cornerofmadness

I'll tell you all about the Renn fest tomorrow. I figured it is time to touch on this writing topic I've been trying to do for months but since it's been a week of politically related posts it's time. I started having thoughts about a year ago about this and then about 4-6 weeks ago someone on Rainbow Snippets that I participate in as Jana said something to the effect that 'the far right want to imprison us for writing LGBT stories.' Have to admit I had a bit of a spin out over that comment because like I said it's been in my head since These Haunted Hills dropped.

It's not actually that out there. We all know about McCarthyism (or at least we SHOULD if we're here in the States). And one of the things we're voting on in OH is a measure that wants to make it an offense to even teach about abortion (which I have to do when I talk about ectopic pregnancies) there's some who want to make it a sex offense (ditto librarians/teachers allowing young people to read LGBT books).

Could it happen? I don't think it could quite as easily as it did in the 50s because there wasn't much in the way of LGBT rep then. If I look at Goodreads giveaways a good quarter if not more every day are LGBT (or at least have LGBT+ characters in them) Someone else (Here on DW I think or was it Bluesky??) that was part of panel at World con talking about is this the gayest era in fiction? I'm going with yes. In the 90s when I first wrote my gay vampires Arrigo and Luc (who were in New Orleans at the time because I make bad choices) the big book of open markets (I can't even remember the name of that book now, pre-internet obviously) and MANY of them had threats in them about 'do not do homosexual characters or you'll get blackballed.'

I remember when Mercedes Lackey used her privilege as a bestselling author to have Vanyel, one of the first modern gay characters in Fantasy I remember seeing and everyone was going 'she's ruined herself.' 'No one will touch her now.' They were luckily wrong (but I am not sure how much the blow back hurt her sales at the time.)


Now I was considering retiring as Jana to begin with after how badly my last two novels tanked. I didn't expect Soldiers of the Sun to do great since it's niche but then Blood Red Roulette failed. I didn't get it. (Now Arrigo and Luc were in Vegas). Vampires are still popular. The cover was stellar. It flatlined and I'm not sure if it truly did because that's when all the Dreamspinner drama started and I had to wonder if I had been lied to.

But These Haunted Hills hasn't done well (another popular theme, another amazing cover). So do I republish those old Dreamspinner books? Do I do it myself? I have talented artist friends I could commission for covers but honestly my sales have been so bad even with a publisher that I wouldn't even make back what I paid for a cover.

So I'm here wondering do I try to republish? Do I try to write the sequel to These Haunted Hills (which was requested)? Do I walk away especially with the political environment? Is that cowardly? (probably) I don't know but I DO know it's kept me from writing anything as Jana for almost 2 years now. (gay fanfic I'm churning out like I have no care in the world).


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