Josh Hilden's Blog, page 24
November 19, 2013
He Made Me Call Him Uncle Bad Touch!
I am a writer. Yes I know I have never been shy in saying that but I have only accepted it in the last year. I write in the world of indie fiction but before that I was something of a Role Playing Game (RPG) writer. Yes I know you know that but I am trying to build a framework here. I have also been a fan and wanna be comic book scribe since almost before I can remember.
Lately there have been stories bubbling to the surface of the comic book world of sexism and misogyny. I’m not going to comment on the specifics of the allegations and denial flying in that world, I’m not your butler or your personal Google Bot so go look it up yourself. I will however say that I tend to side with the stories of the women as opposed to the men, I tend to be biased and I want to tell you why.
Life is never simple and even if there was an instruction manual it would be inadequate, written in a forgotten language, and printed backwards. I have stumbled in my journey and I have soared. If you have been reading these essays for any length of time I do not wish to bore you with a rehashing of all of my woes before getting to the point of the writing. That being said let me lead with the following, I promise to be brief and to try and keep the bad language to a fucking minimum.
I have had problems telling people I love them. I have had documented sexual difficulties which have left me feeling weak and scared. I have been abused physically, emotionally, and sexually (Not looking for sympathy I’m a big boy, I just need to set some of the bedrock in place). I have failed at many things in my life. Sometimes I have redoubled my efforts and ultimately succeeded in my endeavor and sometimes I have left the broken pieces of my effort on the ground never to be touched again.
There is only one time I have ever felt like a complete and unmitigated failure.
I am going to keep names, dates, and places general and murky. I chose to forgo my usual candidness and directness because allegations are about to be made which will never be proven and some people are litigious mother fuckers, or at least they like to make bombastic threats. So while I am sure you will be able to decipher this tale and ascertain the reality of my story I will name NO names.
In 2008 I got my dream job. It didn’t last very long and it turned out to be more of a heartbreaking nightmare than a dream. That being said I learned more from the negative reinforcement and bad example than I ever could have learned otherwise. I wish I never had to go through it and I am thankful in a dark and nebulous way that I did go through it.
In June of 2008 my wife and I stopped by the company headquarters to chat with … let’s call him “Boss Man” for brevities sake. It was more than a hundred degrees outside that day and my wife was wearing shorts, sandals, and a tank top. We were in Boss Man’s office when the surreal events took place.
First he started talking about sex. He talked about his sex life. He talked about women he found sexy. Thus all made me a little uncomfortable, sure he and I had these kind of guy conversations all of the time but I didn’t think it was appropriate to be saying this stuff to my wife who he was meeting for the first time.
But I let it go, my wife is a grown ass woman and far from a shrinking violet. She is far from a nun and has been known to curse like a longshoreman and make rednecks blush with frank talk if she had half a mind. I figured if she had a problem she would say something and I didn’t want to embarrass her by drawing Boss Mans attention to what I was sure was just a case of letting his asshole override his mouth.
I was wrong.
At some point in the conversation he drew his seat really close to my wife. If I am going to be honest it was way to fucking close and I am a really big fucking idiot for not realizing what was about to happen. As the son of a bitch droned on about his stupid bullshit he placed his hand on my wife’s bare thigh and gave it a squeeze.
Let me reiterate this for you just in case you missed it the first time.
He placed his hand on her bare thigh and squeezed it right in front of me.
My wife went white, shock. Then she went red, rage. Boss Man probably realized his action was not well received because he quickly moved away and then invited us out to dinner.
I have to give it to my wife. She knew I really wanted to the job and she is stronger than I am when it comes to things like that. She said nothing and we all went to a very tense dinner that tasted like paste in my mouth.
I said nothing.
I did nothing.
I was weak and I was scared.
I failed to speak up for my wife who, instead of making a scene, choose to let the incident pass because she didn’t want to destroy my dream. At that moment I should have been a man and said fuck it. I should have punched him, or at the very least I should have done my best impression of poor George McFly and yelled,
“HEY YOU GET YOU DAMN HANDS OFF HER!”
I did none of that. Instead I tried to forget it. After my dream was shattered and I no longer had the job, I walked away and was not fired, my wife brought it back up. She wasn’t mad at me fro never saying anything. She wasn’t mad I didn’t stop him either. No it was much worse than that.
Her feelings were hurt.
Never have I been so ashamed of something I did, or in this case failed to do. I have no excuse for why I didn’t act or at least speak up. I have no justification for it either. My only hope is that I have helped raise three sons of better moral stock than what I am made of and three daughters who are as strong as their mother.
But if I had it to do over again … well it would be different, at least in my dreams.
- Josh
Lately there have been stories bubbling to the surface of the comic book world of sexism and misogyny. I’m not going to comment on the specifics of the allegations and denial flying in that world, I’m not your butler or your personal Google Bot so go look it up yourself. I will however say that I tend to side with the stories of the women as opposed to the men, I tend to be biased and I want to tell you why.
Life is never simple and even if there was an instruction manual it would be inadequate, written in a forgotten language, and printed backwards. I have stumbled in my journey and I have soared. If you have been reading these essays for any length of time I do not wish to bore you with a rehashing of all of my woes before getting to the point of the writing. That being said let me lead with the following, I promise to be brief and to try and keep the bad language to a fucking minimum.
I have had problems telling people I love them. I have had documented sexual difficulties which have left me feeling weak and scared. I have been abused physically, emotionally, and sexually (Not looking for sympathy I’m a big boy, I just need to set some of the bedrock in place). I have failed at many things in my life. Sometimes I have redoubled my efforts and ultimately succeeded in my endeavor and sometimes I have left the broken pieces of my effort on the ground never to be touched again.
There is only one time I have ever felt like a complete and unmitigated failure.
I am going to keep names, dates, and places general and murky. I chose to forgo my usual candidness and directness because allegations are about to be made which will never be proven and some people are litigious mother fuckers, or at least they like to make bombastic threats. So while I am sure you will be able to decipher this tale and ascertain the reality of my story I will name NO names.
In 2008 I got my dream job. It didn’t last very long and it turned out to be more of a heartbreaking nightmare than a dream. That being said I learned more from the negative reinforcement and bad example than I ever could have learned otherwise. I wish I never had to go through it and I am thankful in a dark and nebulous way that I did go through it.
In June of 2008 my wife and I stopped by the company headquarters to chat with … let’s call him “Boss Man” for brevities sake. It was more than a hundred degrees outside that day and my wife was wearing shorts, sandals, and a tank top. We were in Boss Man’s office when the surreal events took place.
First he started talking about sex. He talked about his sex life. He talked about women he found sexy. Thus all made me a little uncomfortable, sure he and I had these kind of guy conversations all of the time but I didn’t think it was appropriate to be saying this stuff to my wife who he was meeting for the first time.
But I let it go, my wife is a grown ass woman and far from a shrinking violet. She is far from a nun and has been known to curse like a longshoreman and make rednecks blush with frank talk if she had half a mind. I figured if she had a problem she would say something and I didn’t want to embarrass her by drawing Boss Mans attention to what I was sure was just a case of letting his asshole override his mouth.
I was wrong.
At some point in the conversation he drew his seat really close to my wife. If I am going to be honest it was way to fucking close and I am a really big fucking idiot for not realizing what was about to happen. As the son of a bitch droned on about his stupid bullshit he placed his hand on my wife’s bare thigh and gave it a squeeze.
Let me reiterate this for you just in case you missed it the first time.
He placed his hand on her bare thigh and squeezed it right in front of me.
My wife went white, shock. Then she went red, rage. Boss Man probably realized his action was not well received because he quickly moved away and then invited us out to dinner.
I have to give it to my wife. She knew I really wanted to the job and she is stronger than I am when it comes to things like that. She said nothing and we all went to a very tense dinner that tasted like paste in my mouth.
I said nothing.
I did nothing.
I was weak and I was scared.
I failed to speak up for my wife who, instead of making a scene, choose to let the incident pass because she didn’t want to destroy my dream. At that moment I should have been a man and said fuck it. I should have punched him, or at the very least I should have done my best impression of poor George McFly and yelled,
“HEY YOU GET YOU DAMN HANDS OFF HER!”
I did none of that. Instead I tried to forget it. After my dream was shattered and I no longer had the job, I walked away and was not fired, my wife brought it back up. She wasn’t mad at me fro never saying anything. She wasn’t mad I didn’t stop him either. No it was much worse than that.
Her feelings were hurt.
Never have I been so ashamed of something I did, or in this case failed to do. I have no excuse for why I didn’t act or at least speak up. I have no justification for it either. My only hope is that I have helped raise three sons of better moral stock than what I am made of and three daughters who are as strong as their mother.
But if I had it to do over again … well it would be different, at least in my dreams.
- Josh
November 1, 2013
Second Half My of Life
My anniversary is coming up. Not my wedding anniversary, which is September 18. Not the anniversary of losing my virginity, which was October 31. And it is not even the anniversary of my first kiss. That was when I was 5 and although I don’t know the actual date it was near the end of the school year so I am going to say it was in May.
No kids this one beats them all.
On December 9th it will be 18 years since my wife of 17 years agreed to be my girlfriend. I know many of you are fighting back nausea after reading those words but please bear with me. There is a point to all of this and I will be getting there … but in my own way.
There have three massive bumps in my relationship. The first and third ones I have talked about extensively in my book “A Cautious Descent: The Collected Essays” and lead to a massive change in my life. It was a change which was maybe the most massive of my entire adult life. The middle bump has been somewhat neglected.
The middle bump occurred following the collapse of my career with Palladium Books. This has also been talked to death and will not be rehashed here. It was at one of the lowest points of my life. The only worse points were in summer of 2005 when I tried to end my life because of our complete financial collapse. This was followed in intensity by the meltdown in 2011 which lead to the abandoning of our house. As I have said these were discussed in my earlier book. In retrospect those two bumps were really the beginning and the end of the same wave which finally broke leaving debris and carnage in its wake.
In the end we are a thousand times better off for riding that wave.
But what about the second one?
This “Bump” occurred around the same time as the 12th anniversary of Karen and me becoming a couple, December 2008. I was in the throes of a massive depression, part of it was the blowout from Palladium and the remainder was the remnant of the disaster is 2005. At this time I was unmedicated, and would remain so until spring of 2012.
Karen put up with my shit for a month. From about Thanksgiving 2008 until Christmas Day 2008 she allowed me to wallow, she was supportive, she gave me my space. In retrospect that was a lost cause.
