Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 70

New Year’s Resolutions And Accountability

2015 is over! Hurrah for 2016!

I made some goals for last year, so it’s time to check in with accountability. First of all, in 2015 I wrote 523,169 words on manuscripts and blog posts. This year, I’m aiming for 600,000 words.

Now let’s check in on the resolutions I made last year, and whether or not I accomplished them:

1. “By the end of 2015, I want to either have completed, or actively begun work on, a YA vampire novel.” I have actively begun work on a vampire novel. The first draft of Biter is being released chapter by chapter for my Patreon patrons, but it will be available as a full novel once it’s written and edited. The only part of the resolution I didn’t keep is that it isn’t a YA, it’s an NA.

2. “I want to celebrate my return to running in 2015 by racing around the beautiful shores of Mackinac Island.” Nope. I used to run with D-Rock, but once she moved to Washington, I stopped completely because I wasn’t accountable to anyone. I’m disappointed in dropping the ball on this one. I really enjoy running, and eight miles isn’t that far to run. I don’t have any excuse here, like that year I injured my tendon and gave myself a pass.

3. “I’d like to get a tattoo that I drew.” I didn’t get a tattoo I drew. I designed a tattoo, with help from the artist. Doesn’t count, though, because I didn’t draw it.

4. “Legally change my name to Jenny Trout. Do you have any idea how liberating it’s going to be to go from eighteen letters to ten letters?” What an optimistic idiot I was. I did legally change my name. I pulled that one off (go me!) but my name still doesn’t fit on forms. Instead of eighteen letters, it’s now twenty-three. Still, I’m super pumped to be Jenny Gallifrey Joel Trout now.

So what are my goals for 2016?

1. Reading Challenge Last year was a bad year for me, reading wise. I was in a total funk, and not just one of those “I devoured this book, now nothing else compares” funks. I just had a hard time picking a book and sticking with it. This year, in an attempt to combat that, I’m doing this reading challenge.

2. Take Weekends Off Toward the end of 2015, I got serious burnout. Burnout spirals me into depression. Depression makes me a person I don’t like. And when I don’t like myself, the burnout gets even worse. I made an effort to take the month of December off. I didn’t exactly stick to it. But this year, I’m making myself a strictly Monday through Friday gal. Weekends won’t be for work, but for just hanging out and Me Time. Hopefully this prevents further burnout.

3. Write 600,000 Words This might seem like it’s in direct contradiction to the whole “Take time off, don’t get burned out” thing, but I think that my new schedule will actually make me more productive, so this is probably totally do-able.

4. Tag Things On This Blog The lack of tags infuriates some of you. I understand. I’m just not good at tagging. I’m going to make an effort to tag stuff now. I probably will not go through and retag all my old entries, as this blog was started in 2008 or something and I don’t have that kind of time to devote to it. But I’ll at least try.

Those are my goals for 2016. Nothing grandiose, but I’ve got to learn to stop sabotaging myself. Also, I’m going to knit and color more. Sometimes, without earning it.

Best of 2015: Trout Nation Year In Review

2015 is about to take its last, dying breaths. Its struggle to cling to life in the grim face of ever-advancing time will give glorious and sudden birth to 2016, a year which we will all promise ourselves will be way better than the last one and how shitty it was. But you know, there were good parts, too. In fact, I think the good parts outweighed the bad. On this blog, at least. So I want to revisit those highlights (and a few lowlights) as the year crawls to a close.

January:  We banded together to assemble a domestic violence resource list in the face of an onslaught of 50 Shades merchandise/anticipation posts, and I shared my anti-bucket list.

February: We celebrated the life and the legacy of beloved romance author Bertrice Small, endured the Fifty Shades of Grey movie and its author’s disgusting and abusive temper tantrum toward a non-fan, and I had a weird dream about Craig Ferguson.

March: I ate Scottish candy for the first time, shared the stories of the five most amazing people I met while working horrible jobs, I fucked up, earned two of the most painfully stupid arch nemeses anyone could hope to have, and released a novella with a freaking gorgeous guy on the cover.

April: I became Jenny Gallifrey Joel Trout legally (like in a court of law where a judge laughed at me), I met Amber Benson, and my amazon echo developed an amazing flaw.

May: Sad times visited Trout Nation, I shared the stories of my worst retail customers, and I bitched about how much I hate my new phone for 13 minutes.

June: The cancellation of NBC’s Hannibal ruined my life, and E.L. James came one step closer to that inevitable Stephenie Meyer restraining order.

July: I survived to the age of thirty-five, and Double Steve Bonus Monday roared to inexplicable life.

August: The Girlfriend was profiled on Salon.com, Ian and Penny got their first books in an experimental new series project, and I saw Billy Joel in concert, thus changing my life forever.

September: Nothing exciting happened, as I was busy finishing The Baby, but I did share my favorite animated movies.

October: A plagiarism scandal rocked the romance world, and a dipshit reporter had to weigh in with some bullshit. I shared my family’s haunted house, I went to Disney World, for better or for worse, and editors shared their author horror stories.

I’d also like to share with you my favorite moment of the entire year, which I haven’t shown you until now. (video)

November: I shared my experience in the middle of a weeks-long depressive episode, and released the latest Neil and Sophie book, The Baby.

December: I shared a very personal story, and got plagiarized.

Not the greatest way to end the year, but even in the bad times, you guys were always there to offer awesome

WordPress informed, via weird info graphic, that this blog got four times more visits this year than Seattle’s Space Needle, which blows my mind. But also, it’s kind of a strange comparison. Like, why pick that particular measurement? This is going to baffle me all day.

