Personal Digest Saturday: April 2 – April 8

Life news this week: 

• Saturday was a low-key day getting some rest, catching up on some stuff, and watching some cartoons.
  
• Sunday was my adventure to Sarasota. My dad's birthday was Monday so we had a little early celebration. He picked me up in the morning and we went to visit my grandma, got some coffee and donuts, went to see the orchestra, and had dinner together. Got to meet my dad's "little brother" mentee and chatted to him about video games, and my grandma was talking a lot. She told me I was cute. <3
  
• Monday I went back to work, had a couple slap-fights on YouTube, went grocery shopping (and saw a book club friend at the store), and spent some of my evening submitting short stories again. (It's been too long and I was just sitting on them.)
  
• Tuesday I was gonna hang out with Mom but she told me she didn't want to, so I spent the evening working on my book edits.
  
• Wednesday was Jeaux Day and we did some errands and ate at Best New York Pizza. We listened to Night Vale and talked a lot. And then I read a new graphic novel that just came out: Too Cool for School, which is the first full-length Steven Universe comic book. Super cute. I wrote a review for it and then my computer froze right at the end so I had to write the whole thing over again.
  
• Thursday I listened to some interviews online and really enjoyed hearing about my favorite creators, and I chatted with my friend Victor while drawing comics.
  
• Friday I posted my comic and talked to Meghan on the phone. We're planning a vacation.

Reading progress:

• Too Cool for School by Rebecca Sugar, Ian Jones-Quartey, and Jeremy Sorese. Five-star review.
• Currently reading: Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler.

New singing performances:

Here I'm singing "Don't Leave Home" by Dido.

 

New drawings:

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0569: "That Unsure."







New videos:

None. 

New photos: 

Selfie with Dad at dinner after the orchestra

Got a new graphic novel, pretty thrilled!

This was not this week, but Eric got some photos back
from his show, and his photographer Lisa No took this
cool one with me in it.

Same with this one: Lisa No's photo from Eric's show.

Social Media counts:
 
YouTube subscribers: 5,301 for swankivy (1 new), 567 for JulieSondra (no change). Twitter followers: 772 for swankivy (5 new), 1,222 for JulieSondra (no change). Facebook: 290 friends (1 new--friended Alexandra, a mutual friend with another friend) and 197 followers (lost 1) for swankivy, 636 likes for JulieSondra (lost 1), 55 likes for Negative One (no change), 120 likes for So You Write (1 new). Tumblr followers: 2,403 (8 new). Instagram followers: 66 (1 new).

Wednesday Factoid: Three Songs

Today's Wednesday Factoid is: Three songs you connect with right now.

 Uh okay, here are some "me right now" songs.

• "Everybody But Me" by Lykke Li

  I don't want to be seen, touched, heard, bothered
  by the fellas, who got the look in their eye,
  they want to take me home, without knowing my name

• "Where I Want to Be" from Chess

  Now I'm where I want to be and who I want to be
  And doing what I always said I would
  And yet I feel I haven't won at all

 

• "That I Would Be Good" by Alanis Morissette
  

  That I would be good
  Even if I did nothing
  That I would be good
  Even if I got the thumbs down

Cordial

Yesterday I got into a slap-fight with someone on YouTube, as I am sometimes wont to do.

It was a little confusing at first because the video he was commenting on is called "Shit People Say to Asexuals." It's a collaborative video I put together with fifteen other aces with us repeating the ignorant stuff that's been said to us about our orientation, in the tradition of Franchesca Ramsey's "Shit White Girls Say...to Black Girls." (This "Shit [group] says to [other group]" video style was a trend a few years back. We contributed.) Anyway, sometimes it's hard to tell if the ignorant comments people leave on this video are actual ignorant comments or if it's people repeating what's been said to them.

So at first, I interpreted this fellow's comment as the friendly kind. Since it was kind of too ridiculous to be real. (So I thought.)

James Gray:
I'd say "you're not asexual, as you cannot reproduce on your own". Then give them a science book.

I mean, that "sorry, that's for plants" comment is actually IN THE VIDEO. And science books that discuss asexuality as an orientation actually agree with us. It's laughable that anyone claims we're talking about reproduction, so I thought he knew that and responded in kind.