In our car, parked in front of my grandmother’s house, while I our kids were inside eating, Karen and I had the biggest fight of our entire relationship. There was yelling, there was tears, and there was blame. But in the end there was a massive amount of hope. We agreed to fix things and we promised to keep the lines of communication open. The next month we decided to have another baby.
I tried, please believe I did. But I was an unmedicated bipolar and in the end I retreated back into my shell and the problems returned. While I am not taking 100% of the blame I am easily responsible for the lion’s share of the problems. In the end my marriage nearly ended, we lost the house, we lost the pets, and I ended up on medication.
While none of the final near collapse was fun it could have been a lot worse. If not for the “Middle Bump” in 2008 to release pressure I think my marriage would have ended before summer of 2009. There would be no Katie and my kids would have a busted family. Thankfully, mostly because of the steel in y wife’s spine, none of that happened.
I was just beginning to use my online blog to journal about my life at that time. Below I have decided to share with you, unedited, the journal entry I posted after Karen and I decided to save our marriage but before we decided to have Katie.
Please forgive the writing style. I was still learning my chops.
Mexican Coca-Cola … or … How I fell in love with Karen all over again
Last week my wife and my mother in law took a trip down to Cincinnati and went shopping at Jungle Jim's, a giant specialty supermarket. When she came home she had a case of Mexican Coca-Cola, soda the way the gods intended it to be … in glass bottles and made with Cane Sugar and not High Fructose Corn Syrup. She did this, not because she liked the soda overly much, but because she loves me.
Karen and I had a rough 2008, I take most of the blame for this. The stresses over the book and the job that never happened lead to me shutting down toward those that I love most in this world in a misguided and foolhardy attempt to shield them from my darkness. We stopped talking and spending any real time together, I felt that I had lost my partner in life.
Things changed on Christmas, we had a long discussion about all aspects of our life together. It could have been the end of my marriage, even thinking those words is enough to make me want to vomit, but it wasn’t. Over the last few weeks Karen and I have been, for lack of a better phrase, dating each other again. I feel like we are sixteen, it has been fun and I have realized something breathtaking …
… I love Karen Marie Hilden more now than on the day I married her.
My life has been a good one, mainly because of the woman standing beside me.
Josh (1-11-2009)
That was the center of the hardest 7 years of my adult life. The period encompassing the years between my nervous breakdown until I finally got my shit together. Through all of those years there was Karen, standing by me and holding me up when I couldn’t do it myself.
18 years after I convinced her to be “My Girl” Karen is still my good right arm, my best friend, and my lover. All the amazing thing that have happened to me in the last year and a half are because Karen was there to encourage me when I needed it and kick me in the ass when I REALLY needed it.
She has been with me half my life at this point. I can’t imagine life without her. I love her more now than I did that day 18 years ago and I can’t imagine my life without her at my side.
I love you Karen.
- Josh (11-1-2013)
No kids this one beats them all.
On December 9th it will be 18 years since my wife of 17 years agreed to be my girlfriend. I know many of you are fighting back nausea after reading those words but please bear with me. There is a point to all of this and I will be getting there … but in my own way.
There have three massive bumps in my relationship. The first and third ones I have talked about extensively in my book “A Cautious Descent: The Collected Essays” and lead to a massive change in my life. It was a change which was maybe the most massive of my entire adult life. The middle bump has been somewhat neglected.
The middle bump occurred following the collapse of my career with Palladium Books. This has also been talked to death and will not be rehashed here. It was at one of the lowest points of my life. The only worse points were in summer of 2005 when I tried to end my life because of our complete financial collapse. This was followed in intensity by the meltdown in 2011 which lead to the abandoning of our house. As I have said these were discussed in my earlier book. In retrospect those two bumps were really the beginning and the end of the same wave which finally broke leaving debris and carnage in its wake.
In the end we are a thousand times better off for riding that wave.
But what about the second one?
This “Bump” occurred around the same time as the 12th anniversary of Karen and me becoming a couple, December 2008. I was in the throes of a massive depression, part of it was the blowout from Palladium and the remainder was the remnant of the disaster is 2005. At this time I was unmedicated, and would remain so until spring of 2012.
Karen put up with my shit for a month. From about Thanksgiving 2008 until Christmas Day 2008 she allowed me to wallow, she was supportive, she gave me my space. In retrospect that was a lost cause.
In our car, parked in front of my grandmother’s house, while I our kids were inside eating, Karen and I had the biggest fight of our entire relationship. There was yelling, there was tears, and there was blame. But in the end there was a massive amount of hope. We agreed to fix things and we promised to keep the lines of communication open. The next month we decided to have another baby.
I tried, please believe I did. But I was an unmedicated bipolar and in the end I retreated back into my shell and the problems returned. While I am not taking 100% of the blame I am easily responsible for the lion’s share of the problems. In the end my marriage nearly ended, we lost the house, we lost the pets, and I ended up on medication.
While none of the final near collapse was fun it could have been a lot worse. If not for the “Middle Bump” in 2008 to release pressure I think my marriage would have ended before summer of 2009. There would be no Katie and my kids would have a busted family. Thankfully, mostly because of the steel in y wife’s spine, none of that happened.
I was just beginning to use my online blog to journal about my life at that time. Below I have decided to share with you, unedited, the journal entry I posted after Karen and I decided to save our marriage but before we decided to have Katie.
Please forgive the writing style. I was still learning my chops.
Mexican Coca-Cola … or … How I fell in love with Karen all over again
Last week my wife and my mother in law took a trip down to Cincinnati and went shopping at Jungle Jim's, a giant specialty supermarket. When she came home she had a case of Mexican Coca-Cola, soda the way the gods intended it to be … in glass bottles and made with Cane Sugar and not High Fructose Corn Syrup. She did this, not because she liked the soda overly much, but because she loves me.
Karen and I had a rough 2008, I take most of the blame for this. The stresses over the book and the job that never happened lead to me shutting down toward those that I love most in this world in a misguided and foolhardy attempt to shield them from my darkness. We stopped talking and spending any real time together, I felt that I had lost my partner in life.
Things changed on Christmas, we had a long discussion about all aspects of our life together. It could have been the end of my marriage, even thinking those words is enough to make me want to vomit, but it wasn’t. Over the last few weeks Karen and I have been, for lack of a better phrase, dating each other again. I feel like we are sixteen, it has been fun and I have realized something breathtaking …
… I love Karen Marie Hilden more now than on the day I married her.
My life has been a good one, mainly because of the woman standing beside me.
Josh (1-11-2009)
That was the center of the hardest 7 years of my adult life. The period encompassing the years between my nervous breakdown until I finally got my shit together. Through all of those years there was Karen, standing by me and holding me up when I couldn’t do it myself.
18 years after I convinced her to be “My Girl” Karen is still my good right arm, my best friend, and my lover. All the amazing thing that have happened to me in the last year and a half are because Karen was there to encourage me when I needed it and kick me in the ass when I REALLY needed it.
She has been with me half my life at this point. I can’t imagine life without her. I love her more now than I did that day 18 years ago and I can’t imagine my life without her at my side.
I love you Karen.
- Josh (11-1-2013)
September 6, 2013
Tales of My Spawn Part 1 – “Pre Step Daddy”
Hi, my name is Josh and I am a father.
I knew I wanted children for as far back as I could remember. People used to think I was weird in High School when I would talk about the kids I would have. I had the name Alexander Thomas picked out as the name of my son when I was 14 years old.
Yes he is named after Alexander the Great and he is fine with that.
I never considered that I would be a stepfather before I became a biological father. If you had asked 18 year old Josh if he wanted to be a step father he would have said fuck no! My step monster was one of the villains of my life and the man I considered my step father for many years dropped us like a hot potato and spent the rest of his life ignoring his biological son, my baby brother. It’s not that I was against the idea of other people’s children. It was just that I was convinced it was impossible for Step Parents to love their step children as much as their own biological children.
I never said I wasn’t a dumbass.
When I met Karen I did not know she was mother to three children. But it did not take long for me to learn all about Joshua, Stephen, and Beth. They were Karen’s entire world and the only reason she had stuck it out for so many years with her husband. I was not put off by the three children but I was not ready for what was about to happen either.
To be fair I doubt anyone could have been.
Karen and I started out as friends actually we started out hating one another. I will be telling his story soon but not today. Eventually we became friends, she was dating this jackass who worked the same shift as we did and I was dating he girl I would become engaged to and then unengaged to in quick succession. We hung out with mutual friends and had a really good time together.
After my engagement was broken I started asking Karen out on a pretty regular basis. She said no every time but like the smitten puppy I was I continued to nip at her heels. Eventually she agreed to go on a “Friend Date” with me. We went and saw the first Toy Story (yes kids I am that old) and had a really good time. After that we started going to out for meals pretty regularly. Roughly two weeks later I began to meet her kids.
It was love at first sight.
The first year of my relationship with Karen was hard, really fucking hard. There were only two things that made it worth it, but to be fair they are still the most important things in my life. I loved Karen with all of my heart, and those children were my world.
That has not changed.
I had to learn a lot of things in a very short period of time in that year. To be fair I had a bit of a leg up on brand new parents. In my early years I was one of the primary caregivers for my middle brother Scotty and for a short period of time I did a lot to help take care of my baby brother Nick. Not bragging about this … but I do relish those memories especially considering how thing have turned out between Scotty and I.
I was scared every day for the first year but I was not without experience to fall back on. Also when I ran into a situation which I had no idea how to even begin handling I had Karen to turn too, she was and still is the best parent I have ever known.
The biggest problem I had was Karen’s estranged husband. The reason they were not yet divorced will be discussed in another entry.
Eugene was a problem. As much as he did not want to be married to Karen and as much as he did not want to be the primary caregiver to the kids he also did not want ANYBODY else raising them. I remember one phone conversation Karen had with him I the middle of the night when he called crying ad sobbing begging her to never let them call another man “Dad”. It was pathetic.
Those children wanted him to be their dad. They loved him and they did not blame him for the disintegration of their family even though he was the one who cheated on their mother. All he had to do was make a small effort and they would have remained devoted to him.
In case you can’t guess that did not happen.
He went long stretches when he did not visit them or contact them. He talked down to them. He spent more time trying to cram his new religion down their throats then he did just enjoying the time he had with them. We always let him stay at our house when he visited, sometimes we even got a hotel room so he could have some alone time. We never denied him a single visit with the kids. And when he didn’t pay a dime n child support for two years because he wouldn’t get a job we never pressed him.
Also, we never once talked bad about him in front of the kids.