Anyway, thank you, everybody, for being those visitors and visiting this silly place, which is nowhere near as tall as the Space Needle. You guys make my life so special, and I’m better for having you all in it. I wish you a very happy New Year, where ever you are, and I look forward to what will undoubtedly be an amazing 2016.

Best of 2015: Things I Laughed Hardest At On Tumblr

These are the funniest, stupidest things I’ve laughed about on the Tumblr this year (To my Deaf, hard of hearing, blind and visually impaired readers, I am so, so sorry. I tried to make a version of this post with audio/visual captions, but the format went all wonky and you could only see half the text and all the videos reposted multiple times and I couldn’t fix it. I feel like a jerk for leaving you out on this one. If anyone out there knows how to fix messed up HTML/CSS/Whatever the hell this uses and would like to lend a hand, shoot me an email or leave a message in the comments).

http://epona55.tumblr.com/post/134709492099/frogjail-im-sorry-for-this

 

http://yahjames.tumblr.com/post/133897165912/undertale-love-owlmylove-brakken
http://karefree-kiwis.tumblr.com/post/133463937190/dashbeardconfessional-space-jam-was-released-19

http://moonimoje.tumblr.com/post/120375812320/kuueater-waluigi-the-panty-dropper-making-my

 

http://shsl-greenseer-of-time.tumblr.com/post/118122449331/theblogofmystery-and-of-course-they-come-in

http://k-kezia.tumblr.com/post/116773045616/vegitating-narcissistic-attitude-the-entire

http://saltyflavor.tumblr.com/post/116072662800

Best of 2015: Books I Read

It’s that time of year! As in, the end of the year. As in, it’s almost time for everyone to knowingly shake their heads as they write out a check and say, “Can you believe it’s 2016 already.”

Well, I can. Because time is marching forward and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

We can, however, amuse ourselves with stuff, like books. So here are the top five books I’ve read in 2015, in no particular order. These aren’t books that necessarily came out in 2015, they’re just books I read in 2015.

A Gentleman In The Streets, Alisha Rai This interracial romance turned a ton of romance tropes on their head. There’s a kinky billionaire–the heroine. There’s a stepbrother hero–who didn’t meet the heroine until they were both adults. There’s realistic family drama that anchors the more fantastic elements–including a subplot with a reality television show, as well as the heroine’s infamous orgies–and just really rounds out the whole story. This book was hot, the characters’ motivations were always understandable (though not entirely likable), and the pages just flew by.

Asking For It, Lilah Pace This book is definitely not for everyone, so if you decide to check it out, DO NOT IGNORE THE TRIGGER WARNINGS IN THE FORWARD. The book is about a woman struggling to reconcile her rape fantasies with her real life, and navigating the conflict between her sexual and emotional needs. At its heart, the book is a love story between two severely traumatized people, and the hero, Jonah Marks, is one of the hottest fictional guys I’ve read in a while.

The Royal We, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan The authors own the popular celebrity gossip and fashion blog Go Fug Yourself, on which certain British royals are a frequent subject. So it makes sense that Morgan and Cocks would write a New Adult novel that’s a fictionalized–but highly recognizable–tale of a common girl’s romance with a handsome prince. Yes, the book is basically AU RPF (alternate universe/real person fic) about Prince William and Kate Middleton, but that was part of its weird charm. And it is a weird book, but ultimately addictively readable.

Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher I can’t believe it took me this long to read her book, but in 2015, I’ve read it twice. Carrie Fisher is like the eccentric aunt who tells you more than you probably want to hear, and when you describe her to other people, they don’t believe she exists. Though I’ve recommended it to people struggling with mental illness (Fisher writes candidly about her bipolar disorder and electroconvulsive therapy), it doesn’t read as advocacy. It’s just that eccentric aunt telling you stories about her weird, funny, sometimes very sad life.

Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography, Fred Schruers Come on. You had to know at least something about Mr. Joel will be included in this list. If you’re not a Billy Joel fan, this book is probably not going to interest you, but if you are, this biography is fantastic. As you read along from before Mr. Joel’s birth–Schruers devotes a lot of pages to explaining how Mr. Joel’s life was ultimately shaped by his grandparents’ flight from the Holocaust–to his life as it was earlier this century, you feel like you’ve learned more about the man, yet understand him a lot less than you did before you went in.

What are the best books you read in 2015? This entire post is a shameless call for recommendations, as I’m doing the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge in 2016, as an effort to boost me out of the reading funk I’ve been in for a long time.

The Legend of Double Steve Bonus Monday

Since I probably won’t be able to find enough Steves to cover the next year, it’s a good time to discontinue it and tell the mighty tale of how Double Steve Bonus Monday came to be.

Once upon a time, Bronwyn Green Twimom Jen and Deelylah Mullin (who edits The Boss and the By The Numbers series) went out for lunch, and Deelylah told us a story. It was about a time one of her children had surgery. The kid was so doped up on pain meds, she had double vision, and asked Deelylah why there were two Steves on Blue’s Clues. And because trying to explain the side effects of drugs on a stoned preschooler is an effort futile in the extreme, Deelylah just said, “Because it’s Double Steve Bonus Monday.”

After she tells us this story, someone (It could have been me, but I think it was Twimom Jen) suggested that I should put different Steves on the blog every Monday. I thought it was a great idea, and would be even better if it went entirely without explanation, just for the whimsy factor.

So, that’s the story and the end of Double Steve Bonus Mondays, the only consistently tagged entries on this blog.