Me:
"You're not tall, you're not a drink size at Starbucks, words only have one meaning and if you try to squeeze in more it's ~too confusing~"
Yes! Give them a science book! And also remind them how words inside and outside scientific contexts tend to be completely different and not confusing at all for people who are honestly processing context! 

But then he did this.

James Gray:
I know! SJWs hijacked the word "asexual" and changed the definition to "not having sexual feelings or drives". I'm sorry, not having a sex drive isn't a gender. They did the same thing to the word "organic"(not in terms of a gender). 

Red alert.

Someone who is VERY confused about what asexuality even is thinks I'm on his side.

Wow.

So I replied:

Me:
I think you interpreted my message backwards. Asexual people aren't claiming their orientation as their gender. Asexual people's definition of asexual is not confusing, and the definition you're claiming is ours is not accurate. You do not actually think humans are claiming to be able to reproduce asexually when they tell you they are asexual, so "WELL THERE IS ONLY THE REPRODUCTION DEFINITION" is a flagrantly ignorant statement since there have been dozens of scientific studies and research projects that have centered on or included asexuality. Sexuality professionals do not seem to be having a hard time with this. Those who don't understand it or believe it is new or baffling because they haven't bothered to do any actual research really don't belong framing it as something it isn't. Nobody who actually processed what we're saying about ourselves would confuse it with a gender.

He probably had a similar "red alert" moment when he realized he was talking to what he would refer to as an "SJW." Which is a dismissive term people like this use to label "social justice warriors" as hysterical and unreasonable. He wrote this, in which he hilariously quoted asexuality.org at me to prove his point and inadvertently invalidated himself:

James Gray:
http://www.asexuality.org/home/ definition - An asexual person is a person who does not experience sexual attraction. I have discussed this with many people, and many SJWs consider asexual as a gender. It's now one of the 58 different genders recognized by Google. I agree, it's not a gender - it's a hormonal imbalance. And "sexuality professionals" are mostly women that majored in Women's Studies in college. They wasted their time for the degree, so they had to come up with something else for impressionable college students to feed into so they can earn a paycheck.

Well this is nice. He doesn't seem to realize that AVEN says asexuality is a completely different thing from what he was claiming it was; he puts words in the mouths of people he doesn't agree with so they'll be framed as ridiculous (oh honey, I don't know any "SJWs" who consider "asexual" a gender, sorry); and he throws in a heaping helping of "lol women getting degrees in fake things have to scramble to make up fake careers too."

Now. I'm not sharing this conversation just to blow off steam (though there's that, too); I'll go ahead and tell you how this ends. 

This man eventually wanted to stop arguing with me and commented that he was glad we could have a cordial debate.

I think we have a different definition of cordial.

Contrary to popular belief, you are not being polite just because you did not explicitly call your "debate" opponent an insulting name and did not use any foul language.

With the above statement, this man grinningly invalidated woman-centered studies and implied that they do not have any practical application in the real world, and yet he thinks speaking to a woman that way is "cordial." He also lied baldly about what opponents of his beliefs say, did his best to paste a definition to prove me wrong (even though he unwittingly proved HIMSELF wrong in the process), and made a sneering comment about genders that are recognized by Google.

I replied as follows:

Me:
Adorable. You wrote "they changed the definition to a person who doesn't have sexual feelings or drives!" and then when I said you used the wrong definition, you copy-pasted . . . a different definition. If you don't understand how those two things are not synonymous and you don't realize you just proved yourself wrong, you probably need to read what you're writing more closely before you use it to tell people they don't know what they are talking about.

It's also no skin off anyone's back if you refuse to listen to the people you're laughing at. Like, no, nobody who is actually discussing this rationally is claiming "asexual" is a gender (you may be confusing it with agender while scrambling to mock them?), but as you're depending on weak logical fallacies like hyperbole and misrepresentation to make your distressingly confused point, we can all see what's really going on here. It's why people with an authentic desire to understand stuff like sexuality will listen and learn, and why people who have never cared because it's not about themselves will cover their ears and laugh.

You do your thing, bro. The rest of us will be over here amused at the way people demand scientific correctness but won't actually read scientific studies that prove them wrong, and how consistently said people tend to use the term "SJW" unironically.

Believing he's landed me in a gotcha situation, he throws this down:

James Gray:
Please explain the difference between "doesn't have sexual feelings or drives" and "does not experience sexual attraction". I cut and pasted the 2nd definition from the asexual website I linked - I figured you couldn't debate their definition. There was a period in my life where due to medication I lost my sex drive - I didn't then claim I had a new sexual orientation, I knew it was the medicine. People thinking they can flip-flop from male to female and back need medication and intense therapy. You definitely do not represent "the rest of us".

