megwrites

I've been seeing commentary about the whole Roman Polanski arrest thing, and I frankly just do not understand how anyone can make a cause celebre out of this man. If you can stomach his films, that's one thing. Be that on your own head. But signing a petition on his behalf to help him elude serving his sentence? Unforgivable in my book.

He raped a thirteen-year-old girl. Let me repeat that statement: Roman Polanski RAPED a thirteen-year-old girl. I don't care if he makes movies or shoes in a factory. Your job should never be a Get Out of Jail Free card when you physically and sexually violate someone against their will.

I'm tired of news reports saying that he "had sex with a thirteen-year-old girl". No, he didn't. He FORCED sex onto a thirteen-year-old girl. Toning that down and not using the word rape means that you somehow, in some way, think that something about what he did wasn't that bad.

That girl (now a woman) didn't have sex with him. She had a traumatic, tragic, horrible experience with him. What she had? Was not sex. It was an assault. None of this is about her age, or about Polanski somehow being a straw man for us backwards Americans. If thinking that forcing drugs and sex on someone when they say "no" is backwards, I'm proud to claim the title.

This is about the fact that she said "No" and he said, "But I'm a famous director!" and we're still living in a world where that last bit apparently still matters when it comes to paying the criminal penalty for crimes of which you have been convicted.

In a way, I'm as angry at Polanski's supporters as I am him, because they're not just supporting him - they're voicing their assent and agreement with rape culture. Those famous celebrities (gee, a lot of them are men and at least one is Woody Allen. Like thewayoftheid said, the jokes write themselves) are saying that they believe that sometimes, rape can be okay. Given enough time and money and fame, rape is okay. That it's all right not to face punishment for it if you can afford to fly to another continent and make movies.

Nor is this about whether his victim has forgiven him, because she probably did that for the sake of her own sanity. I can't imagine living in a world where the man who did that to you wins awards and has people patting him on the back because he made a movie where a woman has the devil's baby or Adrien Brody sits in front of a piano and looks really sad and skinny. I bet you pretty much have to just let it go or lose your sanity.

This is about more than Polanski and his "art" (and I resent the implication that any movie he's made is good enough to be considered art rather than just slightly-better-than-bad cinema) - it's about telling people that just because you're rich and famous doesn't mean you can victimize whoever you want. It's about telling people that you can't abuse the power you have over others.

Because when you say that maybe Polanski should get away with this - and yeah, fighting for him not to be extradited and punished is helping him get away with it - you're saying to that teacher who's thinking about putting his/her hand down his/her student's pants that if they're really nice and inspiring otherwise, it's okay. You're saying to that priest who's looking a little too long at that altar boy that, well, since they're a priest and they serve soup to the homeless, it's okay. You're saying to anyone who finds themselves in a position of power over someone else - a child, a woman, a subordinate, or just someone less famous, less rich, and less empowered than them - that if they make pretty things or are charming enough, it's okay.

And those victims? Those children who's teachers, priests, parents, and other folk abused them - you're telling them that their pain doesn't matter. You're telling them that someone else was entitled to their bodies, their dignities, their well being.

You're saying, in essence, that some people can be made worthless just by standing next to someone we like better. You're saying that the value of human dignity has a sliding scale.

So, to you petitioners on Roman Polanski's behalf, I ask - where on the sliding scale of Human Value should we put you now? Where on your scale is his victim? Where am I? And what will you say to the next rock star or politician or Hollywood A-lister who sees this and decides that if Polanski can get away with it, so can they. Most of all, what will you say to their victims?

This isn't about his movies, this is about his victim. This is about all victims. All the ones that have been hurt, are being hurt, and will be hurt if we don't stand up and say "THIS IS NOT OKAY. THIS IS WRONG. YOU WILL BE PUNISHED." And yes, we need it to say it in all caps as loudly and frequently as possible.

As for the works of Polanski and his supporters? I'm envoking the Fuckmuppetry Doctrine* which states that since the amount of works to be read, viewed, heard, and enjoyed far outstrips the amount of time I can possibly have on this Earth, I will eliminate from my selections the works by those who have elected to act like complete and utter fuckmuppets and instead concentrate on works by those who I have less uncomfortable feelings about - you know, people who don't support rape and rapists.


*credit for the Fuckmuppetry Doctrine should go to yuki_onna

fashionista_35 has some very interesting things to say about writing "the book of your heart" as opposed to just writing "what sells" and self-censorship.

