Tip-toeing

From:

http://www.artistssuitcase.com/5questions/

3. What is the critic’s motive?

You can’t read people’s minds, but most of the time you can discern someone’s motive when they criticize you. Is it constructive criticism tempered with love and concern? Or is it destructive criticism designed to bring you down? The critic’s motive can be a clue to whether or not the criticism is legitimate.

Repost from Passive Voice (Author anonymous)

The author of this needed anonymity for understandable reasons.


So…yesterday, Jane Litte announced on her blog (Dear Author) that she has been writing new adult romance under the pseudonym Jen Frederick. I’m not going to rehash it all, but here is the link if you’d like to read the reasons behind her decision in her own words. (Link not evident)

First off, I want to make it clear that I harbor no ill will toward Jane. I think she’s whip-smart, and a fabulous businesswoman. I also congratulate her on her amazing success as an author. In the past, I have agreed with a lot of what she says about reviews and reviewers rights, and have lauded her efforts to take a stand against author and publisher misconduct. I also know how influential she is in the industry. Which is why I spent pretty much my whole day writing and deleting this and, ultimately decided to post anonymously. Because I KNOW I would lose friendly author acquaintances over this. I KNOW I would get emails and tweets and people coming at me because I didn’t just jump on the kumbaya bandwagon and high five her about her announcement. But when I thought back through the Ellora’s Cave/Dear Author situation, I kept coming back to the hashtag…

#notchilled

And guess what? I’m not chilled with this. I respect Jane. I don’t think her intention was to hurt anyone with her choice not to disclose her author name. I also don’t think she used her unique position to intentionally benefit herself as an author or reviewer, or to benefit her publisher. What I do think is that there are other, much more complex issues at play here that the reading (and reviewing) public might not be aware of. I’m going to lay them out for you now, as I see them.

BUT FIRST!
I want to clarify something here (because I know it will come up). I am not a bitter author who is reveling in the potential GOTCHA! moment for Jane due to a bad review on her blog or some personal beef. Full disclosure: I have been reviewed by Dear Author more than once and have received reviews ranging between a C+ and a B-. I was happy that she reviewed me, thought the reviews were even-handed, and I believe I re-tweeted and squeed when I was notified that I’d been reviewed. I’ve never been lambasted by Jane or anyone else on her review blog (that I know of, at any rate) and I have no ax to grind with her on a personal level.

I’m writing this specifically because I don’t want to.

I’m writing this specifically for all the people I know who feel the way I do and are too afraid to speak up for fear of retaliation.

Here are the two main things I’m #notchilled about:

Firstly, reviews are sacrosanct. Reviewers are sacrosanct. We are told on a daily basis, as authors, that we are not allowed to respond to reviews publicly, whether a review is gushing, fabulous and insightful and we want to thank the reviewer, or the review is cruel, misinformed, or downright threatening and we want to defend ourselves. I agree with this (although, there are times I admit I don’t like it so much, lol, because I’m human) and have spent the last five years as a professional author adhering to this tenet (although, I admit, before I knew better, when my first book released, I did cry on Twitter once and solicit virtual hugs the first time I got a “This author should go die in a fire” type review that laid me low for a week before I grew thicker skin. I did not comment on said review, or send in troops to defend me. I just…cried). Now that I know better, I make sure that, if I vent at all about anything industry or book related, I vent to trusted friends and colleagues and in loops with other authors. In those private loops (and yes, I’m aware nothing online is ever truly private) likeminded authors speak more freely. Because you have to understand, we don’t have an after work softball team, or a water cooler, or a birthday cake for Sally on Tuesday where we get to bitch about old Mr. Jennings and how he’s really busting our hump at work that day.

We just have each other and those loops. Most of us never see another author face to face more than once or twice in a given year, if that.

