Abigail Barnette's Blog, page 94

State of The Trout: “Not About Your Waist” edition

HALLO there, all ye faithful and awesome citizens of Trout Nation! Hail and good morrow to thee. Or whatever.

Are you a United States citizen who is over 18 and legally registered to vote? Then you should go do that.

Why I haven’t blogged about a few things. I’ve received questions from people asking me if I was going to write about or what I thought about the recent stories about Jian Ghomeshi and Lena Dunham. For reasons relating to traumatic triggers and my mental health, I’m avoiding these topics.

Not about that bass? Did you love the catchy tune of Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass,” but felt alienated by the lyrics? You’re in luck! YouTuber Natty Valencia has rewritten the words to “All About That Bass” and turned it into an incredibly positive message:

Also, I think this is one of those, “Listen now so you can say you were before it was cool,” because this chick is going to be a superstar.

Important info on THE EX: I’m busy at work putting the finishing touches on The Ex, which releases on November 22nd. I would be remiss if I didn’t include a heads up about the content of the book. There will be a trigger warning in the back cover copy, as the plot centers heavily on frank discussions of rape, rape recovery, and substance abuse. To those readers who will be unable to enjoy the book because of this, I’m sorry to disappoint you. To those who want to read the book, but aren’t in a mentally healthy place to do so  at release time, I completely understand. And if you know someone who reads the series, please mention the trigger warning to them as well, if you deem it appropriate to do so.

What am I working on right now? Glad you asked! In addition to another project with The Story Foundation, I’m working hard on the sequel to Such Sweet Sorrow, as well as the next Buffy recap. Thank you all for being so patient about those recaps, by the way. For some reason, I find them more difficult than my other recaps. Not in an unpleasant way, just in a labor-intensive way. I can throw off an Apolonia recap in an hour or two, but I care about Buffy.

Last of all Thanks for all the nice things you’ve said about the Amanda Palmer post, and in general, for every very personal post I put up here.

 

But you’re so so backwards… Why you gotta be like that? (My complicated feelings for Amanda Palmer)

TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE

A little over a year ago, Amanda Palmer saved my family.

Don’t panic. This isn’t the part where I defend her recent behavior, or much of her behavior in general.

In 2013, my life had started to change. My chapter-by-chapter recap of Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels had become more popular than I could have imagined. I’d started a serial romance, The Boss, and that had become pretty popular, too. I considered sending the full to my agent, thinking maybe I could sell it somewhere. I thought about proposing it to Ellora’s Cave, the company that had published my last book at the time. But neither option felt right. I figured I would just leave The Boss on the blog, and then follow up with The Girlfriend. I wasn’t getting paid much for my writing at the time, so I felt like it wasn’t of a quality where I could charge for it.

People started asking if I could set up a donations account, so they could give me money for the blog and for The Boss. I did, but I felt guilty. Again, I thought that what I was doing wasn’t real, because no one had sanctioned my choices. There was no publishing house supporting what I was doing, so I wasn’t a “real” author. But my family of four was trying to get by–and get through a messy foreclosure–on twenty-thousand a year. Granted, it’s not an impossible task, but it isn’t comfortable, and it definitely isn’t stress free. There were plenty of times we were sending unsigned checks “accidentally,” etc, and more than once we had to turn to the state emergency fund to keep our heat on. We stretched one-hundred and six dollars worth of food stamps over every month. In case you’re wondering, those info graphics showing how cheaply you can eat on fresh produce and healthy food? Are all bullshit. We were struggling, and it didn’t seem like we would ever dig our way out of the hole of back taxes, defaulted student loans, and the mountain of medical bills that I’d piled onto the heap.

Then, I saw something that changed my life. It was Amanda Palmer’s TED Talk, “The Art of Asking.” I’d heard of Amanda Palmer before. I knew she’d been in a band called The Dresden Dolls, because I had a friend who loved them. I think I’d heard one song. But my sister-in-law posted a link to the Ted Talk on my Facebook wall, and though I wasn’t super interested, I watched it anyway.

That video changed my life. Here was this woman, a successful woman, saying that there was more than one path to success, and that artists deserve to be paid for the work they do. That there was nothing wrong with asking for support, and there was nothing to be ashamed of if the path people thought you should take just didn’t work for you.

Because of that Ted Talk, I decided that it would be okay to charge book prices for The Girlfriend, the sequel to The Boss. That August, I embraced self-publishing, and put The Girlfriend on Amazon.

It sold two thousand copies in an hour.

A few days later, a complete version of The Boss made its self-pub debut as a ninety-nine cent e-book. In its first month, I made thirty-thousand dollars.

Amanda Palmer became my role model. I listened to her music and absorbed her blog. I learned about the controversy she’d sparked with her Kickstarter campaign that had so inspired me. She’d produced her album and gone on tour, but she was asking musicians to play without payment. I was conflicted; hadn’t she used her power of asking to raise money to fund her artistic endeavors? But then again, wasn’t she using that same power of asking to get these musicians to play with her? No one was forcing them to sign on. She was asking, and they were answering.

The more I followed her work, the more wary I became. At first listen, I thought her song “Guitar Hero” was an incredible portrait of soldiers trying to maintain a sense of normalcy amid the chaos of war; then I realized I’d been hearing the n-word shouted, for no discernible reason, besides to shock the listener (though I’m not confident that there ever could be a good reason for a white artist to include that in their lyrics).  She wrote a controversial poem expressing sympathy for the surviving suspect of the Boston Marathon bombing. But she also started a twitter campaign urging people to post un-retouched photos of their least favorite body part to protest the unrealistic depictions of bodies in the media. She preached the gospel of independent art, but there seemed to be an edge of opportunism in everything she did. I wrote it off as her just being kind of kooky, in a way that didn’t jibe with my personal philosophy. And that, to me, was okay. I would occasionally roll my eyes and move along. I just sort of accepted, as Twitter user @GraceIsHuman tweeted, quoting a line from Erin Keane’s Slate.com piece (TW: rape):

“If Amanda Palmer can make something about Amanda Palmer, she will.” Never a truer sentence.