Eugene fucked up his relationship with the kids. Karen and I never sabotaged him, if anything we tried to help by explaining to the kids that things are sometimes complicated and that their father did in fact love them. The kids eventually reached their own conclusions about how they felt concerning their father. I know it was hard for them and as I talk about the kids individually I am going to try and touch on why they ALL eventually parted with their father to one degree or another. I feel bad for Eugene and I wish for the kids sake he had done a better job, but for me only one thing matters.
They all call me Dad.
- Josh
I knew I wanted children for as far back as I could remember. People used to think I was weird in High School when I would talk about the kids I would have. I had the name Alexander Thomas picked out as the name of my son when I was 14 years old.
Yes he is named after Alexander the Great and he is fine with that.
I never considered that I would be a stepfather before I became a biological father. If you had asked 18 year old Josh if he wanted to be a step father he would have said fuck no! My step monster was one of the villains of my life and the man I considered my step father for many years dropped us like a hot potato and spent the rest of his life ignoring his biological son, my baby brother. It’s not that I was against the idea of other people’s children. It was just that I was convinced it was impossible for Step Parents to love their step children as much as their own biological children.
I never said I wasn’t a dumbass.
When I met Karen I did not know she was mother to three children. But it did not take long for me to learn all about Joshua, Stephen, and Beth. They were Karen’s entire world and the only reason she had stuck it out for so many years with her husband. I was not put off by the three children but I was not ready for what was about to happen either.
To be fair I doubt anyone could have been.
Karen and I started out as friends actually we started out hating one another. I will be telling his story soon but not today. Eventually we became friends, she was dating this jackass who worked the same shift as we did and I was dating he girl I would become engaged to and then unengaged to in quick succession. We hung out with mutual friends and had a really good time together.
After my engagement was broken I started asking Karen out on a pretty regular basis. She said no every time but like the smitten puppy I was I continued to nip at her heels. Eventually she agreed to go on a “Friend Date” with me. We went and saw the first Toy Story (yes kids I am that old) and had a really good time. After that we started going to out for meals pretty regularly. Roughly two weeks later I began to meet her kids.
It was love at first sight.
The first year of my relationship with Karen was hard, really fucking hard. There were only two things that made it worth it, but to be fair they are still the most important things in my life. I loved Karen with all of my heart, and those children were my world.
That has not changed.
I had to learn a lot of things in a very short period of time in that year. To be fair I had a bit of a leg up on brand new parents. In my early years I was one of the primary caregivers for my middle brother Scotty and for a short period of time I did a lot to help take care of my baby brother Nick. Not bragging about this … but I do relish those memories especially considering how thing have turned out between Scotty and I.
I was scared every day for the first year but I was not without experience to fall back on. Also when I ran into a situation which I had no idea how to even begin handling I had Karen to turn too, she was and still is the best parent I have ever known.
The biggest problem I had was Karen’s estranged husband. The reason they were not yet divorced will be discussed in another entry.
Eugene was a problem. As much as he did not want to be married to Karen and as much as he did not want to be the primary caregiver to the kids he also did not want ANYBODY else raising them. I remember one phone conversation Karen had with him I the middle of the night when he called crying ad sobbing begging her to never let them call another man “Dad”. It was pathetic.
Those children wanted him to be their dad. They loved him and they did not blame him for the disintegration of their family even though he was the one who cheated on their mother. All he had to do was make a small effort and they would have remained devoted to him.
In case you can’t guess that did not happen.
He went long stretches when he did not visit them or contact them. He talked down to them. He spent more time trying to cram his new religion down their throats then he did just enjoying the time he had with them. We always let him stay at our house when he visited, sometimes we even got a hotel room so he could have some alone time. We never denied him a single visit with the kids. And when he didn’t pay a dime n child support for two years because he wouldn’t get a job we never pressed him.
Also, we never once talked bad about him in front of the kids.
Eugene fucked up his relationship with the kids. Karen and I never sabotaged him, if anything we tried to help by explaining to the kids that things are sometimes complicated and that their father did in fact love them. The kids eventually reached their own conclusions about how they felt concerning their father. I know it was hard for them and as I talk about the kids individually I am going to try and touch on why they ALL eventually parted with their father to one degree or another. I feel bad for Eugene and I wish for the kids sake he had done a better job, but for me only one thing matters.
They all call me Dad.
- Josh
September 1, 2013
Grow Up
I thought I was done talking about the writing business and the assholes that seem to permeate it but apparently I was wrong. If you had asked what my next gripe would be focused on I would have told you either editors who think they know everything or Amazon and their screwed up dashboard and royalty system. I am more shocked than any of you to find that I am not upset with either of these things.
Sometimes writers are complete assholes.
Pick your damn jaw up off the floor and let me explain.
A friend of mine (who shall remain unnamed) made a post on Social Media about some blowback she received. Apparently a blog sent her a copy of a book to perform an unbiased and objective review on. She happily read and reviewed the book. I have read the review and it is fair, she did not care for what she read but she did not denigrate the work and she even encouraged people to read it and form their own opinions.
The author was not pleased.
She received an email from the author who wanted information as to who gave her the review copy. The author also questioned her review and her qualifications to review another person’s work.
If you have been reading my essays for any length of time you know have little love for reviewers and critics. That being said I have respect for the ones who do the job fairly and take the task seriously. But a review/critique is just ONE PERSONS OPINION, it is not the word of god and it is not by definition “Right”.
Sorry, this is not about reviewers.
Writers need to grow up. You might think I am speaking about new writers but the reality is there are very few writers I am aware of who could not do with a bit of armor. And this first and foremost goes for me. I take everything personally, even if I know the reviewer or critic is just being an asshole there is still a part of me that cringes and wonders what I can do to make the unhappy person happy again. Or I am filled with white hot rage and desire nothing more than a trip to cyberspace where I burn down their digital crops and salt their electronic soil!
Then I smack myself upside the head and move on.
Writers are vain, writers are fragile, writers are sensitive, writers are thin skinned, and writers need validation. To make it short and sweet, writers are needy little bitches who will always forget the one hundred positive things said about their work and run to their pillows crying over the one mean thing.
Josh included.
I allowed myself to quit writing for months because one asshole had some horrible shit to say about my work. To be fair he is and was a mediocre writer in his own right but it still made me feel lower than low. I am still ashamed to admit I allowed one person that far into my head, but these essays are about the truth I will never try to paint myself in a favorable light because the truth is embarrassing. To name it is to claim and I was whinny bitch who didn’t just man up and move on.
We as writers need to be the bigger man or woman, or at the very least we need stop being idiots. When you make a stink because somebody who you don’t know, and will probably never meet, was mean to you all you are doing is showing the world your ass. I know, I've done it and I still feel like an idiot about it.
Don’t directly engage the negative reviewers and critics. When you see a negative review on a blog, Amazon, or Goodreads take it in stride and do not respond. If you can’t fight the urge to do that one thing then at least keep it in private. For the love of whatever gods you may or may not believe in keep your tantrums off the internet. Nobody needs to see that mess and in the end all it will do is make you look bad. Remember it’s not the reviewer or the critic who is trying to sell their work it’s you.
Look what I am trying to say in this rambling bit of nonsense is BE PROFESSIONAL! I am not saying you can’t speak up for yourself and I am not saying that you as the writer should roll over and allow the words of the reviewer to sodomize you. What I am saying is be smart about it, use you words to fight back. You are a fucking writer aren’t you? Then write, keep writing and ignore what the worst of the reviewers and critics say.
But do not ignore them all.
For every five asshats writing reviews and critiques there is that one jewel. These people are to be treasured, nurtured, and used. These are the mostly fair and balanced reviewers who attempt to look at things objectively. When you locate one of these wonderful people pay attention to what they have to say. I am in no way saying change what you do to please them but consider that they may have some fair points and that you may wish to try some modifications. But don’t make changes you feel are wrong, they may be the best reviewers ever but they didn’t write or edit your work.
You are a writer. You are an artist or sorts. But if you want people to read what you have to say then you need to draw them in and not push them away and the fastest way to push someone away is by being a brat. Don’t act like a child act like an adult, we have no bed times and we can eat all the ice cream that we want.
- Josh
Sometimes writers are complete assholes.
Pick your damn jaw up off the floor and let me explain.
A friend of mine (who shall remain unnamed) made a post on Social Media about some blowback she received. Apparently a blog sent her a copy of a book to perform an unbiased and objective review on. She happily read and reviewed the book. I have read the review and it is fair, she did not care for what she read but she did not denigrate the work and she even encouraged people to read it and form their own opinions.
The author was not pleased.
She received an email from the author who wanted information as to who gave her the review copy. The author also questioned her review and her qualifications to review another person’s work.
If you have been reading my essays for any length of time you know have little love for reviewers and critics. That being said I have respect for the ones who do the job fairly and take the task seriously. But a review/critique is just ONE PERSONS OPINION, it is not the word of god and it is not by definition “Right”.
Sorry, this is not about reviewers.
Writers need to grow up. You might think I am speaking about new writers but the reality is there are very few writers I am aware of who could not do with a bit of armor. And this first and foremost goes for me. I take everything personally, even if I know the reviewer or critic is just being an asshole there is still a part of me that cringes and wonders what I can do to make the unhappy person happy again. Or I am filled with white hot rage and desire nothing more than a trip to cyberspace where I burn down their digital crops and salt their electronic soil!
Then I smack myself upside the head and move on.
Writers are vain, writers are fragile, writers are sensitive, writers are thin skinned, and writers need validation. To make it short and sweet, writers are needy little bitches who will always forget the one hundred positive things said about their work and run to their pillows crying over the one mean thing.
Josh included.
I allowed myself to quit writing for months because one asshole had some horrible shit to say about my work. To be fair he is and was a mediocre writer in his own right but it still made me feel lower than low. I am still ashamed to admit I allowed one person that far into my head, but these essays are about the truth I will never try to paint myself in a favorable light because the truth is embarrassing. To name it is to claim and I was whinny bitch who didn’t just man up and move on.
We as writers need to be the bigger man or woman, or at the very least we need stop being idiots. When you make a stink because somebody who you don’t know, and will probably never meet, was mean to you all you are doing is showing the world your ass. I know, I've done it and I still feel like an idiot about it.
Don’t directly engage the negative reviewers and critics. When you see a negative review on a blog, Amazon, or Goodreads take it in stride and do not respond. If you can’t fight the urge to do that one thing then at least keep it in private. For the love of whatever gods you may or may not believe in keep your tantrums off the internet. Nobody needs to see that mess and in the end all it will do is make you look bad. Remember it’s not the reviewer or the critic who is trying to sell their work it’s you.
