In Propinquity

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Wednesday Factoid: Adoption

Today's Wednesday Factoid is: Would you ever adopt kids?

I'm afraid I have to say no.

I'm pretty sure I don't ever want to be responsible for any children. I'm not really even a particularly good babysitter, though I do love children (and they seem to love me).

I'll just keep being somebody's dorky aunt.

I've thought about it, though. I think I would consider adopting kids if I was really rich or something, but I think that's mostly because I know myself and I know I would want/need a break from taking care of them all the time, so I would probably need to hire some folks to help me or pay for daycare.

I think the most likely scenario for me adopting kids, however, is if there was a child in my life who somehow lost their parents or their parents could not care for them anymore. I could see myself taking over to parent someone like that. But I don't think I would deliberately make a decision to adopt kids just to adopt kids.

Man, babies are so much fun though.

Monday, August 10, 2015

Your Pitch Wars Report Card

Hi, Pitch Wars friends!

So, if you're considering submitting to me for the Pitch Wars contest and you're wondering how I'll be making my decisions, wonder no more.

First of all, anyone submitting to me should of course read my wish list thoroughly and only send me stuff that's on that list. Second, you should proofread everything you send me because I am pretty unforgiving of mistakes; I have an editing background and plan to line-edit my mentee's book, so I want to work with someone who can prove right now that their book isn't going to make me pull my hair out. And lastly, yes I will be reading at least some of everyone's sample chapter even if their queries turn me off, and I will be requesting more material from authors I'm considering for mentoring.

I got 73 submissions my first year doing Pitch Wars, and I got 103 submissions last year, so I'm expecting even more this year. So just like last year, I'll be using a grading system that will help me avoid reading entries more than once if I am not going to be working with them. Guess what that means?

I'll be grading every query and every writing sample with an extremely nerdy report card.

My table for the queries looks like this:

Query:

Writing Quality	Errors	Trajectory	Detail	Personal	Total
5	5	5	5	5	25

As I read the queries, I'm giving each 0 to 5 points on each of these categories, with 25 points possible. High points is good, low points is not good.

I'm considering each of these categories equally.

Writing Quality: This basically means I'm looking at whether the writing itself is smooth. If the sentences feel like they flow and the language is easy to read and easy to understand.

5 points: Masterfully written, no awkward sentences, easy to follow.
4 points: Adequate writing, though language could be improved.
3 points: Unclear sometimes, makes its point, but feels awkward.
2 points: Frequent clarity issues, poor sentence transitions, feels overworked.
1 point: Reads like author struggles with language.
0 points: Language is garbled, can't understand the content.

Errors: This sounds like it'd be a subcategory of the above, but I consider it separately. A person can still write passable sentences and yet have a bunch of errors in them, and because I tend to focus on sentences and punctuation and technical editing when I'm helping with a manuscript, these two are very important to me. I need people to have high scores in these, because if they have low scores I'll end up doing a LOT of homework. Errors could be spelling problems, typos, misused punctuation, or incorrect homophones, and I'm looking at grammar too (but I'm okay with slang or informal usage).

5 points: No errors; author clearly knows how to spell, punctuate, use correct grammar.
4 points: One or more errors, but might be an isolated incident.
3 points: The errors are clearly the norm rather than an occasional glitch.
2 points: Frequent errors.
1 point: A catastrophic number of errors.
0 points: Author fails third grade English.

Trajectory: Super big deal in queries. I want my queries to set up the characters and situation, tell me how it escalates or complicates, give me some stakes, and make me understand and care about what happens to their characters. In other words, this is the Big Query Points category: if your query DOES WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO DO, it gets a high score here. If it rambles about your character's world or their past too much for the context needed, gives extremely vague stakes, or distracts me with themes and messages instead of telling me WHAT HAPPENS, it gets a low score.

5 points: Perfect setup of characters, conflicts, and stakes, gets me invested.
4 points: Might be a little murky, but still tells me the story and why I care.
3 points: Gets a little lost or doesn't have a clear presentation/vague stakes.
2 points: The story isn't at all clear; it's characters that do stuff, or it's a list of elements the book contains without showing me how they manifest.
1 point: The author says nothing or almost nothing about the book, or says so in a way I can't access.
0 points: Isn't actually a query letter--does something else instead of telling me about the book.

Detail: I put this in because I typed it so often last year: you need the right level of detail. And this isn't a mathematical formula; what's appropriate varies depending on your manuscript and your genre. But in a query, I want broad strokes, with still enough detail to get a feeling about what your book is like. I want about the level of detail that would be on the back of your paperback book when it's published. And sometimes a query can lack detail but still be too long; I see vagueness like "she'll lose everything" instead of WHAT she'll lose.

