The Archerland Journal

Volume 1, Number 2

December 2004

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The Archerland Journal: "Writing is a lot like sex. At first you do it because you like it. Then you find yourself doing it for a few close friends and people you like. But if you're any good at all...you end up doing it for money."
--Unknown

In This Issue:

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1. Archerland Updates By Nick Archer

At long last, an update! Patrick has sent in the final two installments of My Vet II Rancho Bonito. Read the conclusion to this charming and compelling story.

Watch for new exciting new stories to appear shortly at Archerland.

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2. Humor: THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA

From the Net

I know that many of you have heard Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and others speak of the "Homosexual Agenda," but no one has ever seen a copy of it. I have finally obtained a copy directly from the Head Homosexual. So we’re all up to speed, it follows below:

The Homosexual Agenda:

6:00 am Gym

8:00 am Breakfast

9:00 am Hair appointment

10:00 am Shopping

12:00 PM Brunch

2:00 PM (Here’s the really important part)

1) Assume complete control of the US Federal, State and local Governments as well as all other national governments

2) Recruit all straight youngsters to our debauched lifestyle

3) Destroy all healthy heterosexual marriages

4) Replace all school counselors in grades K-12 with agents of

Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels

5) Establish planetary chain of "homo breeding gulags" where over -medicated imprisoned straight women are turned into artificially impregnated baby factories to produce pre-pubescent love slaves for our devotedly pederastic gay leadership

6) Bulldoze all houses of worship

7) Secure total control of the INTERNET and all mass media for the exclusive use of child pornographers.

2:30 PM Get Forty Winks of Beauty Rest to prevent facial wrinkles from stress of world conquest

4:00 PM Cocktails

6:00 PM Light Dinner

8:00 PM Theater

11:00 PM Bed

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3. Essay: What is Slash? By Lady Cyrrh

Slash (the pairing of two same-sex media characters) has been around for almost thirty years now. Long considered a subgenre of fan fiction, it's been slowly nurtured by the communications possibilities of the net -- and a slow shift in general American culture -- to become a literary genre in its own right. In fact, it's become the female equivalent of porn, written by women for women. Both serve the same need for sexual fantasy and escapism, yet both are very different, opposites, even.

Reprinted with Permission

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Y Oh Y?

To get an idea of what Generation Y is thinking and feeling, one only needs to look to Nifty Archives in the Celebrity and Boyband sections and the plethora of websites specializing in slash fiction.

For the longest time, I disdained celebrity, boyband, and slash as not worthy of my attention. They simply didn’t interest me. Not being a sci-fi fan figured prominently into this position. Oh, sure, I like Star Trek Next Generation as well as anyone. But not to the point where I would set my VCR to record it if I was going to be gone. And certainly not to the point, God forbid, that I would join a fan club or attend a convention with other pear-shaped fans. Not me, nope. I’d watch it if nothing else was on.

I’ve also never been a fan of soap operas. I did watch One Life to Live during the summer of 1990 because there was a gay teen character and I recorded it to follow the storyline. I soon learned that I didn’t need to record it every day. The plot was so slow-moving that that I found I could skip a day and still understand what was going on. There were also some other sub-plots that didn’t interest me and I zapped through those scenes as I watched what the trusty machine had recorded. Around Labor Day, the gay teen subplot petered out (pun intended) and I stopped. Soap operas were like liver. I had really, really tried to like them - made an honest attempt - and still didn’t.

My sister still watches General Hospital religiously and records it on the days she works. But, of course, GH is a Boomer creation and aims at that demographic. I used to deny the fact that I was a Boomer. I was born in 1959, toward the end of the Boom. Sure, I was born within the 1945 to 1964 time period that social scientists, demographers and historians use to define it. Still, even though I was alive during this time, I wasn’t aware of many of the cultural events and icons that define the Baby Boomer generation. I don’t remember where I was when Kennedy was shot. I fell asleep during the Apollo 11 moon landing. I remember the television coverage of the Martin Luther King and RFK assassinations only as rude interruptions of my favorite TV shows. I was never a hippie but I do recall it was very cool to dress as one for Halloween.