It's odd that he thinks it's self-evident that "doesn't have sexual feelings or drives" and "does not experience sexual attraction" are the same thing. I mean, it's one thing if you don't understand the difference, but if you don't, it's important to figure it out before you go laughing at people for acting like there's a difference.

Asexual people use a collection of definitions, some more than others, and some don't feel that certain definitions apply. They also don't coercively assign other people sexual orientations if they are, say, experiencing side effects from medication; it's not like the Asexual Brigade knocks on your door and says you have no choice but to identify as asexual now if your sex drive disappears.

His obsession with the gender stuff is kind of worrying, too. My video touched only ever so slightly on gender--when one contributor's "shit people say" comment was "if you're not sure about your gender, you can't be sure about your sexual orientation!" It's very common for people with a pet peeve to come onto videos like mine and assume it makes sense to just fire their hate balls at the entire lump of stuff they don't believe in, though. I've had people on other videos realize I'm a feminist and immediately start throwing bricks over GamerGate, as if I have something to do with that automatically if I'm a feminist. They don't seem to realize that many feminists don't care about video games, and these anti-feminists only know about it because games are their thing. But these folks are often very self-centered and don't realize how small their little world is.

I answered James's sneering comment about needing me to explain the difference, though I was tempted to tell him he was welcome to the wisdom of Google (since he's so knowledgeable about all the genders found there).

Me: 
There are people who desire sex but don't find anyone sexy. Those people have sexual feelings but don't experience sexual attraction. They're one type of asexual person.

It's okay if you don't understand it or want to conflate everything about orientation with behavior or are primarily having this conversation to make people who aren't you look unworthy of your respect. And I mean "it's okay" in that if you do that, we know where you're coming from and can choose not to listen to you in the same way you've already chosen not to listen to us.

And whether a person who is experiencing medical side effects chooses to use a certain word is of no concern to me; my default is listening to how people describe themselves and respecting it. The level of investment some people have in telling other people their experiences aren't real or shouldn't have names is kind of baffling to me. You do you; you call yourself what you think is appropriate to call yourself; I'll leave you alone and not come onto any media you make to tell you I want you to change how you discuss your own issues. You really should not concern yourself so intensely with how people who aren't you experience their orientation.

But of course James Gray here is a savior of objective truth and reason, and he must become an Internet-comment-slinging gladiator to preserve the reality he knows. (Social Justice Warriors, however, are fake activists because they just whine behind their keyboards on tumblr dot com.)

James Gray:
Just trying to prevent the spread of nonsense that can be treated with psychotherapy/medication. Again, you can believe whatever you want about yourself. But expecting society to conform to your psychosis is an unrealistic expectation. Cultures do not advance catering to the supposedly oppressed. I don't respect people that make up things in their minds to try to win sympathy. I respect a person's individual thought processes as being their own, but again, the world doesn't need to change for you. You need to adapt to the world.

And here's the thing. Again, he thinks this is respectful dialogue.

He thinks this is a debate.

In a conversation where he's referred to my orientation as nonsense, as medically treatable, as psychosis, as unrealistic expectation, as supposedly oppressed, as unworthy of respect, and as a ploy to win sympathy. He. Thinks. He. Is. Cordial.

They believe these are polite conversations because they do not think it's a big deal to invalidate other human beings on this level. Nothing has the power to unseat these privileged people's sense of identity; they are already understood to be authentically experiencing their reality, and they can choose to harass and pester and condescend to and frustrate people who aren't like them because they simply want to. The "nonsense" of people they don't grok makes them itch enough that they must go into their spaces and say "No, this is not real; you are sick or you are wrong about yourself, and though it changes absolutely nothing about my life if you believe me, I need you to hear this message."

It's a choice for them. A hobby, even. To go telling people they don't "believe in" that their reality is not reality.

And they don't think that's cruel. Or criminally insensitive. Or even impolite.