5 points: The level of detail feels perfect; I'm not overwhelmed with detail, but not left wondering anything vital.
4 points: The level of detail is either too much or too little, but it's fixable--might need to ask the author to answer X question in the query or to delete X rambling.
3 points: The query needs a whole extra paragraph or needs a whole paragraph deleted.
2 points: Misses the mark by a noticeable margin--significantly too much or too little.
1 point: Author is treating the query letter like either an elevator pitch (way too little) or a comprehensive synopsis (way too much--may tell the ending).
0 points: Spends most of the letter talking about something other than the book, such as their own publishing credentials, their experience, why they wrote the book, or why they think it will sell.

Personal: And everyone's favorite: the personal. This is the section where I rate my connection to the material. This does not necessarily mean that I'm rating whether it's a genre I tend to like or whether the subject matter is my favorite; it means I'm rating whether I have a personal connection with the idea. That's way more likely to happen for books in my preferred genres (science fiction/fantasy), but you will not necessarily get a lower score if you're outside that. Personal connection plays a part in everything from your agent to the acquiring editor at your publisher, so I consider this section really important. I will also figure in whether I personally think the book is marketable.

5 points: I'm in love, marry me.
4 points: I like it--I could dig this, it's neat.
3 points: I could definitely see myself reading it for fun.
2 points: Really not my usual thing--wouldn't check it out of the library.
1 point: A subject, genre, or character I'd avoid on purpose.
0 points: You offended me or pissed me off.

And that's it for the queries! Now, some mentors say they give preference to the pages. I'm not one of them. A really bad query and decent pages will still make me not want to work with you. A query, for an agent, is often the only thing they'll see, and I don't want to write it for you or take it completely apart. So, while the query doesn't have to necessarily be as good as the pages, I want it to be really good. I am giving scores on the query that are equal to the scores on the pages, and will be taking both into consideration for my final decision. If I love the pages but dislike the query, I'll give you a very high personal score to counteract.

Let's look at what my (slightly different) table for the pages looks like:

Writing Sample:

Writing Quality	Errors	Character	Effective Intro	Personal	Total
5	5	5	5	5	25

Writing Quality: The five-point scale is the same as above.

Errors: The five-point scale is the same as above. Yes, I will give you a 4 starting with ONE error. I am a horrible witch. I'm not kidding. Don't sub to me if you can't handle it.

Character: I am a huge character writer, character reader, and character, uh, mentory person. I will connect to character more than anything else in your book, and this is extremely important to me, so I am looking at it as a grading category here.

5 points: Immediate understanding of who your characters are and what they're about, with natural personality reveal and good dialogue. Bonus if I want to hang out with them.
4 points: I like your characters and their execution. I get a good feel for who they are and why.
3 points: There's not a full connection here--maybe I'm watching from a distance, but the characters are still on display and interacting somewhat competently.
2 points: The characters are just there being puppeted, or don't feel authentic, or give us no information about themselves as they act.
1 point: The characters are caricatures and feel wooden. One dimension and everyone talks alike.
0 points: There is no feel for character at all and there's no story-relevant reason for it.

Effective Intro: This is where you get the Big Writing Sample Points. DOES YOUR BEGINNING DO WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO DO? I need to know you can handle one of the toughest parts of the book: the opening. And I don't want to rewrite it for you or tell you to start somewhere else. This is it. So if your story's intro gets me invested immediately and doesn't stand there behaving like required reading, you've done what you came to do.

5 points: You got me fully invested and reading the entire first chapter. You found the right balance between action, character, and background detail to pull me right in.
4 points: You probably have some awkward details about the characters' pasts or current problem, or spent too much time telling me an aside about your fantasy world, but it's quite readable and I read the whole first chapter.
3 points: You had an uneven beginning, halting your opening to tell me things or having nothing really important happening. I feel like you started in the wrong place. I may or may not read the whole first chapter.
2 points: You aren't ready--you've figured out your details, but not how to tell the story. You haven't figured out yet where your story starts and you're frequently interrupting your action to fill me in, posing your characters awkwardly to make them drop exposition, or rambling about something I'm not invested enough to care about. I didn't finish your pages.
1 point: You aren't ready--I can't even follow the action or figure out who's who, and the confusion isn't a consequence of an experimental writing style (because that would get me invested even if I didn't know what was going on).
0 points: You apparently turned in a first draft and/or have no idea how to pull readers into a story. You haven't realized yet that readers don't have to humor you; they don't have to be here, so they're not going to wait until it gets good.

