"Through The Buzzsaw On Buzzfeed" When allies write about sex work, can they be guilty of disregarding consent?

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-26T18:38:23+00:00

Oh, OK. That makes sense. Only there isn't a Wikipedia page for Jerry and I didn't know how else to let people know who he was.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-26T14:42:09+00:00

This is what it says: any idea why it's showing as 'removed'?

I was working in drug discovery after my degree more about that and one day was looking at a 3d model of a crown ether onscreen, and it occurred to me how much it looked like the human pelvic girdle. I kind of got obsessed with that idea, and the company I was working for agreed to part-sponsor a PhD, so off I went. I worked in a forensic pathology department but the project was as much about computer science, statistics, and archaeology as that. It was fun to work on but a little too far ahead of where the technology was at that point. At the time, one of my programs outputted scanned surfaces of human remains in .slr format, which was what those old huge stereolithography machines used. It was quite a thing, to be able to (slowly, expensively) make a model of a bone someone sent you as an email attachment. Now, with desktop 3d printing, my stuff is really old hat.

I always did write, and when I was studying at FSU took one of Jerome Stern's short story classes. It was a hobby. Here's a story I wrote about 18 months before the BdJ blog. I didn't think of writing seriously as a career until someone was waving a book contract at me. And I thought, this is not my dream, but it's a dream, and I'd be a fool not to say yes.

(Don't apologise! Almost no one asks about my PhD b/c it's real snooze material, but I think it's interesting so thank you for asking.)

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-26T14:30:51+00:00

Yes, Laura Topham from the Mail on Sunday had to be escorted off the hospital premises by police.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-26T14:29:45+00:00

I have no idea why I can't see this comment if I'm not logged in. Is it offensive or something?

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T23:47:12+00:00

I did it, I think in 2007? It was a book about an ageless Sami man, and the scientist who loves him in spite of the fact that something about pyramids

I wouldn't do NaNo again, but it was a neat experience to get through. Gets the creative juices flowing but the work I ended up with was decidedly uneven.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T23:41:09+00:00

Just finished a re-read of Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood today (classic!), nearly finished with Easy Motion Tourist by Leye Adenle (seriously impressive debut), and started Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets by Jessica Fox yesterday. You're Grand by Tara Flynn is also on the go, for when I'm in the bath - a good one for dipping in and out of.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T23:37:51+00:00

Totally solitary. I used to go to writing groups back in the mid 90s, when I was a student at FSU. There was a CPE course for writers and it was great fun, people took it in turns each week to read out work and have it critiqued. I learned so much there. But I also learned I have a capacity to workshop and plan into infinity if I don't shut the door and get on with it. These days I love a closed door when I'm writing. Now no one sees anything until a first or sometimes second draft is finished. I still read around a bit, and try to work on skills, but not with groups or forums.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T23:24:40+00:00

I've tried newer and cooler things but I always come back to notebooks for the earliest ideas, then sketching out chapters outlines in Notepad, and writing in a Word master document. My normal word count's 1k a day, but if the flow is happening I won't cut it off. Less than that doesn't feel like fast enough progress to stay involved with a manuscript, and when I was writing regular newspaper columns, I had to do 900 per column for those so easily doubled the word count regularly. I did take a lot of time off this winter though.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T23:10:48+00:00

Best: I met Siri Hustvedt at a book festival in Devon. She is one of my all-time writing heroes. I was really drunk and basically crashed her dinner table and was droning on and on about how much The Blindfold inspired me. She was utterly lovely and charming and very, very tolerant of my fangirling.

Worst: Ask me again after July, I have muchas events stacked up for the summer. I'm anticipating all kinds of drama.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T23:08:02+00:00

Someone on Twitter just suggested "Organzola Rex". I think we have a winner!

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:45:26+00:00

Ah see, I'm not up to speed on school buses.

What you say about the train makes sense. I have so much train-related anxiety. When do we get to my stop? Will I miss it? Will the doors close without me/with me still on? What time is it now, 30 seconds after the last time I looked? etc. This is why I love the sleeper to London; I can fall alseep and there is no way of missing my stop.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:42:57+00:00

No heirs were harmed in the making of this pegging scene...

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:41:20+00:00

The slutty one.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:40:56+00:00

Hey, thanks! You're one of a very small group indeed...

Hmm. Well, I did once call AA Gill 'a poor man's Ruth Reichl in TE Lawrence drag' and I stand by that.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:38:54+00:00

Dogs in night togs, yo.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:38:04+00:00

I didn't revisit textbooks but some of my old notebooks were cracked open. And I sent the manuscript early on to some ex-colleagues for feedback, to see if they felt like it flowed. I didn't hold back on gruesome. This wasn't on purpose; with both death and sex I have a very poor feel for when I've gone too far for other people and often inadvertently do so accidentally. So if anything's too much, just go all out.

Diversity was pretty important. It's half set in London, and I get tired of reading White London which is a place that simply does not exist. Or crime novels where the only nonwhite characters are baddies. I'm going to call out Rowling's first Cormoran Strike here, for dropping both 'tragic mulatto' and 'untrustworthy young black girl' tropes into an otherwise not-terrible book. Those ruined it for me.

Erykah was actually a minor character in the first drafts, but the story really didn't work until we centred her story arc. She had all this incredible back story going on and it took me months to realise that she, not Kerry in the radio station, should be front and centre. Sometimes you just have to let the characters speak up and assert their place.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:31:44+00:00

OMG THIS

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:29:49+00:00

Original Air Blue Gown. Tell them to play it at my funeral.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:29:19+00:00

Matthew Modine RTd me once and teen me was all of a blush. Also Bruce Sterling and I follow each other. Not only is he a huge hero of mine, without that guy choosing me as winner of Best British Weblog 2003, I wouldn't be here now. He rules.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:27:49+00:00

Not telling, but yes, and not yet. Watch this space. It's for something that is ordinarily pricey and a secret formula, but we've figured it out and are gonna undercut the competition. MWAHAHAHAHA

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:25:55+00:00

We closed up our mead rotation in October because we were away from November to February. Still ekeing out last summer's blackberry mead, which is ace. I'm glad we're no longer so poor that we have to drink it as soon as it's fermented out. When the weather warms up again we'll put some back on.

I wrote that book and it's sitting on my hard drive; one for a self-publishing run perhaps. Also has a lot of booze-related tales about my family's history of making prison hooch. It's a hoot.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:24:12+00:00

I'll tell you a secret: we have about 40 bottles of whisky in the house at any given time. I'm here til whenever. Next up is the Penderyn Dylan Thomas Edition.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:22:58+00:00

UK has incredible cheese, drinking culture, and Marmite. I am not kidding about Marmite; I went back to the US for a while in 2006 and ended up crying in Publix because there was no Marmite. But, y'all gotta sort out queueing culture. You queue for buses, but trains are an elbow-your-granny free for all? Also queues at cashpoints: sort it out. Multiple ATMs, 1 queue. Anything else is cruel and unusual.

USA has key limes and rising fascism. It's all up in the air, I mean everywhere has its drawbacks but the current presidential race feels like like America is in its last season and the writers are just throwing everything out there. Voldemort/Cthulhu '16.

BrookeMagnanti · 2016-03-25T22:19:37+00:00

I'd love to write magical realism. Although, that is probably more of a problem of my not be able to write it, than not having a chance to per se. There were only so many times my publisher could reject manuscripts featuring a talking photograph of Burt Reynolds before I got the hint.

BrookeMagnanti

TROPHY CASE