The world affords people like this the freedom to strike as they will, and even though people like me have the stability and experience to not be affected by it, it's just galling to me to watch how casually this man tells people how imperative it is that they get help and stop being how they are, and how this society still raises him to believe this is perfectly courteous behavior. He is welcome and free to intrude and drop ignorance on anyone at any time, without walking away feeling that he has caused pain or done anything outside his rights. That's what's important here: that people who believe inconvenient or unusual things about themselves be pressured to spend money, time, and energy on accessing mental health services to fix themselves, so people like this man will not have to be so annoyed by those damn SJWs and their 58 genders.

It's funny how often they say we claim to be oppressed, but they think upending our world view and forcing us into therapy is REALLY important.

So here's me, angling from the "establishment" perspective because I figured he would be more likely to take professionals' word for it than he would be to accept lived experience:

Me:
And if you'd like to look at the accepted "bible" of what constitutes a mental disorder, you will find asexuality listed twice in there pointing out that it is NOT a mental disorder and that people treating clients should take care to avoid applying this diagnosis to asexual people.

If you refuse to stop being intellectually dishonest and acknowledge that people with more research experience than you have looked into this and sided with US, there's nothing I can do about it. But it should clue you in pretty hard when the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that mental health professionals are supposed to use to diagnose people is telling you you're wrong.

The laughable stuff about "making things up to win sympathy" and "expecting society to conform to your psychosis is an unrealistic expectation" is kinda amusing though. You can invent motivation for us all you like if it makes you, personally, feel validated, but it's not mentally unsound for people to expect the world at large to realize that there's a name for this orientation and to be basically respectful to their fellow human beings. It's simply a word that describes a pattern that people throughout history have always exhibited, and people shouldn't be so bent out of shape over aggressively assigning those people a disorder.

But hey, homosexuality used to be considered a disorder too, and their attempts to spread awareness and increase compassion has resulted in social change. You would have told them twenty years ago that they had a mental disorder for expecting society to change for them, but here we are. Though considering the way you opened with sneering, snotty commentary, I won't assume you're not also a homophobe, because people who talk like that often are.

Bringing up homophobia is always a crapshoot in conversations like this. In my experience, people who talk like this are almost always bigots. Some people like to say stuff like "you wouldn't say that to a black person!" or "you wouldn't say that to a gay person!" but . . . like, yeah, they usually would. Comparing the two situations almost always leads to people making it clear that they do actually believe gay people are unnatural because they can't reproduce (lol, oh really?) or has them pointing out that they do believe black people "still" whining about racism are what is causing the racism. (Wowwww.) But in this case. . . .

James Gray:
homosexuality occurs naturally in other species - it's an anomaly, but it does happen - believing you're gender fluid or a demigirl does not.

And note he's on the nonbinary gender hate wagon again instead of discussing the topic of the video.

I exposed his ridiculous hypocrisy.

Me:
You should ask yourself honestly why telling people they're wrong about themselves is so important to you. For real. People just get so emotional about other people using descriptions they don't like, don't understand, or haven't personally experienced. So you don't believe in their experience--okay? Animals can't tell you anything about how they experience gender, and considering there are actually animals that physically change sex or have more than two sexes, I think comparing us to other animals as a gotcha for what can happen in our species is both ignorant and irrelevant.

And this is where he decided to quit.

James Gray:
At this point, I'd like to respectfully end our debate. I don't think we'll see eye-to-eye on this topic. I thank you for being cordial, and I hope I was the same(not in ideology, but in manners). I wish you the best.

You do not wish me the best, James Gray. You said it yourself.

You wish me shamed into therapy through enough people telling me something's wrong with me. You wish me disrespected and gaslighted. You pretend it's about me getting help I "need," but let's not kid ourselves; you're not actually concerned about our happiness. You wish me to stop talking to other people like myself to tell them they're okay the way they are, because you think we aren't. You wish genderqueer members of my social circle would stop bothering you with these inconvenient requests for basic respect. People being this different from you has caused you to approach us on purpose with your arms loaded with the weight of the status quo, and you choose to drop it on us in apparent ignorance that the world is already doing that without your help. 

You choose to do this; you do it with intent; you seek us out to say it; and you know that your life does not change if we are hurt by it. You'd like us to be hurt by it so we'll "realize" we're broken and go fix ourselves. And you think that's the "good" result here. You risk nothing, you stand to lose nothing, and you truly have no idea what it's like to have skin in this game. You don't know about the messages I get from suicidal people, terrified people, lonely people, people who have been abused--people who were finally able to start healing when someone like me told them there are multiple ways to be fulfilled and okay in this world. While believing they were broken, sick, or confused often led to medical abuse, more unhappiness, anxiety and depression, and failed relationships. 