Personal: Same five-point scale as the query.

So after I have both scores, I put you in a list. A ranked list. Each person who subs to me has a score next to them on my ranked list (e.g., 17/11) and the total of those two numbers will determine where they fall (but I'll be able to see how their query compares with their pages). Last year, the score wasn't the final determining factor in who I chose--my mentee didn't get spot #1, but there was a personal reason spot #1 wasn't chosen--but it did give me an idea of why I liked what I liked so I could efficiently comb through my favorites and make my choices. A ranked list will also help me if my favorites are chosen by other mentors and they beat me out when we fight over them. Obviously some writers will get the same numerical score, so when that happens it's just going to be a gut feeling thing (or I might give preference to people who had higher Trajectory scores in the query or higher Effective Intro scores in the pages).

Also, if I'm torn at the end, I can remember without a lot of rereading what each writer's strength is and how they compare.

Last year, my highest score was 23/23; no one got a perfect score. Because I'm terrible and evil. But maybe this year will be different. Maybe you, the person reading this, will be the first to impress me so thoroughly I'll puke rainbows and beg to be your friend. And hey, if that's not you, you can still probably count on a decent explanation of where yours fell short for me, and that'll help you on your querying journey in the future.

Please ask if you have a question. I don't mind explaining my thoughts on this if you're curious about something I didn't cover. I may share some hints on how to get higher language scores from me later this week. GET READY TO HEAR ME COMPLAIN ABOUT ELLIPSES AND DASHES, MORTALS.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Personal Digest Saturday: August 1 – August 7

Life news this week:

I got my first royalty check! Meaning I got paid for my nonfiction book's sales for the first time. I was paid an advance when it sold, but after that's earned out I get a percentage of every book that sells, and I just got paid for the books that sold between its publication date and the end of December 2014. It's neat. :)
Pitch Wars went live with mentor bios! I'll be participating as a mentor in a couple weeks. My bio describes what I'm looking for in a mentee's unpublished, unagented book.
I got to talk to my fiction agent about future stuff and we had a good old chat on the phone. We always end up off topic. Hard to do business sometimes with someone you also like! But that's how it should be.
Also got to have a lovely phone chat with the Meggie. There's just nothing I can't tell her.
I finished reading my friend's science fiction book Half-Wit and I'm still working on pulling together the feedback for him. He's thinking of entering Pitch Wars but I'm not sure if he will--we'll see if he has time to write a query letter before then.
Jeaux and I met on Wednesday and our restaurant choice was Moe's for cheap burritos. We ate there and watched Gravity Falls and America's Got Talent at his house, and also heard the latest episode of Welcome to Night Vale.
I redecorated for the first harvest, which was fun because for some reason I always get excited about filling the candy bowls with new seasonal candy. Yay orange slices!

New reviews of my book:

Just sharing some from Goodreads first that I never noticed before because Goodreads has a terrible system for showing new reviews and will mysteriously put older reviews at the top of lists that claim to be "newest first":

No-rating partial review on Goodreads from Giulia, who is putting the book aside for now for Reasons.
Four-star review from Hezekiah on Goodreads.
Five-star review from Averie on Goodreads.
Five-star review from Amy on Goodreads.
Five-star review from Sarah on Goodreads. (This one was actually from this week.)
Five-star review from J. DeCourtney "author Recapture Yr Health" on Amazon.

Places featured:

A Place to be Ace discussed the difference between sexual attraction and sex drive, and quoted liberally from my book to do so.
gloryandus on Tumblr quoted something from my book about being unpartnered in later adulthood.

Reading progress:

Completed reading: Benny and Omar by Eoin Colfer. Three-star review.
Currently reading: Landline by Rainbow Rowell.

New singing performances:

Here I'm singing "Rush Rush" by Paula Abdul.

New drawings:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0534: "My Place."

New videos:

None.

New photos:

Me looking quite tired with my first royalty check.

Social media counts:

YouTube subscribers: 4,901 for swankivy (22 new this week), 498 for JulieSondra (1 new). Twitter followers: 667 for swankivy (3 new), 1031 for JulieSondra (28 new). Facebook: 286 friends (no change) and 183 followers (1 new) for swankivy, 588 likes for JulieSondra (no change), 54 likes for Negative One (no change), 110 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2117 (3 new).

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Wednesday Factoid: Spelling

Today's Wednesday Factoid is: What word do you always seem to spell wrong?

What? I'm perfect.

I don't have any particular word that always comes out wrong. I guess if I know how it's spelled then it comes out the right way forever after I learn it. There are probably some weird words that I don't know how to spell--I've seen little excerpts of spelling bees and sometimes they give them words I've never heard of, so I obviously can't claim to know how to spell every word, but I don't have any words in my everyday lexicon that I typically misspell.

