megwrites

I realize I'm risking the flamey ire of the internets for this, but honestly? Flames tend not to bother me and I feel like saying it.

I'm all for a community gathering around to help members who are hurting because of bad luck and bad situations, and I have no problems with giving where I can. Even if it's just offering some services or my time when I don't have money.

But lately, on the internet, I've seen some calls for support for people who, while their situations are deserving, made me wonder if they themselves are, or why it is that they get people blogging and posting on their behalf.

I won't say any specifics, but there's no one call for "Help [Insert Person]" that's pushed my buttons. Well, there is one, but only because I tend to resent anyone who turns to charity not because it's their last resort, but because they'd rather continue living a certain way without having to face hard realities.

Sometimes I want to say, "Hey, look, there are at least ten people on my f-list who could use a leg up, too. People who have kids and just lost their job and may not have a house or a car or healthcare anymore if they've managed to hold on to them this time. People who's circumstances are just as bad."

Trust me, I can tell you some hard luck stories. I can tell you that the two best friends my fiancee and I have are both out of work. His best friend, who we'll call Miss J, and her husband are both unemployed right now, and having to move somewhere else because the prospects for employment where they live are just so bad that they can't stay. The house they're planning to abandon (because they have no choice) is so devalued that the bank may not even want it back. This is after her father also got laid off.

I can tell you about people who right now, are making choices between food and medication. I can tell you about specific people that I know who just won't have a car, who aren't sure if they'll have their jobs, who are biting their nails wondering what bill they'll have to not pay this month.

Everyone's hurting, and it seems sometimes that the people who get help from the community at large get it not because they're the worst off or even because they've somehow been big contributors who did good deeds for others, but because they managed to have friends in the right places, that they ran in the right clique so that their buddies were big name bloggers and figures in certain scenes.

Some part of me wants to ask where's the fundraising for the people who haven't hobnobbed at every convention from here to WisCon, where's the donation and charity drive for the writers who aren't published yet, for those who are struggling to get published - but because they couldn't afford flights and hotel rooms and all the expenses of going to conventions and writer's workshops, because they couldn't risk taking the time off work, because they couldn't hang out with the cool kids, nobody's calling for donations on their behalf.

It just seems like some people are getting help because they're the popular kids on the scene, but the not so popular kids - the single moms with two kids and crushing debt who've just lost their job or taken a severe pay cut, the young couple who find themselves unemployed, uninsured, and uncertain, the people who are trying to deal with health issues while trying to keep what little of a job they have - those folks are being told, "Eh, that's what comes with being an artist. Suck it up. Writing/(insert artform) is tough".

Yet when somebody with Friend In High Places faces the same difficulties, suddenly, it's a community tragedy. Somehow, if nobody knows your name, your problems are somehow less worthy of consideration.

Well, I know their names. I know who they are, I know that they're hurting. And maybe the cool kids and Big Name People have forgotten them, but I haven't.

So to all of you out there who are fighting tooth and nail, who are shaking and crying and not sleeping, who hurt but can't go to a doctor, who skip meals and rob Peter to pay the electricity bill, and who are trying to write, sing, paint, draw, dance, and create through all of it - even when agents and publishers are telling you that your chances just got slimmer and your cut is going to be smaller and that when it comes time for someone to take the hit, it's going to be you, not them - to all of you - I know your name. I won't forget you. And whenever I can, I'll do my best to help you in whatever way I can, with whatever I have at my command, however meager.

Maybe I'm unemployed right now, but I'm lucky in so many ways, and if I can pass that luck on, I will.

I shall call this mode: "Person with one leg in a butt kicking contest". I was sick as a dog the night before, which means yesterday I got nothing done.

Ergo, today I'm scrambling to get back on schedule with the revisions of the Tower!Guy novel. I realize I set aside my deadline as being unimportant, given the givens, but part of me just needs to be done with revisions, needs to send this out, needs to have this over with.

I just want to work on a new project, on writing words that I haven't gone over with a fine tooth comb fifty times already.

Apropos of nothing: I think the Tor.com site could be a much better if they stopped letting a certain someone post reviews of TV shows that are not even remotely SF/F or SF/F related. I've tried to get into the site because there's some free short fiction there and things, but honestly? As long as they keep letting one of their contributors post reviews of a mainstream crime drama just because it's her favoritest show ever and apparently her thoughts on it are so deep and enlightening that they must be shared at every turn, whether they're relevant or not, I'm out. I can't take the site seriously, because nobody's ever explained to me why they think one person's opinion about a non-SF/F show should be on a site specifically dedicated to SF/F. I swear to god, next there'll be posts about rock climbing. [/bitchery].