Look what I am trying to say in this rambling bit of nonsense is BE PROFESSIONAL! I am not saying you can’t speak up for yourself and I am not saying that you as the writer should roll over and allow the words of the reviewer to sodomize you. What I am saying is be smart about it, use you words to fight back. You are a fucking writer aren’t you? Then write, keep writing and ignore what the worst of the reviewers and critics say.
But do not ignore them all.
For every five asshats writing reviews and critiques there is that one jewel. These people are to be treasured, nurtured, and used. These are the mostly fair and balanced reviewers who attempt to look at things objectively. When you locate one of these wonderful people pay attention to what they have to say. I am in no way saying change what you do to please them but consider that they may have some fair points and that you may wish to try some modifications. But don’t make changes you feel are wrong, they may be the best reviewers ever but they didn’t write or edit your work.
You are a writer. You are an artist or sorts. But if you want people to read what you have to say then you need to draw them in and not push them away and the fastest way to push someone away is by being a brat. Don’t act like a child act like an adult, we have no bed times and we can eat all the ice cream that we want.
- Josh
August 28, 2013
I looked for God and Found Faith Instead
Hi, my name is Josh and I am an Atheist and that’s okay.
I need to preface this with a disclaimer. I in no way hate or look down on people who have a true and honest religious faith. By this I mean people who have no desire to use faith and religion to hate, abuse, exclude, or harm other people in the name of their GOD. People who use religion to justify fucking over other people can go to hell (irony intended). Thankfully I have actually met very few people in my life that fit this repugnant classification. I know many people who use their faith and religion for positive and progressive reasons. I respect people who gather honest and pure joy from their faith and use it to make the world a better place.
I also need to add that I have just as much disdain for Atheists and Agnostics who treat people of faith like idiot children. Nobody can KNOW if there is a god, or an afterlife, or a magical world just beyond our ability to perceive. I will be the first to admit that I do not know, I just know that I do not believe in a singular being that looks down on all of us and controls the universe. I believe there may be life forms or entities more highly evolved than we are, in fact I think in the vastness of the multiverse that this is a given. But they are not god, they are not gods, and they are not in control of my life. I do not know what comes after death but I do believe that it is likely that the human consciousness transcends the physical world in some way. I don’t think we ascend to heaven of we are good and descend to hell if we are bad.
But the minorities of believers and non believers happen to be the most vocal. And they happen to be the most offensive.
When I was little I loved Jesus. I loved the church. I was a vessel filled with faith and the light of the lord. My great grandmother was the one who took me to church and she was the one who told me the stories. One of my most treasured memories from childhood was sitting on my Grandma Kathy’s lap while she read to me from an ancient cream colored leather bound bible. I have never seen one like it since I was a kid. The book was filled with beautifully painted illustrations and more importantly maps of the biblical world. It was those maps that gave me my love of geography and it was the stories my grandmother told me which infused me with a love for history that has permeated my life ever since.
I was a child of the lord. I would spend my Sundays in church classes doing crafts and learning morals and values. I sang the songs and I acted in the plays. I would spend my summers LOVING Vacation Bible School and being filled with love and the light of the Lord.
My family, my mom’s family not my fathers, is very Baptist. My father’s family is tangentially Catholic but my Dad and my Paternal Grandmother left their faith long before I was born. I was baptized Lutheran as a compromise between my Great Grandmothers. Ironically I have worked for a Lutheran institution for the last four years, I don’t tell them I was baptized in their faith in the years before my memory coalesced. I was raised in the Baptist church for about 9 years. I am not going to lie, those were good years and I loved my time in the church.
When I was approximately 9 my family splintered from our church.
I will name no names in this tale.
Nearly my entire family attended the same church. It was the same church My Great Grandmother had attended for decades. One summer, I think it was summer but I could be wrong. I am nearly 40 cut me a fucking break. One summer my cousin got pregnant at the age of 14. If this happened now it would not be much of a big deal but in the mid 1980’s it was a major scandal in the family and in the church.
I wasn’t there when it happened but I have heard the tale from several family members over the years. During the service the Pastor called my cousin up to the front of the church. I can only think that my family assumed that the Pastor was going to offer the support and love of the congregation, after all isn’t that what Jesus would do?
That is not what happened.
My cousin and my family were humiliated. The Pastor made her stand in front of all of those judgmental motherfuckers and our family and apologize for being a whore. That may not have been the exact wording but that is what it amounted to. In the parlance of today the Pastor of our church Slut Shamed my terrified cousin in front of everyone.
Evil mother fucker.
I did not lose my faith because of that. I was too young at the time to understand what had happened. All I knew was that my Great Grandmother, one of the kindest and gentlest people I have ever known, left her church and never went back. It didn’t sunder my faith then and there but it was the incident that lodged seeds of doubt in my mind and heart.
As I got older I grew farther from the church. I could not reconcile what I had been taught as a child to what I learned as I grew. I am a man who is fundamentally curious and when I was in high school I read and watched everything on religion I could get my hands on. Remember kids there was really no internet in those day. The more I learned the more questions I had, the more questioned I answered the more doubts I developed.
I can’t tell you when the break finally happened but I know it was after the birth of my first child (bio child) and before the birth of my second child. There was no EVENT and there was no MOMENT I just knew one day that I what I believed in was the strength of the human heart and the power of the human mind, not the powers of some man in the sky. Later as I accepted my sexuality, my feelings on the rights of women, and my acceptance that organized religion has done a lot of damage to match the admitted good religious INDIVIDUALS have accomplished I knew I could never believe a god again.
These are a few of the things I have come to believe as a man.
• I believe in the goodness of the human heart
• I believe in the cleverness and power of the human mind
• I believe there is an answer to every question
• I believe there is a solution to every problem
• I believe the capacity for evil in the human heart is as real as the capacity for good
• I believe in the laughter of children
• I believe in the loyalty of dogs
• I believe in the honesty of cats
• I believe in the vileness of clowns
• I believe Science
• I believe in art
• I believe in hard work
• I believe I could possibly be wrong and that the Westboro fuckers will all be laughing while we burn in a lake of fire … unlikely but anything is possible
I am not a militant atheist. I don’t think that the world would be better without faith. But I do not need or want organized religion of any kind dictating my life or the lives of anyone else, believers and nonbelievers alike. Men and women decided what is right and what is wrong. We decide how to live our lives and not some man in the sky.
And if I am wrong and there is an all knowing God?
I doubt he or she would approve the public Slut Shaming of a scared 14 year old girl.
I need to preface this with a disclaimer. I in no way hate or look down on people who have a true and honest religious faith. By this I mean people who have no desire to use faith and religion to hate, abuse, exclude, or harm other people in the name of their GOD. People who use religion to justify fucking over other people can go to hell (irony intended). Thankfully I have actually met very few people in my life that fit this repugnant classification. I know many people who use their faith and religion for positive and progressive reasons. I respect people who gather honest and pure joy from their faith and use it to make the world a better place.
I also need to add that I have just as much disdain for Atheists and Agnostics who treat people of faith like idiot children. Nobody can KNOW if there is a god, or an afterlife, or a magical world just beyond our ability to perceive. I will be the first to admit that I do not know, I just know that I do not believe in a singular being that looks down on all of us and controls the universe. I believe there may be life forms or entities more highly evolved than we are, in fact I think in the vastness of the multiverse that this is a given. But they are not god, they are not gods, and they are not in control of my life. I do not know what comes after death but I do believe that it is likely that the human consciousness transcends the physical world in some way. I don’t think we ascend to heaven of we are good and descend to hell if we are bad.
But the minorities of believers and non believers happen to be the most vocal. And they happen to be the most offensive.
When I was little I loved Jesus. I loved the church. I was a vessel filled with faith and the light of the lord. My great grandmother was the one who took me to church and she was the one who told me the stories. One of my most treasured memories from childhood was sitting on my Grandma Kathy’s lap while she read to me from an ancient cream colored leather bound bible. I have never seen one like it since I was a kid. The book was filled with beautifully painted illustrations and more importantly maps of the biblical world. It was those maps that gave me my love of geography and it was the stories my grandmother told me which infused me with a love for history that has permeated my life ever since.
I was a child of the lord. I would spend my Sundays in church classes doing crafts and learning morals and values. I sang the songs and I acted in the plays. I would spend my summers LOVING Vacation Bible School and being filled with love and the light of the Lord.
My family, my mom’s family not my fathers, is very Baptist. My father’s family is tangentially Catholic but my Dad and my Paternal Grandmother left their faith long before I was born. I was baptized Lutheran as a compromise between my Great Grandmothers. Ironically I have worked for a Lutheran institution for the last four years, I don’t tell them I was baptized in their faith in the years before my memory coalesced. I was raised in the Baptist church for about 9 years. I am not going to lie, those were good years and I loved my time in the church.
When I was approximately 9 my family splintered from our church.
I will name no names in this tale.
Nearly my entire family attended the same church. It was the same church My Great Grandmother had attended for decades. One summer, I think it was summer but I could be wrong. I am nearly 40 cut me a fucking break. One summer my cousin got pregnant at the age of 14. If this happened now it would not be much of a big deal but in the mid 1980’s it was a major scandal in the family and in the church.
I wasn’t there when it happened but I have heard the tale from several family members over the years. During the service the Pastor called my cousin up to the front of the church. I can only think that my family assumed that the Pastor was going to offer the support and love of the congregation, after all isn’t that what Jesus would do?
That is not what happened.
My cousin and my family were humiliated. The Pastor made her stand in front of all of those judgmental motherfuckers and our family and apologize for being a whore. That may not have been the exact wording but that is what it amounted to. In the parlance of today the Pastor of our church Slut Shamed my terrified cousin in front of everyone.
Evil mother fucker.
I did not lose my faith because of that. I was too young at the time to understand what had happened. All I knew was that my Great Grandmother, one of the kindest and gentlest people I have ever known, left her church and never went back. It didn’t sunder my faith then and there but it was the incident that lodged seeds of doubt in my mind and heart.
As I got older I grew farther from the church. I could not reconcile what I had been taught as a child to what I learned as I grew. I am a man who is fundamentally curious and when I was in high school I read and watched everything on religion I could get my hands on. Remember kids there was really no internet in those day. The more I learned the more questions I had, the more questioned I answered the more doubts I developed.
