All Eyes on Me

Fell down a little bit of a VC Andrews rabbit hole the other day. Marybeth LaRivee posted a link to an episode of a podcast about My Sweet Audrina, which is the only of her books I’ve actually read, and I enjoyed listening to the podcasters lose their shit over how INSANE that book is. And it truly is, probably even more so than her more famous Flowers in the Attic series— quite a feat, given I think Audrina’s her only book without explicit incest in it.

I’ve always been shocked by how popular Flowers in the Attic actually is, given the subject matter of what I’d refer to as “genteel sibling-fucking.” But I knew tons of people who read it as a lurid diversion when they were teens or preteens, and while it was always transgressive, I never recalled anyone who found it particularly disturbing. And, though I’ve never actually read that one or any in its series myself, I checked out the recaps of it on a Tumblr the podcast referenced, and it’s actually even more explicitly sexual in deeply strange ways than I’d been led to believe. I guess I’d always assumed it was more… vague. But it seems to be REAL SPECIFIC about stuff, sounding like an odd mix of horniness, prudery, romance, and assault, as well as a truly bizarre normalization of sexualized family relationships even beyond the famous sibling hookups.

I checked out Audrina in high school after a friend told me how batshit it was, and it did not disappoint in that respect— a gothic romance with the plot points of a supercharged soap opera, and very fucked perspectives on romance and relationships, but also a fierce, unashamed sexuality and a lot of rage at the lot of women in the world. Elements I would not have necessarily expected together in such a book. It’s also kind of juvenile, as if frozen in a child’s perspective of what romance and sexuality would be like in adulthood— which likely explains why young people have traditionally responded to it. Really makes me wonder about what VC Andrews was like as a person, to have such a surprisingly contradictory outlook.

I wonder if there’s a good biography of her out there. I’d be very interested to know what kind of person is driven to write this kind of story so… straight. It really doesn’t seem like she came from any place of irony or cynicism, seeming to believe she’s just telling a straight-up, compelling gothic romance. I wonder if anyone ever looked into her enough to have a view on her psychology. I read a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, “Prairie Fires” by Caroline Fraser, a few years back that approached her from a psychological standpoint, and I wonder if anyone ever looked enough into VC Andrews to write something on her from that perspective. I’ve got no desire to read any more of her writing (or of the ghostwriter who’s been cranking out clones for decades to massive financial success) but I’d read the hell out of a biography like that.

I am never more deeply reminded of how little I understand other people as during the holiday season when people listen to albums of basic Christmas standards recorded by popular artists.

What's the appeal? Do you really get some pleasure out of insipid "Jingle Bell Rock" or whatever? Does Mariah Carey singing "All I Want For Christmas Is You" actually stir something in someone? HOW? WHAT EVEN IS THAT PERSON? AM I A SPACE ALIEN, because to me that's like, "Why don't I chew on a plastic soda bottle?" It's not going to hurt you much, but what are you getting out of it? WHAT IS THE APPEAL?

Today one of my students noticed my weird "play-smoking" thing I do sometimes and commented on it. I was really embarrassed.

I've done it ever since I was a little kid. Like, had an urge to act out the motions of smoking while holding an object that was not a cigarette. It's not on purpose, really. Sometimes I don't notice I'm doing it right away. But I do it all the time, and I have no idea why.

If I have a pen in my hand, and I am not actively writing with it, I usually end up holding it like a cigarette and putting it in and out of my mouth. I find myself timing my breathing with it, not quite puffing but close. I'm not sure what I get out of it. I like chewing on things, I guess. I find chewing on things to be comforting, so I destroy things like pen caps. I suppose I like holding something delicately between two fingers in that way. But the breathing thing I have no explanation for. I'm not actually inhaling anything, obviously; I just for some reason like drawing in the air with my teeth clamped on it. As I type this, that description reminds me of cribbing-- a bad habit horses can develop where they brace their teeth against wood and inhale. I rode a horse for years who did that. We're not totally sure what they get out of it, but endorphin release is one possibility. I don't think I really get an endorphin response, but clearly there is something I like about it, or I wouldn't do it all the time.

I've never smoked anything in my entire life. I think it's gross and have zero desire to ever try it. My mom and my grandma got cancer and died of cigarettes, so genetics are against me on that. But something in me likes the motions of it, the thing to handle, to hold in my teeth and breathe around. I guess I definitely better never try the real thing, as I'd probably love it and never be able to stop.

I don't know why I do this. It's weird. I'm weird.

So here's an odd, if pleasantly surprising, situation. As I mentioned, Adonis got a second reading request a month ago, that time from a literary management company called Energy Entertainment. That was very cool and a positive step, but a few days ago I got a decline for a meeting from them. I was disappointed, and frankly pretty bemused-- I really think the script is so good I have no idea how you could like the pitch and not like the script --but hey, that's showbiz. Art is always going to be a matter of taste.