— Witch of West Africa (@graceishuman) October 31, 2014

Keane’s essay is one of many regarding  Amanda Palmer’s support of accused rapist Jian Ghomeshi. Palmer had planned on hosting Ghomeshi as part of one of her shows, and as the allegations stacked up (TW: rape), fans were outraged to hear that she still intended to keep him on as her guest. Palmer asked for peace and understanding, stating that she needed time to sort through her thoughts. After a landslide of recriminations rolled through the media and her fan base, Palmer wrote a blog post announcing that Ghomeshi wouldn’t be at her show after all.  This is something that I can’t just roll my eyes at. The heartfelt tone of her announcement strikes me as far too little and extremely late. It’s hard to believe that it came from a place of soul-searching and profound enlightenment when Palmer is currently on tour to promote her new book. The tone policing in her post and her pleas for respect and kindness on social media, her lamentations over how the passionate response to the controversy had somehow damaged society, all seemed intended to scold anyone who dared question her. It wasn’t sincere. It was a haughty declaration of moral superiority.

I can no longer say that I’m an Amanda Palmer fan. Not after this. Yet, I still feel as though I owe her credit for changing my life. So, while I’ll no longer follow her on social media, or defend her to her critics, I still feel a conflicted debt of gratitude toward her. Though I’ll never purchase another of her albums (nor her book, which I had been looking forward to), I may still occasionally listen to the music that I already own. I talk a lot on this blog about recognizing when the art and media we consume is problematic, and that we can still enjoy flawed things as long as we didn’t make excuses for those elements, but I’m not as tolerant as I used to be of creators. I loved Woody Allen’s movies, but I would never watch another, not even an old favorite. Braveheart, a film I once loved shamelessly, leaves a bad taste in my mouth now. Sometimes, when an artist or artwork are so profoundly troubling, we have to know when to walk away. I’ve got to walk away from Amanda Palmer, a person who has made such an enormous impact on my life. As Twitter user @1AprilDaniels said:  

Amanda Palmer has written songs that have literally saved my life. Which makes her penchant for generating facepalms even more frustrating.

— October DEATHyuls (@1aprildaniels) October 31, 2014

summing up perfectly the conflict that many of Palmer’s fans feel after each one of her devil’s advocate missteps. Fans who have endured rape and abuse, who have been thrown under the wheels of Amanda Palmer’s publicity tour bus this week, are having to decide whether her good qualities–the list dwindles with each new grab at scandal–outweigh the extreme offense and second-hand embarrassment from her outrageous attempts to be provocative and thoughtful.

Yes, Palmer has taught me the “Art of Asking,” but asking that we accept passive-aggressive apologies for her antics time and again is wearing thin. And this time, it’s asking far too much.

Merlin Club S04E01, 02: “The Darkest Hour” or “Haunted Sparkle Vagina Full of Ghosts”

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

So, here’s a quick rundown of episodes one and two: A year after the season three two part finale, Morgana is wheeling Morgause across the countryside in a little cart, when she’s stopped by the Camelot knights. She whips their asses with magic and takes Morgause to the Isle of the Blessed, where she sacrifices her sister to open the veil between the realms of the living and the dead. A bunch of angry skeleton ghosts get unleashed, and they go all “This is Halloween” through Camelot. The only way to close the gaping haunted sparkle vagina of the netherworld is by making another sacrifice. Arthur goes to sacrifice himself, but he’s got a line of people to get through first, because Lancelot and Merlin both intend to make themselves a sacrifice. Lancelot is the one who actually does sacrifice himself, though, and Gwen blames herself, because she told him to protect Arthur.

This is really the perfect Merlin Club for Halloween, because skeleton ghosts.

If I had written this episode, I would have changed: I love this two-parter. The only thing I would have probably changed is the part where Percy carries all the children to safety. It was so cheesy, and made more so by the fact that his armor doesn’t have any freaking sleeves. It’s like, we get it, okay? Percy is strong.

The thing I loved most about this episode: Uther is a broken shell of a man with nothing left to live for. Also, skeleton ghosts. And I’ve never been a Lancelot fan, so I was fine with him being gobbled up by the death snatch (seriously, it looks like a vagina).

The thing I hated most about this episode: I understand that Gwen is a good person, and she wants to help Arthur, but I just find it so unspeakably cruel that she’s the full-time caregiver to the man who murdered her father.

Something I never noticed before: I’m coming to realize more and more what a douchey little teacher’s pet Leon is. I really liked him the last time I watched the series, but now… not so much.

Favorite Costume: Morgana’s creepy hoodie.

Here is proof of some random headcanon I created: Nothing here.

What object would Bronwyn steal from this episode? Whoa, have we seen these chairs before? If Bronwyn doesn’t dig them, then I certainly do.

What Merthur moment did Jess have the naughtiest thoughts about? There are aaaaaaall sorts of Merthur moments in this one. Merlin is constantly trying to rescue Arthur from certain death, and Arthur is all about protecting Merlin. This is like porn to Jess.

Check out Jessica Jarman’s take on the episode here

Check out Bronwyn Green’s take on the episode here

That’s it for this week. Join us next week for S04E03, “The Wicked Day,” Monday,  8pm EST on the hashtag #MerlinClub.

 

Jealous Hater’s Book Club: Apolonia, chapter three

While Jamie McGuire was busy favoriting tweets that threatened bloggers this weekend, I was reading chapter three of her book. I shall struggle to remain objective.

Chapter three begins with a confrontation between Rory and Ellie, the neighbor she hates. Ellie asks Rory who spent the night in her room, and we get a description of her long brown hair.