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My Favorite Christmas Moments From THE BOSS Series

Last year, I wrote a Sophie and Neil Christmas story for That’s What I’m Talking About’s “Mistletoe Madness” holiday event. I wanted to write some brand new Neil and Sophie for this year, but things got in the way. So instead of sharing new Neil and Sophie, I’m sharing old Neil and Sophie. I’ve picked a couple of my favorite Christmas scenes from their books.

Michael’s Christmas Proposal  (from The Girlfriend)

After a delicious course of vegan plum pudding for dessert, we went back to the drawing room to exchange gifts and have cocktails. We were all happy and relaxed, chatting amicably when Emma, a twinkle in her eyes, said, “Dad, please tell me you made Sophie do the shoe thing.”

“Shoe thing?” I raised an eyebrow.

“There was a tradition my father’s family had when he was a child, and he passed it on to us,” Neil explained. “You left your shoe in the window on Christmas eve, instead of hanging up a stocking by the fireplace.”

“Sophie, you are going to be so confused,” Emma said with a laugh. “There are like twenty-seven Santas in Iceland.”

“Oh no, was I supposed to set out twenty-seven shoes, then?” I teased Neil. “I didn’t even leave out one, the staff here pick everything up the minute you leave it unattended.”

“Not to worry, I did it for you.” He smiled his mysterious half smile and pointed to the tall windows behind the tree.

Rising from the sofa, I went off in the direction he’d pointed. In the corner of the low windowsill, a gorgeous nude-colored Christian Louboutin pump waited with an envelope inside.

I picked up the shoe reverently. It was goddamned beautiful, shiny, and oh, such a sexy tall heel. I slipped one of my own shoes off, took the envelope out of the Loubou, and tried the shoe on immediately. It fit perfectly. I thought of Neil carefully examining my shoes while I had packed. He’d gotten this before we’d left New York.

“What’s in the envelope?” Emma asked, snuggling closer to Michael on the velvet upholstered settee.

I unfolded the paper inside and read the note silently.

My darling Sophie,

The other shoe is waiting for you upstairs. Be sure to pack them when we leave for Paris for New Year’s Eve.

Merry Christmas, and all my love,

N

 “Well, what does it say?” Emma demanded.

I raised my head, beaming, momentarily speechless. “Neil is taking me to Paris for New Year’s.”

“Go Dad!” Emma said, giving him a thumbs up. “Very romantic.”

I went to Neil and leaned down to kiss him briefly. I’d save the utter mauling for when we were alone. “Thank you. You’re wonderful.”

“Speaking of romantic,” Michael said, nudging Emma. “Remember when you said you thought Christmas-themed proposals were romantic?”

Neil’s attention shifted sharply. I looked up, my focus drifting with everyone else’s toward Emma and Michael. You could have heard a pin drop as Michael rose from the couch, then took a knee in front of her.

“Oh my god,” Valerie said softly, her hand flying up to her mouth.

The expression on Neil’s face echoed Valerie’s sentiment, but for the opposite reason. His facial “Oh my god,” was more like, “Oh my god, that bear is eating my loved one.”

“Emma, I am… so in love with you,” Michael said, his voice breaking with emotion. “And I know how important family is to you. So that’s why I wanted them with us when we started our family together. Emma, will you marry me?”

My knees went weak at the adorableness. A tear rolled down Emma’s cheek, and she wiped it away with her thumb as she nodded, frantically, and giggled, “Yes!”

 

Neil Meets Sophie’s Family (from The Bride)

I took Neil’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go see Mom and get this over with.”

When we stepped into the tiny, crowded kitchen, my mom was bent over a steaming sink, having just strained some boiled potatoes. She looked fabulous, as always, in wide-legged black trousers and a fitted, leopard-print cardigan. Her blonde hair—as fake as her nails and just as difficult to maintain—was perfectly straightened and held back from her face with a clip.

“I’m home!” I declared as she shook the last drops out of the huge stockpot.

She turned to face us, the corners of her eyes crinkling with happiness when she saw me. Then her gaze darted to Neil, and her smile did that telltale, split-second cessation of outward mobility, caused by an unpleasant shock she didn’t want to admit to. I’d gotten so used to it over the years. The I’m-freaking-out-internally freeze.

She hugged me, harder than absolutely necessary, and effused, “Honey, I’m so glad you made it! I was worried the airport would close down because of the storm yesterday.”

“It didn’t.” After stating the obvious, there was nowhere to go but introductions. “Mom, this is Neil. Neil, this is my mom, Rebecca.”

She put out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Neil. Sophie has had only good things to say about you.”

Turning to me with raised eyebrows, she said, “Not that she’s said a lot.”

“Yes, she mentioned that in the car on the way over.” He gave her what was possibly the most charming smile I’ve ever seen on him. Oh, baby. You’re wasting your energy. She already hates you.

My grandmother was at the stove. She looked over the shoulder of her red, bedazzled Christmas sweater. “Well, don’t hug me, for heaven’s sake. I only haven’t seen you for a year.”

“Merry Christmas, Grandma,” I said as I went to her with open arms.

I heard my mom ask, “So, Neil. What do you do?”

“I own two multimedia conglomerates, one in the US and England and the other based out of Reykjavik.”

“Oh. How nice for you.” My mom was going to die of a heart attack on the kitchen floor.

“Is there a lot of money in that?” my grandmother asked him, with all the tact small-town Michigan matriarchs generally displayed.

Neil’s eyebrows lifted, and he blinked three times, rapidly, before managing to answer, “I do all right.”

“It’s a wonder anybody’s doing all right these days, with those damn Republicans—”

“Ma!” my mother hushed her. “Nobody wants to talk about politics at Christmas.”

“I, uh, I brought a little something to contribute to the festivities,” Neil said, reaching into the shopping bag to pull out one of the bottles of 1996 Dom Pérignon.