I do have words that I frequently mistype, though. I always have to go back and retype certain words because they come out jumbled. Like "responsibility." And "understand." And sometimes I have glitches when I'm texting because of how the phone's keyboard is.

But yeah basically my answer to this is I'm perfect.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Pitch Wars Mentor Bio: Julie Sondra Decker!

Hey everyone! We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging to bring you . . . Julie Sondra Decker's Pitch Wars MENTORING BIO AND WISH LIST!

::thunderous applause ensues::

Nice to meet you, everyone here for the contest. I'm Julie Sondra Decker and I will be mentoring Adult and New Adult manuscripts this year in Brenda Drake's excellent contest Pitch Wars. If you're participating, you'll find entry details on Brenda's site!

Pitch Wars is an event for writers with completed novels who are looking for literary agency representation! The contest pairs these newer authors with more established writers and industry professionals for guidance, editing, and advice on their completed novels, eventually putting their best work in front of agents who have agreed to consider their work. We mentoring authors will be evaluating query letters and writing samples pretty soon, but first . . . applying authors have to pick which five authors are their dream mentors, and this is my plug for y'all to pick ME!

Will you apply to me? Will you become one of my favorites? Will I choose you for my mentee? All that and more will be decided in the next few months!

The extremely short version of this post: I'm accepting Adult and New Adult manuscripts. I prefer science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, fairy tales, and speculative fiction. If your story is literary, adventure, thriller, humor/parody, historical, contemporary, dystopia, or women's fiction, I would still prefer to see a clear speculative aspect. I would prefer not to consider straight-up romance, western, or traditional mystery, though romance and mysterious happenings can be elements of your story. And I will not consider erotica, horror, YA, or MG. Now you should probably read the details below if I might be the mentor for you based on this.

About Me (so you'll know what kind of nerd you're dealing with):

I write SF, fantasy, magical realism, fairy tale retellings, and nonfiction--mostly for adults but sometimes I dabble in YA. Since I write for wildly different markets I have double representation--one agent for nonfiction, one for fiction--so I've been through this whole rigamarole successfully more than once. One of my books sold and won a bunch of awards. I've sold a few pieces of writing, including short stories and articles. And I get interviewed by various media frequently. I do a fair amount of blogging, and while this is my main writing blog, I also post a lot of less dignified content about asexuality and fan stuff on Tumblr.

I've been doing Pitch Wars for three years now. Some of my previous mentees/alternates are agented and published, and I've stayed in touch with some of them. I like to give feedback, though it remains to be seen how much I'll be able to give to applicants who don't get picked this year. (Probably at least some, though.) I have a really nerdy "grading" process for my entries (here's my description of it from last year), and here is my reflection on the feedback I gave last year. You can see advice I've given during previous Pitch Wars at my contests tag.

Outside my writing life, I'm a big reader, a music nerd (was once a music major, with voice as my instrument), a webcomic artist, a baker, and a gross cartoon fangirl. I've done editing in some professional capacity since 1999, so I tend to be really picky about typos, and I've done a decent amount of beta reading. I'm a vegetarian, an undertall adult, a nail-biter, a goofball, a soprano, a queer spectrum woman (asexual/aromantic), a Floridian, and an unrepentant geek.

About you:

I want to mentor you if your book is honestly polished and done; if you have really good language skills and won't make me spank your typos too much; if you are here to take/apply criticism and share your passion; and if you're ready for this ride. You may comment on this blog post if you have questions about specifics, or contact me on Twitter @JulieSondra, but please do not share query letters or specific pitches in the comments of this post.

I'LL BE WATCHING YOU. AND JUDGING WITHOUT MERCY.

About your book (genres and subgenres I want to see in my inbox now gimme gimme):

Science fiction, fantasy, fairy tales, magical realism, and speculative fiction gets preferential treatment. I'd love to say it's ultimately about quality, but every year I get enough great manuscripts in multiple genres that I can also pick something I personally enjoy.
In fantasy, I prefer modern/urban settings over period fantasy/historical fantasy/alternate world, but I can be convinced to love just about any fantasy with fully realized characters.
In science fiction, I prefer soft to hard.
In magical realism, it's got to be casual and charming, with setting that's convincing while still taking a back seat to character.
In fairy tales, I prefer dramatic and rich to lighthearted or funny.
In literary fiction with speculative elements, I want to see something more concrete and robust than "he finds himself" or "this is an allegory about the human condition."