My hair used to be the same length as hers, but she didn’t feel like she had to wash blood out of hers every night.

There’s no way Rory could possibly know that. I mean, it’s a good guess, but how would Rory know? We also learn that their pants are of equal tightness, which Rory rejects on principle.

“I have to say,” she said, not waiting for my answer, “I’m surprised, whoever it was. Your new haircut is absolutely appalling.”

I’m flagging this for unrealistic dialogue. Maybe, “Your new haircut is ugly as fuck.” What the hell is this, some Jane Austen shit?

“Good,” I murmured.

“What was that?”

“I said, you’re a whore,” I replied, slinging my bag over my shoulder. That was definitely worth a smile, so I wore one all the way to class.

We finally find something Rory likes, and of course it’s being as unpleasant as possible.

Rory walks to class, dressed insufficiently for the cold.

Everyone else was wearing heavy coats and knitted hats, but I never thought about things like that. I had formulas and data sparking the synapses in my brain, along with horrible memories and now…the golden eyes of the confusing jerk I didn’t want to think about.

“I’m too smart to know how to put a coat on,” is not an argument I’ve heard before.

But what’s this with confusing jerk thing? Cyrus hasn’t acted like a jerk to her at all, unless you count weirdly stalking her. But books like this never count threatening behavior as jerkishness. And we haven’t had enough time with him to learn about his personality at all. He’s barely had any page time. So, Writing Tip: If the love interest in your book is a jerk, you need to show the reader times when he’s actually being a jerk. You can’t just tell us that he is one.

During class, at night, weekends, in the lab, I wondered about him.

Hold up, hold up. When the hell are we? I assumed that Ellie’s question about who spent the night was tied to her noticing Cyrus’s visit in the middle of the night. Now Rory has had weeks to contemplate him? Maybe I’m nitpicking, but in those two weeks, couldn’t we have seen some interaction between Rory and Cyrus that would give her reason to wonder about him?

It became a game for me to make up his history and background. I’d wonder if he had a happy childhood or if he was at Kempton to run away from an overbearing father. In every scenario, though, he was alone and lonely, and no matter how much I wanted to despise him, I just couldn’t even if it meant he was planning to steal my research assistant position.

Once again: nothing in the book so far has suggested that he’s trying to “steal” her position, and as many of you have pointed out in the comments, there’s usually more than one research assistant going on in a lab situation. The author is just telling us, through Rory’s POV, that he’s trying to steal her job.

Benji is more than willing to jump on the “Cyrus is evil” train, because he clearly wants to get with Rory. Even after she broke his nose and beat him up:

It had been two weeks since I smashed his nose, and the bruising had finally begun to fade.

Okay, so it’s now been two weeks since the last chapter. It feels good to know where we are in time.

“Tell me about it.”

Rory goes to lunch with Benji:

Eating with Benji was a much better alternative to eating alone in one of the cafeterias. He was the only student at KIT who didn’t have to blather on about whatever project he was working on, and he wasn’t bad to look at either.

Is Benji handsome? Because I feel like it hasn’t been pointed out to us enough. But it’s nice to see that Rory is consistent; she doesn’t just hate her own project, she hates everyone else’s too.

Rory can’t afford to be distracted in class, because her grades have slipped from A’s to B’s. (Side note: If there are any grammarians in the house, is “As and Bs” or “A’s and B’s”? I’ve never found a sufficient answer for this question).  This could be just my experience, but for the brief time that I was in college, we didn’t refer to letter grades, but grade point average. This might be a nitpick, but this wording just contributes to the high school feel, to me. The reason she’s distracted in class is because she’s so busy thinking about Cyrus:

Just another reason to hate Cy. He was becoming a huge distraction.

That’s not his problem, Rory. It’s yours.

Benji notices Rory watching Cy:

“You’re doing it again,” Benji said.

“Shh.”

“Watching him. I’m hoping it’s because you’re suspicious of him like me.”

What kind of scolding, controlling bullshit is that? Feel free to watch him, Rory, just as long as you’re not watching him in a way that’s threatening to the claim I have on you.

Rory tells Benji that she’s been noticing how Cy makes a bunch of random dots in his notebook all the time:

What I wasn’t telling him was that Cy’s dots were always in intricate patterns, and something he added in what looked like hieroglyphics.

I sincerely hope that this is because he’s an alien and not because he’s Egyptian.

But I wasn’t interest in investigating Cy and certainly not with Benji, so I kept that tidbit of information to myself.

She’s not interested in investigating him, but she sits around wondering about him all the time, and inventing stories about him. And she’s so not interested in investigating him, she’s kept track of how many of these dots he’s drawn on his paper during class, to the tune of two hundred and thirty-nine.

Rory goes to lunch with Benji, who talks about school:

“…so I said, ‘Therefore, I was correct. A meteor is a flash of light, not the debris.’ It’s just ridiculous he wasn’t aware of the difference at this level.”

“Agreed,” I said before taking a sip of my water.

I don’t know if you can actually be judgmental on this one, Rory. You’re not even interested in space rocks.

At Gigi’s Café, we have an opportunity to watch Rory pick at her food, reminding us that she doesn’t eat. Benji talks about how he’s not going to join a fraternity, and that he’s annoyed with people at “Charlie’s.” I tried to find other mentions of Charlie’s in the book, but for whatever reason the text isn’t searchable. I don’t think I’ve read about Charlie’s thus far, so I don’t have any clue what it is.

Benji asks Rory to come over and study with him, because her grades are slipping. She asks him how he knew that, and he says she told him. All she really said to him was that she couldn’t afford to miss any notes.

I tried to remember if I’d even told Benji that much. Telling him anything even remotely personal meant fifty questions and relentless attempts to make whatever it was better. Our friendship was comprised of his relentless positivity and chatter and my bitter quips.