He’d brought the Dom Pérignon because I’d suggested he not go overboard. My mother was going to eat him alive.

She took the bottle and turned it in her hands with a little nod. “This was very thoughtful of you.”

“We’ve got beer, too, Neil, in the cooler outside the door. Just don’t let all the heat out,” my grandmother called, her head in the oven as she peeled the tinfoil off the ham.

“I’ll chill this,” Mom said, taking the other bottle from Neil.

Grandma deposited a heavy bowl into my hands, and I gasped, juggling it quickly so as not to slosh gravy onto my coat. “Take that out to the table.”

I cast an apologetic glance at Neil as I moved past him, into the crowded dining room and out to the porch. As I went, I heard my grandma shoo him out of the kitchen.

It wasn’t a long journey with the bowl, but by the time I got back to Neil, he’d been cornered by my great-uncle Doug, who had an open beer in his hand despite the fact it was eleven a.m. on Christmas morning.

“You heard a dem gingerbread Oreos?” he asked Neil, taking a swig from his bottle.

Neil blinked and stammered, “N-no. That sounds horrible.”

“No, they’re a real ting,” Doug insisted, gesturing with his beer. “They were on the Channel Six news.”

“I’m sorry, did you say noose?” Neil spotted me, and his relief was visible. I should have warned him about the thick Yooper accent that ran in my family.

“Hey, Sophie!” Uncle Doug put out his arm for a half-hug. He was my grandmother’s youngest brother, sixty-five, and he’d recently retired from his job as a DNR officer. “Did ya hear about dem gingerbread Oreos?”

“That sounds gross.” I stood beside Neil and reached up to put a hand on his shoulder. It was as hard as a blacksmith’s anvil with tension. I hoped he’d brought his headache pills with him.

“They got ‘em down in Marquette,” Doug went on. “They don’t got ‘em at the Pat’s here, but I told Debbie’s sister, ‘you better save me some of dem gingerbread Oreos.’”

My aunt Debbie yelled from the living room that there was something wrong with their cell phone, and Doug excused himself. As he walked away, Neil muttered to me, “I feel like I’m listening to an alien language.”

“Oh, you just wait until I’ve been up here a couple of days. No matter how hard I’ve tried to shake it, the accent always comes back.”

Neil’s eyes widened as he considered the implications of that statement. “I think I do need one of those beers, after all.”

 

And thought it technically took place on New Year’s Eve, Neil Proposes To Sophie (from The Bride):

“This is weird,” I whispered, gazing up at him, searching his eyes for something I wasn’t really sure was missing. “This house, this country, the language… It’s a whole separate part of your life. It’s like I didn’t really know you.”

“You knew me,” he said, sleepy, confident. “You just didn’t know me in this context.”

I flipped to my belly, relishing the slide of the silk between the duvet and my body. He slowly walked his fingers up my spine as I spoke. “No, seriously. I’m fascinated by this change.”

A smile curved his mouth, then he rolled to his back and pulled me against his side, cradling my head on his shoulder. He combed through my hair with his fingers and sighed contentedly. “I suppose it’s because I’m home. I spent a large part of my childhood here—the happiest part, really. When I was in the ICU, I thought I would die. And I thought…I can’t die without seeing my brothers again. And I can’t die before I take Sophie to meet them.”

A lump rose in my throat. In addition to our couple’s’ therapy, Neil had been seeing someone about the PTSD caused by spending weeks in isolation in the ICU, sedated and on a ventilator. He had a difficult time talking about those days, and I was worried for him now. “We don’t have to talk about that, if you don’t want to.”

“Actually, I’m not that bothered; it’s getting easier. And this isn’t denial. I feel relieved to be telling you all this. I want you to share every part of my life with me. And I want to share every part of your life with you.”

“We do sha—” I began, and his hand gently covered my mouth.

“Sophie,” he said softly. “Do shut up. I’m trying to propose.”

Propose? My head went light and my chest got heavy. My eyes flared hot and watery, and my skin tingled.

It was the single best anxiety attack I’d ever had.

He eased his arm from beneath me as he reached with his other hand for something in the nightstand drawer. I sat up, certain my face was bright red from the blood pounding into it.

He leaned back on the pillows, turning a small clam-shell jewelry box like a Rubick’s Cube in his nervous hands. “Sophie… I love you. I’ve tried to think of a thousand different ways to say this poetically, but I really feel that the unadorned truth is utterly necessary right now. And if you don’t want to marry me, if you think it’s too old-fashioned an institution or against your principles, then that’s fine. Nothing has changed. I just needed to tell you… I love you so much that I regret having memories that don’t include you. I look back on my life before I met you and I see where you should have been. Some of my greatest achievements, the things I am most proud of, seem empty because you weren’t there beside me. You are the other half of me. And I would be so incredibly grateful if you would marry me.”

I lunged forward, grasped his head between my hands and kissed him hard. And by hard, I mean, our teeth scraped together unpleasantly. But I didn’t care.

I gasped when our mouths parted. “I love you so much.”

He smiled against my lips, his arms wrapping around my back. “Do you want to see the ring?”

I nodded.

He rolled me smoothly beneath him, settling between my thighs as my nightgown rode up. Braced on his elbows, he opened the box and handed it to me. Inside, a huge, cushion-cut yellow diamond flared brilliantly, surrounded by a border of smaller white diamonds, set in flawless platinum. It was absolutely gorgeous, and absolutely me.

I held out my hand, and Neil slipped the ring from the box onto my fingertip, sliding it down easily over my knuckle. It was a bit loose, and I giggled.

“At least it’s not too small,” he said with an embarrassed laugh.