Some specific elements I especially love to see in my favorite books:

Characters struggling with identity.
Cerebral characters who still have heart.
Characters who embrace their romantic relationships without their significant others becoming their sole reason for living.
Queer characters of all stripes. Bonus points if it's not an "issue novel."
Real connection to the characters' thoughts, especially if it's first person.
Characters who are recovering from a huge change or blow, coming of age, training for something, or transitioning to something new.
Fat characters who remain fat throughout the story and definitely don't lose weight as a metaphor for becoming better or healthier or more worthy.
Characters with "mixed" identities--are they human + magical creature? raised by a Jewish dad and a Catholic mom? born to a Chinese family but residing in South America? living as part of a multiple system (a.k.a. split personalities)? GIMME!
If a character lives in an alternate reality/secondary world, it has natural worldbuilding that doesn't take over the story.

Lots of dialogue. But please don't use poorly rendered accents or catch phrases to help us figure out who's talking, and don't send me stuff with "creative" permutations for the word "said."
Invented religious beliefs or spiritual beliefs that are solid and have weight.
Characters whose gender is between, outside, or fluctuating around the gender spectrum, and who don't make that fact their whole personality.
Male characters whose masculinity isn't threatened by women or dependent on dominating/bedding them.
Female characters whose strength as a female character isn't dependent on mocking traditional femininity or embracing traditionally masculine pursuits/roles/attitudes to show how strong they are.
Authentic portrayals of underrepresented populations, including mentally ill, disabled, and chronically ill folks.
Elemental or nature-based magic.
Mythology, folklore, or fairy-tale-derived inspiration.
Characters with agency, full personalities, and compelling motivations.

I am not the best mentor for you if any of these describe your book (so please don't waste your submission):

Major plot and action is geared toward a romantic relationship, without much else to it.
Men use women as accessories to the point that the ladies don't seem like characters.
Men are motivated by women (or by threats to "their" women) to get revenge, prove their worth as a mate, or engage in extended rivalry with other men. Basically if "win" or "rescue" or "avenge" the woman is the motivating force for a male character, I'm not into it.
Traditional "quest" stories that feature an adventuring party.
Historical fiction that depends heavily on knowledge of the period to figure out what's going on.
Alternative historical fiction that changes the outcome of an event--or future dystopia fiction that creates a catastrophic event--only to lead to a majority group (such as white people, men, or straight people) becoming The Oppressed under a new world order.
Steampunk and cyberpunk. I'm afraid I just don't get it. (I won't rule it out entirely if you promise your characters are awesome, though.)
Anything heavily influenced by role-playing games or video games, as well as tropes, character roles, or quest motivation associated with gaming culture.
Purple prose, especially scenery description. I'm not a very visual reader, so if your characters are constantly taking adjective baths, I will stop caring.

White authors/white characters who include characters of color only incidentally as a vehicle for "color blind" or "look at me, I'm progressive" or "I don't see color!" narratives. If a character is a person of color, we SHOULD see their color, and it needs to be an authentic part of who they are, not written off as not mattering so you can highlight another character's "tolerance."
Fantasy plots involving a person from our world traveling to another world and Saving Everyone because they're The One.
Fantasy or alternate-world plots that primarily focus on warring clans and battle strategy, with a war hero at the forefront.
Fantasy that heavily involves humans' magical bonds with dragons, horses, or any animals. I know it's weird but I'm definitely not a dragon person or an animal person.
Magic with cutesy physics, or incredibly complex magical "rules" that are dumped on the reader through tiresome recitation.
Plots depending heavily on a Chosen One or a prophecy.

Plots depending on the "star-crossed lovers" trope to manufacture all or nearly all of their angst.
Plots revolving around something really gruesome, gory, or horrifying. (Sorry, not a huge horror fan. Though I kinda like if you can horrify me with something psychological. Violence and battles are okay. Just as long as they don't dominate the storytelling.)
Plots revolving around saving a trapped or kidnapped person (usually a woman or child).
Plots that take shortcuts to motivate women or make them complex/tragic by throwing poorly realized sexual violence into their past.
Plots that are "pure" mystery genre; clue-gathering whodunnits turn me off a lot, unless they're also funny and fantastical.
Stories that try to be "edgy," "dark," or "gritty" by overusing the same elements frequently present in other stories of their genre. Hardass male detectives with a five o'clock shadow, a cigar, and a drinking problem learning to love again after a decades-old heartbreak ruined their lives are honestly a dime a dozen. And if your magical races have a centuries-long feud, I don't want to see the same ones everyone else uses. (Nor do I really want to see "hilarious" reimaginings of these tropes where the comedy comes from just reversing the roles.)
Stories that are only compelling if the reader is intrigued by erotic situations or the "hotness" of a protagonist/love interest.
Worlds, plots, and concepts that are clearly more important to the author than the characters.
The story and characters are only there to frame a spiritual or religious message, a political agenda, or a supposedly revolutionary philosophy.
Characters do things--solving mysteries, winning fights, finding love, assuming responsibility--without experiencing any personal growth or change.

