Manga & Romance Bloghop: From Twilight to Gay Romance, with Stops at Slash and Yaoi
How did a geeky, Southern girl end up writing gay romance? Well, it’s all my husband’s fault, you see. In an indirect way. Here’s what happened.
Timeline of Kerry’s Path to Gay Romance
March 2009 (approx.)
Smug little fucker
I don’t want to watch Twilight, but my husband guilts me into it. He doesn’t know that the vampires are sparkly (he is horrified) or that I’d fall instantly in lust with Robert Pattinson (again, he is horrified).
April 2009 (approx.)
If I’d never read New Moon…
Reading New Moon, I get to the part where Bella takes Edward back after he dumps her in the fucking forest. Obviously, this pisses me off.
May 2009 (approx.)
I spent way too much time on this site.
I discover fan fiction.
June 2009
It’s not one of these stories.
I post the first chapter of my first fanfic. In it, Bella doesn’t wait around for Edward to come back to her. When he finally does, she tells him to fuck off. (Come on, of course they eventually get back together, but she doesn’t have to make it so easy, does she?)
March 2010
Bella? Bella who?
I discover Jakeward. It is love at first read.
April 2010
Ginny? Ginny who?
I discover Drarry.
May 2010
Yeah, there’s no Emmett/Edward fan art that I know of, so enjoy these guys.
I write my first slash fanfic: Edward & Emmett
June 2010
Nowaki & Hiroki 4 ever
I discover yaoi, Junjou Romantica in particular. I toy with the idea of learning Japanese so I can read the original manga, but I realize I’m entirely too old to learn a new language.
November 2010
My cover design skills have improved since this.
I participate in NaNoWriMo. The book, original working title Goodbye to My Heart, becomes a menage and changes its title to What We Deserve by week 3.
I dare you to look at Xanthe’s sadface and not have a sadface yourself. It can’t be done! (From Emirain’s Teahouse)
Since then, I’ve also discovered the wonderful world of webcomics (I talk about some of my favorites here - I’ve discovered a few new ones since). And I didn’t even have to learn a new language to follow them. The artists who create comics such as The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ & Amal and Teahouse are incredibly talented, and I fangirl over them as much as I do the authors of my favorite gay romance novels.
If you’re a fan of slash, I encourage you to check out yaoi and gay romance. If you’re a yaoi fan, there’s a lot of gay romance you’ll really like *cough*Drawn Together*cough* And, if you’re a gay romance fan? Check out some yaoi (I recommend Junjou Romantica and Antique Bakery to start).
This blog hop is the brainchild of Hayley B. James, and there are many other artists and authors involved. You want to visit them all because they’re great. But you also want to visit them because every comment you leave on a blog hop post is an entry into the bloghop grand prize drawing, which includes seven ebooks (What We Deserve among them) and three yaoi titles (the full list of bloggers and prizes is here).
Go forth and comment! (And read more yaoi/slash/gay romance)
Tags: blog hop, Drarry, fan fiction, Jakeward, Junjou Romantica, manga, NaNoWriMo, New Moon, slash, Teahouse, The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal, Twilight, webcomics, What We Deserve, yaoi
Oh, you’re never too learn to learn a new language, especially Japanese! (Warning: I only tell people this because I encourage more people to study it so they can be as miserable as meeeee XD)
That’s quite the trail to what you do now! who knew. I’m personally not into yaoi/slash/gay-male romance…I’m pretty much F/F through and through. Interesting bloghop idea though.
Hi there! I REALLY REALLY loved reading your post! It was fun and and hilarious and totally made my day! My blog is in the Hop so please don’t count my comment.
Bridging Yaoi with M/M fiction is my dream of a life time!
It was really nice to get to introduced to you site!
Cheers!
I’ve not read any manga so learning of favourites from the blog tour will be helping me dip my toe!!
So, this was awesome, because it’s… me. *chuckles* Also a small town southern girl (Louisiana), and only discovered fanfic because of Twilight. Then, I found slash, though for me it was Edward/Jasper. Posted my first fic and couldn’t stop writing. Then Drarry. Then a billion other fandoms. Now, published homoerotica author.
This post made my day. Thank you.
And now I feel ridiculous, because I’ve just realized who you are. And now I’m fangirling like a 15yr old.
Great post and timeline! I love Antique Bakery, too, though Shout Out Loud is my favorite yaoi. Lately I’ve been thinking about which of my favorite m/m would make great manga, so this hop was a happy coincidence!
As a newbie to Yaoi I am learning so much through the blog hop. Thanks to all the authors for participating.
Yvette
I LOVE that you did a timeline! that is so clever!
Teahouse and TJ and Amal are on my favorites as well. I have a list of webcomics i follow but tend to be picky with plot and art…but not always.
Thank you for participating in the hop!
Love the timeline! I’ll have to check out some of those web comics. I too had thought about trying to learn Japanese to read manga (for Jonjou, Sekai-ichi and several others) but it is SO difficult to understand the language! Thanks so much to those who translate manga for the rest of us.
lina7391(at)hotmail(dot)com
What, you don’t speak Japanese? I’m sorely dissapointed. And now running back to study again… (law, not japanese, for those who are interested - and those who aren’t)
Haha! I love your post ^.^ Especially since it happened almost exactly like my journey, only mine began before Twilight so it was just Potter-slash (Sirius and Remus, mmmmm…).
“I toy with the idea of learning Japanese so I can read the original manga, but I realize I’m entirely too old to learn a new language.”
That was me too! I even have a teach-yourself-Japanese book…that I still haven’t opened. I figured, what they hey, I can put my time to writing instead and earn money to buy the translated yaoi.
I read TJ and Amal for the first time today and wow! I fell in love with it. I love how they’ve bonded and slowly became attracted to one another (well, slowly over 48 hours, but still, it was gradual and not instant).
Great post! I had a great time reading through it, lol! I’m learning so much about yaoi!
~M
It’s interesting to see how different people, who might not have anything else in common, are led into the realm of boy love. It makes me realize I have a lot more in common with people than I thought before. That seems like a backhanded compliment… ‘Thanks, you make me feel more normal!’. Really though, I can appreciate and understand where you come from, and I’m looking forward to seeing some of your work!
This is a great post! I came to m/m romance by way of slash fanfic too, only my drug of choice was (is) Buffy.
I enjoyed reading about your journey. Junjou Romantica is one of my favorites.
Thanks,
Tracey D
booklover0226 at gmail dot com
Love how you broke it down by dates. Enjoyed it!
I’m a fan of both yaoi and m/m. I don’t even know the exact order of events leading me to yaoi and manga and then slash and m/m, but Drarry was one of my first experiences with slash and I’ve never looked back. And seeing what happened in the seventh book just affirmed it for me. Harry should have ended up with Draco, not Ginny. Thanks for participating!!
tiger-chick-1(at)hotmail(dot)com