“I’ll get it sized.” I kissed him again, letting him pull my hand to his chest and cover it with his own palm. I looked down at our entwined fingers. “You’ve had this with you the whole time?”

He nodded, smiling ruefully. “It was in my pocket when we went to the lake. I thought I would propose to you there, but I chickened out.”

“This is so beautiful. Really. I love it. And so romantic. I’m not as good with words as you—”

“Says the woman whose first book is being published in three months,” he teased.

“Okay, that was a little dumb of me. But I feel the same way. I can’t imagine not waking up with you every morning. This last year with you was the best and the worst year of my life. And I want that. I want all the good parts, and all the bad parts, as long we’re together while we’re going through them. I have never felt so safe with anyone, or as sure about anything as I am with you.”

“So…this is a yes?” he asked with an arched brow, and I realized I hadn’t given him a definitive answer. “I want to make sure, in case I need to take this back to the jeweler.”

I laughed and raised my head up to kiss him. “Yes. Absolutely.”

He laced his fingers with mine as he pushed my hands back on the pillows. “I like the sound of that. ‘Yes.’ I wonder how many times I can make you say that word tonight.”

With a lift of my hips, I rubbed myself shamelessly against him. “Do you mean ‘yes, Sir,’ or just ‘yes?’”

“I’ll take either.” His grip tightened on my hands, and he sank his teeth into my neck.

Merry Christmas to all of you who are celebrating, Merry Day The Roads Are Blessedly Clear to those who aren’t celebrating but do have driving to do, and so much love to all my Trout Nation buddies for whom the holidays aren’t the very best of times.

Plagiarism doesn’t deserve forgiveness.

“I was trying to find one specific chapter recap by Googling the one line that I could remember from it (“Who is Kate, E.L.? How did she hurt you?”) and I came across another blog called Rhyming with Oranges. She’s got some recaps up, too. They read like Laura Harner, if you know what I mean.

It looks like the blog is run by someone called Naomi Knight. I wasn’t sure if you were familiar with her or if you had given her permission to reblog or anything like that, but I felt it kind of unlikely since she does have some of her own thoughts (or yours broadly reworded). I apologize if this is a false alarm, I just wanted to let you know just in case.”

That was the email I received from a concerned reader named Nora yesterday. And I’ve gotten emails like that before. I go and check them out, but it usually only takes a quick scan to tell that it’s just a case of us recapping the same material, and coming to some similar conclusions.

Not the case here.

Naomi Knight lifted whole chunks of my blog to use for hers. She reworded some sections, so what read:

Christian thinks about how he doesn’t want anyone but Ana, and how maybe he might have given her the impression that he liked her with the whole inviting her out for coffee thing. Maybe going to her work with a flimsy excuse to be there might have done that too, genius. He’s going to try to think of a way to apologize to her.

on my blog became:

Christian thinks about how he doesn’t want anyone but Ana, and how maybe he might have given her the impression that he liked her with the whole inviting her out for coffee thing. Maybe going to her work with a flimsy excuse to be there might have done that too, genius. He decides he’ll send Ana an apology present and then he can move on.

on hers.

And it wasn’t just one instance. This is just an example. If I went through and found all the places she’d plagiarized me and then added a few words to throw the dogs off the scent, we’d be here all day–she even used lines where I called Grey “Chedward”, for God’s sake–and she’s already admitted to the plagiarism, so there’s nothing to prove. She didn’t just do it to me, either, or just to my Grey recaps. Readers found a Love, Actually post she’d made by smooshing together parts of one of mine with parts of Lindy West’s piece from Jezebel. As readers poured over her blog, they discovered that Naomi Knight is a serial plagiarizer.

I recently wrote about Laura Harner’s plagiarism of Becky McGraw and Opal Carew. I know that the plagiarism of her work had a tremendous emotional impact on McGraw, because I spoke with her about it. I had no idea, though, how deeply it cuts to see someone else claiming your words for their own. As I read Naomi Knight’s blog, I laughed in disbelief. Mr. Jen asked me what was so funny. I said, “I’ve been plagiarized.” My hands shook. My whole body shook. I was sick to my stomach. Then I started sobbing.

I did my deep breaths. I took two Xanax. But I was in the middle of a full-blown panic attack. All from just seeing my words attributed to someone else. I knew plagiarism was a serious crime; I didn’t realize it could have an affect on a person’s physical well-being.

Naomi Knight had a Twitter, so I took to that, my favorite social media platform, to call her out:

.@NaomiTheKnight Since the first five of “your” Grey recaps were written by me, maybe you want to credit me or do your own goddamn work.

— Jenny Trout (@Jenny_Trout) December 20, 2015

.@NaomiTheKnight Is there anything else you want to steal from me? I write great books.

— Jenny Trout (@Jenny_Trout) December 20, 2015

I was angry. But it wasn’t just anger. There was a lot of despair, too:

Can I have one goddamn thing someone doesn’t take from me? IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

— Jenny Trout (@Jenny_Trout) December 20, 2015

Coming on the heels of this blog post about my identity, my OCD fired up its engines. See? You can’t have anything of your own. Let’s just file that away in our Imposter Syndrome folder, shall we? Because this is a sign, Jenny. This is a sign that you’re not supposed to be a writer. This is probably a sign that you should kill yourself. Oh, and by the way, you don’t deserve anything you’ve ever created. That’s why it’s being taken from you.

I couldn’t stay in the depths of what was quickly becoming a death spiral of intellectual violation. And really, I didn’t need to. Within twenty minutes of outing Naomi Knight as a plagiarist, she deleted her twitter account. Within an hour, her blog went to invite only, then completely vanished. People sent me screen caps of her plagiarism, and notes of support. I went to see the new Star Wars and tried to put it all out of my mind.