I have to confess that I agree with the principle, but I sort of hate the phrase. I agree that you can't just write something on the sole basis that it'll sell.

( I have so much 'but' face beneath this cut. Reasons why I like the principle but hate the phrase. )

I know I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating. I really, really, really wish some agents would be more specific about what they want or do not want, especially if they don't accept e-queries.

Before anyone thinks I'm ranting about how terrible agents are (they aren't!), this is a problem with some agents, not all. Most agents have submissions guidelines that are easily found and very specific. I appreciate those agents. A lot.

Some agents, however...

I wish agents would make sure their AgentQuery, PublishersMarketplace, and LitMatch listings are specific and accurate. So many have several (or every) fiction genre listed, but very demonstrably - and by demonstrably, I mean looking at their client lists and recent sales - only represent one or two types of books. A literary book about angsty ghosts is not the same as fantasy or horror or mystery. They're not even on the same side of the bookstore! Why in the world does your page list every conceivable genre when your client list is telling me that you've probably never picked up an SF/F book in your life? Why?

I don't know whether this is because of the way that AQ, PM, and LM list agents or how the form is filled out, but it's problematic.

Especially when that agent doesn't have a website, blog, or other place where I can see their guidelines. Or the ones who like to add a little Vague Sauce. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones where the agent says something like, "I'm looking for a book that stands out from the rest and sweeps the reader away! I want something with a unique voice and an interesting perspective!"

Which makes me say, "Yeah, that's real cute. So, do you represent SF/F or not?"

I used to get mad every time I saw submissions guidelines saying, "Absolutely no SF/F! No vampires or werewolves!" Now? I want to thank those for being straightforward and specific. Once I know that they don't want to pick up what I'm throwing down? I can hit the back button and save us both some very precious time.

Is there a rule somewhere that says the women in SF/F cover art must look like they're just copypasta of fashion models, except with bigger boobs?

I went surfing around a few of the sites of artists who do the covers for SF/F books and I swear I've seen some of those women in the advertisements and fashion shoots for Vogue or Vanity Fair or something like that. One picture - which I shall not link here - featured a model with slicked back hair standing behind something and I realized that I'd seen nearly that exact same pose, model, and body type in an advertisement for body wash.

Somebody really needs to do something about SF/F cover art's representations of women. Like, right now. Because no matter how revolutionary the text, if we (the larger we) are still representing it using old, harmful standards of beauty when it comes to women and people of color, we're taking two steps forward and two steps back.

Which, if you do the math, leaves us exactly where we started. And I'd really, really like to be somewhere different than where SF/F is right now. Somewhere that has less tramp stamps and improbably tight fitting leather (seriously? How do you fight demons and vampires wearing that stuff? And how do you not sound like a walking fart machine when it starts squeaking? God, the chafing must be unreal!) on the cover of urban fantasy novels.

Just once, I'd like to see a cover which features a model wearing practical shoes. High heels are great for cocktail parties, but when it comes to fighting off the monstrous undead, I recommend a solid pair of Nikes. Because otherwise you're going to fracture your ankle during a battle and get eaten. And I will not feel sorry for you because anyone who tries to fight a vampire while wearing a pair Manolo Blahniks is sealing their own fate.

When I become a professional, I will remind myself not to berate my blog/LJ readers for not commenting enough when I post on a certain topic. Because that seems like a terrible way to Make Friends and Influence People. It could be that people don't respond because they have nothing to say or people were busy with their lives (you mean people don't spend all day reading your blog? the hell you say!) or because what you wrote on the topic isn't terribly interesting or comment-worthy.

I just don't know that making someone feel beholden to say they felt sorry for not thanking you enough for spewing a few paragraphs about your job on your blog like every other jerk on the interwebs who posts about their jobs is the way to garner fans or earn respect. Just sayin'.

I'll work on the being more positive/less snarky thing tomorrow.

Until then, have a link about about the romance genre and scholarship. Because it's only trashy unless you got a degree from Harvard. Although the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books gals got a mention and that's always a good thing.

Best quote of the article:

When Tan tells people she reads romance novels and blogs about them, "I can see it in their eyes that their opinion of my intelligence is just being revised downwards."

Today's twist: "I feel embarrassed for them."

Snap.

It's the "Snap" that really makes it work, I feel. Because I agree. You just got schooled, interwebs.