Ah, so Benji is to Rory as Kate is to Ana Steele. What is so appealing about this dynamic to New Adult authors? “Ugh, I hate my friends, they’re way too caring and interested in me.” Who thinks that? Wouldn’t the better alternative just be to not have friends?

Rory tells Benji that Ellie has moved in to the room next to hers. She’s told Benji about Ellie, so he knows what she’s talking about

I wasn’t sure why she’d chosen me to torture. Mom once told me that people like her were miserable inside, and making others even more miserable was the only thing that made them feel better. I disagreed. Ellie Jones was just an evil, cum-burping gutter slut.

Bringing back a recap classic.

Is this really what people want to read? I mean, it obviously is, because it’s a theme in so many New Adult and Young Adult books. Every boy has to love the protagonist, every girl has to be either evil or less pretty than the heroine. That’s it. And then when the heroine has sex with the love interest, that’s okay. She’s not a slut. Just those other girls.

Honestly, I don’t think I have ever seen girl hate this strong in a book. It’s disgusting. We need to find the bacteria or spore or virus that makes New Adult authors look at their manuscripts and say, “You know what we don’t have enough of? Girl-on-girl hate. I should encourage the fuck out of this,” isolate it, and eradicate it. There are young women right now reading that line and cheering for the heroine. That’s fucked up.

Benji suggests that Rory help him pass the final, and he’ll buy her lunches when they eat out. And Rory is cool with this, even though:

When our food came, I tried to keep my attention on the cars passing by and the pedestrians walking their dogs, anything to keep from making eye contact with Benji. He was too happy anyway, and now that we would be hanging out regularly, his eyes were even brighter, and he couldn’t stop smiling. It was disturbing.

You didn’t have to agree to hang out with him. I’m not even sure why he wants to hang out with you.

Rory agrees to meet Benji before she has to start her night “at the Fitz.” Writing Tip: Even though you might run into places like Gigi’s cafe and Charlie’s and the Fitz in real life, it’s confusing to the reader if a lot of the place names in your book are people names. One probably won’t hurt, but you should find non-human names for your locations.

After a section break, Rory goes to Charlie’s, which is the dorm where Benji stays. Not confusing at all, right?

His biceps bulged as he moved, and it bugged me that I noticed how his skin rippled over the muscles and veins running through his thick forearms. It was probably just because I’d never seen him in a short-sleeved shirt before. Definitely not because anything about Benji could catch my eye. Or at least, that was what I was telling myself.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a love triangle foreshadowed so artlessly. And I read Twilight.

This is my favorite part of this book so far, by the way. We get a description of Benji’s room, including:

In the center of the desk, in front of a brown leather office chair, were four open laptops and one single perfectly sharpened pencil.

And then, in reference to an LCD monitor:

“I control that via remote and can check email from my bed,” Benji said.

And I’m like, “Uh, Benji? You could also check email from your bed on ONE OF THOSE FOUR LAPTOPS.”

Benji asks Rory where she wants to “do it,” as in, where does she want to study, but Rory hears it differently:

My surprise wasn’t because I was a virgin. Quite the opposite. After my parents died, I became a statistic, rebelling and giving myself to anyone–male or female–who didn’t mind if I lost myself in him or her for an hour or so.

Oh, so what you’re telling us is that you were a “cum-burping gutter slut” yourself?

So. Tired. So tired. Extremely tired of this whole, “sex is okay if the heroine is having it, all other female are whores” dynamic. And what’s with the “male or female” thing? It would be awesome if Rory were going to be a positive example of a bisexual character, but I guess I just don’t have confidence that “male or female” isn’t being used as code for, “She was so fucked up and dangerous, she would even do lesbo shit!” I don’t know. I just can’t see the great mind that brought us “cum-burping gutter slut” bringing us a nuanced portrayal of a bisexual heroine. “Male or female” here is being used to show us that the lowest point this character reached was having sex with girls.

Rory and Benji study and eat Chinese food, and Benji asks Rory if she wants to go out sometime. Not on a date. Just studying somewhere in public.

Benji, I am getting real tired of your can’t-take-no-for-an-answer bullshit. Rory has made it pretty clear so far that she’s not into you like that. Stop trying to win her over with Chinese food and making her feel bad for not helping you get good grades by studying with you.

Rory leaves and thinks:

He was cute, and I liked spending the afternoon with him far too much. I was getting to know him too well. And he smelled too good. Caring was dangerous, for both of us.

This is one of those times when I’m reading a book and I realize that the author is depending on the reader to bring past experience with other stories with them, so the author doesn’t have to work as hard. “I could build a character and show the reader why it would be impossible for them to have a relationship, thus giving validation to their fear of emotional intimacy with others, but instead I’ll just tell them that caring about someone would be dangerous and trust that they’ve read enough ‘damaged heroine’ books to just blindly accept it.” We haven’t seen any reason why it would be “dangerous” for someone to get close to Rory. We know that she has been through a horrible trauma and is therefore probably afraid to get close to anyone else. But what about that makes it “dangerous” for Benji to like her?

Whatever the reason Benji had for liking me, it was the wrong reason. If I had to tell myself that a thousand times a day, I would. If that wasn’t enough, I would remind myself that getting involved with Benji would inevitably hurt him, and if I cared about him enough to even entertain the thought of ruining his life by giving in to his stupid crush, I should care about him enough to push him away. I was messed-up. A sob story. A charity case.

Okay, but… you don’t push him away. You hang out with him constantly, and while you tell him you don’t want things to get messy, you never really draw a line in the sand and say, “I’m sorry if you think this is something that it isn’t, but we won’t be dating.” If you don’t want to date him, but it’s clear that he thinks you’ll eventually give in, you have to be firm. And if he won’t take no for an answer, stop hanging out with him entirely.