When we got in the car and headed for home, someone alerted me to Naomi’s new twitter account, made for her art, which she claimed to have been neglecting, and that was the reason for the sudden account change. And after that twitter and site were pulled down (again, within minutes of being outed) I received an email from Naomi Knight. She tried to “apologize”. Maybe I have a cold heart, but I viewed her explanation of the situation as a cheap ploy to prey on my tender heart. I won’t go into detail because she divulged personal information, but all I could think was, “yeah, well, me too, but I never ripped off a whole bunch of people because of it.”

Asking for that apology just made me more angry. I hadn’t gotten a full twenty-four hours to process my feelings, and now she wanted me to put hers ahead of mine? I felt robbed all over again. The “apology” was just another punch in the face. I did what I wasn’t supposed to do, and used alcohol to cope with my feelings.

This morning, I have a much clearer head, except for the hangover. I decided that I’m not going to lock myself into a “Code of Silence” situation all over again. What Naomi Knight did was wrong, and no matter what’s happening in her personal life, I don’t have to forgive her or go easy on her. I don’t have to be the bigger person. I can think all the rude, malicious, and horrible thoughts I want to about her. I don’t owe her anything.

I have a really bad habit in my personal life of letting people do something that makes me feel ooky, then feeling as though I have to accept their apology because if I don’t, I’m not nice. I think it probably has something to do with being raised Catholic, and I don’t say that to be funny. It’s an entire religion built around forgiveness that’s given without hesitation, just because someone asks. There’s a whole sacrament about it. Maybe I’m still walking around thinking I should be Christ-like and forgive everyone for everything from minor annoyances to major transgressions. So I’m actually thankful for this incident; it made me examine my inability to stick up for myself when I’m so quick to stick up for others. It made me realize that I’m fully entitled to be pissed off about something, even if someone asks for forgiveness, and that I never have to tell someone “no problem” if I feel it’s really a problem. That forgiveness is something you give because you feel it, not because someone else asks for it.

But most importantly, it showed me how much love and support I really get from you guys. Within seconds of my first tweet, I had responses from people asking how they could help, what they could do for me. They went and left comments on the blog Naomi Knight deleted, and took screen shots to send to me. Hours later, it was a reader who found Knight’s “art blog” and secondary twitter (thanks, Pixelfish!). The theft made me feel alone; the outpouring of support made me feel less so.

I’m doing a lot better today. I’m going to go have lunch with my pseudo-brother, finish up some Christmas shopping, and super over-decorate my planner. I’m going to have an overall mentally healthy day. And I’m not going to forgive Naomi Knight. I don’t care what her personal circumstances are. I get to be angry, and I don’t owe her anything. She’s already taken plenty.

State of The Trout: Near End Wrap Up

Hey everybody! I can’t believe we’re here, standing at the very precipice of 2015. It’s gone by so fast! I thought a quick update to tell you what’s going on–and what will be going on in 2016–would be just the ticket today.

Here’s what you can expect for the rest of the year:

Recaps: Recaps are on hiatus until the New Year, because of the holidays and year-end stuff I’d like to do.

#LegionXIII is also on hiatus. We’ll resume on January 6th.

Biter, my Patreon-driven first draft, will see a new chapter next week.

Best of 2015: I’m going to do some “best of 2015″ lists to round out the year. Look for those next week.

And of course I’ll be reporting on my 2015 resolutions and goals, and making some new ones for 2016.

Here’s what you can expect in 2016:

More Grey and Apolonia recaps: Apolonia is almost finished, but when it is, I won’t be picking up another recap project until Grey is done.

The end of The Afflicted: My free historical horror serial, The Afflicted, will wrap up in mid-2016. Haven’t started it yet? Read it for free, here.

Buffy, Season 3 recaps: Season three starts in January!

I’m really hoping to devote more time and energy to the blog next year. I feel like I’ve dropped the ball a bit. But every year is a new story, with new challenges. I’m excited to see what happens next!

Don’t Do This, Ever: “Not you. The other one.”

CW: Suicide

“And it’s hard to believe after all these years

That it still gives you pain and it still brings tears

And you feel like a fool, because in spite of your rules

You’ve got a memory

And you can’t talk about it

Because you’re following a code of silence

You’re never gonna lose the anger

You just deal with it a different way

And you can’t talk about it

And isn’t that a kind of madness

To be living by a code of silence

When you’ve really got a lot to say”– Billy Joel, “Code of Silence”

There is one particular blog post I’ve written more than once, and erased more than once. When I write it, I’m typing it up in anger and pain, and I’m usually at a point that’s so low, I can convince myself that by coming forward and saying something, I would be wrong. That I am a bad person for still being angry and hurt. So I always delete it.

It’s a post about my name.

When my first novel, Blood Ties Book One: The Turning was published in 2006, it was under the name Jennifer Armintrout. In 2011, Half-Blood, by Jennifer L. Armentrout, was published, and my life, career, and mental health took a nosedive.

I’ve been pretty honest about the rise and fall of my career as Jennifer Armintrout. I had a great success as a first-time author. My first book made the USA Today bestseller list. The advance on my second contract was in the six figures. I bought a house. I had a wedding. I had another baby. But, I made some stupid choices, and after a failed fantasy series, things weren’t going as well anymore. And then, things started going weird. I started getting praise for the wonderful new book that I’d written. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what the hell anybody was talking about. I responded to one reader to tell her she must have the wrong author; she wrote back to call me “a damn liar”. So, I did a Google search. And then I immediately emailed my agent. I love my agent. She’s very savvy, and a fun person to talk to. She kinda dropped the ball on this one. She told me not to worry about it, since most of my readers knew who I was already. After all, I was the established author, which is why so many people assumed I had written it. Eventually, all the confusion would straighten itself out.

