for exchange or sale; traditionalists (like the Amish heroines) create goods for their own use or for their community.

* Modernists function within a national economy and are city-based, whereas traditionalists function in a local economy and are rural-based. (We see the first hints of the power of the traditionalist Christian book market's emergence in the success of Twilight, which was written by a devout Mormon, set in the forest, and featured no sex before marriage.)

* Modern society sees a complex division of labor where everyone can do or be anything they like; traditional society has a simple division of labor set by sex and age -- meaning the Sex in the City girls (or the women in my own "chica lit" novels) are ambitious businesswomen and go-getters, while the new heroines tend to teach sewing or care for children.

The contrasts become even more fascinating when you look at the differences in social structure between modern and traditional societies.

* Modern relationships tend to be transitory and impersonal (think Samantha's many sexual conquests) whereas traditional relationships are long-lasting and genuinely intimate. Readers are actively seeking out these more satisfying stories, with a deeper level of connection.

It would be a mistake for Manhattan publishing to simply roll their eyes at the "wacko evangelicals" in the "fly-over states" who are reading the new traditionalist fiction by the trainload. The hunger for deeper meaning in relationship and life is not limited to the religious, necessarily, and these stories are finding widespread audiences.

The list goes on.

* Modern society has high and constant social change, and little dependence upon others for approval; traditional society offers a static society where people conform, or depend upon others for approval.

* Modern society embraces and exalts individuality; traditional society holds alternatives to a minimum (thereby offering comfort in belonging, during times of economic uncertainty.)

* Modern society's families are small; traditional society's families are large.

* Modern society emphasizes "achieved" roles, where you can be whatever you like; traditional society demands "ascribed" roles, that you are born into or inherit. In modern society, the individual is the center of it all; in traditional society, family is the center of it all.

This last piece, about self versus community, is key. We are living through a time of unprecedented greed in America, a time when bankers went haywire (resulting in record foreclosures and homelessness) and big business shipped our middle class overseas.

Is it any wonder, then, that romance readers are scooping up books that, while simplistically defined as "Christian," are in fact offering us an alternate view of life and society, one where selfishness and vulgarity have been replaced by community and decorum?

If economic indicators are to be believed, we are probably just seeing the tip of this particular iceberg. Hard times are here to stay for a while, and with them, traditionalist fiction isn't going away.

Explains all the Mormon vampires.

Weirdly explains 50 shades, too. Like some sort of crossover genre.

The soft light did not hide the obvious, which is to say your intense and masculine beauty. I just sort of gasped, and listened to the gentle come-and-go of your breath, and I wondered, again, how it was that I, of all the women in Albuquerque, got so lucky to have been found by you.

Magnificent.

xp This is news? As someone said on here recently, she has a very high words-to-ideas ratio.

By she, do you mean Valdes, James, or Meyer?

Valdes seems pretty sharp to me, despite eye-rolling crap like:

Alisa Valdes @MizAlisa
Ironic: When the same folks taking me to task for challenging extreme feminism try minimize my intellect with: "She just a romance writer".

Alisa Valdes @MizAlisa
A word to reassure my loved ones: I have thick skin, emotionally. The criticism was expected. I questioned feminism. Sacred cow. I'm fine!

if I start using the phrase "scared cow" will people get the joke or will they just think I'm dumb

Teardrops often remind me of children.

I associate both with dampness and screaming.

Ha. In what context, DJP?

teardrops keep fallin on my head
reminds me the child has probly wet the bed
he's such a little shit
those teardrops keep fallin on my head they keep fallin

Valdes. Sharp? This is ridic: "It would be a mistake for Manhattan publishing to simply roll their eyes at the "wacko evangelicals" in the "fly-over states" who are reading the new traditionalist fiction by the trainload."

"Manhattan publishing" is doing no such thing, they're making money off "bonnet books" and women's fiction directed at calming the fears of religious Middle America as fast as we, I mean they can. Points for strawmanning though.

Ha. In what context, DJP?

Maybe I'll start on Twitter, taking on the scared cows of our day

tbf they still may be rolling their eyes xp

YESSSS xpost

Orbit, we totally agree, but there are plenty of examples of intelligent people who are capable of writing well who churn out drivel and bad, lazy, reactionary ideas. *shrugs*

i admit in the midst of this rather dire thread i irl lold and sort of did a little celebration when i realized jonviachi was still engaged in fully defending himself against any and all race war accusations

If you had actually taken time to read the thread, you would've seen that I was not defending myself against any accusations, I was calling out Mordy for a needless personal attack. But considering you are one of ilx's bigger bullies as well, I don't expect much different from you.

^ racist warmonger

^ bullying asshole

lol

(sorry)

*bullies erica*

can't wait for 3.0

The Bully and the Race Warrior