Quick Thoughts - "Defying Gravity"

I was sorely tempted to take my Thoughts this week and try to capture some of my feelings surrounding some recent happenings on Twitter but should probably be grateful that I have a new publication to talk about instead. That's right, my story "Defying Gravity" is out now in Dreamspinner Press' Starstruck anthology. Which, the theme of the anthology is basically m/m romance with a celebrity element, so I couldn't really resist making the main character a superhero of moderate success meeting a guy who wants to be his sidekick. Hijinks ensue.

Part of what I love about writing superhero stories, and especially superhero romance stories, is that I can revel in the ridiculousness of the genre tropes. These are stories that feature superpowers and villains with rather peculiar ways of doing business and instead of bringing on the grit I decided to go for more of a…well, faux-classic feel. High drama and talking gorillas and giant, universe-destroying shark gods. And a bit of a romance thrown in for good measure. The main character is Gravity who, as you've probably guessed, has gravity powers. Largely unexplored gravity powers, though he's been around a while and has enough of a following to crowd-fund his living expenses to superhero all day. Which, I couldn't help but imagine what modern superheroing would look like, how people with powers would be able to live free of corporate sponsorship. Crowd funding seemed like a good bet.

I think I love this story a little too much. It's rather over-the-top and saccharine but it's also unapologetically fun. When I say that I write smut to keep myself sane, this is the kind of story I mean, that's just unambiguous and happy. I get to write happy queer love and that's rather amazing, given that it's not often I can find something so…positive in SFF. And hey, I don't always want to write happy fluff, but sometimes I do and this is my outlet. Deal. And okay, so smut always has these forms to fill out for blurbs and things like that (which is also something that SFF lacks), and this story probably has my favorite descriptive text I've ever given to a story. Basically: [SPOILERS]

[SERIOUSLY SPOILERS!!!] Gravity meets Bruce, an eager gentleman who wants to be his sidekick, and immediately starts having troubles defeating the villains he's always had no issue with. Accelerator. Gorillord. Small time stuff. He fears his attraction to Bruce is making him weak but nope, turns out that Bruce only showed up to try and help because Bruce's evil twin brother couldn't stand his attraction to Gravity. Turns out Bruce's twin, Clark, is SUPER STRAIGHT and feels that his twin being bi somehow implies that he's bi as well (BECAUSE THAT'S HOW TWINS WORK I GUESS) and is out to destroy the main object of Bruce's perverted lust: Gravity. Cosmic shark gods are summoned, Gravity learns how to accept and ask for help, and Clark is a complete asshole. Things happen and resolution with kissing probably. [OKAY SPOILERS OVER!!!]

This is what I live for sometimes. There's also a ton of little easter eggs and bits of world building going on because I can't resist when it comes to superheroes. Indeed, I liked this so much that I have a related story appearing in December as part of Dreamspinner's Bah Humbug Advent Calendar. There is a supervillain and his boyfriend and all the attempts to destroy Christmas and I just love writing these so much. I'm thinking of further fleshing out the setting with future stories as well (and who knows, if this is popular at all maybe something longer still). For the moment, though, this represents my first step into this world. And for fans of not-erotica (notrotica? enotica?) it peaks at kissing so is more just these two guys first meeting and getting involved (for fans of yes-erotica, the Christmas story includes some much steamier bits).

Anyway, indeed. This was probably much more pleasant to write about than thinking about trying to engage on Twitter and then being told I'm wrong and just don't understand and all my priorities are stupid and I don't think ahead because I'm too emotional and all. Because yeah… Thanks for reading!

All the best,

Charles Payseur

The Monthly Round is Up!!!

The Monthly Round, my favorite stories for August with reviews and drink pairings, is up right now at Nerds of a Feather. Check it out!


Tasting Flight - August 2016

"The Gentleman of Chaos" by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (Apex #87)

"Superior" by Jessica Lack (The Book Smugglers)\

"What Pada-Sara Means to the Elephant" by Jeremy Sim (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #206)

"Fragile Insides" by Jason Kimble (Orthogonal: Code)

"An Ocean the Color of Bruises" by Isabel Yap (Uncanny #11)

"Rooting" by Isha Karki (Mithila Review #5&6)

Shots

"Creation" by Sara Norja (Flash Fiction Online)

"The Company" by Sanya Noel (Omenana #7)

"The Singing Soldier" by Natalia Theodoridou (Shimmer #32)

Cheers!

Quick Sips - Clarkesworld #120

It's another full month for Clarkesworld with six original stories and a nice array of nonfiction that I don't have time to talk about but which I recommend to everyone. The stories here are, by and large, about the ways that humans destroy. Corrupt. Harm. Make war. The stories largely take place in the aftermaths of devastation. Science fiction and science fantasy stories about characters making do (or not) About characters finding hope despite the destruction, despite the harm, even if that hope is only for escape and release. More, though, the story is about people finding each other in the desolation, reaching out when they could pull away, and being richer for it. It's a fine bunch of stories and it's time to review them! 

Art by Julie Dillon

Quick Sips - Shimmer #33 (September Stuff)

The two stories in this month's Shimmer content explore the boundaries between ideas that seem distinct but, upon closer examination, become a bit fuzzy. The space between human and plant, waking and dreaming, shadow and body, male and female. The stories dive into the ways that categories sometimes fail, that treating things with scientific distance sometimes means losing the real point. They are moving and complex stories of magic budding into our world and so I'm going to jump right into reviewing them! 

