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Posts from the ‘Field Politics’ Category

Feb 2

60 Comments

Witches Float

I’ve been slowly reading my way through an excellent book on psychology. One of the studies the author discusses in detail is what should be done for survivors of some mass disaster or trauma. Oddly, the answer seems to be: don’t force them to relive it. People are surprisingly resilient, it turns out. And forcing them to talk about what happened in an effort to prevent PTSD turns out to actually make the problem worse. If you leave them alone, people will recover, come to terms, and when they need it, seek help. This isn’t always true… some people are not resilient at all. They shatter under pressure. I can give you examples of both, in the writing world, from the past week.  Read more

Jan 14

88 Comments

Shut up! shutup! shutup!

Image pixabay.

“That’s cultural appropriation! You can’t do that! Shutup shutup shutup!”

“Do you think that cultures have a right to maintain their traditions, especially ones with a well-documented history going back hundreds of years? Cultural patterns which are as much part of their culture as breathing is part of your living? Cultural behavior which defines them, without which they would stop being their culture?”

“Of course!”

“Good-o. Piss off, Asshole.” Read more

Jan 8

29 Comments

Chilling? Downright Frigid.

Very first thing: if you haven’t read Amanda’s post from this morning, go read it. While this morality clause nonsense is dangerous to writers, and it’s certainly a CYA move on the part of the publishers including it in their contracts, I can’t help but wonder if it’s *also* being used as a means of further gatekeeping. “You’d better stay in the conservative closet, if you want to keep writing in your favorite world.” Read more

Dec 1

62 Comments

Doing it Wrong

Fandoms, marketing, self-promotion, success… all the wonderful complications of becoming an author. Some people handle it better than others do. Let’s face it, in the days of Trad Pub, you could potentially be a hermit and still be successful because there was a slim chance akin to winning the lottery that the publisher would push the book even if you never faced the fans. Now? Now we have twitter mobs turned to ill gains. Look for instance at the scurrilous attempt to call Nora Roberts a plagiarist. Read more

Oct 13

42 Comments

Something Wicked this Way…

What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows… 

I didn’t grow up reading comic books. There were reasons: I’ve been reading, and a fast reader, since I was probably 4, and comic books were not a good return on my tiny book allowance. Also, I didn’t grow up in an urban setting. Books were hard to come by, and I clung to them. Clung to them bitterly when the time came to move and I had to thin them down to the necessaries over and over through life. Also, I grew up in a very religious household, and there were books I just wasn’t allowed to read (although I will say that comics were never on the verbally forbidden list – that dubious honor went to two authors when I was allowed free range at the library. I was not supposed to read Robert Heinlein or Danielle Steele. I never bothered with the latter. The former… well, how do you think I wound up here?). So to recap: I was a bitter clinger to my books, my Bible, and my guns (ok, my parent’s guns, which yes, I was taught to shoot). Stay with me, here, I’m going somewhere.  Read more

Aug 25

91 Comments

Flinch Training

In our polarized world, we are facing a constant onslaught of messages. From the practical of ‘look both ways before you cross the street‘ to the insane gaslighting of ‘glyphosate causes cancer‘ we’re bombarded at every turn. It’s on the news, on the internet, and in our fiction. We can’t escape it, it seems.

My Dad adopted a dog a few years ago while I was still living with him on the Farm. The young dog he’d adopted was about a year old, and a farm collie (appropriately enough), and he was a rescue dog. That last part was the problematic bit. You see, Wade had been born and raised on a farm down South somewhere, with his big dog family, and one little old man. When the man died, the dogs were left alone, roaming the farm, lost and confused. Read more

Aug 6

163 Comments

Pie

I like pie…

Now my answer to who gets what share of the pie in publishing (actually in most things) is hey, let’s make a bigger pie.

That’s always seemed a sensible answer to me. I’ve spent years talking about ways to make reading more popular with as many people as possible. I can summarize many thousands of words into this: Give as many readers as possible what they enjoy. Help them find it, keep them coming back for more.

A rising tide floats ALL boats. Read more

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