So that's really about it, folks. Get your query letters ready, follow the rules and don't try to fake us out, respect your work and our time enough to really polish that writing sample until it's shiny, and remember that the mentors and agents are all just book nerds like you--we won't bite! (At least, most of us won't.)

AND FOR CHEESE'S SAKE, DO NOT ENTER WITH A FIRST DRAFT.
ALSO, SPELL-CHECK IS YOUR FRIEND.

1. Kes Trester (co-mentoring with Jennifer Hawkins)
2. Mindy McGinnis (co-mentoring with Kate Karyus Quinn)
3. N.K. Traver
4. Kristin B. Wright
5. Laura Heffernan
6. Mary Ann Marlowe
7. Joy McCullough-Carranza
8. Lisa Lewis-Tyre
9. Jenni L. Walsh (co-mentoring with Trisha Leaver)
10. Sarah Glenn Marsh
11. Julie C. Dao
12. Kellye Garrett
13. K.T. Hanna
14. Jessie Devine
15. Rosalyn Eves
16. Jami Nord
17. Samantha Joyce
18. Helene Dunbar
19. Jenna Lehne
20. Linsey Miller
21. Jessica Vitalis
22. Stacey Graham
23. Dan Koboldt
24. Brighton Walsh
25. Kate Brauning
26. Lisa Maxwell
27. Wendy Spinale
28. Sarah Cannon
29. L.L. McKinney
30. Juliana Brandt
31. Scarlett Cole
32. Hayley Stone
33. Jennifer Blackwood
34. Kendra Young
35. S.P. McConnell
36. Nikki Roberti

37. Emmie Mears
38. Lori Goldstein (co-mentoring with Chelsea Bobulski)
39. Jennifer Hawkins (co-mentoring with Kes Trester)
40. Elizabeth Briggs
41. Ron Walters (co-mentoring with Meredith McCardle)
42. Fiona McLaren (co-mentoring with Dionne McCulloch)
43. S.M. Johnston (co-mentoring with Stacey Nash)
44. Max Wirestone
45. Jaye Robin Brown
46. Molly Lee
47. Rachel Lynn Solomon
48. J.C. Nelson
49. Holly Faur
50. Sonia Hartl
51. Natasha Raulerson
52. Marty Mayberry
53. J.C. Davis
54. Rebecca Wells
55. Michelle Hauck
56. Tabitha Martin
57. Rebecca Petruck
58. Sarah Henning
59. Alex White
60. Jeanmarie Anaya
61. Laura Salter
62. Wade Albert White
63. Brooks Benjamin
64. Margarita Montimore
65. Megan Grimit
66. Charlie Holmberg
67. Diana Gallager
68. Stefanie Wass
69. Tamara Mataya
70. Rebecca Sky
71. Kara Seal
72. Lee Gjertsen Malone

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Personal Digest Saturday: July 25 – July 31

Life news this week:

So, I spent a bunch of time this week editing a friend's book, and I'm two thirds of the way done, so I'll probably finish soon . . . just in time for Pitch Wars. Which, if you didn't know, is STARTING WITH MENTOR BIO POSTS NEXT WEEK. Damn it crept up on me, and I'm one of the mentors!
I broke a thousand Twitter followers. Twitter was kind enough to tell me so with a little message. Whee.
Went to Mom's on Wednesday because Jeaux was at the dentist. We made mushroom gravy and rice, and I helped her carry a mattress. I know, so exciting. It's good to hang out with Mom, though. And we did Skype with my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. Man that kid is a cutie.
I got my bike tuned up and its front tire fixed this week, which meant leaving it in the shop for a couple days and that meant walking to work, which would have been much nicer if it hadn't been SO RAINY. Ugh.
Jeaux and I met on Thursday instead of the usual Wednesday and our restaurant choice was Panera. We ate there and watched America's Got Talent at his house.
I was being a cartoon loser and getting excited that the hiatus for the show I'm following was ending next week with new episodes coming back Thursday, but then got the news that they're postponing the return for another month and yes that counts as news for me. Ughhhh. Well, at least I'll get to focus on Pitch Wars or something. DANGIT.

