pet peeve: writing silly au’s doesn’t make you less of a les mis fan. it doesn’t make you dumb, or an inherently bad writer. it’s not something you should be ashamed about, and you shouldn’t feel like your work doesn’t stand up against authors who only write stories set in 1832 and mimic hugo’s voice down to the length of the sentences. their stuff is brilliant, but so is yours, and i hate how people end up feeling less worthy just because they feel creatively inspired toward a certain genre.
i just turned in a section of my dissertation prospectus on nineteenth century french history. i’m thinking about applying for money to learn to read langue d’oc, aka the language that many of the amis probably spoke as children in the south of france… and tonight, i’m going to crack open a bottle of wine, and write a story where enjolras and grantaire hang out with the characters from “the vampire diaries.”
dividing things between “highbrow” and “lowbrow,” or “respectable” and “guilty pleasures” is a sucker’s game. shakespeare made dick jokes, and gilligan’s island had an episode with a musical version of hamlet using bizet and offenbach opera scores.
baiscally:
Even out of Les Mis context, swell advice
HAVE FUN, EVERYONE.