I can’t tell you when the break finally happened but I know it was after the birth of my first child (bio child) and before the birth of my second child. There was no EVENT and there was no MOMENT I just knew one day that I what I believed in was the strength of the human heart and the power of the human mind, not the powers of some man in the sky. Later as I accepted my sexuality, my feelings on the rights of women, and my acceptance that organized religion has done a lot of damage to match the admitted good religious INDIVIDUALS have accomplished I knew I could never believe a god again.
These are a few of the things I have come to believe as a man.
• I believe in the goodness of the human heart
• I believe in the cleverness and power of the human mind
• I believe there is an answer to every question
• I believe there is a solution to every problem
• I believe the capacity for evil in the human heart is as real as the capacity for good
• I believe in the laughter of children
• I believe in the loyalty of dogs
• I believe in the honesty of cats
• I believe in the vileness of clowns
• I believe Science
• I believe in art
• I believe in hard work
• I believe I could possibly be wrong and that the Westboro fuckers will all be laughing while we burn in a lake of fire … unlikely but anything is possible
I am not a militant atheist. I don’t think that the world would be better without faith. But I do not need or want organized religion of any kind dictating my life or the lives of anyone else, believers and nonbelievers alike. Men and women decided what is right and what is wrong. We decide how to live our lives and not some man in the sky.
And if I am wrong and there is an all knowing God?
I doubt he or she would approve the public Slut Shaming of a scared 14 year old girl.
August 23, 2013
I am Still a Writer Part 3: “Selfie Revolution & Indie War!”
My first essay about the treatment of the Indie/Selfie author was short and written in a white hot rage. I am still angry and even though the rage is no longer at a flash point level it is a deeper and more intense feeling. Time has not calmed me down boys and girls it has served to stoke the flames transforming me from a nuclear weapon to an industrial blast furnace. There will be some overlap in this essay with the first one and I make no real apologies for that. If you have been with me for any real length of time you will know that I am sloppy but entertaining writer.
For the first time in many years I am preparing for war.
Does that sound overly dramatic?
It probably is but writing has become the second most important thing in my life (my family will always be number one). I have become extremely serious about my craft in the last year and the things I have been seeing recently have left me open mouthed and angry.
I recently read a blog from a so called “Book Critic” that got my knickers in the proverbial twist. This person, who does not reveal their real name, seems to enjoy being a complete asshole. I will not name said blog or said reviewer, neither will I provide a single link to the piece of shit he wrote. I refuse to drive traffic in any way shape or form to a person or site I can’t stand. What I will do is give you one of bullshit bullet lists of the “Points” he made.
• Selfie writers suck
• Traditional writers will always be superior to Selfie writers (the jackass actually said this, not implied it actually fucking said it)
• Anyone who doesn’t do things the traditional way is just playing a game and should never call themselves a writer
• If a Selfie writer was any good they would be traditionally published, hence they are not any good
• Anyone who reads and enjoys the work of a Selfie writer is a moron
• The quality of self published work is not worth looking at
• The self published world is a cesspool (actually I have heard/seen that word used a lot in connection with the Selfie World)
• If a Selfie cannot afford to pay to have multiple editors and top notch cover artists you have business publishing
• If you want to be a writer you need to accept that the traditional publishers are going to bend you over and make you take it up the ass (bonus points if you get that reference) and that by accepting it you are paying your dues and earning your place and the adults table
• Selfie Writers still suck
I actually want to address the “Playing” and “Adult Table” parts more than anything else. It leaves me confused, hurt, and enraged that many (not all) reviewers, bloggers, and traditional authors SEEM to be of the opinion that this is all a game to us. They act as if what they are doing is important art. In their minds they are the lords of creation who craft on scraped calf skin with liquid gold. Conversely we Selfies are the children with their magic markers and freezer paper.
It’s sickening.
It’s elitism.
It is pissing me the fuck off!
I work hard and the vast majority of the Selfie writers I know work even harder. We are a hard scrabble lot who for some fucked up reason dream of making a big enough name for ourselves that we attract the attention of the traditional publishing world so we can join them at the big kids table. We want the respect we think comes from having one of the big six or the 2 dozenish mid level publishers acknowledge our existence.
Fuck’em, I am not playing this game anymore. I have nothing but respect for those of you who still cherish that dream and I wish you nothing but the best. But I do not want it and I don’t fucking need it. If one day a publisher drives a dump truck full of cash to my door and also leaves me with editorial control I may consider a traditional deal. But I want you to remember these words in the years to come.
I WILL ONLY DO THIS ON MY OWN FUCKING TERMS!
There is no reason you should ever take the bullshit that so many editors like to shovel on new authors. It seems that many editors think it is their duty to break a new author and remold them into what they consider a “Good Writer”. My first real editor actually told me that it didn’t matter if I suck he was going to make me into a writer.
Bullshit, I am a writer asshole.
Let me make one thing clear. Good editors do the work of saints. A good editor works with the writer to polish and shape the tale into something awesome. Bad editors tend to take a hammer and egg approach, meaning they just smash the tale up and slap it into a frying pan. But a good editor is worth his or her weight in gold pressed Latium.
The one major advantage Traditional Publishers have over all of Selfie and Indie Publishers is relatively deep pockets. They can afford to hire multiple editors and premium cover artists regardless of quality. They can afford to market and promote work that is mediocre at best.
We cannot.
Digital publishing and the refinement of the Print on Demand (POD) process has given us a less biased playing field but we are still fighting an uphill battle. I can afford to hire editors on a case by case basis, and only ONE editor per book. I have been sinking serious money into cover art but it’s still not on the same level as your mid rung traditional publishers.
But so fucking what?
Critics, bloggers, reviewers, and traditional writers seem to think that Selfie/Indie writers should be putting out work with the same level of polish as traditional publishers. To them it does not matter if the quality of the tale is superior or even commiserate to anything coming out of the big 6’s presses. All they care about is the level of shine and the people attached.
What about Indie Cinema?
What about Indie Music?
What about Indie Comics?
Why are the attributes of Indie Music, Movies, and Comics lauded and the Indie Writer is consistently shit on in comparison?
I’m not sure if there is an answer to these questions. The world of publishing and writing is changing faster than ever before. As the number of books sold by traditional publishers drop the numbers sold by the Indie Writers rise. The game has been changed and the traditional world is scared. There fear has trickled out and caused backlash against those of us who refuse to do things within the established framework.
We are Indie.
We are Writers.
We are the Future.
For the first time in many years I am preparing for war.
Does that sound overly dramatic?
It probably is but writing has become the second most important thing in my life (my family will always be number one). I have become extremely serious about my craft in the last year and the things I have been seeing recently have left me open mouthed and angry.
I recently read a blog from a so called “Book Critic” that got my knickers in the proverbial twist. This person, who does not reveal their real name, seems to enjoy being a complete asshole. I will not name said blog or said reviewer, neither will I provide a single link to the piece of shit he wrote. I refuse to drive traffic in any way shape or form to a person or site I can’t stand. What I will do is give you one of bullshit bullet lists of the “Points” he made.
• Selfie writers suck
• Traditional writers will always be superior to Selfie writers (the jackass actually said this, not implied it actually fucking said it)
• Anyone who doesn’t do things the traditional way is just playing a game and should never call themselves a writer
• If a Selfie writer was any good they would be traditionally published, hence they are not any good
• Anyone who reads and enjoys the work of a Selfie writer is a moron
• The quality of self published work is not worth looking at
• The self published world is a cesspool (actually I have heard/seen that word used a lot in connection with the Selfie World)
• If a Selfie cannot afford to pay to have multiple editors and top notch cover artists you have business publishing
• If you want to be a writer you need to accept that the traditional publishers are going to bend you over and make you take it up the ass (bonus points if you get that reference) and that by accepting it you are paying your dues and earning your place and the adults table
• Selfie Writers still suck
I actually want to address the “Playing” and “Adult Table” parts more than anything else. It leaves me confused, hurt, and enraged that many (not all) reviewers, bloggers, and traditional authors SEEM to be of the opinion that this is all a game to us. They act as if what they are doing is important art. In their minds they are the lords of creation who craft on scraped calf skin with liquid gold. Conversely we Selfies are the children with their magic markers and freezer paper.
It’s sickening.
It’s elitism.
It is pissing me the fuck off!
I work hard and the vast majority of the Selfie writers I know work even harder. We are a hard scrabble lot who for some fucked up reason dream of making a big enough name for ourselves that we attract the attention of the traditional publishing world so we can join them at the big kids table. We want the respect we think comes from having one of the big six or the 2 dozenish mid level publishers acknowledge our existence.
Fuck’em, I am not playing this game anymore. I have nothing but respect for those of you who still cherish that dream and I wish you nothing but the best. But I do not want it and I don’t fucking need it. If one day a publisher drives a dump truck full of cash to my door and also leaves me with editorial control I may consider a traditional deal. But I want you to remember these words in the years to come.
I WILL ONLY DO THIS ON MY OWN FUCKING TERMS!
There is no reason you should ever take the bullshit that so many editors like to shovel on new authors. It seems that many editors think it is their duty to break a new author and remold them into what they consider a “Good Writer”. My first real editor actually told me that it didn’t matter if I suck he was going to make me into a writer.
Bullshit, I am a writer asshole.
Let me make one thing clear. Good editors do the work of saints. A good editor works with the writer to polish and shape the tale into something awesome. Bad editors tend to take a hammer and egg approach, meaning they just smash the tale up and slap it into a frying pan. But a good editor is worth his or her weight in gold pressed Latium.
The one major advantage Traditional Publishers have over all of Selfie and Indie Publishers is relatively deep pockets. They can afford to hire multiple editors and premium cover artists regardless of quality. They can afford to market and promote work that is mediocre at best.
We cannot.
Digital publishing and the refinement of the Print on Demand (POD) process has given us a less biased playing field but we are still fighting an uphill battle. I can afford to hire editors on a case by case basis, and only ONE editor per book. I have been sinking serious money into cover art but it’s still not on the same level as your mid rung traditional publishers.
But so fucking what?
Critics, bloggers, reviewers, and traditional writers seem to think that Selfie/Indie writers should be putting out work with the same level of polish as traditional publishers. To them it does not matter if the quality of the tale is superior or even commiserate to anything coming out of the big 6’s presses. All they care about is the level of shine and the people attached.
What about Indie Cinema?
What about Indie Music?
What about Indie Comics?
Why are the attributes of Indie Music, Movies, and Comics lauded and the Indie Writer is consistently shit on in comparison?
I’m not sure if there is an answer to these questions. The world of publishing and writing is changing faster than ever before. As the number of books sold by traditional publishers drop the numbers sold by the Indie Writers rise. The game has been changed and the traditional world is scared. There fear has trickled out and caused backlash against those of us who refuse to do things within the established framework.