In those loops, we talk industry and strategy and marketing and pricing and trends and hard sales numbers. We talk about the writing process and how hard it can be sometimes, and acknowledge that the muse doesn’t necessarily pepper our dreams with glittery ideas for bestsellers and that it’s a freaking GRIND sometimes, or how we just HATE our current manuscript and are terrified our readers will hate it too, and what a struggle it’s been, and yes, some authors talk reviews. It’s the place that we get to speak freely and treat our business like exactly that. A for profit business. A place where we don’t have to wear our public hat that, by necessity, requires us to stifle ourselves to some degree or risk ostracizing our readership. A place where we take our bra off and stretch for a minute with other braless writer-types. Not that I’m pretending to be someone else on open social media, but there are definitely things I say to authors in “private” that would pull back the curtain, so to speak, in a way that would make me uncomfortable in public, not unlike a school teacher talking politics on Facebook or something.

Imagine my surprise, then, to realize that Jane is on more than one of these loops with me as Jen Frederick. I find myself…not okay with that. Not because I’m ashamed by anything I’ve said, but because I even have to sit here and worry about it. And I’m feeling even sicker for the authors who thought they were in a place that was safe to share certain things and did so who would NOT have done so had they known Jane was present. Do I believe Jane would or has intentionally retaliated against these authors if they said something negatively about her site, her books, her writing partner, or the EC case or any myriad of things? No. But that doesn’t change the fact that it feels like a violation. And the thing that readers of this post need to realize is that JANE KNOWS THAT. There is no way that a right-minded person would be privy to the posts and information she was privy to who would not realize that they were eavesdropping on a conversation that they weren’t supposed to hear. That they were peeking through someone’s window who wasn’t aware they were watching. Yes, it’s the internet. Yes, maybe we should’ve closed the bedroom door more tightly. Yes, maybe would shouldn’t have left our curtains open. But morally, there is no question in that situation, a right-thinking person knows they should look away. Especially a person as smart as Jane.

And as much as I believe the intention was to “wear two hats” and not let one influence the other, or let what she may have read poison the well, I just don’t think brains are like hats. Jane’s a lawyer, so I’ll use a (fictional) law analogy. I always see these legal shows on TV where one of the lawyers says something KNOWING it’s going to be objected to, or coaches a witness into a response that reveals something inadmissible. The judge slaps their wrist and has it stricken from the record, and advises the jury to “disregard it”. Why would a lawyer do something like that when they know it’s going to get stricken and the jury is supposed to disregard it? BECAUSE THAT’S NOT HOW LIFE WORKS. The same way cases get moved from one place to another because one area has been tainted by media coverage. They can advise the person not to pay attention to that. Not to consider any of that information when making a decision, but that’s just not doable. You can try, but once it’s heard, you can’t unhear it. Just like Jane can’t UNSEE if someone posted they thought her blog was cruel, or that they didn’t support her legal fees gofundme because they disagreed with her, or that they think her publisher’s contract is crappy or herr agent is unethical etc. (Not that these things were discussed, necessarily, but they might have, as they SHOULD be, if that’s what the authors in that loop feel like discussing). Because that’s where we get to do that without censure. That’s where we get to learn and teach and help and support one another without judgment.

I recall one specific conversation on an Indie author loop about the EC/DA case where authors expressed varying points of view. Jane was (according to various members) part of this loop. Would people have spoken so freely if they knew she was there? The answer is unequivocally no. And I’m extremely uncomfortable with that. Like Old Mr. Jennings who was busting my hump was also hiding next to me at the water cooler in a fake mustache and glasses this whole time, listening it.

That’s not okay for me and I feel like I lost something today. Something that I’m already mourning because it’s something that, in this solitary profession, I needed very badly. And it makes me really sad.

The second issue I have is the lack of disclosure on a professional level. Whether Jane promoted her own books, her writing partner’s books, or her publisher’s books, or did or did not review her publisher’s books during the time between the signing of her contract and today, it doesn’t matter. Everything comes into question now, regardless, because what she didn’t do merits as much scrutiny as what she did do and even the potential for impropriety cracks it all open. Everything becomes something to reconsider from a different lens. From choosing to write an exposé on one publisher’s misconduct while wondering if she would do the same, as aggressively or as objectively, to her own, to the DABWAHA nominees, to positive reviews for pub sisters whose Berkeley books she might not have reviewed but who ALSO write for other publishers whose books she did review, to opinions on other authors that would be one thing coming from an impartial point of view become very different animal coming from an author who writes in the same genre she runs a majorly influential review blog about. There are soooo many potential and complex ways that lines could have been crossed here, it would take hours to explore them all, but I do think they shouldn’t be ignored.