I really should get back to work. When I start snarking like this, it means I'm not busy enough.

There's a post I read yesterday that I'd dearly love to respond to, except it was written by someone who I consider a friend, or at least a friendly acquaintance and my response to it would not be positive at all.

Even I know there's no value in burning a bridge or starting wank over a single blog post like that. I try to save my polite dissent for moments when I feel like it's really necessary to say something. The post in question really made me see red as a writer and someone who would one day like to be published.

( And yet, somehow, I end up saying something anyway. Probably will be the death of me before I get started, but if I don't vent, furniture will get destroyed. )

1. Valley of Strength - Shulamit Lapid. Got this one from the Early Reviewers program at LibraryThing. It's a great story, but the translation of this novel into English was so bad that I couldn't go on. Which is sad, because the story itself had me hooked from the word go. A sixteen year old girl who meets a man who marries her just to take care of his kids going from Ukraine to pre-state Israel with her nutcase brother and her rape baby and doing her best to make her way in difficult times is a story worth telling. I may try to find a less headache inducing translation later.

2. Touch the Dark - Karen Chance. Wow, but this book sucked like an electrolux. I should have been warned when I read this lovely little passage:

I took a while to get there on foot, since I was trying to stay out of sight and avoid breaking an ankle in my new, over-the-knee, high-heeled boots. I'd bought them because they matched the cute leather mini a salesgirl had talked me into and I'd planned to wow them at the club after work.

Oh, fuck noes, I know she just didn't take time out of running for her life from dangerous hitmen sent by a vampire mafia don to give me the backstory behind her footwear. Why, in the middle of all this, do I need to know why she had over-the-knee boots? Why?

If I never see another urban fantasy "heroine" (I use that term loosely, because this protagonist was a self-absorbed airhead) talking about her clothing and her fashion obsessions, it will be too soon. Why do people think that just because I'm female and the protagonist is female that suddenly describing useless bits of clothing becomes important? I'm seriously about five minutes from going nuclear with rage. I am so tired of this.

I don't fucking care what she's wearing. Either have something interesting happen or GTFO, thanks please. This book is just another example of everything that's wrong with Urban Fantasy. Because of course, all the vampires are so hot and sexy and they all want to touch her and make sex with her. And of course, when she feels betrayed by a character who only lied to protect her, she swings back from flouncing like a teenager to thinking that he's so pretty and she wants to trust him.

Not to mention her utterly stupid plan to go after the guy who killed her parents by walking into a casino and fighting a vampiric hit man with nothing but her girly rage, apparently. Of course, though, she has to be properly dressed before she can go avenge her family. *facepalm*.

I spent the next four chapters really hoping the protagonist would die in a fire or get eaten. It didn't happen, so I moved on. I can't believe I spent money on this book. I am so selling it to the Book Barn so I can at least get some of my wasted dollars back. The only thing I got out of this book was the burning desire to know what editor got paid a backhander read over this and thought this was okay?

Apparently you can't rely on editors to stop crap from making it's way to shelves, because they won't. I guess it's up to the author to make sure the book won't burn people's eyeballs.

And by the by, the little blurb on the back of the cover should have also tipped me off to the stupidity: "The ghosts of the dead aren't usually dangerous..." Uh, as opposed to what? The ghosts of the living?

Also? Stephen King gets his snark on regarding Stephanie Meyer. So, Stephen King is secretly kind of bitchy. Who knew?

Although, I have to say, it makes me want to defend Meyer. Not because I think Twilight is all that great as a piece of literature. I think it's about as far from well-written as you can get before you start using LOLcats and internet acronyms.

But you know what? It strikes a chord with teenage girls because it taps into the things they're struggling with. Which yes, includes love and sex and sexuality and how dangerous sex can be and boys and independence and identity. And you know what? That doesn't deserve derision. The generation of kids growing up today, especially the target audience for Twilight, are living in a rather confusing world. If a book helps soothe the anxieties that are largely heaped upon them by the mistakes made by their parents' generation, that's a good thing.

