I’m still mad. Super mad. At least I’ve had a few days to ruminate and process. So that’s a good thing – maybe.

Todd Robinson, as usual, pegs (ha!) one facet of the problem over on Facebook.

I’m not sure I’m 100% with him, but Todd’s had more skin in the game for far longer than I have. The sentiment is absolutely shared, I’m maybe still a little too dumb to realize that I should stop injecting so much hope into things. And to Todd’s point: I consider him a good friend – not a writing peer or a “fellow community member”. I break bread and interact with him because I think he’s one of the best people I know.

So coming off of all this and coming off of Todd’s points (as well as a few pointed tweets from Ben LeRoy).

While community may be too much to call this ecosystem of ours, I do think we can easily call it an economy of sorts. We trade in favors: blurbs, retweets, and good faith promotion. Because it’s more than writers in the kiddie pool. We’ve got reviewers, readers, bloggers, podcasters, etc. Obviously, the tit for tat is stupid strong in the business. Blurbed my book? Sure, I’ll drop a review on Goodreads or whatever. For the most part, at least for me, I like being nice to someone that’s been nice to me. Can’t say I’ve ever felt obligated (maybe straddling the line if someone was incredibly gracious to me) but never in that weird way where I feel I have to lie or cheat for someone.

Unfortunately? There are those who feel the obligation should exist – especially to their benefit.

I’ll provide an example, but just want to caveat that there are a ton of different types of relationships in the arts that are like this.

I’ve mentioned it before, but did you know I still review books from time to time? Did you know I’ll NEVER tell you what genre or where or even retweet about those books?

When I first started reviewing, I was pretty open about it. Magically, I made a TON of new writer friends. So supportive! So eager to read my work! So eager to send me their books!

It was a magical fantasy land of friendship and ice cream!

Then I “stopped” reviewing.

Guess how quiet it got? (and I’ll be petty, I know who the fuck people are and judge accordingly).

That transactional expectation? That’s bullshit and it eats any sense of community alive. It’s why people forgive the behavior of those like Otto Penzler (I mean, hell, his letter took away a party he hosted for the MWA. He literally took a thing away to change their minds). This is why writers so often fall for publisher traps (pay-to-play scams especially). You take a desperate pool of people and it’s easy to push them towards objectives that don’t benefit them as much as it benefits those smart enough to smell the desperation.

It’s why I stopped reviewing under my name. It was exhausting to see the emails and get the dirty looks from said emailers because I did the professional thing and didn’t review as a favor or provide a blurb because we stood in the same room at some point.

On the flip side, there are also a good number of reviewers out there looking to entrap writers into doing favors for them. That’s like most of my Twitter feed. Like watching an ouroboros in action – gross. Yet another reason why I stopped letting people know I review. I didn’t want people thinking I was angling at favors by writing gushing reviews of them or including them on my top ten lists to ensure they keep my name on their lips when I shat out a crummy short story in an anthology at some point.

I’m damn sure many relationships I have with writers, especially guarded ones, work on the idea that we may not know each other well enough to trust just yet because of those transactional leeches – they outnumber the trustworthy.

So to Todd and Ben’s points – is there truly a community? I think there’s something smaller than that – a mob, if I can borrow a word from our octogenarian asshole du jour. It’s a great mob, even. We can have our differences at times, but in my experience, that mob includes good people and good writers.

Just felt like sharing some more without making it all about outrage or whatever. I can certainly see how the constant stream of reaction is overwhelming, but I’d say that people need to learn that the marginalized finally have a means of venting. We’re now capable of ‘speaking to your manager’ in a safe way. The privileged need to understand that a lot of folks only just recently have a voice. YOU might be tired of hearing people complain in your own space, but imagine having to hold that all in.

Quick shout out to Jessica Laine for her Twitter thoughts on the Penzler Epistles. I think she put into words what I felt without as much cursing (outside of rejoining the MWA – I’m still not entirely there with the organization that I’d leap to pay them right now).

Anyway, be easy folks.

 

I know, I know. Low hanging fruit.

I’ve spent the day thinking about words. How we communicate. How we use them to craft beauty, to evoke emotion, or to hurt others. There’s god inside sentences and the devil between the lines.

I’m thinking of three words today, though.

Few.

Mob.

Fringe.

I’ll assume you know that last one in this case doesn’t involve ornamental borders (I’d click if you have no idea what I’m talking about. Do some scrolling.).

I’m thinking about these words because they don’t necessarily work together, do they? I mean, a few people don’t make a mob, right? And a mob, being an entity of many seems to assume a consensus, so that wouldn’t necessarily be a fringe movement. Was the mob that ran Frankenstein’s monster out of town a fringe group? Maybe, but more than likely not.

So those words, at least understood by those who are capable of writing at a professional level, don’t really fit together in a single idea. You could absolutely put together something with multiple ideas that contradict each other for the benefit of hearing yourself speak out loud-and funny enough, garner a few head nods-but it still wouldn’t gel together unless you had a defining theme to your idea. Unless you had a mission statement in how or why you’re using those words.