We are Indie.
We are Writers.
We are the Future.
August 13, 2013
The Little Napoleons
Be forewarned friends, this is going to be nothing but a complete bitch session.
I have been extremely pissed off for the last three months and it has nothing to do with my personal life. I have been angered to Banner Like proportions because my wife is being fucked over by a company she has given more than 18 years of her life to. I can’t name the company because she is still employed there and the last thing I ever want to do is make her life more difficult than I already have.
If you have been reading my “A Cautious Descent” series of essays then you know I ave made her life hell on more than one occasion. Still not sure way she loves me.
She has been in management at this unnamed fuckwad company for 15 years and she has done everything they have asked of her. No matter how stupid or mundane she has excelled at the tasks given to her and done it with a smile. Early in the spring she was offered a promotion at a different store on the company but her boss at her store convinced her to stay in her current position promising her that she would get a better position there by fall. Reluctantly she turned down the new position at the other store and stuck it out in a job she liked but didn’t pay as much on the promises of a woman she had thought was her friend for more than a decade.
Then she got fucked over.
In June it was announced that her position was being eliminated along with fifty other positions in the district. The company promised none of the managers in the eliminated positions would be let go or stepped down. I will give them credit, every manager who decided they wanted to stay were given lateral positions.
Karen was moved to a new position in the first week of August.
The position they put her in was one they had eliminated ten years ago. Karen is the only manager in the district who’d had the position and was still with the company. So while she kept her same level of pay and benefits she was basically kicked down to position she had escaped a decade ago. Karen nearly quit last time she had this job and the only reason she didn’t was because they dissolved the job in the past.
But no, she should stick it out and things will be better, don’t take that promotion in the department you love.
They are nothing but lying pieces of shit.
But I have to admit, my wife is my hero. She has done many things over the years she hated like poison in order to provide for our family and done them all with a smile. She has encouraged me to stick with jobs I can handle and work on honing my craft because she believes in me even when I don’t. I am not the only one who loves her. Karen’s employees have always supported and loved her. She is honest and she is fair, her people know they can trust her to help and support them as long as they are honest with her. My wife is the best and all I want to do is drive to her employers and set fire to her boss’s car.
But I have faith this will end up well for her. Karen does not allow the little dictators to break her. She will bend and twist but she will never break. It is because of her that I have developed the skills to keep my current job for the last four years, minus the four month “Vacation” I took in 2011.
I have a bad history with authority figures. From teachers, to child minders, to parent, and too many employers I have been the guy who in the end will stand up and tell them that they are wrong. I have never won one of these fights and have lost many job opportunities because I am unable to allow the little bastards beat me, or at least think they beat me. This is not a virtue. I have allowed my pride and my mouth to fuck me over and over again.
Karen has never done that.
I have a comfortable position right now. Sometimes my job is irritating and often there are difficult physical tasks I need to accomplish. I have an immediate supervisor who I consider more of a friend than a boss and who shields her employees from the bullshit above. Because of this I will be blind to her New York blood (I kid because I love). I do most of my writing these days at the day job (at night) on my breaks and lunches.
I assure you that I NEVER take extra time when no one is watching.
I think the reason I can be comfortable at this job is because I don’t really consider it my job. The day job is the thing I do to bring in steady cash but the writing is my career. The only thing I want to do is write and the only thing I think about is writing. The next story or the next project is always hovering around the edges of my thoughts. But I have made a giant decision in regards to my career in the last few weeks.
I have no plans of ever submitting my work to another publisher again.
This is not because I am a great writer. To be perfectly honest I consider myself a middle of the road writer who would have been more at home in the pulp age.
This is not because I am a great editor. I am a shit editor, period.
This is not because I am a great publisher with all of the answers. I am a new publisher and I am still learning how to do this. But I love the publishing aspect, I love being my own boss.
I am going it alone because it makes me happy. I hope every reader who reads my creations enjoys them. If they do not I am a little bummed but the truth is I have to be happy with what I create. The opinions of editors, publishers, and readers who the work was not necessarily intended for are secondary and I will not apologize for that.
My wife has created a foundation and a framework for me to create within. If I did it half assed or second guessed myself because some jackass publisher doesn’t like my style and allowed myself to be changed it would be spitting in her face. I don’t think I am great but I do think that I am good and as long as I stay try to my voice and intent then the opinions of the critics and assholes are of little relevance.
Thank you Karen, I love you.
- Josh
I have been extremely pissed off for the last three months and it has nothing to do with my personal life. I have been angered to Banner Like proportions because my wife is being fucked over by a company she has given more than 18 years of her life to. I can’t name the company because she is still employed there and the last thing I ever want to do is make her life more difficult than I already have.
If you have been reading my “A Cautious Descent” series of essays then you know I ave made her life hell on more than one occasion. Still not sure way she loves me.
She has been in management at this unnamed fuckwad company for 15 years and she has done everything they have asked of her. No matter how stupid or mundane she has excelled at the tasks given to her and done it with a smile. Early in the spring she was offered a promotion at a different store on the company but her boss at her store convinced her to stay in her current position promising her that she would get a better position there by fall. Reluctantly she turned down the new position at the other store and stuck it out in a job she liked but didn’t pay as much on the promises of a woman she had thought was her friend for more than a decade.
Then she got fucked over.
In June it was announced that her position was being eliminated along with fifty other positions in the district. The company promised none of the managers in the eliminated positions would be let go or stepped down. I will give them credit, every manager who decided they wanted to stay were given lateral positions.
Karen was moved to a new position in the first week of August.
The position they put her in was one they had eliminated ten years ago. Karen is the only manager in the district who’d had the position and was still with the company. So while she kept her same level of pay and benefits she was basically kicked down to position she had escaped a decade ago. Karen nearly quit last time she had this job and the only reason she didn’t was because they dissolved the job in the past.
But no, she should stick it out and things will be better, don’t take that promotion in the department you love.
They are nothing but lying pieces of shit.
But I have to admit, my wife is my hero. She has done many things over the years she hated like poison in order to provide for our family and done them all with a smile. She has encouraged me to stick with jobs I can handle and work on honing my craft because she believes in me even when I don’t. I am not the only one who loves her. Karen’s employees have always supported and loved her. She is honest and she is fair, her people know they can trust her to help and support them as long as they are honest with her. My wife is the best and all I want to do is drive to her employers and set fire to her boss’s car.
But I have faith this will end up well for her. Karen does not allow the little dictators to break her. She will bend and twist but she will never break. It is because of her that I have developed the skills to keep my current job for the last four years, minus the four month “Vacation” I took in 2011.
I have a bad history with authority figures. From teachers, to child minders, to parent, and too many employers I have been the guy who in the end will stand up and tell them that they are wrong. I have never won one of these fights and have lost many job opportunities because I am unable to allow the little bastards beat me, or at least think they beat me. This is not a virtue. I have allowed my pride and my mouth to fuck me over and over again.
Karen has never done that.
I have a comfortable position right now. Sometimes my job is irritating and often there are difficult physical tasks I need to accomplish. I have an immediate supervisor who I consider more of a friend than a boss and who shields her employees from the bullshit above. Because of this I will be blind to her New York blood (I kid because I love). I do most of my writing these days at the day job (at night) on my breaks and lunches.
I assure you that I NEVER take extra time when no one is watching.
I think the reason I can be comfortable at this job is because I don’t really consider it my job. The day job is the thing I do to bring in steady cash but the writing is my career. The only thing I want to do is write and the only thing I think about is writing. The next story or the next project is always hovering around the edges of my thoughts. But I have made a giant decision in regards to my career in the last few weeks.
I have no plans of ever submitting my work to another publisher again.
This is not because I am a great writer. To be perfectly honest I consider myself a middle of the road writer who would have been more at home in the pulp age.
This is not because I am a great editor. I am a shit editor, period.
This is not because I am a great publisher with all of the answers. I am a new publisher and I am still learning how to do this. But I love the publishing aspect, I love being my own boss.
I am going it alone because it makes me happy. I hope every reader who reads my creations enjoys them. If they do not I am a little bummed but the truth is I have to be happy with what I create. The opinions of editors, publishers, and readers who the work was not necessarily intended for are secondary and I will not apologize for that.
My wife has created a foundation and a framework for me to create within. If I did it half assed or second guessed myself because some jackass publisher doesn’t like my style and allowed myself to be changed it would be spitting in her face. I don’t think I am great but I do think that I am good and as long as I stay try to my voice and intent then the opinions of the critics and assholes are of little relevance.
Thank you Karen, I love you.
- Josh
August 9, 2013
The Language
I have a foul mouth.
To paraphrase one of my favorite movies of all time, I work in profanity like a grand master works in oils colors. I really like to swear. Foul and colorful language is like the salt and pepper of my vocabulary. When I am hewing and sowing in my colorful way I always feel good.
Does that make me a damn weirdo?
Probably, but I don’t really care. I grew up in a house with a mother who used language that would make a longshoreman blush. I don’t shy away from real language. And that is really the main point I am driving toward in my own fucked up way. This is the way people talk, when they are not on their best behavior the vast majority of people will lapse into conversational profanity.
I have been criticized for my rough language. I actually had an editor use it as the carrot and the stick on me once. They were going to “allow me” to swear as much as I wanted in my book if I made the changes they wanted to the bones of the story.
No thank you.
I will write what I want and I will curse as much as I want as well.
But I am not bitching about them. They are good people and my working relationship with them was fun even if we ended up mutually parting ways. You live, you learn, and you move the fuck on.
Now all of that being said there are exceptions.
When I am talking with friends and family I will curse up a blue streak. I have had more than one person ask me to keep it down because we were in public. If it makes my companions uncomfortable I will adjust for them, I mean hey if I choose to hang out with them in my free time I probably like them and their comfort matters to me. If it’s someone I can’t stand I may actually ramp it up, but then I am an asshole that way.
Work is another matter all together. My day job is my income and it is my income which allows me to feed and clothe my children. There is a degree of professionalism which is expected in my working environment, I knew this when I took the job and adjusted my mental stance accordingly. That being said confining myself to “Appropriate Language” always leaves me feeling slightly unarmed. Almost like a gunslinger with half the shells removed from his weapon.
My writing is another matter. When I am writing my fiction, and to a lesser extant my nonfiction, I tend to write like I think. And I am not sorry to tell you that I think like I fucking speak, except in my mind I am a Viking warrior with a full head of hair and a battle axe. I swear in my dialog and I swear in my description, that was what stuck in the craw of my former associates, and I will never apologize for that. I write to make myself happy. Not to produce a cookie cutter piece of work.