So it goes without saying that when Beverly Hills 90210 started the evening teen soap opera genre, I was less than interested. I remember the kids I taught at the time were all abuzz about 90210 and I thought, Good for them. It was at this point that I realized maybe I was a Boomer after all. Maybe I was getting GULP old! All the teen-oriented soaps that followed - Party of Five, Everwood, The O. C., Melrose Place, 7th Heaven, Dawson’s Creek - didn’t register on my Care-o-meter.

And music, well, that goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. I had already abandoned listening or caring which songs were on the Top 40 by the time I was a senior in high school. I was listening to album-oriented rock on WXRT and WLUP. (Recently, I was surprised to learn that kids still listen to and care passionately about which songs are on the Top 40.) I hate hip-hop and rap. By the time I was in my thirties, I was listening to those Adult Contemporary stations that boasted "Less Talk, No Rap and No Heavy Metal."

So the boyband phenomena pretty much passed me by. It was impossible to turn on the radio without hearing the songs but I couldn’t and still can’t differentiate J.C. Chasez from a face in the crowd. The music was listenable and light as whipped egg whites. Some of the pictures I had seen of some of band members were interesting. The two brothers in 98 Degrees (I still haven’t taken the time to learn their names) were certainly hot and Justin Timberlake is hunky. Although I didn’t understand, and still "don’t get" the furor over Aaron Carter.

Who cared about who the boys are dating? Not me. Who wants to know about when their next concert will be in town? Not I.

Most of all, why would anyone want to write using someone else’s characters or personalities? For me, one of the most creative and satisfying parts of writing has always been creating the characters. You have complete control. As a writer, you control every aspect of the person; his or her looks, personality, intelligence, quirks, even if the individual likes creamy versus crunchy peanut butter. It was inconceivable to me that someone would want to use a character whose parameters had already been established. To me, it was like purchasing a character off the shelf of your local Wal-Mart.

Of course, none of this is new. From my memory, it started with The Monkees and all the merchandising claptrap that went along with them. They were completely without talent but they carried a TV show for a couple years on ABC and had a couple bestselling albums. During the 70’s, the Brady Bunch and Partridge Family spawned all sorts of books. I even admit to owning a couple of the Partridge Family books.

But with the advent of the internet, anybody could put their fantasies on the net. One could get a free website at Lycos or Geocities or from your ISP. Sites started popping up featuring slash stories.

So I figured I would give it a try. Hey, I did it with liver and soap operas. I would live through it.

The first couple stories seemed to be scribbled by some kid in fifth period. But I persisted. And I started to notice some patterns.

A lot of stories were written by females. Slash has a whole community around it. A lot of writers seem to be asking for validation. The stories do feature sex but sex is definitely downplayed. The emphasis seems to be on angst-ridden, emotional relationships. The boyband stories even had their own awards, apparently held several times a year.

And I found some extremely well written nuggets among the slag. Someone recommended the epic, 128 chapter JC’s Hitchhiker. OK, I confess, I didn’t read the whole thing. But it IS really well written.

So I’ve come to a confession. Slash, fan fiction, boyband stories are a legitimate genre. Some of these authors can even write! It’s just not my taste.

Does this mean I’ll be including slash, celebrity and boyband stories at Archerland? Nope. I still can’t get past the "who cares?" blockade.

But it’s encouraging to know that even as media-saturated as Generation Y is, they still turn to the written word to entertain themselves.