And still: why would it ruin his life for Rory to get involved with him? I mean, I can sit here and extrapolate and arrive at a pretty good conclusion. For example: Rory is too emotionally damaged, she doesn’t trust herself to be with anyone because she wants to protect her heart, she’s too fucked up to be good for anybody. But I shouldn’t have to do that work in my head. The book should show me that.

Rory goes to the lab, where Cy is waiting. She asks him if he recorded the “isotopic signatures” because they’re important, and he lets her shout at him until she feels better about the rest of her night. Then the chapter ends.

DON’T DO THIS EVER (An advice column for writers): “Just Say Hale No To The Taliban” edition

What. The fuck. Is happening?

If you didn’t get a chance to read the last installment of DON’T DO THIS EVER, then you should hop on over there , because otherwise you will be muy confuso.

In the wake of Kathleen Hale’s stalking of blogger Blythe Harris, book bloggers developed a plan to stick up for their rights. They rallied support for a “blogger blackout.” The concept is simple: for a week, these bloggers don’t review. Some bloggers have taken it further, making it their new policy to not review any recent releases for the foreseeable future. This is to make a point not only to badly behaving authors like Kathleen Hale, but to publishers, who rely on book bloggers as a source of free publicity. The message they’re sending, loud and clear, is that without them, it’s pretty damn hard to grow a readership these days.

But one author, Deborah Smith, sees the blackout differently. She thinks it’s… sing it with me now, because you know this tune…

It appears to have started on October 20th, with this tweet:

This is where Deborah Smith learned about irony.

So, now that we’re aware that we’re dealing with an author who thinks irony is “people doing something I don’t understand in a way that I feel personally affects me,” the rest of these tweets will make more sense in context.

Ole Debbie here does not care. In fact, she doesn’t care so much on October 22, that she continues to tweet about it:

for literally days:

Apparently, bloggers taking a single week off from reviewing and declaring that they won’t buy books or receive ARCs from authors who support Kathleen Hale in the wake of her admission of stalking, is an attempt to punish authors. Smith’s reasoning seems to be that because bloggers receive ARCs from publishers, authors should be allowed to stalk them.

Wait a minute. Hang on. Kathleen Hale didn’t “respond to reviews.” She spent months stalking a blogger online, plotting to get her address, and methodically planning a confrontation at the blogger’s home. This wasn’t some spur of the moment bad decision making. Hale rented a car months in advance, and drove to Harris’s house to call her out in person. That’s why bloggers are scared and protesting.

Furthermore, there’s no law that says an author can’t respond to a review. Respond all you want. But people are free to react to that response, and if everyone thinks you’re a dipshit, well. You don’t really have a say in that. Here, Smith has turned the car around. We’re not going to ProtectHalesville today. We’re heading right on back to bad reviews are bullying country.

So, here we are on that lonely, delusional road so many authors drive us down. Smith appears to truly believe that she and other authors are entitled to the free publicity that those ARCs, giveaways, and interviews provide for them, without having to maintain a standard of behavior up to and including “don’t stalk people.” For a blogger to deny an author a platform to market themselves is nothing short of, well… terrorism?

Here, Smith is referring to the doxxing of Kathleen Hale by twitter user @WhatTheEff. When bloggers on the #HaleNo tag saw this going down, they rejoiced and patted each other on the back for being hypocrites and bullies.

Oh. No, that’s not what happened at all:

In fact, a lot of people reported @WhatTheEff. I know I reported them. But Smith, seeking to cement her place as the Ann Coulter of the romance world, won’t let the Taliban thing go:

And if her hysterics over bloggers taking a week off from reviewing–remember, that’s what she’s pissed about, that bloggers won’t review books for one week and some are choosing to boycott authors who support an author who stalked someone over a GoodReads status update–weren’t offensive enough yet, well, hold on to your hat. Good ole fashioned white supremacy is just the pick-me-up you need to keep your overdramatic twitter rant fresh and exciting:

Thanks to @FangirlJeanne for the screencap.

She’s also got some words for bloggers who aren’t sympathetic enough to ever-flowing white tears:

Smith apparently has made something of a name for herself on Twitter based on her Islamaphobic tweets and harassment of women of color. I’m sure you’re all shocked.

Apparently, bloggers are overreacting to a “minor incident” of stalking:

Saying, “I don’t want an angry author nursing an ego boo-boo to roll up to my door intending to do god-knows-what to me in retaliation” is no more bullying than giving a book a bad review in the first place.

There are many, many more tweets that I’ve screencapped from this nonsense, but they all say basically the same thing: Deborah Smith believes that she, as an author (and publisher; she is co-founder of BelleBooks), is entitled to free publicity, great reviews, and unending adulation from the blogging community. And if she doesn’t get all of that, she’s being victimized by terrorists.

I’m just saying, if I were Deborah Smith, I wouldn’t be demanding reviews from bloggers right this minute.

Look, if you want an example of “burning bridges,” this is the one, right here. Authors, when are you going to wise up? Book bloggers are out there, sharing their hobby in a way that benefits you. These are people who are so passionate about reading that they want to share their experiences with other readers and get them excited over your books. It’s done without pay (regardless of what Smith seems to believe, ARCs don’t pay the bills), it’s a ton of work, and it all encourages readers to buy books. Book bloggers are in it for love, not to destroy authors. In fact, most cases of damage done to careers has come from the authors themselves, when they point out a negative review and respond to it by childishly stamping their feet in public. That’s not the blogger’s fault. That’s the author’s fault. And even then, there don’t seem to be any consequences for the authors who actually do this crap. All we have to do is look at the response to Hale’s admission of stalking to see that no matter how badly an author behaves, there isn’t ever going to be a consequence.

Oh, hey, speaking of badly behaving authors who are still beloved despite the fact that they’re generally terrible:

 

Wow! Someone actually favorited that tweet? The tweet that sounds like a threat, coming from a woman who vocally supports Kathleen Hale, a reviewer stalker? Who the hell would favorite that?