Now I have the idea for a children’s book in my mind these days. When I actually get to work on this I will be excising the foul language, not because I am knuckling under to pressure but because it is not appropriate to the story I want to write. Also I am releasing a Young Adult (YA) zombie serial this fall and while there is some sparse cursing in it the work as a whole would be appropriate for prime time network television.
So yeah.
I like to swear.
I won’t apologize.
I’m not sorry … and you shouldn’t be either.
- Josh
To paraphrase one of my favorite movies of all time, I work in profanity like a grand master works in oils colors. I really like to swear. Foul and colorful language is like the salt and pepper of my vocabulary. When I am hewing and sowing in my colorful way I always feel good.
Does that make me a damn weirdo?
Probably, but I don’t really care. I grew up in a house with a mother who used language that would make a longshoreman blush. I don’t shy away from real language. And that is really the main point I am driving toward in my own fucked up way. This is the way people talk, when they are not on their best behavior the vast majority of people will lapse into conversational profanity.
I have been criticized for my rough language. I actually had an editor use it as the carrot and the stick on me once. They were going to “allow me” to swear as much as I wanted in my book if I made the changes they wanted to the bones of the story.
No thank you.
I will write what I want and I will curse as much as I want as well.
But I am not bitching about them. They are good people and my working relationship with them was fun even if we ended up mutually parting ways. You live, you learn, and you move the fuck on.
Now all of that being said there are exceptions.
When I am talking with friends and family I will curse up a blue streak. I have had more than one person ask me to keep it down because we were in public. If it makes my companions uncomfortable I will adjust for them, I mean hey if I choose to hang out with them in my free time I probably like them and their comfort matters to me. If it’s someone I can’t stand I may actually ramp it up, but then I am an asshole that way.
Work is another matter all together. My day job is my income and it is my income which allows me to feed and clothe my children. There is a degree of professionalism which is expected in my working environment, I knew this when I took the job and adjusted my mental stance accordingly. That being said confining myself to “Appropriate Language” always leaves me feeling slightly unarmed. Almost like a gunslinger with half the shells removed from his weapon.
My writing is another matter. When I am writing my fiction, and to a lesser extant my nonfiction, I tend to write like I think. And I am not sorry to tell you that I think like I fucking speak, except in my mind I am a Viking warrior with a full head of hair and a battle axe. I swear in my dialog and I swear in my description, that was what stuck in the craw of my former associates, and I will never apologize for that. I write to make myself happy. Not to produce a cookie cutter piece of work.
Now I have the idea for a children’s book in my mind these days. When I actually get to work on this I will be excising the foul language, not because I am knuckling under to pressure but because it is not appropriate to the story I want to write. Also I am releasing a Young Adult (YA) zombie serial this fall and while there is some sparse cursing in it the work as a whole would be appropriate for prime time network television.
So yeah.
I like to swear.
I won’t apologize.
I’m not sorry … and you shouldn’t be either.
- Josh
August 2, 2013
ADVICE TO NEW WRITERS PART 12: “MY FINAL THOUGHTS”
We have reached that point my friends were I can no longer help you. Every writer has to cut their own way through the publishing landscape all I have done is help you sharpen your machete. There comes a point where you have to stop looking to others to show you what to do and just fucking do it. Get up off your ass and push through.
I would like to leave you with a few closing thoughts. I have learned a few things along the way and I have tried to present them to you through theses series of essays now I want to hit you with these last bits.
Don’t worry, this won’t take long.
You are never going to be Rich and Famous
This is something you need to say to yourself all of the time. More importantly it is something you need to believe. If you got into this thinking that you are going to make a fat payday and retire on your talent I have some bad news for you.
YOU ARE AN IDIOT.
Sorry to have to be so harsh but it is true. When I first started writing I had visions of being the next Stephen King. I look back on that and laugh. Even if you discount his natural talent and ability to churn out quality product at an amazingly fast pace, the man is a product of a different time. Back then there was a smaller visible pool of authors and the realm of self publishing did not exist above the vanity press level. Now there are more writers with more access to worldwide publishing resources than Mr. King could have imagined in the 1970’s.
That is not to say you CAN’T be rich and famous as a writer. I am just saying that it is a hell of a lot harder to attain that level than at any other time in history. But hey, if you are reading this you have probably been writing for free for the vast majority of your life. So while you would love to be rich and famous, hell we all would, as long as you are writing you will most likely be happy for the rest of your life.
If not … well there are always jobs in the wonderful wild world of medical assisting.
You can get Paid
Once you accept that you will never be rich and famous it will be easier for you to be happy with attainable goals. And there are realistic goals in the world of indie publishing that can knock your socks off.
I have made a decent amount of money in the last year. I will never talk numbers with people but it has been enough to noticeably improve the life of my family.
Is it enough to quit my day job and write full time?
Sadly no, this has not been the case … yet.
Is it enough for me to take the family on vacation this summer to Gen Con and get my car fixed?
Hell yeah!
I write a lot and that is the key, in my opinion, to the growing sales I have experienced. While I have only produced three novels in the last year I have released dozens of short stories, essays, and novellas to plug up the empty spaces. It is a lot of work but I really enjoy it and it has translated to a small but growing fan base who buys my stuff.
I owe these people everything and I love them for their support. And that is almost better than money.
Don’t let it all go to your Head
Odds are you may find an audience who will pay for your work. That’s great and you SHOULD be very proud of yourself. But please do not let your success, no matter how major or minor, go to your head. Just because you are making some money and getting awesome reviews does not mean your shit doesn’t stink or that you are just amazing.
You are probably mediocre.
I am mediocre.
99% of all successful writers are just mediocre … and that is okay.
A mediocre writer is a writer who produces good entertaining fiction in a timely manner. We have our fans and we have our haters. We are the bulk of the writer community. Not to some pretentious but being a middle of the road writer is a noble thing, we entertain people and that is a wonderful thing to do for a living.
Not everyone is King, not everyone is Dickens.
Poe died a sick and broken man. Lovecraft was long dead in the ground before his genius was finally appreciated.
Just be happy writing and appreciate the people who like you.
Keep Writing
Don’t take a long break.
Don’t rest on your laurels.
Don’t assume you can just start writing again whenever you want.
I am not saying jump into another long project, although if you have an idea for another book just get to it. But you do need to work on something. I don’t care if it’s long or short, I don’t care what genre it is in. You have to keep writing.
The creative center of the brain is like a muscle. If you stop using it the poor thing with atrophy and wither. The reason I started doing Free Story Friday was to keep my tools honed and polished. After I finished the Shores of the Dead series I stopped writing for almost six months and when I finally pulled my rusted implements out of storage it was hard to get back in the groove. I have three broken novels that broke 20,000 works during that period to prove my point.
You need to stay in practice. You need to keep in metaphorical shape.
And that is it. We have come to the parting of the ways. You are now on your own, if you have questions I will try to answer them in the future but as of right now you know everything that I have to teach you. But before we part allow me to give you one last bulleted list of things I hope you take away from all of this.
• The idea is key
• Trust your instincts and write what you want
• Use an editor, NEVER be your own FINAL editor
• If you can’t afford an editor use beta readers you trust
• Try going it alone before signing away your rights
• Learn to hear criticism
• Don’t engage the haters
• Take reviews with a grain (or a pound) of salt
• Use your social media legs
• Engage the fans
• Keep writing
• ALL ROUGH DRAFTS SUCK! (told you I’d bring that up again)
And with that we are done.
- Josh
I would like to leave you with a few closing thoughts. I have learned a few things along the way and I have tried to present them to you through theses series of essays now I want to hit you with these last bits.
Don’t worry, this won’t take long.
You are never going to be Rich and Famous
This is something you need to say to yourself all of the time. More importantly it is something you need to believe. If you got into this thinking that you are going to make a fat payday and retire on your talent I have some bad news for you.
YOU ARE AN IDIOT.
Sorry to have to be so harsh but it is true. When I first started writing I had visions of being the next Stephen King. I look back on that and laugh. Even if you discount his natural talent and ability to churn out quality product at an amazingly fast pace, the man is a product of a different time. Back then there was a smaller visible pool of authors and the realm of self publishing did not exist above the vanity press level. Now there are more writers with more access to worldwide publishing resources than Mr. King could have imagined in the 1970’s.
That is not to say you CAN’T be rich and famous as a writer. I am just saying that it is a hell of a lot harder to attain that level than at any other time in history. But hey, if you are reading this you have probably been writing for free for the vast majority of your life. So while you would love to be rich and famous, hell we all would, as long as you are writing you will most likely be happy for the rest of your life.
If not … well there are always jobs in the wonderful wild world of medical assisting.
You can get Paid
Once you accept that you will never be rich and famous it will be easier for you to be happy with attainable goals. And there are realistic goals in the world of indie publishing that can knock your socks off.
I have made a decent amount of money in the last year. I will never talk numbers with people but it has been enough to noticeably improve the life of my family.
Is it enough to quit my day job and write full time?
Sadly no, this has not been the case … yet.
Is it enough for me to take the family on vacation this summer to Gen Con and get my car fixed?
Hell yeah!
I write a lot and that is the key, in my opinion, to the growing sales I have experienced. While I have only produced three novels in the last year I have released dozens of short stories, essays, and novellas to plug up the empty spaces. It is a lot of work but I really enjoy it and it has translated to a small but growing fan base who buys my stuff.
I owe these people everything and I love them for their support. And that is almost better than money.
Don’t let it all go to your Head
Odds are you may find an audience who will pay for your work. That’s great and you SHOULD be very proud of yourself. But please do not let your success, no matter how major or minor, go to your head. Just because you are making some money and getting awesome reviews does not mean your shit doesn’t stink or that you are just amazing.
You are probably mediocre.
I am mediocre.
99% of all successful writers are just mediocre … and that is okay.
A mediocre writer is a writer who produces good entertaining fiction in a timely manner. We have our fans and we have our haters. We are the bulk of the writer community. Not to some pretentious but being a middle of the road writer is a noble thing, we entertain people and that is a wonderful thing to do for a living.
Not everyone is King, not everyone is Dickens.
Poe died a sick and broken man. Lovecraft was long dead in the ground before his genius was finally appreciated.
Just be happy writing and appreciate the people who like you.
Keep Writing
Don’t take a long break.
Don’t rest on your laurels.
Don’t assume you can just start writing again whenever you want.