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5. Essay: From the Mouth Of Babes by Sara Bell

The controversy over the legalization of gay marriage has gotten so much media attention lately, it's impossible to turn on the television or pick up a newspaper without seeing or hearing a commentary on the subject. One argument against gay marriage {and this one just tickles my funny bone} is that it undermines the sanctity of the family. As if a fifty percent divorce rate and the scads of unwanted children sprinkled in various foster homes and group settings hasn't already undermined said family. But, I digress. These so-called pro-family groups always come back to the same old chestnut. "Gay relationships," they claim, "are harmful to children."

As a mother, few things in this world rival my concern for my children. I try to protect and shelter them as best I can, but I also want them to grow up to be open-minded, free thinking individuals. My oldest daughter, Elizabeth, is well on her way to becoming just that.

I don't talk about Elizabeth as much as I do my youngest daughter, Baby Bell, mainly because it's true what they say about the squeaky wheel getting the grease, and if ever there was a squeaky wheel, it's the Baby. She's always into one mess or another, and she has my sarcastic sense of humor, so you can imagine what a little rounder she is. Elizabeth, on the other hand, is quieter, more reserved. She studies things, ponders them. Elizabeth is a deep thinker in an age where there aren't many of those left. If Baby Bell is bent on dominating the world, Elizabeth is set on saving it. In short, Elizabeth is one of the people I admire most in the world. She's exactly who I want to be when I grow up.

The other day, I was brushing my teeth {yes, Southerners do that, too} when Elizabeth came storming into the bathroom, a frown marring her beautiful face. "Mama," she said, "I need to ask you a question."

"Go ahead, Kiddo," I said around a mouthful of toothpaste.

"Mama, how do you feel about gay marriage?"

Okay, I admit, this one threw me. I don't talk about sex or sexual relationships with my kids, only because I feel, at 8 and 6, they're a little too young to burden with grownup issues. I make no secret that I write about gay people or that I have gay friends, but I've never really probed the deeper meaning of the word "gay" with them. I guess I'm a coward, but I want my kids to stay innocent to the ways of the world--including heterosexual sexuality--for as long as they can. Still, I make it a point to be as honest as possible with my girls. I spit out the toothpaste, swallowed the lump in my throat, and started down what I feared would be a slippery slope of explanations.

"Elizabeth, do you know what the word, 'gay,' means?"

She rolled those dark blue eyes of hers at me. "Duh, Mama. It's when two boys or two girls like each other in that way. I heard about gay marriage on the Nickelodeon News, and that some people were against it. I just wondered what you though about it."

Whew. At least I didn't have to explain that one. But I still had to answer her question, and I didn't want to influence her with my own pro-gay views. I wanted her to make up her own mind. "Honey, how do you feel about gay marriage?"

She titled her blonde head to the side and thought about it for a minute. "What did Jesus say about gay people?"

Finally, a question with an easy answer. "Nothing. He said nothing about them at all."

Elizabeth nodded. "I didn't think so. In that case, gay marriage is okay with me." She started out of the bathroom, then stopped and said, "I don't think gay people should have kids, though."

My heart skipped a beat. Surely no child of mine thought it was wrong for gay folks to have kids. Carefully, so as not to come on too strong, I said, "Honey, why would you think that?"

"Well," she said, "I think it's okay for two girls to get married and have babies, but not two guys. If two guys got married and had babies, who would take care of the kids?"

I had no idea where this was going, but I meant to find out. "They would take turns, I suppose. Why do you ask?"

"Mama, just take a look at Daddy. He can't cook, doesn't clean, and every time he does laundry, he turns all our underwear pink. If all men are like Daddy, those poor little kids would starve to death and have nothing to wear but pink panties."

After laughing so hard I nearly punctured a lung, I explained to my daughter that not all men are as domestically incompetent as her father. She breathed a huge sigh of relief. "In that case, I think it's fine for gay men to have babies. As long," she added, "as they're the kind of guys who know how to change diapers and fix frozen pizzas. You know, the important stuff."

Made sense to me. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the conversation was about done. I should have known she wasn't through with me, yet. "Oh, and Mama?"

"Yes?"

