Confessions of an Unsuccessful Author

I am bitter. Yes. I admit it. But the truth is I just can't compete.

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.

Thanks For What?

Let’s try third person. Probably inappropriate story, so maybe you don’t want to read it.

The Most Horrible Thanksgiving Ever Which Blighted Many More and Occasionally Echoes

Once a very young and pregnant girl was due December 18. She ordered special toys and a furry white bunting for the baby. But the baby was stillborn on November 18th.

On the way to auntie Edie’s traditional Thanksgiving feast, the young girl with the aching breasts and broken heart spent the ride thinking how she would be expected to not be grim and ruin everyone’s day. She practiced a cheerful countenance. She wore bright clothes.

There was a gruesome accident on the interstate. At least 3 ambulances were having gurneys wheeled into them. Arriving at the destination, cheerful auntie inquired about the niece’s well being. After all, the girl had 6 or 7 days to get over her trauma, which, in those days, no one acknowledged. When the girl mentioned the horrible accident, of course symbolizing her personal loss, she began to weep. Auntie Cheer said one should count one’s blessings and give thanks for them on this wonderful day which was cold, grey and drizzly. A cousin, a Jesuit priest, you know, the guys that ran the Spanish Inquisition and invented waterboarding, said he heard she lost a baby and better luck next time.

When the broken girl returned the expensive fuzzy bunting, the store clerk said, “Didn’t it fit?” The young lady said, “The baby died.” When she left the store, she felt she had been very cruel to the clerk.

This is why Xanax is such a popular drug. It fills the holes in the brain and the heart. No. It puts band-aids on them.


Image Attribution:   -motor-kid.com

More Polyglot Bullshit

This was my response to a Rumpus article I read just about a year ago.  Every other person that commented on the essay, which was about how Asians have their own special kind of racism that nobody else can understand, ranted about their personal experiences with discrimination. You know what? I am having a lot of trouble with my teeth and it really bothers me because I think having unattractive teeth speaks poorly of that person.

 The truth is that everyone one of us thinks we are so fucking special for one reason or another. Examine your conscience. Be the best human you can be. It doesn't matter what people expect of you and it doesn't matter what color your skin is. How could it unless you are on one of those Ethnic bandwagons? Just do your best.

December 17th, 2013 at 4:43 pm
I cannot finish reading this. My forehead is hot and my heart is pounding. Everyone EVERYONE has something to bitch about. This guy whose wife is fooling around on him says she can’t read my fiction and she hates my daughter because she is 5’10″ and hates short people. I am a red head. 2 to 4% of the world population. I will be 70 in the Spring. SEVENTY. This whole ginger thing is maybe 2 to 5 years old. When I was a small child, Ginger (Rogers?) was a cute nickname for a redhead or a person named Virginia. I so desperately wanted it to be my nickname. It wasn’t. “Redhead, redhead, fire in the woodshed.” In my early teens a little song I won’t repeat referring to having menstrual fluid on my head. And I was freckled and skinny. WHY did it NEVER hurt me? I knew I was smarter than my big brother and that was the win for me. No other redheads in the family that I ever saw. Lots of dead ones.

At my ten year reunion from high school I received the ultimate left-handed compliment. “I wish I knew you were going to turn out like this.”

Why can’t you just be you? Why do you have to take on a burden of a “yellow” race? I have never seen a yellow person or a red person or a black person. At a family gathering, introducing the very suntanned son of my Irish nephew and his Italian wife, I said, “He’s one of those little brown people.” He was. Just like your face IS flat. I married a Spaniard. My brother teased him about living in a cave with a goat and a wine bota, but got all freaked when I said his wife was the first Italian we let into the family.

Calm the fuck down. I’m trying to.

Depending on the Random

There is gonna be a huge problem.  Of course Armageddon or the Apocalypse may prevent this problem from occurring, and that is only working through the first letter of the catastrophe alphabet.

The problem may not be totally catastrophic, like a Zombie virus showing up, but I am thinking it will at least be on the level of plane loads of people dropping to their death from the sky and no one asking why or even seeming to care.  If this year is any example, planes full of people falling to their death is going to be an everyday part of our lives soon.  Well, you just have to accept it.  As Millay said, "You can get used to anything."  Bet your sox on that one.

Actually the huge problem I foresee may be a part of the reason planes fall out of the sky into physical, emotional, or intellectual black holes. 

I was in a huge department store last night with my grand daughter.  I saw a display of furnace filters and thought, "Louie never changes those suckers."  so I took my Samsung Galaxy 5 life line tool from my pocket and attempted to reach him so I could ask what size furnace filter I should purchase. The phone said I couldn't call because there was neither 4G nor WiFi available.  This in itself is incomprehensible in a store that surely has WiFi as part of its operational strategy.  For God's sake, Burger King has free unlocked WiFi. 