Again, do I think that she intentionally took advantage? I don’t think so. And loads of people are going to chime in and say, “Jane would never do that.” Which is all well and good, but guess what? I don’t know Jane. And I daresay most of you don’t either, even if you thought you did yesterday. The way I see it, she’s no different than a judge who recuses himself in a case because he knows the defendant or plays golf with the father of the plaintiff. Does that judge have it in him to not abuse his position and still make an unbiased decision? Maybe he does. But it doesn’t matter. That’s NOT how it works because even the possibility of it would later call everything that happened in that case into question. Jane’s a lawyer. She knows this and she did it anyway.

And it makes me feel…squitchy. Catfished. Sock-puppeted. Hoodwinked, to be honest. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I did what I do. I wrote about it. I’m sorry it’s not the popular thing to say, but it needed to be said.

I’m not angry, and I don’t wish Jane ill will. I hope she comes out the other side of this happy and successful, both as a person and as an author. But seeing a person who has built a career on commenting on the quality of romance novels and behaving as a watchdog…a person who has publicly wagged a journalistic finger at every wrong-doing, real or perceived, from every publisher and author in the industry (and would go back for seconds or thirds when an apology came off like not a good enough apology or when she felt that a person hadn’t been humbled enough), watching this pass by with only stunned whispers behind closed doors because authors are afraid they’ll find themselves at the bottom of a bloody dog-pile? That sticks in my craw. She is in a position of power, whether she wants to be or not. Whether she uses that power or not. And we feel silenced because of that power.

But someone needs to wag a finger here.

Someone needs to do what Jane would have done if this hadn’t been about Jane.

Someone needs to stand up and say that what she did was wrong.

So I’m saying it.

You wrong, Jane. You wrong.

Let's Talk About Covers Some More

One of my huge worries when I write is what will I put on the cover. I usually have two or three ideas, and I am not too good at photo manipulation, so it is troublesome for me. Some I am not too happy with. But since people started snitching my ideas I don't feel so bad. But I always want it to be different than other people's. Not easy when the most popular covers on the best seller list mostly show a road disappearing into the horizon. But I find this amusing since these two books were being touted on the same site.

As an aside, I have the republishing problem solved.  Smashwords lets me download the original doc.  Still, it is taking a while since I cannot resist proof reading and changing little things here and there.  At least I had a productive day.

Nuance.

Of course there are many languages. Some related . Like French, Spanish, Latin. You can sometimes figure out what the words are without studying the language. With familiarity to the alphabet, I can sometimes do that with Russian or Greek. I used to be able to tell the difference between  a person who was from Louisiana and a person who was from Texas. Can't anymore. Probably cuz I don't really listen to anyone  anymore.

Then there are languages like Swedish or Urdu. You have to wonder from where they arose.

And in each language: dialect, slang, jargon, accent. Southern states, "Bless her heart" pretty much means "Wow. Is she dumb."

Then I read this Jane Austen quote. The language I am most familiar with is "English". But, man, is that messed up. For God's sake, why do Brits, be they Scot, Welsh, whatever, say "whilst" instead of "while"? Is that a sort of contraction of "while it is"?  Or did we Americans elide the ending away? I can't get my head around it. I have to try not to think about it, it bothers me so much. I haven't the time or the gray matter to deal with it. And don't even start me up about grey and gray. Particularly regarding those who correct you about which is correct.

But then, a long awaited breath of fresh air from Jane Austen. Honestly, I can't recall reading her, but I must, even if only to dwell on her combinations of the 26 letters. "

"

So brilliant.  So overstuffed with personality, subtlety; so layered with both  appreciation and deprecation.  My favorite language of all:  intelligent  snark.