"You might want have a talk with The Baby and tell her what the word 'gay' means."

Uh oh. "Why, honey?"

"Well, the other day I was reading her a book about a bunny rabbit. The book said the bunny woke up feeling bright and gay. The Baby asked me what it meant, and I told her it meant happy."

"And?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "She heard you telling someone you wrote about gay people, so now she's telling the whole neighborhood our mommy writes about 'happy' people. You might want to set her straight." She giggled. "Kids. Gotta love 'em."

I'm always amazed at my children's ability to cut through all the bull feces and get to the heart of the matter. Maybe, if these so called pro-family groups would stop spewing their propaganda about children long enough to actually listen to a child, there would be a touch less hate in the world. If you don't believe me, just ask Elizabeth. She's going to be president, someday.

Reprinted with permission

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6. Recipe: Beef Barley Mushroom Soup

Here’s an easy and delicious soup recipe perfect for those chilly January nights.

1 medium onion, chopped

½ cup quick cooking barley

3 cans beef broth

8 ounces mushrooms, sliced

¼ to ½ cup red wine (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté the onion in a soup pot of Dutch oven until translucent. Add the mushrooms and sauté briefly. Add the beef broth, barley and optional wine. Bring to a boil and lower the heat to a simmer. Simmer for 15 minutes. Serve with warm, crusty bread or your favorite sandwich.

It’s even better the second day!

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7. New Nifty Recommendations By Nick Archer

Here are a couple suggestions for newer stories at Nifty. These are the stories I look for regular updates. These are my own opinions.

Two Distinct Divisions by Horatio Nimier

I’m always suspicious of any story that needs a glossary. And the author has loaded enough techspeak and arcane computer procedures into his stories to justify the glossary. But that’s the story’s ONLY fault. It’s so well-written it hardly matters.

Southern Nights by Niftystoryteller

Oh, so well written story about a New York writer who inherits his uncle’s home in a Southern town.

The Good Doctor by Terry

This author has created compelling characters so realistic you swear they’re in the room with you! The Italian mama character is hilarious and must be based on one of my aunts. I have two reservations - they’re minor otherwise I wouldn’t recommend the story. He uses ellipsis to distraction…you know what ellipsis are…the three dots…very…umm…annoying. And in the later chapters it seems he’s floundering for a direction.  He also has his own website.

In the next issue of TAJ, we’re focusing on Guilty Pleasures at Nifty. It’s the bag of Oreos you eat in one sitting. It’s the Duran Duran tape you listen to constantly. It’s the painting of the dogs playing poker you simply can’t part with. You know you shouldn’t do it, but you Just Can’t Stop Yourself. You know the type of story - it’s so bad it’s good, or it’s very Politically Incorrect, or it features unsafe GASP sex or forbidden relationships. Maybe it’s a boyband/slash story that really floats your boat (we don’t usually do boyband/slash/celebrity stories here at Archerland but we’ll make an exception THIS ONE TIME :P) Or it’s an incest story. Whatever.

And remember this is supposed to be FUN! It’s not meant to be a critique or start a flame war.

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Maybe a better title for this piece would be how to write good gay fiction. God knows, there’s more crap out there on the net than you can shake a stick at. But a lot of the bad stories out there seem to make the same mistakes over and over again. It makes me crazy, because my strong feeling is that amateur fiction does not have to be amateurish! As far as I’m concerned, good writing is good writing, whether you’re being paid for it or not, and regardless of whether it’s being read by 10 readers or 10,000,000.

Below is a list of my personal pet peeves in gay fiction on the Net, followed by remedies and suggestions that can nip them in the bud:

1) The stories get off to a bad start. This is a particularly bad problem in the "gay teenage romance" genre (if that is an actual genre). You know you’re in trouble when, in the first paragraph, the character wakes up to an alarm clock. Very clichéd, very predictable... and incredibly boring. Good fiction is like good filmmaking: the scenes often start right in the middle of the action, so we get rid of the preliminary, boring crap, and cut to the chase, right to the heat of battle. Start the story in an unpredictable way: hook the reader with the very first paragraph, preferably with some action and conflict, and make them want to read more.