I mentioned words can hurt. Really great wordsmiths can cut deep with a vicious rebuke, and while I don’t consider myself a master, I have dabbled in the occasional bout of acidity that proved the pen is mightier than the sword (or more, the keyboard being heavier than the hammer? That doesn’t make any sense…anyway). What I’ve never been too great at is metaphors and similes. There are dozens of incredible writers that have crafted gorgeous poetry in their prose, but I don’t think I’m quite there. I’m a fan of speaking what I mean without hiding its real intent – an irony since I do write fiction.

Again: words hurt. Words that demean and belittle the victimized hurt. Words built to defend those who’ve built their castles on the bones of the marginalized hurt. Words abused and misshapen to serve the ego and benefit a fringe element dead set on preventing positive change hurt. Words intended to create disorder; a means of reinforcing negativity, group think-they hurt.

I honestly can’t imagine using my words – my currency – to hurt people who’ve done nothing but support and enrich my life physically or spiritually. I especially could never imagine doing that to those who’ve parted with their money to read what I’ve created or to support the store fronts that would do me the honor of hosting my work. It would be insane – can you imagine doing that at the service of the few? It’s illogical. Kind of behavior you’d expect from a mob of savages, really.

Let me tell you a story about a guy named Julius; literally the worst human being I’ve ever known. I legitimately spend at least one day a month surprised the piece of garbage is alive. Mind you, this is a real human, I promise (you can read a story I based off of him in the first volume of Unloaded).

So, Julius. This was a player. Good looking dude (in his time), always wore a suit, long, Santa-white hair. Like, this was Gordon Gekko by way of Chris Kringle; hell of a sight. Julius was in the insurance racket: home and car. Again, complete waste of humanity.

I really can’t stress how awful Julius was and still is – I swear.

The point: Julius taught me A LOT about how to be a bastard. He taught me how to con people and how to hustle for what was mine (or wasn’t). I hated Julius enough to avoid using any of that trash because 1) I was a good kid and 2) prison never seemed like a fun place.

There were a few things I held onto that Julius taught me. Life lessons, really. All this mess reminded me of one of them.

When you’ve got power, you never show your whole ass. You show your whole ass, then everyone’s eyes will be on you and only you. That’s how you get caught when you’re up to no good and how you reveal who you are when you’re hiding some monsters.

I think it’s a solid lesson. Well, coming from the fringe element.

 

 

It’s coming to the time of year where lots of folks toss up all the things they loved during the year. I’m often leery of doing it myself since there’s plenty left to premiere and consume this month AND I’m not fan of touting what I like as ‘best’ or ‘better’ than what other people enjoy.

That also sounds really fucking snobby, though, and that’s not my intention. I dig seeing what people enjoy because it often informs me of what I’d like to be curious about in the future or the now.

Ultimately, what I struggle with these days is how “behind” I am in media consumption. More often than not, I’m not watching or reading or listening to a lot of things released at the same time. It’s an obvious pitfall of adulthood and one that I’ve found to be a lot more freeing than I anticipated. There’s not a lot of pressure to consume ‘now, now, now’ and I get to enjoy things at my own speed and on my own terms.

So consider this a rant. I’m not interested in building a list, but I’m sure as hell interested in reading other people’s lists. Is that some kind of weird sign of adulthood?

Probably just laziness. Like this post!

 

Five years ago. My first published story, ‘Big Mouth’, was run at a website called Weirdyear.

250 words. Not very good. The website doesn’t exist anymore. May as well throw it up here.

Dolores held the magnifying glass up to her mouth and smiled, “I want it to look exactly like this.”
“You want everything to be bigger? Do you mean just the lips and teeth too?” Dr. Graves arched a brow, confused as to why anyone would want their entire mouth to be grotesquely large.
“The whole thing, I always felt like my mouth was too small. I want everyone to notice when I smile, to notice when I eat.”
“Alright…” the doctor fidgeted in his chair, his mind tripping over itself to think of the right thing to say, “Realize, I’m only a plastic surgeon, I can plump your lips and make them fuller or larger in your case, but everything else is a little out of my reach.”
“Do you have any peers that have that kind of reach?” she asked.
“Well, I know a few specialists, but I don’t…”
“Do whatever needs to be done and we’ll get it to work. I assure you, I can pay for everything.”
                                                               #
Thirteen months later, Dolores’ entire mouth took up almost 50 % of her face. She was proud—this wasn’t another inflated lip job. Her jaw and teeth had been enhanced with bone grafts and state of the art procedures from overseas. There were many that labeled her a freak, but Dolores only saw opportunity and beauty in the mirror.
This was the year she would finally win the Northeast Pie Eating Championship.

It’s a little embarrassing to post this? I don’t know. It’s maybe more weird than embarrassing.

So, five years on. A lot has happened since then. Good things and bad things (maybe not entirely bad), headaches, and lots of new friends (none of which are headaches, except for you, yeah you). It feels weird to be a lot more confidant in my writing.

There are definitely times I wish I didn’t know so much about publishing. I do miss the ignorance and general desire to be published instead of rolling my eyes at the latest clusterfuck. Then I remember all the great friends and stories that wouldn’t exist without those shitty moments. I remember that I get to do something I love and occasionally get paid for doing it. That’s insane, isn’t it? Set aside all the lofty goals and I’ve checked off most of the broad strokes, haven’t I? How fucking cool is that?

Anyway, happy birthday, ‘Big Mouth’; you’re a terrible, short, mess of a story but I’ll love you and I’ll always love what you meant.