Hoe Your Own Row

Suppose I went National or worldwide asserting that my works of writing have not been accepted by traditional publishers because I write about redheads and I am a redhead.  We are only 2 - 4 % of the population, and I feel like I am being discriminated against.  Wouldn't you think that was ridiculous?

The following is reblogged from  The School Library Journal.  It is written by Zetta Elliot.  If she asks me to take it down I will gladly comply.

(I am a Black feminist writer committed to social justice. I write stories about Black children and teens, but within the children’s literature community I have struggled to find a home or what poet June Jordan calls “living room.” In “Moving Towards Home,” Jordan describes a place “where the talk will take place in my language…where my children will grow without horror…where I can sit without grief.” If “home” represents sanctuary—a safe space where one can speak in one’s authentic voice, feel valued, and able to thrive—then the children’s literature community is not my home. I am—and likely will remain—an outsider.

By industry standards, I suppose I am a failed author. Since I started writing for young readers in 2000, only three of my thirty stories have been published traditionally. I turned to self-publishing as my only recourse, and now face the contempt of those who see self-publishing as a mere exercise in vanity.

Last year a white Facebook “friend” suggested that my decision to self-publish was analogous to Blacks in the civil rights era choosing to dine in their segregated neighborhood instead of integrating Jim Crow lunch counters in the South. In her mind, self-publishing is a cowardly form of surrender; to be truly noble (and, therefore, deserving of publication) I ought to patiently insist upon my right to sit alongside white authors regardless of the hostility, rejection, and disdain I regularly encounter.

Since 2009 I have used my scholarly training to examine white supremacy in the children’s literature community where African Americans remain marginalized, despite the 2014 increase in books about Africans/African Americans. This sudden spike (reflected in the latest statistics from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) was not paired with a comparable increase in the number of books by Blacks, however, suggesting that power remains where it has always been: in the hands of whites.

Publishers Weekly’s 2014 salary survey revealed that only 1 percent of industry professionals self-identify as African American (89 percent self-identify as white). That the homogeneity of the publishing workforce matches the homogeneity of published authors and their books is no coincidence. The marginalization of writers of color is the result of very deliberate decisions made by gatekeepers within the children’s literature community—editors, agents, librarians, and reviewers. These decisions place insurmountable barriers in the path of far too many talented writers of color.

I know better than to turn to the publishing industry when I seek justice for “my children:” Trayvon, Renisha, Jordan, Islan, Ramarley, Aiyana, and Tamir. I know not to hope that industry gatekeepers will rush to publish books for the children of Eric Garner as they struggle to make sense of the murder of their father at the hands of the New York Police Department. But I also know that children’s literature can help to counter the racially biased thinking that insists Michael Brown was “no angel” but rather “a demon” to be feared and destroyed. I believe there’s a direct link between the misrepresentation of Black youth as inherently criminal and the justification given by those who so brazenly take their lives.

The publishing industry can’t solve this problem single-handedly, but the erasure of Black youth from children’s literature nonetheless functions as a kind of “symbolic annihilation.” Despite the fact that the majority of primary school children in the U.S. are now kids of color, the publishing industry continues to produce books that overwhelmingly feature white children only. The message is clear: the lives of kids of color don’t matter.)

***
(THIS IS THE END OF HER REMARKS. THE FONT CHANGES ARE TRANSFERRING TO PUBLICATION BADLY.)

Like an agent knows what color skin an author has when they get a query mailed to them

Ezra Jack Keats' bio on google opens with "Ezra Jack Keats is an American Author."

Zora Neale Thurston's opens with "Zora Neale Thurston was an American folklorist."  As a part of a writing program at my grand daughters, school, I heard her speak.  She discussed how important it is to write.  I am POSITIVE not one person in that audience thought, "I am listening to the voice of a black woman."  I am also POSITIVE no one boycotted the talk because she was black.  The room she spoke in was packed. She gave my grand daughter a signed book!  Betcha Ms. Elliot doesn't have one/ 

If people want to wave the flag of skin color, they are free to do it as much as they want.  Personally, I am obsessed with being a redhead and well aware of all the privileges it has granted me.  My PINTEREST board on redheads is huge and beautiful.  But I do not bang people over the head with the flagpole.  I do not slap them in the face with the flag. 