 

Let’s compare and contrast that user photo, shall we?

Oh, okay, that explains it.

If you’re looking for more information on the blogger blackout (from someone who won’t compare bloggers to the Taliban and make Islamaphobic slurs), here are some posts you can visit:

The Blogger Blackout: What it is and what it isn’t and Warring On Authors by Tez Miller
Another post on the Blogger Blackout, at Howdy YAL
A comprehensive post about #HaleNo and #BloggerBlackout by KT Grant (tons and tons of links here)

There’s also a Change.org petition asking Goodreads to increase privacy measures to protect the safety of its users.

Finally, as Deborah Smith is cofounder of BelleBooks, I would strongly urge any writers to avoid submitting their manuscripts there. I personally am writing them off my to-buy lists. It’s not fair to the authors who write for them, but I refuse to put money in the hands of a spoiled, entitled, racist brat like Deborah Smith. I strongly encourage you to consider doing the same.

Merlin Club S03E12 & 13: “The Coming of Arthur,” or, “Jess, stop snickering.”

Merlin club is a weekly feature in which Jessica Jarman, Bronwyn Green, and myself gather at 8pm EST to watch an episode of the amazing BBC series Merlin, starring Colin Morgan and literally nobody else I care about except Colin Morgan.

Okay, I lie. A lot of other really cool people are in it, too.

Anyway, we watch the show, we tweet to the hashtag #MerlinClub, and on Fridays we share our thoughts about the episode we watched earlier in the week.

So, here’s a quick rundown of episodes twelve and thirteen: Sir Leon gets himself dead, and the druids use the Cup of Life to heal him. Then Uther is all like, “Damn, we need to get that cup.” But Cenred is all like, “Damn, I need that cup, too,” and he thinks he’s going to get it and Morgause is going to work with him. But Morgause just kills him and steals his army, and they attack Camelot. Morgana takes her place on the throne and emotionally destroys Uther (yay!), starts ruling with an iron fist to punish everyone who gaslighted her, and Arthur and his knights come back and take Camelot again. Uther is pretty much out of commission on the mental health front, so the episode ends with Merlin suggesting that it might be time for Arthur to become king.

If I had written this episode, I would have changed: It annoys me that so many victims of Uther’s cruelty are forced to help reclaim his kingdom for him. Lancelot, Gwain, Gwen, Freya, the dragon, they have all good reason to have major beef with Uther, but they all coordinate to save his ass? No. You know what would have worked better? If Uther died in the first half of this two parter. Then in the second half, Morgana is still looking for Arthur, and she’s killing all these people, and everyone has to help Arthur claim the throne and stop her. As far as any of these characters know, they’re rushing in to restore the king to his throne, and that’s the best case scenario. That doesn’t make sense.

The thing I loved most about this episode: When Morgana makes Uther cry:

Oh, does that hurt your feelings, that you killed hundreds of innocent people and someone is calling you out on it? Poor baby. Glad you’re only around for two more weeks, a-hole.

(But I still love you, Anthony Head! I STILL LOVE YOU I JUST HATE UTHER!)

The thing I hated most about this episode: I  hate that nobody is like, “Oh, she’s Uther’s daughter, now I get it. We better send her a fruit basket,” or in any way try to reach out to her to be like, “We get it. You’re right, Uther does suck, but maybe let’s stop killing peasants.” It might have worked. All she was looking for was some sympathy and understanding, damn it.

Something I never noticed before: How great ASH looks when grimy.

Favorite Costume: 

Here is proof of some random headcanon I created: Remember last week when I said Uther would do “anything” to keep Morgana from finding out about her true parentage? He looks absolutely horrified to find that she knew he was her father this whole time. So, big reveal:

My headcanon that I will believe forever is that Morgana came on to her dad to try and make him admit he was her dad, and he didn’t stop her.

It’s sad that this hasn’t been exploited in fic as much as it should/could be.

What object would Bronwyn steal from this episode? 

This:

 

No one particular thing. Like, literally an entire cave of druids.

What Merthur moment did Jess have the naughtiest thoughts about? The title. The title of the episodes.

Check out Jessica Jarman’s take on the episode here

Check out Bronwyn Green’s take on the episode here

That’s it for this week. Join us next week for a Merlin Club double header,  S04E01 and 02, “The Darkest Hour” Monday,  8pm EST on the hashtag #MerlinClub.

 

Jealous Hater’s Book Club: Apolonia, chapter two

A blogger contacted me about the possibility that Apolonia could be a Roswell fanfic (the blogger who contacted me is not affiliated with the link). Having never watched Roswell myself, I wouldn’t know. I’m also not familiar enough with McGuire’s background to know whether or not she has published fanfic in the past, though I have heard that allegation leveled at her before. I haven’t seen any kind of obvious trail, like with E.L. James and Fifty Shades of Grey. If you’re familiar with Roswell and notice anything, feel free to discuss it in the comments.

Chapter two opens in Dr. Zoidberg’s lab:

Water? Check. Muffin? Check. Even handsomer in his black-rimmed glasses, the spot-stealer sitting at the table to my left, working his ass off?

Heads up, the underlines are my attempt at representing italics, since the default font for quotes in this WordPress theme seems to be italics, and I don’t know how to change something like that.

So, Cyrus, who was only okay-looking in the last chapter, is clearly starting to grow on Rory. They’ve been working on the “boring rock,” the one that’s made of some totally unknown mineral that no one on earth has ever seen before. Rory bemoans the fact that she can’t type and look through the microscope at the same time. Many of you who are actual scientists and not just an author/blogger who occasionally dabbles with water, pepper, and soap just to see the if the same thing still happens. The science types have informed us that a rock made of a totally unknown substance from space would a) not bore someone who was into science, and b) not be entrusted to a professor at a small college, let alone a student researcher. And probably not one who can’t multitask.