Art by Sandro Castelli

Quick Sips - GigaNotoSaurus September 2016

The September GigaNotoSaurus has arrived and it's a contemporary fantasy novelette that brings a kind of Hell on Earth. But, you know, not really the whole fire and brimstone kind. This month's offering is full of more quite suffering. Ghosts that linger but don't really do all that much. Suffering that needs to be unearthed before it can be eased. It's a tale that could almost be a horror story for its elements but ends up being something more tender and more luminous. Whatever it is, though, I should just get to reviewing it! 

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #207

The two stories in the latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies drive for mixing the magical with the mundane. Showing young characters reaching for some escape from rather oppressive situations and finding portals (of sorts) into different worlds. Whether the portal is mathematics or a hand-built raft, and whether the magic involves is fairy-related or steampowered, the stories show how the greater world is waiting for these characters, though it's not always what they imagined. And for some of them, it's not at all welcoming. But these tales bring a more classic feel to the issue, blending in styles that evoke the literary traditions of bygone years. And they're both rather fun to read. So to the reviews! 

Art by Marek Hlavaty

Quick Thoughts - Vacation Thoughts (novels, reviewing, and me)

When I started writing, way back when, it was novels that inspired me. Novels that took shape in my mind and then inevitably dissolved into a pool of incoherent thoughts and poorly defined characters. From what I know of writers, this isn't really strange. I grew up on chunky fantasy novels and it was always my desire to write them, to craft this huge tapestry of a novel, of a world. I made settings and notebooks of history and subjected people to D&D campaigns set in the settings I created. I considered myself a writer, not because I actually finished any of the novels I started, but because I aspired to be a novelist. Still do, kinda. But the goalposts of writing, of being a writer, have certainly changed since I first started poorly imitating the epic fantasy I read as a child.

I am solidly a short fiction writer now, with some poetry thrown in for good measure. Not that I have never finished a novel. I have written six or seven fairly awful novels which are sitting on a flash drive somewhere. I still occasionally get really inspired to sit down and write something longer. But...life changes. Goals change. Realities change. I feel like this idea I had as a child of being a novelist is one that was encouraged constantly. Even through college I feel that short fiction was treated as practice. As something you got through. In some ways this is a heartening idea, because short fiction (in my opinion) is leaps and bounds ahead of novels when it comes to inclusivity and treating identities with respect and depth. It is by no means perfect, but short fiction is still where I feel the most comfortable, as a reader and a writer. And seeing more and better short SFF writers "graduate" into novels means being able to read more and better SFF novels. So win-win, really, except that it creates this idea that there is a path that involves going through short SFF and then beyond into more lucrative and more respected work.

I'm just sort of rambling, here, to be honest. I'm on vacation for a week and I will admit that there is a part of me who feels this time and thinks "Write a novel!" Because sometimes it takes a week off to realize just how much time the rest of life takes. How much I would be writing if I didn't have pesky things like bills to worry about. I did just finish a novella, the first I have ever written, and I'm rather excited about it. It's got mech suits and Arthurian myth and so many queer people and sex and some kinkiness and it's really rather exactly what I want to be writing. And I would write novels of this. The setting and the characters spread out before me in such an interesting and complex way. I'm thinking of maybe crafting a mosaic novel of connected stories for now, because I guess I don't really want to think about the story not being picked up. Ambition is a double edged sword for writers, I feel. Or for me. It motivates me to produce what I hope is my best work, my most imaginative and fun and complex work. It also makes rejection hurt that much more, because if I believe in something so hard but no one else seems to care...well, possibly I'm just wrong.

It is always terrifying for me to start something new. I've consciously shut off my novel brain basically ever since I started this blog. Because it would kill me to keep up with this and try to write novel-length work and try to write short fiction (and I'm going to be writing short fiction regardless, so something had to go). I have not regretted the decision, so no worries. I put out about 30-40,000 words of reviews every month (August actually saw over 45,000 between all of my nonfiction SFF). I am quite proud of that, even as it means that I cannot write the novels that child-me was so excited about. For me, I don't feel ready yet. Part of my push to review is to learn, is to gain by osmosis and constant examining of SFF some better understanding of it and myself. For now, it works out quite well. I feel I'm getting better at knowing how I work, and I feel like I'm getting better.

Taking a week off has been somewhat illuminating. I had a chance to read Kelly Robson's piece over at Clarkesworld and had a world of feels about it. There is this feeling that every single moment is wasted unless it is spent doing something that will not only be paid for but which will find a wide audience and garner positive engagement. And especially in writing, there is the sense that any story that doesn't sell, any novel that doesn't get picked up by a large publisher, is wasted. And to further complicate this is the knowledge, pressing and persistent, that there isn't enough time to write everything I want, to read everything I want, to do everything I want. But that trying to wring every last moment out of life and time is exhausting and, perhaps, not really the point.

These are perhaps some big thoughts to be had when I had meant only to sit around mostly-naked and relax. But fuck, relaxing is hard. When there is time I want to fill it. Why? Because there is so much time that I have to fill with shit I don't want to do, and my financial situation is not really one that I have a great deal of options regarding that. I see things occasionally that are supposed to be motivational that people who want a thing bad enough will make it happen. I...don't really agree with that. But that I disagree with the sentiment doesn't mean that I will use that to do nothing, or even do less. It means struggling with these feelings. As the Robson piece closes, the only way to fail is to stop. And I'm not stopping. I'm just forced to limit what I can start, which at this time includes novels. Which is in some ways heartbreaking for me but in other ways what I know needs to happen. In a year, in two, maybe that will change. For now, I'm...well, for now it's what it is.

This piece has probably rambled on far enough. I have tea to sip and stories to revise. Thanks for reading!

All the best,

Charles Payseur