It strikes me as darkly humorous that, when using dictation software to write this post, I had to manually correct “Armintrout” from “Armentrout.” That is how thoroughly eclipsed my former self has been; my own computer doesn’t know who I am.

All of this happened before I became the Jenny Trout you know now. 2011 Jennifer Armintrout was trying to play by the rules. She was trying to sell books for her publisher, and not make waves. If all of this had happened to 2015 Jenny Trout, I would’ve come out of the corner swinging. Today, it happened to 2015 Taylor Law, and I am furious all over again.

2015 Taylor Law is a lot like 2011 Jennifer Armintrout: opinionated, but unwilling to get involved in too much drama, for fear of appearing unkind to other authors or starting trouble, even when keeping silent would be to her own detriment. So when I saw this on my Facebook timeline today, I decided that 2015 Jenny was going to stick up for 2015 Taylor and, finally, for 2011 Jennifer.

Unlike 2011 Jennifer, 2015 Taylor immediately asked for help. This was a great step. 2011 Jennifer wanted to scream out to everyone that would listen that she was afraid of what this would do to her career, but she didn’t. 2011 Jennifer listened to all the bad advice she was getting and played along when people started noticing the coincidence and found it cute and funny.

But, for me, it wasn’t cute and funny. I was angry. I had already established my name as my brand, and now there was brand confusion. I came across a blog interview in which the blogger had asked Armentrout about my characters, because they couldn’t tell us apart. A local bookstore I had previously done signings at contacted me, wanting to know if I wanted to be a part of their YA event, because they thought her series was mine. And, despite reassurances that people who loved my work would still know who the “real” Armintrout was, readers who’d been with me since my first book wrote to tell me how much they loved my new release — not American Vampire, my 2011 novel, but Armentrout’s Half-Blood. My title flopped, hers was an astronomical hit. And that was the end of my career as Jennifer Armintrout. It happen that fast.

The smart thing, at that point, would have just been to call it a loss, and pick a new name. But I didn’t want to do that; it was my birth name. It was how people knew me. It was how all the people who said I was going to be a failure would see how wrong they were. I wasn’t going to give it up without a fight! But the problem was, the fight was over, and I’d already been knocked out. I didn’t get another contract from my publisher (in a spectacular handful of sand in the face, they signed her a couple years later). My sales dwindled. I lost my house. And then I started losing my sanity.

I’ve been open about my struggles with mental illness. I suffer from chronic depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. These all turned against me to create a paranoid pattern-finding machine. What were the chances, my screwed up brain chemistry asked, of both of us having such similar names, being writers, and writing paranormal fiction, albeit for different audiences? Clearly, there had been some kind of mistake. And the mistake was that she was meant to be a successful author, and I wasn’t. That success had just been delivered to the wrong doorstep. I felt like a fraud. I wasn’t a “real writer”, something I’d suspected since the moment I signed my first contract. My brain found all sorts of proof to feed my delusion, including a freaky twist in which both of us made the USA Today bestseller list at the exact same number our first time (okay, my only time). And nobody around me seemed to think the situation was strange or unfair, so my feeling of being wronged in some way was just an overreaction. It just made sense to me that since everyone liked her more, and suddenly no one like me at all, the universe had put everything back the way it was supposed to have been, and I was the failure I’d always suspected I was.

Coming to this conclusion didn’t make the situation any less brutal. At a conference book signing, an enthusiastic reader approached me to gush about how much she loved my books. It became clear to me (and to the authors seated around me) that she was talking about the other Jennifer. Humiliated, I quickly excused myself to cry in the bathroom. At another event, I introduced myself to an author and an editor from Kensington press. When I gave them my name, their entire demeanor changed, becoming very icy. The author leaned over to the editor and whispered something behind her hand, both of them still looking me straight in the eye. The editor said, very deliberately so that I could hear, “no, I don’t think she is either.” In other words, they thought I was some wannabe who had the audacity to pretend to be another author. My existence had been erased, and everything I was proud of, all of my achievements, had been replaced. I didn’t even own my own name anymore. I wasn’t the “real” Jennifer anymore. I was the “other” Jennifer now.

Obviously the only way to save face after this cosmic misunderstanding was to kill myself. I made up my mind to do this the day my inbox exploded with congratulations for my movie deal. This was not my movie deal, it was the Real Jennifer’s movie deal. On social media, authors I had worked with for years were singing the Real Jennifer’s praises; I decided they were all traitors, or worse, that they’d only ever been nice to me because they’d thought I was her. My husband called Bronwyn Green in a panic, and together they talked me out of my suicide plan, convincing me to just wait until I could talk to my therapist.

These days, I’m a lot healthier. Though I occasionally need to use various Chrome extensions to keep her name or book news from appearing on my social media feeds, this is only at times that I’m severely vulnerable to mental illness relapses. I’ve talked with Jennifer L. Armentrout online, and met her in-person earlier this year. She’s lovely, someone I wish I could have met in other circumstances. I’ve read her Lux series, which is fantastic. If you’re into YA romance and aliens, you should definitely give them a try. And that’s one thing that’s held me back about being fully honest about my feelings over the situation. I ‘m a fan of her work. Despite how I might come off on-line, I don’t want to hurt someone for an innocent mistake or a genuinely misguided choice. I’m willing to risk it now to protect Taylor Law, though, because we have a lot in common.