New reviews of my book:

Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy published a review of my book written by Anthony Bogaert! And I can't even read the whole thing because everything but the first page is behind a paywall! Well, here's the first page.

Places featured:

I'm referred to as a "YouTube celeb" in this article from Salon called "Sex? No, thanks: Rather than obsession, what millions of Americans feel about sex is indifference," and they link to my materials. While describing the video they link to as "SwankIvy's unpolished video." Don't know why I'm even bothering to mention it but for some reason it just irritates me that they thought mentioning the quality of my video was relevant at all.

Reading progress:

Completed reading: Calamity Jack by Shannon, Dean, & Nathan Hale. Four-star review.
Currently reading: Benny and Omar by Eoin Colfer.

New singing performances:

Here I'm singing "Yesterday" by the Beatles

New drawings:

Webcomic So You Write Issue 50: "Self-Insert."

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0533: "Just One Word."

New videos:

This week I got a writing video finished regarding "Strong Female Characters." It's about writing good female characters without basically trying to make them give the finger to femininity or become like a boy to be seen as "strong."

New photos:

Ate my last Cookie Cat. :(

Social media counts:

YouTube subscribers: 4,879 for swankivy (38 new this week), 497 for JulieSondra (3 new). Twitter followers: 664 for swankivy (no change), 1003 for JulieSondra (10 new). Facebook: 286 friends (no change) and 182 followers (4 new) for swankivy, 588 likes for JulieSondra (1 new), 54 likes for Negative One (no change), 110 likes for So You Write (1 new). Tumblr followers: 2114 (20 new).

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Your Responsibility

I'm probably going to write about this topic again in the future, because I have a lot to say about it, but today I'm going to talk a little about responsibility.

As a person who's been creating content for and about asexuality since the late 90s, I've been around the block a few times. Probably because of some combination of early adoption plus prolificacy, I ended up considered a community leader (though that was never my intention), and I'm happy with the role I've played in helping people understand this topic for a variety of reasons.

But sometimes I am approached by people who think I have responsibilities and obligations attached to being influential. And for the most part, I agree. I know that people look at me as an authority and that the things I say sometimes need to be a little more calculated or else they could hurt people or spread misleading messages. I know that the standards for how I behave online are (perhaps unfairly) higher than other content creators who don't have my reach. This is something I understand and accept.

However, I draw the line when people approach me with scolding that's designed to shame me, not make me a better leader.

You may have noticed that not every review I receive for my book is 100% positive. I'm very happy about that, though of course I don't like when I get things wrong. I'm glad people are able to be critical even though I'm what passes for a big name in the community, and I'm glad they have been able to offer opinions on what bits of my work could be improved and how.

Some examples:

Because of the nature of our community and my relationship with these bloggers, I was able to discuss some of their concerns "backstage" and figure out how to address the problems with certain sections of the book, and the next edition will be even better thanks partly to their help. I appreciate that they could put into words what they'd like me to do better without their reviews reading like a disappointed mom shaking her finger with her hands on her hips.

But I do get a lot of those disappointed moms.

The other night, someone came onto one of my most popular videos and "called out" my use of the word "non-asexual," condescendingly calling me "honey" and telling me I should just use "sexual" instead of "non-asexual." When I explained to the person that actually non-asexual people have repeatedly told our community that they have various reasons for disliking that terminology (and asked the person not to call me "honey" in this context because it sounds condescending), they did not take this very well.

What followed was the usual eyeroll-worthy Internet pile-on featuring this person and four of their friends (or, perhaps, sockpuppets; hard to tell sometimes when it's mysteriously happening at 3 AM on a video that is not otherwise getting suspicious attention anywhere), every one of whom was full of personal incredulity at my inability to take criticism and my snotty attitude and my need to attack people who disagree with me, all of which (they all agreed, and repeated, and repeated, and repeated) suggest I am not qualified to be a spokesperson and am never going to succeed at anything.

Kind of amusing that they're saying this to a person who has Already Succeeded at This, but I digress.

The original poster bleated the you're too sensitive schtick while instructing me that I should not have a temper tantrum because someone called me honey (you know, because asking someone not to is a "tantrum"), and then they proceeded to search through the comments for any place I was not polite in a reply to a commenter and gleefully pointed out that I had called someone "baby" in a similar condescending way. (The fact that it was a reply to someone who had come into my space to harass me first appeared to be lost on them, as was the fact that you can't scream about how "honey" is NOT AT ALL CONDESCENDING while recognizing that my similar phrasing was certainly not a well-meaning term of endearment.)