2) The introductions of the characters are trite and boring. Whatever you do, avoid directly describing the characters’ physical appearance - especially the lead. Klaxon sirens go off the moment I read a story where the writer says, "let me introduce myself. My name is so-and-so, I’m this tall, I’m this old, and I look like this." BO-ring. Let the reader find out what the characters look like through the eyes of other people. Or let us find out eye color, hair color, height, and all the other aspects of a person’s physical appearance naturally, through conversation, and as the story develops. There’s a thousand different ways to do that, if you think about it, and there’s no need to rush it. And if possible, avoid the trite routine of having a character look at himself (or herself) in the mirror and describe what they see, unless there’s a damn good reason for it.

3) They don’t make every chapter count. I can’t count the number of stories on the Net where the chapters go on and on and on, ad infinitum, with very little actually happening in each installment. There are some stories out there (and you can guess which ones I’m talking about) that literally go on for 1000 pages with no end in sight… a veritable Lord of the Rings of gay erotica. And often, the story is going absolutely nowhere, without a real ending in sight.

A good novel or short-story needs all the elements of plot, characters, and conflict to constantly propel the story forward to an inevitable climax. Noted writer David Gerrold, in his excellent book Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, said it best when he instructed, "put a surprise on every page." His advice works for all kinds of fiction, not just SF or fantasy. Here’s an example: write a short synopsis of each chapter you’ve done. If you find not much is really happening in one or more chapters, then either cut them out, or edit them way down - even combine them, if necessary - to spare the reader the agony of having to read them. If you feel the story is getting bogged down and predictable, change it! Throw a new spin on things: don’t go in the expected direction. Keep your reader off-balance, so that they won’t be able to predict where the story and characters are headed.

And don’t give me the excuse of, "oh, this isn’t just a novel. It’s a serial, designed to happen over a long period of time." Bzzzzzz! Sorry, but that’s the wrong answer. I don’t buy the idea that amateur gay erotica doesn’t have to follow the same basic rules of good story-telling as everything else. A good story is a good story, period - straight, gay, sexual, non-sexual. And, yes, that counts for amateur fiction on the Net, too.

4) They overuse dialog. There’s no easier way to make a story long, drawn-out, and boring than by using non-stop dialog for every single page. If it’s possible to reduce ten pages of relatively-unnecessary dialog to a single page (or even a single paragraph) of descriptive prose, do so! For example: "The day went horribly wrong. I avoided meeting Tom at every opportunity, but just when I thought he wouldn’t see me, there he was - at the water fountain, at our usual table in the cafeteria, or in the back row of my math class." That could easily replace five pages of the same situation told through dialog, and it would be no more interesting. Going back and forth occasionally from dialog to description helps break up the monotony of solid, wall-to-wall conversation, and also allows you establish the mood, the location, the time of day, and the emotional feel of each scene.

And when you use dialog, make it clear who is speaking. Nothing is worse in a novel during back-and-forth dialog when the reader gets totally lost as to which character is speaking. One simple trick to make dialog-heavy scenes more interesting is to have the characters do something while they talk. For example, perhaps they have a heart-to-heart talk while jogging. That gives you the opportunity to describe the other joggers at a park, the weather outside, the trees and scenery in the neighborhood. Give the characters some action as they talk. In a movie, it’s rare that two people just stand and talk and do nothing else. During dialog scenes, think about the characters’ physical movement, where they are in relation to each other, and give them something to do. And make each line of dialog count. Don’t use three sentences to say something if just one will do.