Racial divisiveness is being promoted.  Skin color is being emphasized all out of proportion. Why take on the burden of an unjust classification all by your self?  Is your skin really black?  Is your skin really white?  Is your skin really yellow?  

My mantra is and always has been, "Hoe your own row."  "Play the hand you were dealt."  If you do those things the very best you can, if each and every person of whatever ethnicity did that the very best they could, there would be no reason at all for anyone to hire a bandwagon full of supporters to back them up, to second their opinion, to help them. 

I am getting so sick of it.

I have to rush now.  My cable company cancelled my service because I am a redhead, and I have an appointment with a lawyer.  The pressure is getting so bad, someone anonymously sent me a one way ticket to Scotland.  I am so insulted.  

IMAGE ATTRIBUTION:  Vintage illustration by Mabel Lucie Attwell, via Google

Kobo

Not available at Amazon for the time being.
Accessible from any device at Kobo.

FACE VALUE

This was posted on facebook by Blair Underwood and he asked us to share.

The thing about this photo is an example of the only attitude people should have about other people.

I know I post conflicting stuff. But that is what is out there, and that is what each of us has to process on his own.

You cannot tell by looking at this photo of a child what might be her racial, genetic, cultural,  or national identity. Only that she is beautiful and very very  cute.  Her face probably has universal appeal.

So where do all our prejudices and  misconceptions start to muck up the picture?  Education and the media are obviously not saying the right things. Things like what this photo shows us, besides a pretty face.

OUTRAGE

When was that Selma Alabama memorial march thing?  Some day last week?  How fucking adorably ironic.  Martin Luther King is spinning in his grave.

I am through. I will never ever again proselytize about accepting people for their own self worth or recognize effort and ability without prejudice or distinction. This is the straw that broke my less than perfect back.


- BizPac Review http://ow.ly/K4prT




Hey.  Guess what?  If you didn't notice yet, I have no struggle at all having conversations with people who don't "look like me".   Doesn't that sound more like this prick has a personal problem instead of a RACIAL problem?  But then, there is that BLAME thing going on.

 This is the high school my daughter and I graduated from. When I was there, there was one black student. Her name was Faith Julian. She was Dr. Percy Julian's (google) daughter. They burned a cross on his lawn when he moved into Oak Park, Illinois. That town contains a larger concentration of sanctimonious dickheads than any  other city in the world. My dad was a cop there. I moved back when I got married. The mayor was corrupt. He was paying his extramarital sweetie over a million dollars a year as a computer consultant. I am getting ahead of myself.

Faith Julian was a sweet, friendly, unpretentious girl despite being ungodly wealthy. She would walk into one of the school's enormous, thronged girl's bathrooms and a hush would fall. I was a senior when she started there.  She was a year or two behind. As far as I recall I am the only person who ever spoke to her in a social situation at that time. But everyone knew it would be me. I would talk to anyone.

When I went to St. Mel's grammar school, there was one black girl. Her name was Hazel. Her parents were rich. We could tell by her coat. It was an Irish neighborhood where most of our coats had too short sleeves and were threadbare hand-me-downs.  Hers was tan with a brown velvet collar and a fucking matching hat.

We walked into Madigan's department store and my two and a half year old brother saw his first black person. I will never forget the look on his face. My mom had to explain his reaction to me.

I would  love to tell you the story about why all the parks in my subdivision  have been remodeled in the last ten years and there is no longer a basketball hoop to be found. (I now live way North of Oak Park. When I moved out fifteen years ago, my real estate taxes were over $8,000 for a forty two foot lot.)

On the stairwell at my high school there was a huge picture of some guy named McDaniel who founded the school. I said he was my great grandpa. Maybe he was. I hope that picture was taken down before thugs covered it with obscene graffiti.