Knowing you're asexual is an important piece of the puzzle when negotiating your life, because then you can learn what you can reasonably expect to feel toward others and what alternate routes to intimacy you can be satisfied by. People who sneer at us to get help and take medicine don't seem to realize that has not historically worked for the many many many members of our community who were irrevocably hurt by it before they knew there was a name for their feelings.

People like James Gray don't acknowledge that this is our reality--I mean, why listen to a bunch of SJWs with Women's Studies degrees who believe in 58 Google genders?--and there is something quite insidious about people like him who seek us out and delight in twisting the knives they see sticking out of us. Not a big problem when you can blame the resulting deaths on us being dramatic and wanting attention.

There is nothing cordial about conversations like this, though it's at least nice that he abandoned the dialogue without claiming my supposed emotional investment had driven him away. (That's what people like him usually do--they assign the other person "anger" or "overemotional responses" to cast themselves as rational and make their opponent think they themselves have become incapable of continuing. It's disgusting.) These kinds of conversations could almost always be worse. But this was not a polite, balanced discussion between people who can just agree to disagree.

His ~opinion~? It's violence.

I'm the one who looks at the scars.

 

Personal Digest Saturday: March 26 – April 1

Life news this week: 

• Saturday was a pretty chill day: I spent it reading and catching up on cartoons, and my sister P called so we talked for a while. I hope she has a great time when she goes to Japan!
• Sunday I . . . are you ready for this? . . . did my taxes. It was kind of a bummer day because, you know, taxes, and I had to pay a fee that people who make money from stuff like book sales have to pay because in that sense we count as self-employed, and then also my website was randomly breaking in weird ways and I only got it partially fixed. (I didn't break it. I still don't know why it happened, but the host folks fixed it.)
• Monday was both back to work and the first day of opening my Bad Fairy test reader list. I have a bunch of volunteers already and a couple people gave feedback within 24 hours!
• And I kinda . . . got sucked into something I didn't want to be sucked into. There's another slap-fight happening on Tumblr these days about whether asexual people deserve any support under the queer umbrella, and a disturbing amount of it sounds like "but asexual people are basically straight--why are straight people trying to take our resources? God, these entitled straight people have never suffered appreciably and it makes me sick." It's pretty wow. And when someone anonymously made an emotional appeal for me to make a statement, I sort of had to. (And since my epic rants on Tumblr always get hundreds of notes, you can imagine how that has been.)
• Tuesday I worked, edited, fought with people on the Internet, and had my mom over for dinner (and she slept over). She made scalloped potatoes. From a box. I don't think she's ever done that before!
• Wednesday my site was fixed by the time I got up in the morning so yay. I had Chili's food with Jeaux and didn't feel good after so we just kinda lay around in my room after that. And I opened a box of stuff I ordered and one of the things I ordered was missing. Waaah. Also found out that Steven Universe is coming back with new episodes . . . in June. That's a new record for a hiatus for this show. I'm sad it's going to be so long but happy that we finally know when!
• Thursday I had to work early to get a report done. In between important stuff I doodled an April Fools cartoon on my calendar for the next day. I also argued with a nincompoop on Tumblr and it was amazing. Victor called later that night and we talked while I drew.
• Friday I went birthday shopping for my dad and finished my comic, and I watched cartoon things and worked on my book editing. I'm trying to keep up really well with responding to people who sent feedback.

New Reviews of My Book:

• Kony gave it a two-star review on Goodreads.

Interviews, Features, Mentions:

• My book has been prominently added to Asexual Outreach's resources site.
• The Asexual Agenda linked my post on weaponizing suffering as a gatekeeping method.

Reading progress:

• Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. Four-star review.
• Currently reading: Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler.

New singing performances:

Here I'm singing "Mistaken Identity" by Delta Goodrem.

 

New drawings:

Amethyst helps celebrate April Fools' Day!
I <3 these characters. :D

Webcomic Negative One Issue 0568: "When They Aren't Together."







New videos:

None. 

New photos: 

None. 