I am not saying jump into another long project, although if you have an idea for another book just get to it. But you do need to work on something. I don’t care if it’s long or short, I don’t care what genre it is in. You have to keep writing.
The creative center of the brain is like a muscle. If you stop using it the poor thing with atrophy and wither. The reason I started doing Free Story Friday was to keep my tools honed and polished. After I finished the Shores of the Dead series I stopped writing for almost six months and when I finally pulled my rusted implements out of storage it was hard to get back in the groove. I have three broken novels that broke 20,000 works during that period to prove my point.
You need to stay in practice. You need to keep in metaphorical shape.
And that is it. We have come to the parting of the ways. You are now on your own, if you have questions I will try to answer them in the future but as of right now you know everything that I have to teach you. But before we part allow me to give you one last bulleted list of things I hope you take away from all of this.
• The idea is key
• Trust your instincts and write what you want
• Use an editor, NEVER be your own FINAL editor
• If you can’t afford an editor use beta readers you trust
• Try going it alone before signing away your rights
• Learn to hear criticism
• Don’t engage the haters
• Take reviews with a grain (or a pound) of salt
• Use your social media legs
• Engage the fans
• Keep writing
• ALL ROUGH DRAFTS SUCK! (told you I’d bring that up again)
And with that we are done.
- Josh
July 31, 2013
Advice To New Writers Part 11: “I Hate You And Everything You Do!”
Are you feeling good?
Are sales of your book decent?
Have you given away a lot of free copies?
It’s pretty awesome isn’t?
So … have you looked at your Amazon and Goodreads reviews yet?
No?
I will wait right here while you go do that. Doesn’t worry I have some classic Calvin and Hobbes stuff I can read while you peruse your feedback then we can talk.
15 minutes later
You okay?
What’s wrong?
Hey put that gun down!
We can talk about this. I swear everything will be alright.
You just did the one thing that is the greatest cause of first time authors never writing and publishing anything again. My friend you read the reviews and actually expected them to be fair and honest. It’s okay, don’t feel stupid. We have all done that and we have all felt like we were beat to death by a crazy walrus.
Just breathe.
Have a drink and relax.
Let me tell you one of the truest things I have learned in all of my years of writing and publishing.
AHEM!
“Most people are assholes when protected by the internet.”
I am by no means saying that everyone is an idiot or an asshole. There are many fair and balanced (fuck I hate that phrase) people who post reviews online. But for every three fair reviews I have received (not good, a review does not have to be good to be fair) I have received one trolling piece of shit review that seems to imply I rape babies and eat the livers of kittens. I have been told that my writing is the worst thing, the absolute worst thing, the reviewer had ever read. I guess this means that said review has never read 50 Shades of Grey.
Okay I will be honest I hate 50 Shades of Shit and I make no apologies for it but for the most part unless I really like a book or story I will never review it, I really think it is the height of bad form for a writer to trash another writer. That being said we have all done it even if we wish we haven’t.
Take reviews with a grain of salt. By this I mean you absolutely should read your reviews once but if you think a review is stupid then it most likely is. I have read some serious criticisms of my work which are completely valid and have actually helped me. I just finished reediting the entire Shores of the Dead series and reuploading it to Amazon mostly based on reviews that said the story was good but the editing was rough.
Because of that I have a better product.
In the converse I received a review a few months ago where the reviewer freaked out because there is a lesbian love subplot. I have no problem with the person not liking it, different strokes for different folks and all that. But I have a hard time when a person latches onto less than 1000 words of text and decide they ruin a 55,000 word book that they claim is otherwise awesome.
It’s fucking baffling.
Another thing that seems to happen more often than you would think is the partial reader hater. These geniuses read one or two chapters, decide that the tale just isn’t for them, and then proceed to review the ENTIRE book based on two chapters. The very first review I ever received for the Shores of the Dead Book 1 was a one of these partial reads. The person received so many negative comments from subsequent readers (people I have no connection with) that they pulled the review.
But that almost never happens. Some people just get off on ripping people and trashing their creations. As trite as it might sound I honestly believe that many of these haters are truly jealous because you actually published a book and all they can do is bitch and moan.
This doesn’t necessarily mean your work is good (your work could suck hard) it just means that these people are jerk-offs. So don’t get a swelled head, every writer needs to improve their craft no matter how experienced they are. Don’t believe me? Stephen King says the same thing. Love him or hate him he IS the success index.
All of that being said and filed for future reference, or ignored I have never claimed to really know what I am talking about, here is another list. This list is my recommendations for how to handle horrible criticism.
• Ignore Them – Seriously the best thing you can do is ignore the assholes on the internet. But if you are like me you won’t be able to do that, you will in fact obsess on every little thing that is said and each will feel like a knife to your heart.
• Do Not Engage – You’ve read the comments and they hurt, I get it they are going to hurt. Do not respond to them. Do not answer them on Amazon, do not dance with them on Goodreads, and for the love of all of the gods and goddesses NEVER fight with them on Twitter or Facebook. It’s not worth the headache and it takes time from writing.
• Don’t Whine – You may be tempted to take to your blog or social media and whine about all of the people who are being mean to you. If you do this I will never talk to you again or read anything you write even if you win fabulous awards and cash prizes. You may be hurt and angry but bitching too much about it online just makes you sound like a whiney puss-hole. If someone dicks you over and you bitch about it that’s one thing, I do it all the time. But whining because someone hurt your feelings … just don’t do it.
• Write More – The best revenge on the haters and armchair writers is to write as much as possible. Just keep getting your work out there a circulating. Make money and get good reviews. Besides if you are like me creating content gives you a natural high.
That’s it kids. That is all I have to say about dealing with the assholes online. Notice I am not mentioning “Legitimate” reviewers and bloggers. Some are good and some are bad but on the whole I could care less about them. Although I will say there are a few who are amazing. They provide incredible feedback and are amazingly fair.
Next time will be the last installment of this series. We will be discussing what comes next and what I hope you have learned from reading all of my bullshit. It will be a wrap up of MASH like proportions … or maybe LOST.
- Josh
Are sales of your book decent?
Have you given away a lot of free copies?
It’s pretty awesome isn’t?
So … have you looked at your Amazon and Goodreads reviews yet?
No?
I will wait right here while you go do that. Doesn’t worry I have some classic Calvin and Hobbes stuff I can read while you peruse your feedback then we can talk.
15 minutes later
You okay?
What’s wrong?
Hey put that gun down!
We can talk about this. I swear everything will be alright.
You just did the one thing that is the greatest cause of first time authors never writing and publishing anything again. My friend you read the reviews and actually expected them to be fair and honest. It’s okay, don’t feel stupid. We have all done that and we have all felt like we were beat to death by a crazy walrus.
Just breathe.
Have a drink and relax.
Let me tell you one of the truest things I have learned in all of my years of writing and publishing.
AHEM!
“Most people are assholes when protected by the internet.”
I am by no means saying that everyone is an idiot or an asshole. There are many fair and balanced (fuck I hate that phrase) people who post reviews online. But for every three fair reviews I have received (not good, a review does not have to be good to be fair) I have received one trolling piece of shit review that seems to imply I rape babies and eat the livers of kittens. I have been told that my writing is the worst thing, the absolute worst thing, the reviewer had ever read. I guess this means that said review has never read 50 Shades of Grey.
Okay I will be honest I hate 50 Shades of Shit and I make no apologies for it but for the most part unless I really like a book or story I will never review it, I really think it is the height of bad form for a writer to trash another writer. That being said we have all done it even if we wish we haven’t.
Take reviews with a grain of salt. By this I mean you absolutely should read your reviews once but if you think a review is stupid then it most likely is. I have read some serious criticisms of my work which are completely valid and have actually helped me. I just finished reediting the entire Shores of the Dead series and reuploading it to Amazon mostly based on reviews that said the story was good but the editing was rough.
Because of that I have a better product.
In the converse I received a review a few months ago where the reviewer freaked out because there is a lesbian love subplot. I have no problem with the person not liking it, different strokes for different folks and all that. But I have a hard time when a person latches onto less than 1000 words of text and decide they ruin a 55,000 word book that they claim is otherwise awesome.
It’s fucking baffling.
Another thing that seems to happen more often than you would think is the partial reader hater. These geniuses read one or two chapters, decide that the tale just isn’t for them, and then proceed to review the ENTIRE book based on two chapters. The very first review I ever received for the Shores of the Dead Book 1 was a one of these partial reads. The person received so many negative comments from subsequent readers (people I have no connection with) that they pulled the review.
But that almost never happens. Some people just get off on ripping people and trashing their creations. As trite as it might sound I honestly believe that many of these haters are truly jealous because you actually published a book and all they can do is bitch and moan.
This doesn’t necessarily mean your work is good (your work could suck hard) it just means that these people are jerk-offs. So don’t get a swelled head, every writer needs to improve their craft no matter how experienced they are. Don’t believe me? Stephen King says the same thing. Love him or hate him he IS the success index.
All of that being said and filed for future reference, or ignored I have never claimed to really know what I am talking about, here is another list. This list is my recommendations for how to handle horrible criticism.
• Ignore Them – Seriously the best thing you can do is ignore the assholes on the internet. But if you are like me you won’t be able to do that, you will in fact obsess on every little thing that is said and each will feel like a knife to your heart.
• Do Not Engage – You’ve read the comments and they hurt, I get it they are going to hurt. Do not respond to them. Do not answer them on Amazon, do not dance with them on Goodreads, and for the love of all of the gods and goddesses NEVER fight with them on Twitter or Facebook. It’s not worth the headache and it takes time from writing.
• Don’t Whine – You may be tempted to take to your blog or social media and whine about all of the people who are being mean to you. If you do this I will never talk to you again or read anything you write even if you win fabulous awards and cash prizes. You may be hurt and angry but bitching too much about it online just makes you sound like a whiney puss-hole. If someone dicks you over and you bitch about it that’s one thing, I do it all the time. But whining because someone hurt your feelings … just don’t do it.
• Write More – The best revenge on the haters and armchair writers is to write as much as possible. Just keep getting your work out there a circulating. Make money and get good reviews. Besides if you are like me creating content gives you a natural high.
That’s it kids. That is all I have to say about dealing with the assholes online. Notice I am not mentioning “Legitimate” reviewers and bloggers. Some are good and some are bad but on the whole I could care less about them. Although I will say there are a few who are amazing. They provide incredible feedback and are amazingly fair.
Next time will be the last installment of this series. We will be discussing what comes next and what I hope you have learned from reading all of my bullshit. It will be a wrap up of MASH like proportions … or maybe LOST.
- Josh