My grand daughter was standing right next to me.  She took out her Samsung Galaxy 5 phone that is a part of the same family service plan, T-mobile I don't mind saying, and called to ask about the filters. (An exercise in futility for other reasons.)  The call didn't go right through, not because of a lack of WiFi or 4G, but because Grandpa had left his Samsung Galaxy Note whatever at the office.  So she called our house phone, or hard-line phone, if you will.  He answered.

There is no explanation for why this occurred.  Identical instruments, identical service plans, identical locations, etc.  

Do you know what Quora is?  It is a question and answer forum that strives to be more sophisticated than Yahoo answers.  They don't let you get away with much bull shit before they call you on it.  I asked a question about why, at home, my wifi is unavailable because my internet connection is too slow.  Well, part of the problem is uverse's system  is designed for fiber optic cable and there is no fiber optic cable "out here".  And part of the reason is the Wi in wifi doesn't mean it is wireless.  It needs wires. There was more tech info in the answer a kind and knowledgeable person gave me which I promised to try and digest later, but I ended by saying that picking  and sorting all these millions of signals out of the air and delivering them to the right person is almost the same as magic.

Now they have wifi on airplanes.  No, there is not a tower on the top of the plane.  It is done with radio.  Why can't mine be radio?  And considering the utter randomness of the system's operational ability as witnessed in my department store call, how can you expect all these planes flying around throwing out signals to traffic control towers and to mumsy asking her to turn on the oven because you will be home in thirty minutes? Sooner or later the plane will land in mumsy's kitchen.

And I know nothing of bank operations, but what my husband had to go through to deposit a $72 check from our mortgage holder was worth way more than $72 in man hours.  This is that new "take a picture of the check and it will be in your account" strategy.

We are totally depending on technology that is quite probably purely hypothetical.  Would they tell you that if it was so?  Go to the t-mobile kiosk at one end of the mall and you will get completely different info than you got from the t-mobile kiosk at the other end of the mall.  I just pretend it is magic.  I am not going to be around to clean up this mess.

Image attribution:  www.callcenterhelper.com      (Irony)

Once Upon A Time. . .

Once upon a time, people got frightened. They began to believe they had control of Nature, and the stars, and solar wind, and each other. And as this belief became stronger, the people of the world decided to accept the Polar Bear as the totem representing this fearsome power that they perhaps were wielding wrongly. Pictures of Polar Bears bleeding and drowning and dropping from the skies were sent all over their world and it became the rule that no Polar Bear would ever be allowed to die or be harmed in anyway, ever again. And the people of the world took comfort from this, feeling less guilt for perhaps  improperly wielding their imaginary powers. And so it came to pass that Ace Hardware had a special sale on Polar Bear shovels so the people of the world could get out of their houses.

BE YOURSELF

Youth/Contrast

Father's Day

My father is incredibly old. He insists on driving himself and lives alone, despite my remodeling a room for him  and asking him to move here countless times.  "You'd have to get rid of a few kids and animals before I'd think about that."

My mom died six years ago and we all thought, including his doctor, that he would not last long without her.  But he is apparently an expert at transference, even arguing about what hospital I was born in, confusing me with her.

He is a very good person.  He was a cop, for which I paid dearly in my teen years, and a very hard working person.  He frequently had three jobs.  Cops were allowed to moonlight in those days.  I grew up with my share of daddy fantasies, acting some of them out,  making out under the stairs with his partner  at his retirement party, for instance. Daddy would have shot the guy.

If nothing else, he taught us you don't get anything without working for it.  He talks about how uninvolved his dad was in his life.  I said, "He must have done something right because he made you what you are and everyone knows you are a fine person."  The world is indeed a better place for him being in it, and the world definitely needs more people like him, to use  some of the  cliches in that regard.

But one  day he was talking about how his dad was never around to play games with them, or take them swimming.  Maybe my dad practiced baseball a little with my older brother but I don't recall that. We all learned to ride our two-wheelers pushing off the fence, not with the dad running behind  holding the fender.  Surely he did not toss the old ball around at all with my second brother, and  he never played games with me until after my mom died.  They played Yahtzee every day.  I would go and visit after she was gone and suggested we take up Yahtzee again.  I kicked his ass the first three games and we never played again.

Anyway, he repeats stories endlessly in his dotage, and we earn our points with God by patiently listening.  So one day when he was talking about his dad, yet again. (My grandpa was a handsome, debonair, wonderful guy to me.  The Minnetonka story is elsewhere in this ongoing chronicle) and my dad said, "My father never even bought me a bicycle."  I said, "But, dad, you never bought me a bicycle either."  (I bought my own bike when I was seven, the story of which probably also lies elsewhere in this chronicle.)  He just stared at me, for once at a loss for words, and, I am certain, for the first time realizing that he had indeed walked in his dad's shoes, at least in some cases.

One thing, a far more precious gift than a bike, is the self-reliance he taught me by not buying me a bicycle.

And, to prove  the thesis, my dad and his pal, Bill, bought a car when he was eleven, fixed it and drove it--to grade school.



















father's Day