And for the record, I feel the same way. If you think writing, reading, enjoying, or otherwise studying the romance genre makes someone less intelligent, I will be more than happy to give you some evidence upside your head. The knuckle sandwiches are free all day.

Doing the meme from the previous entry brought up something that I'll one day get around to doing a full blown post on, which is why I have a love/hate with so called "chick flicks" and "chick lit". I want to make it clear that I separate this from the romance genre as a whole, because I do not consider "The Devil Wears Prada" to be equivalent to, say, Harlequin Romances or classics of the genre.

Chick lit and chick flicks are their own category, though they borrow heavily from some bits of the romance genre.

I think some films and books that fit this genre are very smart. Some are surprising. But my problem with the genre, especially as it's portrayed on covers is the attachment to upper class and upper middle class materialism. Often, expensive brand names (for instance, Prada) are part of the selling point, and there is an attachment, superficially or thematically, to commercialization.

The obsession with connecting women's issues and women's lives with shopping and designer names, with this, "oh, it's so hard trying to be a fabulous appletini-drinking, Gucci-wearing single girl in the big city" attitude makes the blue-collar, coupon-clipping, penny-pinching Southerner in me cringe.

I have that same issue with many of paranormal romance and urban fantasy heroines I read about. I find the thought that somehow possessing a vagina makes me more interested in clothes and makeup and shopping and designer duds offensive and maddening. Especially when I'm not there for the high heels, I'm there for the vampires and, essentially, it's either Fangs or GTFO for me when I'm reading.

Yes, some women like shoes, shopping, fashion. Nothing wrong with that. Some of the best women I know are total clothes horses. And I won't deny there's something nice about occasionally getting prettied up for a special event.

But shopping? Clothes? Fashion? Leather pants? They do not factor into my life in the stereotypical fashion. I own exactly three pairs of shoes. One pair of sandals. One pair of tennis shoes. And one pair of oversized shiny black flats that I stuff tissue into the ends of because they're wide enough but too long. The newest pair of these were my tennis shoes and I bought those in July of last year. I probably purchase one new pair of shoes a year, and I have a hard time doing this. New shoes do not delight me. They scare me. I fear change.

I own exactly one dress. I do not wear high heels. The subject of shopping and clothing causes panic attacks in me. If you're a woman of size who was large as a child, especially in places where there were not a lot of clothes for overweight/obese children, you'll understand this.

I'm not trying to brag or somehow say that I am better because I don't tend to make much of my clothing and accessories other than to look clean, presentable, and at least reasonably clothed. It's not a virtue, it's just a choice.

Being interested in clothes, and having lots of shoes and dresses isn't somehow a sign of being a horrible, shallow person. So long as you're not spending beyond your means or putting your family into debt to buy a Kate Spade bag, your disposable cash is your business. No judgments from me.

But the women who are like me exist. And that is why I resent the term "chick lit", because it implies that such literature is the literature representative of all chicks, of all women. And it is not. More than that, I think it enforces this idea that women must be tied to material and socio-economic ideals that are inherently harmful to them.

I think women are not just a marketing group, but sometimes outright targets of advertisers who prey on the societal pressures and stereotypes women labor under to bilk dollars out of them, and I see that same predatory tendency in these books.

I feel utterly excluded from chick lit at moments. I imagine many women who are lower class, of color, queer, fat or otherwise different may feel the same.

And I think there are a lot of chicks who's stories and struggles aren't being talked about because they don't fit into the urban, wealthy, upwardly striving, college educated, white traditional chick-lit model. They don't wear Prada or Gucci. Hell, they don't even wear high heels.

For some "chicks", yeah, this literature is spot on. But for a lot of us? It isn't our literature. These aren't our stories. This isn't us.

Which, coincidentally, is another reason I separate it from romance. Romance, quite smartly, can divide off and tell the stories of many different types of women. There are lines of books specifically for women of color, and many romance novels I've read do center on women who are not fabulously rich, who are the kind of common-sense, thrifty, trying-to-get-by women with two kids, two jobs, and need for love that I actually know about. Of course, romance has it's problems, as all genres do. For instance: nobody in romance novels is ever fat", and that's a problem, but every genre has it's foibles. Ask me about SF/F and racism sometime.

There's an academic paper in here somewhere about the function of materialism in chick lit relative to the romance genre, but like I said. That's for another time.

I have very unchick-like writing to go do.