Oh.  Here is another ironic aside.  In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, there is an old plantation that is kept as a historical site for tourists and stuff. It is called The McDaniel Plantation.

In college, I went to visit my then boyfriend in Spring Hill, Alabama.  The Airport was weathered in so we had to take a bus from New Orleans to Mobile.  I saw a drinking fountain that had a sign Colored Only.  Not a photo.  Not a reproduction.  A flaking, old, white enamel sign above a drinking fountain.

Why does not someone talk to this current school principal, who is principal for the same stupid reason Barack Obama is president, and mention casually, with maybe a sixteen pound sledge hammer, that he is promoting and fueling racial divisiveness?  Why are we so FUCKING scared to speak up? Why do we give stupid assholes like Al Sharpton air time and print inches?

I am through with tolerance. I sneer at it. It is all about me now. Me and MY affinity group.

Son of a BITCH. This is SOOO fucking outrageous. I cannot believe it happened. I cannot believe it was allowed. If I was a 99 pound sophomore and he barred me from MY auditorium in MY school, I would have kicked the mother fucker in the balls. Or do "they" not have any?

Unfollow me. I don't fucking care.

Actually, I only EVER pretended to care.


Photo attribution:   Idon'tgiveaflyingfuck.org.

Tolerance

I know there is a larger hue and cry about discrimination of any kind. There are web sites that actually have to say,  "Hey.  There are still nice guys in the world."  There are waaay too many (in my female opinion) websites supporting feminism, a particular thorn in my side. And there is the subject of race, and/or skin color,  a subject I apparently look at differently than the rest of the world. (See upcoming story about giraffes.)

I am old. I am also a grand daughter of immigrants. I also belong to a group of people with a physical characteristic that has been the butt of jokes, teasing, bullying and other forms of discriminatory behavior.  I have put up with this since I first realized it was going on when I was four. I, for some genetically informed sense of self-worth, have always attributed that to envy.

I am a person who has seen, actually, not photographs of, but actual water fountains that have signs saying, "Colored only". How many people do you think are left that can give witness to that? So, I feel like I know the lay of the land. This has always gone on. Packs of animals or a mother of a single animal, ostracize or often kill, or in some way reject one born out of the norm. Recent news stories show that humans also do this.

The thing that is different, besides there being massively greater numbers of humans to report on, is tolerance.  There is none.  And the lack of tolerance is more malignant than the discrimination. Somebody somewhere is suing because they believe their daughter did not make the cheer leading squad because she has brown hair and there are already too many brown hairs and not enough blondes. Don't worry about the redheads. There is always the "token" redhead.

If something doesn't go according to plan, for instance you get shot and maimed during a robbery attempt, the first reaction is to sue.  They should have posted they do not welcome robbers.  They should have posted they were armed against intruders.  To carry it to a ridiculous point, I am suing because my line of work, robbing, thieving, stealing, etc. is my only legitimate way to support myself because of my abusive childhood, etc. and no one will allow me to freely practice my chosen trade. 

When there were fewer people, maybe it was easier to tolerate differences.  But I think that the practice of intolerance grows and reaps so many benefits, successful lawsuits, special accommodation, free telephones, etc., that it is epidemic. People see and hear of the results of the positive  reactions to intolerance that they look for personal flags to carry.  You are doing that just because I am this.

I have unsubscribed from four news services feeds on facebook this week because I can't let anything roll by without putting my two cents in and it was getting the best of me.  But I have commented over and over, "Why do you need this bandwagon to follow behind you and support you?"  "Why can you not just be proud of yourself and what you have accomplished, (despite the fact that you are tall or short or skinny or fat, or feminine or masculine, or spotted or striped) and realize that you did such a good job because you could and you wanted to and you made yourself or let yourself do it?"  That it doesn't  matter whether the black or yellow or red or pink people gave you encouragement. You did a fine job.  You did the very best you could.  Stop looking for someone to blame.  Stop looking for excuses for your shortfalls. Then you won't even notice whether no other purple person is allowed to do that because they are purple. Because all the purple people are busy doing their very best. For themselves.

Photo attribution:  galleryhip.com