They're being taught abstinence only in a world where ads for birth control air on the television daily and then they're watching Juno and seeing pop princesses get pregnant at 16. They're being told "wait 'til marriage", but over half their parents can't stay married, if they ever were in the first. For this generation? Divorce is no longer a trauma, but an inevitability, a fact of life. Girls are being told they have to be smart and strong and sexy in a way that boys never have to manage. They're being told that sex is dangerous and that sex sells, but nobody's talking about how love enters into the equation, and how to make relationships work. Fathers are abandoning their responsibilities at an alarming rate across the board, and family units are becoming rather unrecognizable when held up to the Mom, Dad, Two and a Half kids and a nice dog standard that society is still clinging to as some kind of ideal.

Books that help them deal with these big scary concepts (hell, I'm years past adolescence and I'm still intimidated by all this!) in life when they're thirteen and confused are not bad things. Books that help them think that maybe it's okay, and maybe even when society is messed up, when they live in a world of powerful contradiction and tumult, that there might be hope of building something of their own, something that they can count on are good. Even if they're sort of trashily written and the vampires sparkle.

You want to knock it because of the prose, the plot, the characters? Go right ahead.

You want to knock it because you feel like teenage girls and their feelings are some how unworthy of examination? Fuck you. I get the feeling that part of King's disgust stems not just from them being teenagers, but them being girls. I suspect that part of the reason he holds JK Rowling up as an example of good writing and puts Meyer down is because Rowling didn't get Girl Cooties all over her nice big books.

One wonders if Harry Potter had been a girl if King would be so quick to point to it.

And as for you, Mr. King, don't act like writing books about possessed canines or spooky old houses makes you a purveyor of Deathless Prose. You're the last person who should be getting on their High Literary Horse. Just sayin'.

ETA: Also? The idea that somehow, teenage girls are being warped into having the wrong notions about love, sex, and boys from Twilight is not paying attention. Trust me, they don't need a book to be messed up. A crazy society and a generation of bad to mediocre parents did that just fine.

Dear Writer Who Made the Snarky Comment About Romance Novels and the Readers Thereof,

( A little note to the addressee enclosed. A bit of foul language and snark beneath the cut. )

I ganked this from all over:

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed."

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you really love (and strikethrough the ones you hate!).
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

( The 100 Books List, which BTW, I have problems with )

Okay, so somebody inform me - what buttbrain came up with this list? Seriously.

I scored a 22 out of 100, which isn't technically true, because this list is just retarded. Why?

( Ways in which this list is so stupid that it BURNS )

Dear Author Who I Shall Not Name,

I realize that with any author's website, there is an element of self-promotion going on. The degree depends on the author and their individual tastes, but it's there. It has to be. I mean, the author wrote the books to be read, and since people don't just telepathically know that they have a book/con appearance/newsletter/etc, they have to advertise a little bit. That's fine. Frankly, sometimes, I like to know when my favorite writers have new material or appearances.

So I'm willing to handwave your cluttered, badly designed site. I'm willing to forgive your somewhat shmoopy speech about dreams and "you can do it!". That's a positive message, and it's nice to encourage people. I'm willing to overlook many other flaws in author's site. Really, I am.

But is it really necessary to have the huge, screen-stealing pop-up urging me to sign up for your newsletter and get my free (yes free!) copy of whatever How To Write Like I Do guide you're pimping? No, seriously? Is It Necessary?

I now pretty much have vowed never to go to your site again and I now feel a lot worse about you as an author/public figure in general. And maybe about you as a human being. I can't help it. I don't have any other info on you except that you couldn't be arsed to make sure your site wasn't annoying. So now, every two pages or so, visitors to your site are assaulted by a prompt to give you my name and email address. And the "close" tab is very tiny and disguised at the bottom. The first two times, I had to just LEAVE YOUR WEBPAGE to get away from it, because I'd scrolled such that I couldn't even get away.

Which is sad, because I was just going to your page to check out if you had a new release coming out soon, because I thought to myself, "I think so and so has a new book coming out, and I might want to try one of her books by buying it." Which, I presume, is what you want.

But due to your pop-ups I couldn't get to the page I wanted, and I'm kind of put out with you, so hell if I'm wasting my hard earned money on you anytime soon.

In short, I do not want to subscribe to your newsletter. I didn't the first time the pop-up showed up. Or the second. Or the third.