Like me, Taylor is disabled. Her struggle with chronic physical pain has impacted her mental health, just like mine did. When she reached out to her friends today, she got a lot of support, but some people suggested that she just get over it, that she not focus on it, that what she was feeling was unhealthy. When you reach out in pain and receive an ambivalent response, well. That’s a blog post for another time. Taylor says:

“I may sound overly dramatic, and I’ve been told that I should just get over it. But I was already depressed prior to this happening, because when your body turns on you and you can’t walk or remember your kid’s birthdate some days, things feel pretty damn bad sometimes. But no matter how emotional I am, this is wrong.”

What happened to me and what is happening to Taylor Law has happened to authors before. It happened to Nora Roberts in 2012. When it did, she had this to say about it:

“So if you’re named Michael Douglas and you want to be an actor, you become Michael Keaton instead – by, ironically, using Diane Keaton’s last name (whose real name is Diane Hall). Part of all this is due to Screen Actor’s Guild rules, and there are no similar rules for authors that I’m aware of. But, bottom line, to avoid confusion, if your legal name is similar to an established author’s name, you should go by ‘Michael Keaton’ when you publish. Got that?”

Even before this pronouncement from the undisputed queen of romance, writers were advised to check before using their pen name–whether or not it was their real, legal name–before choosing it. Before my first book came out, I searched my name. Ironically, I found a Jennifer Armentrout. She edited cookbooks, and my first agent advised me that it wouldn’t be a faux pas to use my name on my paranormal romance/urban fantasy novels. If I knew then what I know now, I would have contacted her directly to make sure she was okay with me using the name (as it turns out, she was; we’ve been Facebook friends for a while now).

But Taylor W. Law doesn’t edit cookbooks. He writes romance novels, just like Taylor Law does. Nora A. Roberts wrote romance novels, too, and her inclusion of the “A.” was used as evidence that she not only knew who Nora Roberts was, but was also aware that it would be advantageous to use the name while legally differentiating herself (she proudly admitted it was a marketing strategy; her name isn’t really Nora). And Taylor W. Law’s Amazon bio says he works in television, so surely he must have at least heard of the Screen Actor’s Guild law and the very practical reason it exists. When Taylor Law confronted Taylor W. Law, he acknowledged that he was using the middle initial intentionally, to “avoid confusion.” So someone has advised him on this, the same way I was advised that Jennifer Armentrout’s cookbooks wouldn’t be confused with my vampire novels. This is bad advice, and we have to stop handing it out. The average reader isn’t going to take the time to figure out if Taylor W. Law is Taylor Law, or if the Jennifer Armentrout who once edited cookbooks switched vampire novels before becoming a YA superstar.

That’s not the only bad advice going around in Taylor Law’s situation. She’s receiving the same guidance 2011 Jennifer received when she talked about her feelings over the name mix-up. To ignore it, that her readers know who she is, that she’s the better known Taylor. What are the odds that, like Jennifer L. Armentrout, Taylor W. Law will become a #1 New York Times bestselling author? That he’ll get a movie deal? Stranger things have happened, and a career in television might mean Taylor W. Law has access to channels–no pun intended–that Taylor Law has no hope of accessing. E.L. James worked in television, too. And right now, Taylor W. Law’s romance novel is the third result that appears when you search for Taylor Law on Amazon.

Do I think Taylor W. Law is doing this on purpose? I won’t say that, because I don’t know. I do know that I received the same advice about Jennifer Armentrout, editor, that Jennifer L. Armentrout probably got when she found out about Jennifer Armintrout, author. It appears Taylor W. Law has considered the situation from the same angle. But how important is the intent, when Taylor Law was left feeling like this?

“I was gut-punched. My name is my brand. My brand is me and my name. When people think of Taylor Law, they think of me. I may not have that many books out but I’ve spent the past 5 years building my brand, networking, and making connections, and those cross over into the general romance world, too. It wasn’t just like someone having the same name as me. It was like someone had stolen me and my work, all at once.”

When Taylor and I discussed it, she mentioned feeling alone. I know exactly what she means, because I felt it, too. I felt I couldn’t say anything back when it would have mattered. I sat through presentations at conferences where authors, editors, and agents hammered home how important your name is, that it’s your brand, that you must protect your brand. Some of these were the same people who’d cautioned me to stay quiet and not make waves, that it was just a name, that it didn’t matter. It mattered to me. It mattered to me after I changed my professional name, but still had a sick feeling in my stomach every time I signed my legal name. It mattered to me when I changed my legal name to try to get away from those feelings, only to have my grandmother tearfully ask me why I was ashamed to be a part of the family. But there was never, at any point in this, a moment where anyone in the industry (except very close friends) cared about what I was going through. The expectation was that I would sit quietly and Be Nice, because for all we talk about protecting our brand, when it comes time to actually do it, it’s “mean” or “jealous” or “unprofessional”.

If we’re going to keep telling authors to guard their names and protect their brands, then accuse them of paranoia or cattiness if they do,  there should at least be some acknowledgement from the bookverse that name confusion can cause actual psychological damage to authors. Even though it’s done without malice, it can destroy a person. It almost destroyed me. I don’t want that for Taylor, and I don’t want that for anyone else, either. I’m happy now as Jenny Trout. It fits me. But Taylor Law fits Taylor Law, and it’s hers. She did the work to build that name, to build her brand, and now she’s being advised to step back and let Taylor W. Law use it. I don’t want to see her lose her hard work. I don’t want to see her erased, the way Jennifer Armintrout was erased. Taylor W. Law has one book published. There’s still time for him to rebrand himself. If he has any compassion or sense of professional ethics, he’ll do it.