Cyrus and Rory have a Twilight moment, complete with microscope and golden eyes:

Just once, I’d caught him glancing at me. His golden eyes returned to the microscope so quickly that I thought it was my imagination.

I will now be on the lookout for descriptions of Cyrus’s eyes that include the words “ochre” or “butterscotch.”

Oh, shut up. Like you haven’t read Twilight.

I chewed off another hangnail, spit it on the cement floor, and then took a bite of my pathetic dinner.

Okay, so, I’m not a scientist, but I’m pretty sure some of you are going to point out that she’s not only eating in a lab, but she’s putting her fingers in her mouth and spitting on the floor. Anyone who’s taken a high school chemistry class knows that all three of those things are probably not okay. I mean, the last one alone is just manners.

Whatever science Rory and Cyrus are doing involves looking into microscopes and recording numbers, and Rory is racing Cyrus. He finally packs it in at midnight, and Rory is delighted because she can tell Dr. Zoidberg that she’s the better research assistant. You may remember that in the previous chapter, Dr. Zoidberg made it clear that he wasn’t interested in firing Rory, but Rory refuses to let go of her fear that she’ll be fired by her long-time family friend.

Rory leaves work at one in the morning:

There was an elevator with a set of stairs on each side, which I preferred. I had an aversion to elevators, especially alone and at night. That was where I’d met my killers.

After climbing the stairs and pushing through both sets of glass doors out to the front of the building, I noticed a group of students walking and then another group. Scanning the area, I saw that many students were heading in the same destination, and feeling like a lemming, I joined the line.

Writing Tip: Exposition can be hard to pull off. You have to know exactly how much detail to give, and when to give it. This is not one of McGuire’s strong suits in this book. “I had an aversion to elevators, especially alone and at night,” would be fine here. Later, when there’s time to explore the killers thing, the reader would remember, either consciously or subconsciously, that she’d mentioned this, and it would be perceived as foreshadowing. Or, if the author wanted to include this information right now, there should have been more than just, “Oh, by the way, my killers.” We get this huge piece of information, and then immediately move on. What we move on to isn’t more interesting than learning about her killers. The next paragraph is all “the students do this, the students do that.” We just learned in a brief aside something about the people who tried to murder you and your family. We don’t care about walking. Either don’t tell us about the killers, or expand upon them.

Rory follows the lemming line for five blocks. Like, she literally just goes along with them, doesn’t break off or go to her place or anything. She follows them into a house and shit:

The group led me five blocks off campus to an old building, down the stairs, and through a door.

Wait a minute, Rory. You won’t get on an elevator alone and at night, but you’ll blindly join a group of students you don’t know at one in the morning and go into some strange basement?

Come on now.

It was a rave, the fake kind with sorority girls and wannabe think-tank members. In the two years since I’d moved east to Kempton, I’d stayed far away from raves, parties, rallies, underground fights, and people in general.

I think it’s hilarious that she’s avoided all these places where literally every New Adult book seems to end up in by the end of the first chapter.

Yet here I was, for no particular reason, breathing in heavy smoke, stepping in sticky god-knows-what, and allowing the Top 40 to violate my eardrums.

Someone has a case of the Anastasia Steeles here. This is yet another heroine who doesn’t. Like. Anything. To the point that it’s super ridiculous; she’s crashing a party in a strange place that she hasn’t been invited into, she got there just by following strangers, and now she’s complaining about the music? WHY DID YOU GO IN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?

She tries to leave, but accidentally shoves the door into Benji’s face. He gets a nosebleed, so Rory takes matters into her own hands and cuts him to the front of the bathroom line.

“Hey!” a girl whined. “You can’t cut!”

“Deal with it,” I said before closing the door in her face.

Rory tends to Benji’s wounds, and he admits that he only came into the party because he saw her going in there. Why was Benji out this late? Was he following her or something? Shouldn’t almost-got-murdered Rory be more cautious about this? Why doesn’t she have that thought?

Benji’s smile was sheepish and annoyingly charming.

*adds “sheepish, charming smiles” to lists of things Rory dislikes*

His short sandy-brown hair was parted and feathered back just so, and his almond-shaped brown eyes disappeared behind a curtain of long eyelashes that any woman would pay good money for. Teeth an orthodontist would be proud of along with a strong jawline would score him any number of nice young ladies.

Wait. He’s kind of sounding like he looks like actual Benji, doesn’t he?

I hated to admit it,

Of course you do. You hate everything.

but I was maybe just a tiny bit attracted to Benji. But he was nice. Too nice. And I didn’t want nice. I didn’t want anyone.

I don’t know, the constant emphasis on how hot Benji is in the first chapter, plus the fact that you’re the heroine in an NA book, leads me to believe that this is not the case. However, Benji is the first male love interest we’re meeting, and he’s not the one with the gold eyes, so I’m guessing he’s not going to be the guy ring-a-ding-dinging your bell by the time we hit the halfway point.

Benji wants to walk Rory home, but Rory walks him home instead, because of all the blood loss. But when they get here, he’s pretty persistent about wanting to walk her home. Again, he just happened to bump into Rory at one in the morning at this party neither of them had known about, that he’d just happened to see her go into. My prediction is that he’s either secretly evil, or following her to protect her.

As she tries to leave, he grabs her wrist:

Out of pure instinct, I grabbed his wrist with my free hand and pulled him over my shoulder, slamming him on the ground. He grunted as the air got knocked out of him when he hit the cement.

Now, wait. Isn’t she like, emaciated from never eating anything? Didn’t we cover that in the first chapter? She said she’d been steadily losing weight for two years because she doesn’t like to eat. That doesn’t sound like someone who’s going to have the strength to flip a grown man over her shoulder and slam him into the ground. I realize there are all kinds of self-dense courses that teach these kinds of moves where you use your opponent’s weight against them and blah blah blah, but I’m not buying the super strength if it doesn’t come up as a huge plot point later.