You do realize, that if your site is your little home on the interwebs and your site is so obviously YOUR venue for speaking to people directly, that those popups are basically like you trying to throw us a sales pitch over and over?

But it's not nice to bitch without offering suggestions, so here's mine:

A) If you DO have a web designer/codemonkey type person working on this (which I doubt), fire them. Fire them now and then, possibly, set them on fire. They're doing a horrible job.

B) If you're doing this by yourself, STOP. Look, sweetheart, you're probably an okay author. You did get published, multiple times. But you obviously know bugger all about web design and advertising. That's okay. No one can wear all the hats, and writing novels is a big enough job.

Do what the smart people do when they realize that something is not their forte. They go and get someone who's forte it is to work on the problem. Go get someone who knows what the sweet saucy fuck they're doing and have them go to town on it.

When the time comes (Sweet Monkey God willing) that I need a website to show people my pokemans work, I'm sure as hell not going to do it myself. Especially since I know that there are lots and lots of people out there who, being amateurs, but talented and still better than me, could probably do an easy-to-navigate, clean looking, pop-up free site for me on the cheap.

The Love Is Gone,
Meg

I take time out of my day job (and Nano'ing) to present to you the world's least helpful, most insulting definition of Science Fiction and Fantasy (amongst other genres that get backhanded). Brought to you by Manus Literary Agency. I had the misfortune of running across them in the course of doing my job as Intern Extraordinare.

I'd link you directly to it, but the entire site is in flash (annoying!). You should navigate to their "Info For Writers" and then "Genre Definitions".

Let me give you some quotes, however, from their definition for the link-phobic amongst you:

"The genre is highly beholden to the culture and expectations of its cult-like, primarily young male audience"

Or even better: "where Sci-Fi novels represent an egaliatarian world in which knowledge, not inherent abilities, is the key to discovery, Fantasy novels are predicated on the belief that some people are special...."

I keep looking for the words "the internet is not a series of tubes" to pop up. Because this that caliber of FAIL. It is epic fail. The kind heretofore unknown to modern science.

Oh, and let's not leave out this gem of a statement about the romance genre: "Marriage is almost without exception the desired goal of a Romance plot".

On behalf of my fellow writers who work in the romance genre, either in crossover or by itself, I would like to say: Blow me. Blow me like a french horn at band camp.

You've got to be kidding me. A literary agency should know so much better. All of this could have been achieved without insulting people, which is what gets me the most.

I'm used to my genre getting less credit than it deserves. I'm used to the Nerdy White Boy stereotype. I'm used to seeing agency after agency and publisher after publisher that says "WE DO NOT ACCEPT SCIENCE FICTION OR FANTASY" in big bold letters. Mostly, I don't take it personally. That's the business, and usually they also make sure to say they don't take poetry or screenplays or children's books or non-fiction.

But when an agency goes out of its way to be this insulting and condescending (and since the definition is borrow from another agency, the amount of fail multiples exponentially), I see red.

I'd make snarky comments about some of the books that Manus Lit is holding up as its great achievements in the literary world, but that would be hypocritical of me. Because maybe those books are good (even if the agency behind them has pissed me off royally).

More than that, I'm not going to snap to a judgment out of some feeling of superiority.

99.9% of everything is crap, that's pretty much the way of the world. 99.9% of literary (mainstream) fiction, or mystery fiction, or even, yes, science fiction is utter crap.

But that still leaves a .1% that's brilliant. And I don't think it's fair that they get to disregard our .1% because it's not to their liking.

Fine, it's not your cup of tea. I get that. I don't find myself needing to pick up books that are about someone's "journey of self discovery", but I'm sure as hell not going to act like that book, just because of it's genre, is inherently bad.

It's also shameful for Manus Lit to even think of putting that up on their website because they're in New York. And any New Yorker that falls back on stereotypes makes me want to spit.

You want to see who's reading science fiction and fantasy? It's not who you think. I ride these subways and buses every damn day and I see who's reading. And it's not just the nerdy white kids, okay? Because I've seen my genre in the hands of people of just about every color, gender, and persuasion that this city has to offer.

It's people of color, and women, and people ranging from ages 10 to 100.

Oh, by the way, Harry Potter IN YOUR FACE. Flying wizards, on broomsticks and it outsold probably everything you're gonna put out in the next decade.

If I could flip the bird on the internet, I would.