5) The dialog is unrealistic. Not a day goes by when I don’t read a piece of amateur fiction on the net and I yell out, "PEOPLE DON’T TALK THAT WAY!" When you converse with your friends or your family, make an effort to listen - really listen! - not only to what they say, but the exact words they use, the timing of each phrase, the pauses between sentences, and all the other nuances that give their words personality. An easy writing exercise is to read your dialog out loud, in your own voice, and see if it rings true.

My personal pet peeve are writers who refuse to use contractions in dialog. "I cannot believe that we will not be fucking tonight, Bobby." Uh-uh, no way! "I can’t believe that we won’t be fuckin’ tonight, Bobby!" That’s more like it! Making the dialog sound more true-to-life will help bring your story and your characters to life. By the same token, don’t go crazy with accents. Be particularly wary of southern drawls or urban dialect; sometimes just a few words - for example, an occasional "ain’t" in conversation - is enough to establish the nature of the character, their ethnicity, their social background, and so on. By the same token, you can use a specific manner of speaking to give each of your characters an individual personality. No two people talk exactly the same way in real life; neither should your characters.

6) They under-use description. Practically every book on writing ever written screams "show… don’t tell!" That means, don’t have your characters just talk about something that happened "off-camera." Make an effort to actively describe what actually happened! Try to use all the senses - not just sight, but also smell, taste, touch, hearing, even time-of-day - when you describe the scene. Use action verbs. Make every effort to keep the description interesting, but be careful about being overly poetic. Be direct and to the point, and use simile and allusion sparingly. Paint a picture of the whole scene, and give us a clue as to the time of day, where it takes place, and what it looks and feels like. Give us enough detail to give us a whiff of what it would feel like to stand there and watch it all happen. But don’t go overboard and start describing the trees instead of the forest.

7) They overuse adverbs and adjectives. I used to have a writing teacher who had a red pen with which she would slash out every word on a page ending in "ly." Most experts agree that writers need to use descriptive adverbs and adjectives very carefully. (Ooops! There’s an "ly" word right there!) For example: "Come here," he said seductively. Uh-uh. We should already know the guy’s being seductive by the way he stands, the way he looks, and the way he acts. Don’t use an adverb or adjective to prop up a weak sentence. The only time you can legitimately use words like this is when the actual meaning might otherwise be unclear; for example, "Oh, that looks great." Is the speaker being sincere, or sarcastic? Are they amazed, or are they bored?

By the same token, use adjectives sparingly. It’s very easy to go overboard, particularly when describing a sunset, a large building, a picturesque home, or detailing a dazzling character with whom your hero has just fallen in love (or lust). I think there’s a balance that can be struck between too many adjectives and too few, but it’s the sort of thing each writer has to work out for themselves.

8) They aren’t careful with point of view. When you tell a story, you can choose to tell it through the eyes of a single character (1st person), or from an omniscient narrator (3rd person). Many beginning writers go with 1st person, so that the reader experiences everything through the eyes of the story’s hero. If you use this technique, resist the urge to jump to the point of view of another character! This technique smacks of amateurism, because it can confuse the reader, causing them to subconsciously worry by whom the story is being told at any given moment. Stick with one character and one character only! (If you doubt my advice, show me a single best-selling novel by a major author that goes back and forth between different characters for 1st person.)

Writing from a 3rd person point of view sometimes takes more effort, but can be more rewarding, since it gives you the ability to describe a situation from different points of view. You can also reveal to the reader different story elements that your hero cannot see or know about. Each technique has its pros and cons, but whatever you do, go with one method - and one method only! - and stick with it for the duration of your story. There are those who believe there’s no problem with going back and forth between 1st person and 3rd person, even within a single chapter, but I say again: show me a single best-selling novel by a major author that does that. Using a technique this crude runs the risk of snapping the reader out of the story, ruining the illusion that what they’re reading is actually happening, before their very eyes.

@ 2004 by The Pecman.

Contact John Francis at: thepecman@yahoo.com

Part 2 will appear in the January 2005 issue

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10. Contact

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That’s it for this month, thanks for reading!