Saturday, August 2, 2008

Another Yaoi Day, Another Yaoi Dollar

Yaoi Day was yesterday! 

For those who don't know what the heck this holiday is, I'll briefly fill you in.  The Japanese have practically made an art out of making up holidays.  Not official ones, simply holidays that we regular folk might like to play around with.  

One of these is August 1st: 'Yaoi Day.'  It's all in the numbers.  The kanji for 8 can be pronounced as 'ya' in the right circumstances.  0 can be said as 'oh,' like two-oh-nine for 209.  And while 1 is pronounced 'ichi,' it's shortened for the purposes of the joke.  Ya. o. i.  801, which is slang for yaoi in japan anyway.  

I'm sure you can make the jump to 8/01 right?  

Now, I have to be honest with you.  I only discovered this holiday existed half-way through the day in question when Magnetic_Rose at aarinfantasy mentioned it on the forum.  As a good yaoi fan, however, I celebrated the hell out of it in the limited time left to my uninformed, fangirl self.   I finished editing a chapter of The Last Pure Human, I looked at manga, and I even got a little Yaoi Day present, as it were.

Fanart.  

There is nothing that makes a writer's heart go pitty-pat like something created for them by a fan of their story.  Yes, getting a million dollar book deal might affect the heart, too - I've heard that particular occurrence makes more of a thundering rattle, like a stampede. - but it's not the same thing.  A book deal is about money and pride and buying a new corvette (a matchbox one, if you're at my level of literary stardom).  But fanart, or fanficton?  That's all about the love, baby.

I cannot describe what a wonderful feeling it is to receive that kind of, well, honor.  Someone enjoyed what I created so much that it inspired something creative in them.  What a fantastic, amazing thing to know.  Whether it was a character, a scene, a world, or an entire story, it's damn well magic to realize that all that effort I put into my little romances made a difference for someone.

Yeah, sometimes it's just a momentary difference.  Just a second's worth of inspiration.  Who cares?  I love stories myself for so many reasons, and one of the biggest is that a great story makes me feel good.  I love the lift to my mood that a romantic or humorous scene can give me, and to know that I was able to give someone else that lift, even for only a little bit, is frickin' awesome!

No, I'm not suffering from sudden-onset Valley-Girl.  This type of feeling simply requires bold words to describe it and all the giddy, beaming-like-a-loon idiocy that it creates in me.

Frickin'. Awesome.  The type of awesome that needs a hot young surfer boy punching the air as he yells it out at the top of his lungs. Not just awesome.  Frickin' awesome, dude.*

I find it so appropriate that the fanart I received on Yaoi Day was NC-17.  Not that I don't enjoy more vanilla flavored art.  That never fails to makes me school-girl giddy and charged up. Knowing that they were motivated always motivates me to write more.  Smut fanworks, however, tend to do something a little different.  I inspired something adult rated in someone else, and they in turn inspire a good buzz for my next sex scene.  That's always a nice thing to have available: packaged arousal.

I couldn't have asked for a better ending for my Yaoi Day.  

Here's hoping yours was just as much fun!





*I have California roots.  I'm allowed to punctuate my speech with random exclamations of 'dude' and 'gag me with a spoon.'  It might even be required to stay on the 'Descendent of a Californian' registry.  I'll get back to you on that.*