While cruising the f-list, I saw a writer's opinions on pirated e-books linked many times, and as usual, it got me thinking.

In that post, pbray discusses how she feels that downloading or providing free, pirated e-books is wrong and tantamount to theft.

I won't say I disagree with her basic premise. She's right. You download something you didn't pay for and didn't get permission to take, something the writer, editor, and all the other folks involved didn't get paid for, and yeah, you're stealing the results of their hard work. And that's not cool. No matter what your reasons, downloading books you didn't pay for (with a few exceptions) is completely wrong.

I speak both as an aspiring, completely unpublished writer and an avid reader. Let that inform your opinion of what I say as it will. But mostly, I'm speaking as a reader and a buyer of books.

As justified as pbray's anger is, I don't know that it's ultimately useful, nor do I think the tactic of going after the end users or the providers of such pirated wares is at all fruitful. The problem with that is that when you focus your energy on being angry at these folks, you're playing an unwinnable game of wac-a-mole where there are infinite moles and infinite holes and they can work much faster than you.

You take down one site, you take down a few downloaders, good for you. Their replacements are already been trading their black market literature under your nose and will continue to.

I think there are two things are work when people download these books illegally. One is an attitude, the other is a set of market conditions that is actually chasing away readers, making easy downloading a much more viable option.

The attitude at work is one that stems from ignorance of how the industry works (from the reader's perspective) and an economic climate that encourages people to cut corners wherever they can. Whether those corners can or should be cut.

pbray says (with no shortage of sarcasm):

Everyone knows authors are rich and we don't need the money.

Well, actually, that's sort of the problem. How much can you really expect the average reader to know about how much an author makes from a book? After all, it's been much touted in the media that J.K. Rowling is richer than the Queen of England. We see books that tell us over and over that this author is a Best Selling Author and 500,000 copies sold!. Where, precisely, do you expect your audience to get information on your income from?

You're not exactly doing a lot to convince the reader that you need the money when you do that. Or rather, when your publisher does that on your behalf. Readers have no way of knowing what your cut of the profits (if, indeed, there are any) are. So as rightfully angry as you are, there may be a reason that readers are making such assumptions.

Yes, you're hurting for money. So are your readers! Many of them are in the same boat as you are, or even worse boats. Their jobs (if they've kept them) aren't paying enough, their houses have been devalued, their dollar isn't going as far as it used to, the price of everything is just going up, up, up. You think you're alone in your economic woes? You're not.

Which is where the market conditions come in. The current system of publishers and booksellers is just not working for the reader. Not at all. I wish I could find the right statistics to back me up here, but it's clear that the publishing industry is not doing well. I can tell you that retailers are definitely not doing well, including the big chain booksellers.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Some of which are the industry's own goddamn fault. Not the writers, not the readers, but the companies that have been doing business in the ways that lead to them needing to make record lay offs.

And it doesn't need to be that way. The way to lick piracy is not to take a defensive, entrenched position. It's to make piracy less and less appealing and less and less necessary. I think nothing has done more to stem the tide of piracy in the music industry than such things as iTunes, where a song can be easily and reliably downloaded for a mere 99 cents. I, like most people, feel that 99 cents is a fair price to pay for a song you want to have. Especially when you can, if you like, cherry pick from albums to get only the songs you care for without having to buy the inevitable crappy studio songs that some artists do.

Somebody in the publishing industry needs to understand the principle behind this. iTunes works because it's cheap and everything you want is there. The problem that piracy has is that no matter how unstoppable it is, the collections that people are able to offer are always incomplete, unreliable. Very new or very old texts are not to be found. Rarer books by an author are also not to be found. Not even the best piracy sites can offer everything.

A legal, cheaply available library with an extensive collection would easily attract people AWAY from illegal downloading, and ebook formats have, so far as I am aware, lower overhead. Plus, if there were some company that were willing to share collections among major publishers? They'd own the market.

Second, if somebody, somewhere would invest in making a viable and affordable e-Book reader, the revolution would finally begin. While the new Kindles are sexy beasts, I can't afford that shit, to be blunt. At $359, it'll be years before I can afford that shit. I can't think of an ebook reader that is currently a viable option for me to buy.

Not to mention that formatting is a problem, and availability of books.

These problems are not insurmountable. If somebody in the industry would actually make the push for a cheap eBook reader that is under $150. If iPod can make a device that plays music, videos, and games and sell it for $149 (the price of an iPod nano) and a tiny shuffle for under fifty bucks (before tax), then somebody ought to be able to make an eBook reader that's actually affordable for those of us who have to pay rent next month.