Social Media counts:
 
YouTube subscribers: 5,300 for swankivy (11 new), 567 for JulieSondra (no change). Twitter followers: 767 for swankivy (3 new), 1,222 for JulieSondra (lost 1). Facebook: 289 friends (no change) and 198 followers (2 new) for swankivy, 637 likes for JulieSondra (4 new), 55 likes for Negative One (no change), 119 likes for So You Write (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,395 (51 new). Instagram followers: 65 (3 new).

What if it's just terrible

No new writing this week, as has been the case for uhhhhh the last few weeks, but in this case it's because I decided to shift focus to editing Bad Fairy. 

I announced my request for new test readers here on the blog first, and then shared the post on Facebook. I got a few new readers from that. Then the next day I shared on Twitter, and eventually I (kinda reluctantly) made a similar post on Tumblr. (Most of the couple thousand people who follow me there follow me for asexual blogging, but I have no idea how many of them would be good test readers.)

I've already gotten some feedback (though most people haven't had time to read the sample chapters yet), and even though I'm mostly hearing good things, a neurotic writer's brain can take the most innocuous commentary and turn it into "what if the whole thing is just terrible and I did everything wrong?"

The first Bad Fairy was written with weird little perspective-dropping italics interludes, and it opened with a "chapter" that was ONLY one of those--so it kind of gets processed like a prologue. You have to have been in the fantasy writing community to really grasp the almost rabid hatred of prologues among some readers (including publishing professionals). They have this knee-jerk reaction sometimes like "OH GOD A PROLOGUE must be a pretentious fantasy writer or a person who doesn't know what they're doing, TIME TO SKIP and also judge the writer with impunity." Even my agent said when she first saw it opened with an italics prologue she was planning to tell me to cut it or incorporate it into the main text. Until she read the book and realized a) this is a character who would write a prologue into her book and b) it establishes tone the way nothing else could have.

But despite that, I guess I was influenced by the maelstrom and chopped Book 2's prologue from the chapters I sent out. Now, based on the feedback, I guess that was a mistake, so I'm putting it back in. The "prologue" is only one page and it's labeled Chapter 0, but just like the other one, it establishes tone and makes it clear that the character is writing this account from later in her life. I think that's pretty important because my character's situation is weird. First, you're thrown into her world where you don't know the rules at all, but then since Delia is an exception to a lot of the rules, it takes even longer to read her and figure it out.

The character is thirteen at the start of the book. She's already graduated from the fairy version of school and is looking for a job, but there are many complications because of some nonsense that happened between her and her enemies that resulted in discrediting her. She's basically waiting for a chance to appeal when the book starts. The fact that she's doing what an adult would usually do in our world after graduating from high school or college and the fact that she's kind of precocious makes her seem older than she is (plus the book is narrated about her young life by her older self), but her emotions and opinions and some other stuff is very much the usual teenager. So there have been some questions about what even the voice is supposed to be. 

I remember this being a problem occasionally when I was querying for book 1. Most people processed that it was written by her adult self, but I had one agent inform me that a baby can't narrate her life in a mature manner. (I wonder why the agent thought I didn't know pre-verbal infants can't compose a narrative. Delia's book literally begins with a description of what she remembers about being born. I'm aware babies generally don't remember being born. The fact that this character tells you she remembers it should clue you in that it's not a typical/realistic story, and it's kinda baffling that some folks do not realize what it means that they're reading fantasy.) I've also been told I need to change the voice to be younger, or change the voice to be older, whatever the reader believes I was going for. (It's happened once so far with this book too, but since the version that reader read did not have the prologue, I guess it was just too unclear that this is actually supposed to be narrated by the protagonist from later in her life.)

I'm really excited so far by some of the comments I've gotten featuring questions about how the fairy society thing works. I'm doing everything I can to provide a slow but satisfying reveal of these elements and expecting readers to pick up important details from context, but sometimes (as expected) I have not given enough background detail for readers to grasp something that IS actually important at that point, and getting these questions reminds me/shows me where I need to phrase things differently or provide more context. It's hard since I established so much in the previous book and I want the reader to feel like they're reading an appropriately complicated continuation of someone's life without feeling like they're missing stuff they need.