I blocked the original poster when they wouldn't stop coming back to the thread and saying the same things over and over about how I need to stop being such an oversensitive immature petulant asshole if I'm ever going to get anywhere. That was when their other pals suddenly became invested in jumping onto a comment that was over a year old to harass me about the exact same things. Many accusations of how I'm "always so rude" were thrown around, about how my way of dealing with things is to "jump down people's throats" anytime anyone is a "tiny bit negative" about my work, and about how if the majority of people are sending me messages about how I'm mishandling these conversations, I really need to think about what I've done and learn to listen to people you know.

The fact that the video had over 1,200 comments on it and they could only find two with me being "rude" to trumpet about did not seem to register with them. Nor did the fact that both "rude" comments were about as rude as the time I told the original poster that they were mistaken about the appropriateness of "sexual" as a label and that I did not want to be addressed as "honey."

In other words, if I do not take harassment, snide remarks, disgusting commentary, threats, and rudeness with a smile and infinite patience, I am not fit to lead this charge. My responsibility, in their opinion, is to passively, tenderly absorb ugliness and take it upon myself to individually, politely educate the folks who dish it out.

I answer that with a big fat

NO.

It is NOT the responsibility of any community leader or spokesperson to be forever on their best behavior TO THEIR ENEMIES. Setting aside the fact that being kind to them is usually my first inclination if I think they might be educable and IT USUALLY STILL DOESN'T WORK, I find the respectability politics at work here to be bullshit.

If you are an ally of my message, you should be an ally of my message even if you don't like me. That means you straight people still support equal rights for gay people even if a gay person was mean to you once. That means you white people don't suddenly become racists (or, more likely, keep being racists) if a person of color did something not so nice to you. That means you don't sit around in a state of automatic condemnation of people different from you if individual members of that group don't approach you submissively and earn your respect.

And even though I would argue that I was never out of line in even the "worst" of the comments they tried to nail me to the wall for, I absolutely agree that I wasn't polite to them . . . and I don't feel that politeness is the appropriate response to those who approach you to deliberately send you invalidating messages. I want them to feel like they did something atrocious if they choose to approach me like that. Honest questions and ignorance aren't federal offenses, but I can absolutely tell the difference of flavor between a comment that seeks knowledge and a comment that exists primarily to shut me up and embarrass me.

I blocked this group of petty whiners spouting tone policing and snotty criticisms of my attitude, though of course as I waited for each to commit a block-worthy sin they kept popping up on the two "oh so rude" comments I'd made over the years until I got them all blocked and deleted the source comments. Ordinarily I really don't like deleting people's comments, even rude ones, and I block judiciously, but I've come to realize there's a huge difference between censorship/limiting of free speech and actively giving someone a platform to place their nonsense. It basically seemed like leaving those things up was just an invitation for more fake personal incredulity from people wandering mysteriously onto the video only to gasp and "agree" with the person above them to scold me for my terrible behavior.

Gosh, I'm just so mean, and need to learn to take criticism.

The problem with these people is they think any rude comment is criticism. It is not critique. It is not constructive. It is just petty dishtowels who think the best answer to "don't address me condescendingly, and please do research on why your suggestion isn't appropriate" is "NO, YOU!!!!"

I have learned to listen, and the thing about listening is that you do learn what "constructive" sounds like. When someone's comment starts with "lol okay honey," what follows is generally not being offered for the betterment of a message. It is meant to say "God, why are you so silly? Why don't you realize this obvious thing that I came up with after doing no research about your group? Why would you use a term that at first glance seems counterintuitive to me? Obviously since I don't get it, you shouldn't use it! Let me correct you!"

And that, folks, is why when I corrected this person's "correction"--complete with a "please"--I was interpreted as rude and unable to handle criticism. Because that's what this person thinks criticism is: mocking and shame. And if I reply rejecting this and give criticism of my own, that's how THEY interpret MY words. When one does know how to take criticism, one does so taking into account who is offering it and why they're doing so. When someone slings out an ignorant comment that echoes nonsense we've heard before, I know they're not following the dialogues of our community and have no place in telling us how to talk about ourselves. But when someone who IS in that conversation speaks up--someone who has clearly done the listening--I can tell the difference in the criticism that comes out.

And I thank those people, converse with them, and include their input in my book.

Which is published because I'm already doing a pretty good job at this community leader thing and handling my actual responsibilities just fine.

Though one of the people I blocked informed me before I deleted their nonsense that I had earned a thumbs down on every single one of my videos. I'm sure that will really show me where I screwed up. I'll definitely feel like I've been taught a lesson if someone goes to every one of my 80+ videos and clicks a button to express their rage. And I'll totally actually notice.

Which one were you again?