The problem is that the solution to these things does not lie with the readers. The solutions lie with publishers and booksellers.

So, yeah, you're right to yell and be furious with the purveyors of these illegal goods, but save some of that vitriol for your publishers, because they're hurting you as much as anything else. In fact, I'd submit that they may be doing more to prevent you from getting the sales you need and turning away YOUR potential readers. More than that, I'd wager that it's not piracy that's taking your sales. The people who pirate those books were probably the least likely to purchase those books anyway and probably would just have given you a pass if they didn't have the piracy option. Not that it justifies their actions or makes them right, but it does mean that your anger may be more beneficially redirected in a way that ends up putting money in your pocket for the hard work you've done.

First off, holy crap. I didn't expect that the threads in this post would explode like it did with people bringing the truth and covering it in awesome sauce, but it has. While Ms. Bujold's responses have upset and disappointed me, seeing lots of other people stand up and call her on it has really been heartening.

I also note that some people are friending me. I love new friends (yay!), but I feel like I should warn them that I'm probably very boring and a complete dweeb.

All of which is to say that one semi-related issue that the comments brought up for me is the idea that somehow you can use attendances at cons as a litmus test of the SF/F fandom and readership as a whole. I hate this idea and want to punch it in it's big ugly face.

The only thing con attendance can tell you is who attends conventions.

The reason it bothers me is because, well, I've never been able to attend a convention. Either because I never lived near a city big enough to have one, or because I've never had the time and money to go. I don't feel this should mean that I don't count as an SF/F fan. Because trust me, I've been reading and fangirling along with everyone else since I was, like, eight years old. I think I have earned my geek badge by now.

I just have never been a position where I could afford the plane ticket, the hotel, the entrance fees, plus food and other expenses. Not to mention that things I've heard have made me vastly uncomfortable about ever going to one. Notably, the Open Source Boob Project. Just hearing about it made me feel awful about being a woman seriously reconsider whether I'd ever actually want to go to one of those things unless I had a full detail of bodyguards and an automatic weapon.

So, it bothers me when something that is only available to a smaller subset of people is somehow meant to be a measuring stick for all of us. It bothers me even more because going to a convention is a pretty big luxury, and to me, there is some smack of elitism inherent in placing the kind importance on cons that the SF/F genre has.

I just rebel at the thought of something that is so arbitrarily available and safe should matter at all to who gets recognized and who doesn't.

All right, rant for the day is over. Gotta go do that writing and looking for a job thing that I should be doing.

I get that authors, even ones published with the big companies, have to do a lot of their own promotion and marketing. Because that's the name of the game. You wanna sell those books? You gotta get out there and tell people that Bird Is the Word.

But there's a right way and a wrong way to do it.

One of those wrong ways involves joining a discussion group for books just to spam people about your book and "vote for my book as the best book!" polls and other annoying messages when you don't participate in that group for any other reason and a quick check of your GoodReads profile shows that you're doing the same thing on other groups.

Also, maybe if you're said person, you could be slightly less proud of a book which - bless your heart - has probably the world's worst cover art. I'm not kidding, it looks like it was done in MS Paint and I suspect that this author actually did the cover herself and not the publisher (if that's the phrase you wanna use for them, since you have to pay them if they decide to publish your book. Gee, I wonder how many people they turn down).

Seriously, this cover art? Is like a girl who walks out of the bathroom with her skirt tucked into her pantyhose and toilet paper stuck to her shoe and doesn't realize it so she thinks the faces people are making at her are somehow in reaction to her being hot or something. It's actually a little bit hilarious.

This articles on authors who blog and recent nastiness regarding George RR Martin by Guy Gavriel Kay (author of Tigana and more recently, Ysabel) seems very wise and reasoned to me.

As a yet unknown, unpublished hack who blogs about her unknown, unpublished hackiness, I have to say that I agree with Kay when he says:

Disturbing as this is, in some ways, I find it difficult to come down hard on readers of a writer who has steadily made him or herself "available" to them.

( Discussion beneath the cut of fans, writers, of the responsibilities and problems of writers who blog, of blogs as personal versus professional spaces, and of how it feeds into RaceFail as well as other things. And wow, did this go to a tl;dr kind of place in a hurry. )