I think also that when we're reading published books, we believe them more. By this I mean if we're confused about something, we usually trust that a) the book will reveal what we need when we need to know it and b) we assume that the world is presented how it's supposed to be for a reason, and we can take it for granted that this is the way the setting is rather than a mistake by the author. In books that aren't published, I think we are more likely to conclude that the author doesn't know what they're doing and needs to be corrected. To use an example that no one has tried to call me out on but still might: In my case, that might happen if someone tries to use modern, local laws to judge the characters' alcohol use implausible. No one in the book ever suggests that Delia, at age thirteen, is too young to drink wine or ale. She's been drinking small quantities of alcohol (primarily wine) since she was six or seven, because it's just part of her culture. That's not unheard-of in our world, either, but I could imagine a reader judging that ridiculous because kids aren't allowed to drink. In a published book, I wonder if said readers would say "Oh, I guess kids are allowed to drink in this world" rather than "Pssht wow that's really sad that the author doesn't realize children objectively are not allowed to drink."

And with a book like mine, I have to find subtle and nuanced ways to relay these things so they don't read like mistakes that jostle the reader out of their reading reverie. I certainly want them to wonder about things, but I don't want to confuse them to the point that they think I don't know what I'm doing. 

I'm pretty good at processing feedback and understanding the difference between when the reader just has a different opinion from me versus when the reader has feedback that will make my book a better version of the story I want to write. But sometimes even considering which comments are which can make a fairly confident writer wonder if they wrote the wrong story or wrote it in such a way that the story they wanted people to read isn't coming through. I don't think those kinds of thoughts often, but diving into the first chapters again with readers who haven't had enough time and exposure to get acclimated either is certainly one of the times I do. :)

Wednesday Factoid: Under Your Skin

Today's Wednesday Factoid is: On a scale of 1 to 10, how easy is it for someone to get under your skin?

I can't answer that with a number in any meaningful way, sorryyyy.

Whether something "gets under my skin" depends on what the issue is, who's saying it, why they're saying it, and if they're saying it on purpose to piss me off and/or should know better.

I'm usually an incredibly tolerant person and everyone comments on it online. "How do you deal with those assholes so patiently? How haven't you snapped by now?" I'm pretty used to taking ignorance and addressing it with education. But I will go from cucumber to hot pepper if anyone uses the following techniques in their conversations with me:

• Infantilization (e.g., "Honey, you're just not experienced enough to grasp this.")
• Misdirection (e.g., "You say you're not gay, but really you just hate gay people. Why do you hate gay people so much?")
• Exaggeration (e.g., "You don't want kids? Guess you want all humans to die.")
• Invalidation (e.g., "You don't have an important message. You just want attention.")
• Argument from authority (e.g., "I'm a biologist and I know there's no such thing as an asexual human.")
• Ad hominem (e.g., "Your real issue is you're a bitter, lonely, jealous woman.")
• Entitlement (e.g., "Hi, I'm a stranger with a question. I could Google it or watch a video, but I'd rather you just answer my several in-depth questions personally.")
• Shock statements (e.g., "Ugly bitches like you would stop talking so much if they'd just get laid.")
• Tone argument (e.g., "You sound kind of emotional. Calm down. We can't have this discussion when you're worked up.")
• Therapy trolling (e.g., "You really need to see a psychologist for these *issues* you have. GET HELP, seriously.")
• Appeal to consensus (e.g., "Men and women can't be just friends. Ask any man.")
• Negging (e.g., "There are some holes in your argument, but I guess I can ignore those. I admire how well you've grasped the basics of this issue--maybe one day you'll get up to advanced.")
• Name-calling (e.g., "lol what do you know, you're just a dumb slut.")
• Intellectual dishonesty (e.g., "I know I'm right--I read a study on it. I believe that study, and I won't read any conflicting research.")
• Downplaying my experience (e.g., "Oh big deal, you're asexual, it's so painful that sometimes people joke about you being a plant.")
• Shaming (e.g., "How dare you steal the spotlight from people with real problems!")
• Misleading accusations (e.g., "You just made up something to be mad about because you want to sell more books.")
• And anything that sounds like "Well, you'll get smarter/do your research/live longer and you'll eventually see that I'm right."

I also hate when someone says something incredibly rude and when I treat them like they did so, they act like my response is baffling. I recently had someone on an asexuality video comment who wrote "what is this shit??" on my video, and I actually answered him nicely, and he proceeded to say it was maybe interesting but he just wasn't sure if it was "a real thing" because people just love labeling themselves and are probably just attention seekers. When I addressed that like it was the grossness that it was, he exploded all over suggesting my attitude had poisoned him against learning anything about the orientation. It's insultingly transparent; nobody who comes into a conversation twice acting like the subject is ridiculous and probably fake is actually there to learn.