But here's what's weird-- cool weird, but weird. I just got another request from that same company, Energy Entertainment. The request is delivered in the form of a form letter, so the text is basically the same anytime you get one (this is my third one in total now, so I compared them). This second from the same company has the same subject line, basically-- "REQUESTED by ENERGY ENTERTAINMENT" and "REQUESTED by Energy Entertainment". The only thing that is different is this new one specifies "Your script was requested by Colin," Colin Scully being the name of the executive I spoke to, while the first one did not specify a name like that.

So I'm a little unsure of what this is. I had assumed the first request, which was eventually declined after reading, had come from Colin Scully-- that's the guy I spoke to there! But I suppose there could have been someone else in the room with him, maybe off of the Skype camera, who sent the first one, and Colin made up his mind independently later to also ask for it.

I am slightly concerned this is an accidental duplicate of that original Energy Entertainment request, and there isn't actually a second person hoping to read it. In which case this isn't actually another opportunity at all. I don't know how that would have happened, I'm sure they have safeguards in place against that, but the thought occurs to me. I hope that's not the case, and there's actually another person who wants to read it, therefore giving me a second bite at the apple. At any rate, I am going to treat it as if it is a request in good faith regardless. If there was a mistake they'll tell me. So I'm just going to send along the script and hope for the best. I'm really happy for the possibility of another shot!

Bernie and I do wonder if it's worth it to try and edit at all to address the critiques in the feedback from the agency before. They did not ask us to revise, or they would have said so, but they did say the reasons they declined. Would it serve us to try and fix those if we're sending it to the same company? I'm not sure, especially since I didn't really agree with the feedback. The only thing that I sort of saw where they were coming from was they thought the narration was a bit detached, which I could understand given my attempts to not do the cinematographer's job, and also maintain an appropriate tone for an ancient epic. Maybe there is a way to make it less dry. I don't have a ton of time, unfortunately, and altering something that's so much a matter of my writing style might not be possible in that period. I don't want to risk making the piece weaker. I don't know. We'll talk about it today.

But this is a good thing. At worst, we're no worse off than we were before this came in, and at best, it's another chance. Damned if I'm not going to take it. Fingers crossed, as always.

Those of you who pay any attention to fannish channels may have seen the 2014 Archive of Our Own Ship Stats chart. It catalogues this year's hundred most popular relationships written about in stories in that particular fan fiction archive. It discovered, among other things, that making this list are 3 F/F pairings, 3 non-romantic, 23 F/M, and 71 M/M.

Perhaps it shouldn't have, but that surprised me. Not even a third as many straight romances written about as gay ones? I know fan fiction has alway had a ton of queer stuff, but I'm curious what the motivating factor behind that is. Is it that people can't even find queer romance in mainstream media? That might lead me to ask why people don't write original works with queer themes, because CLEARLY there are people who are interested in that. (Is there just as much original queer fiction as queer fan work that is just less visible?) Do they feel like they won't find their audience unless that audience is already hooked by interest in a mainstream property? You don't have to tell me how hard it is to get a new work to find the people who would care about it, but is that indeed why so many queer fan works exist?

I guess the above speculation makes sense. Maybe my real question is why are there so few straight fan works by comparison? Why aren't people writing straight romance in fandom? Are there really so many fewer fans who are interested in it? I have a hard time believing that; properties would not have lots of general success if ONLY the subset interested in queer stuff liked them. And not that you can only write about people like yourself, but are the straight/straight-interested fans less creative? I can't believe that either, creativity has no correlation to sexuality. Do they feel like they get their quota of straight stuff from source material/mainstream media in general and if they want queer stuff find that the only solution is to write it themselves? Hell, as an offshoot of that, why so little femslash? Again, not that you can only write about people like yourself, but aren't there lesbians out there who want to women characters getting together? What about the demographic of authors makes it so that male-male romantic pairings is so overwhelmingly represented?

It stumps me because I don't really relate; I am not a slash fan. I think it's fine if that's your thing, or if it soothes the need for representation or diversity that mainstream media fails to satisfy, but for me personally I tend to not be able to get interested in things that are not compliant with the canon of whatever property I enjoyed enough to seek out fan fiction for. I've written about this issue for me before. I think I must be something of a rarity in this subculture in that when I seek out fanworks, it's because I want MORE of whatever it was I liked about the original. If that is rare, I don't understand why it would be. You enjoy a story, you want more, right? But lately I find myself being, while no less fannish, less and less interested in engaging with fandom. While I don't fault it in any way, I don't really conenct with how it expresses so it's really not so much fun. But I am pretty bemused as to why it works out the way it does.

What in the hell do you think this thing is?

I always get bemused when someone sends in a casting questionnaire asking if they can interact with their SO that's not signed up for the game. Wouldn't they be aware of that fact? Don't people in relationships talk about that sort of thing?