And when I'm in a conversation with people who disagree with me, one of the things that irritates me the most is when they claim I'm overly invested because I keep replying (while I guess they aren't, even though they're also still replying?) or they "give up" with sarcastic comments about how I must think I'm right because I went to college or know a lot of words. Like, as if that's my position. I hate when they suggest I'm still talking because I need to have the last word. I keep talking if I still have things to say, and more often than not if we get to that point the other person is not actually responding to what I've said. They're having an argument with an imaginary person who believes or says the things they're debunking. I can't even tell you how many conversations I've had like that, where suddenly it's about why I'm so selfish that I can't "give my boyfriend sex" when I'm still trying to get them to understand that I don't even have a boyfriend (nor do I want one). Whether it's "selfish" to not treat sex as a right that compromises my body is another story entirely, but wow it's hard to have conversations with people who are literally rewriting what I have said about myself to make it fit a narrative they can demonize.

I guess most of the bullet points above are rooted in one of two things: misrepresentation and nastiness. If someone is pushing the misdirection buttons, they're ultimately implying that I'm dishonest with my words, and that's a major insult to me. And if they're pushing the nastiness buttons, they're infusing the conversation with hostility nobody needs; they don't want to argue with me so much as punish me. Not cool.

Bad Fairy reader list is OPEN!

Hi readers,

In an attempt to get off my bum and start editing this book, I am now announcing a request for test readers. I have a small list already but even if you think you're on it, you might consider commenting here or contacting me privately (use the "contact" button on my blog for options) if you're not sure. If you're joining, I need an e-mail address for our communication, so your best bet is sending me an e-mail message unless you have a question.

What is this book?

Bad Fairy is a Sleeping Beauty retelling featuring the wicked fairy from the legend as the protagonist. (It is not related to anything associated with the Disney version of this tale; it draws inspiration from the older fairy tales.) This particular volume is the sequel to another book I've written which is already represented by my agent, but there's a chance this one will be published first if I get a book deal--it contains the more iconic and familiar elements of the Sleeping Beauty story everyone knows, while the previous book reads more like a prequel and ends before the princess is born.

Do I have to have read the first one?

No. In fact, I'd like my test readers to be some mixture of people who have read the first one and people who have not, so I can get some idea of whether the second book can be read without the first one. (It's very hard to be objective about that sort of thing.) If I were to have my way, the books would be published in chronological order, but if the first ends up as a prequel I'll have to deal with it. That said, if you would prefer to read the first before reading the second, I can arrange that.

What are you looking for in a test reader / what do I have to do?

Whatever you want. I'm looking for some kind of significant feedback, so I don't want "it was really good," but other than that your approach is up to you. I'm fine with it if you want to go for line edits and in-document comments. Or I'm fine with it if you want to send me e-mails with summed-up reactions and suggestions. Or anything in between.

My preferred method is to send a reader the first three chapters and wait for feedback on those before following up with the rest. This system has the following benefits:

• I'm not sending my entire book to someone who might never give me any feedback.
• Readers get to decide based on three chapters whether the book is for them, and only ask for more if they're enjoying it.
• It's a bite-sized piece that isn't too overwhelming--for the reader or for me in addressing comments. 

You can decide after three chapters if you want to be sent more chapters or the entire book.

How long is it?

It's not as long as the first Bad Fairy. It's about 97,000 words/320 pages.


Can you say more about the book so we can decide if we're interested?

Here's the blurb:

Delia Morningstar, fresh out of fairy school, believes a grand destiny awaits her. But nobody wants to hire a precocious know-it-all with spooky interests and half-human ancestry. When her last efforts to find a home for her passion end in disaster, Delia's off on her own . . . investigating the land of the dead.  Because that's what dark fairies do for fun.

Determined to secretly meddle in the affairs of those who rejected her--for their own good--Delia uses her afterlife connections to help the king and queen of her kingdom conceive the child they've always wanted. But she didn't count on the connection she would have with that princess, and a few sloppy decisions bring the blame for cursing the baby down on Delia's head. Faced with the wrath of her old enemies the three good fairies, Delia may have to undertake extreme measures to stay alive long enough to save the princess from death. . . . 

Appropriately creepy doodle of Delia
drawn for me by Tumblr artist soapybacon

Hope to hear from some of you soon.