Rory is embarrassed that she’s done this and she feels annoyed that she has to stay there and be nice to him. Which I get, because she was just trying to leave, and he grabbed at her. She should have just left him on the ground and been like, “Do not touch people without their prior consent!” But she feels awkward, so she sticks around while he continues to try to pressure her into letting him walk her home, into going on a food run, and he even grabs her wrist again when she tries to leave. He says:

“You broke my nose. You can’t give me five minutes of sympathy conversation?”

This all makes me think he’s a villain, but then again, this is a New Adult novel, and a lot of them feature romantic heroes who act just like this, creating obligations to force their way past the heroine’s boundaries.

Benji asks Rory why she went to the party, and instead of telling him she was just wandering along, she says she needed to get out. He suggests going to the gym to burn off excess energy, and invites her to come with him. Finally, he lets Rory leave and she heads back to her dorm.

Huh. She’s a junior living in the dorms? Didn’t we have a conversation about this in the After recaps?

As Rory passes the elevators:

My mother’s eyes flashed through my mind. I’d seen the line between her brows and the strange look in her gaze just before she died. My father always said she was tough. She was, even as she took her last breath. her eyes held so much sadness–for being helpless to save me and for the life she thought I would miss out on. She didn’t think about herself in those last moments. She was asking me for forgiveness with her eyes, and through the dirty rag tied around my mouth, I gave it to her. I just couldn’t forgive myself.

This is GREAT! This is such a great piece of exposition! She’s triggered by the sight of the elevator, and she’s relieving this horrible moment that is full of micro-events that will later be a piece of the fully revealed puzzle, I assume. This is fantastic. However, Writing Tip: This would have been so much better before the party. If she’d seen the elevators and, instead of thinking about her killers, she thought about her mother. And she had this little scene, and suddenly, whoa, she’s at the party. It would have been super effective in establishing that this girl has PTSD, and she’s just going on autopilot and it explain why someone as cautious as Rory is would have gone into that party in the first place.

The pieces are all here, they’re just not in the most effective order.

As it stands, she does have a moment where she realizes she can’t remember getting to her room, and then boom, she’s there. She flops down on her bed and:

A groan escaped from my throat, loud enough for my neighbor Ellie, the bossy, bitchy beauty of the campus to hear. She loved to tell me that my crappy music was too loud, my clothes were too black, and my social life was too sad. It was okay though because I was proud of the fact that I didn’t listen to cheesy pop songs or let everyone see my tits in one of four hundred too-tight V-neck sweaters, and I wasn’t a slutty, whorish whore.

Just when I was like, “Gosh, there isn’t as much over-the-top girl-hate as I would have expected in a New Adult novel, ” the Nuh-Uh train just came crashing into My Last Nerve station. I don’t care if she does follow that up with:

Okay, that was harsh.

It’s still some shitty, slut-shaming nonsense right there (and you all know I do not fall for that “just playin’” nonsense. If I say, “just playin,” it’s because I’m making it known that I just talked some shit about you and I don’t regret it). It’s not like Rory goes, “Okay, that was harsh, I should know better than to hurl misogynist insults at a fellow student who is just trying to be a woman in college, which is super fucking dangerous.” She’s like, “Okay, that was harsh.”:

But in our four semesters at Kempton, she’d had the dicks of at least three professors in at least one of her orifices–and those were only the ones she’d bragged about.

Does it matter? If she’s sleeping with a professor, even if she instigated it, the professor is the one doing wrong here. If she’s bragging about it, she’s clearly not planning on getting a good grade or anything, because she’s going to be disciplined and probably kicked out and the professor is probably going to get a slap on the wrist. And it really doesn’t matter because it doesn’t have any bearing on Rory’s life at all. In fact, none of this is necessary. We’re reading a story about a girl who a) was nearly the final death in a grisly, possibly cult-related mass-murder, and b) has access to a space rock. She doesn’t need a stereotypical hot-for-teacher female to bitch about.

Also, it makes Rory sound immature, more like a teenager than an adult in college.

Without any transition at all, Rory thinks:

I turned onto my side, hoping, praying that I would fall asleep before the memories came too fast and hard to block out.

Hey, look at that. The scathing indictment against slutty, whoreish whores has split the emotional conflict in a weird place. It’s like a game of Duck, Duck, Goose, only this time it’s Murder, Murder, Whore, Murder. Jumping from Rory’s emotional trauma to slut-shaming and back to Rory’s emotional trauma makes this scene disjointed and jarring. It’s almost as thought the aside about Ellie-the-slut was unnecessary and hampers the narrative flow, and the book would have been better without it.

Fancy that.

Rory sees feet blocking the light coming in under the door. She decides to get the jump on whatever is out there, and surprise, it’s the love triangle, delivered in thirty-minutes or less. It’s Cyrus, and he tells Rory that he’s been listening outside her door.

Cy held out his palms, walking into my room.

Well, come right in, then, jeez.

“No, no, please. It’s not as salacious as it appears. I was just making sure you were home. Safe.”

Oh. Well, then that makes total sense, that you should come by at like two in the morning to check on her, Edward.

Rory says she doesn’t need anyone checking up on her, and Cyrus (Cy to his friends) says:

“I apologize for the intrusion. I couldn’t help myself. I told myself many times that I shouldn’t.”

“So, why did you?”

That’s not what he says, he just says he doesn’t know, and leaves. But we know that Edward was in his heart, and that’s all we need.

So, despite being aggressively stalked by two dudes in one night and suffering PTSD flashbacks about the night her entire family died in front of her, Rory ends the chapter like this:

I shut the door and locked it, my anger and confusion quickly doused with an uncontrollable smile.

Oh. Okay.

 

 

DON’T DO THIS EVER (An Advice Column For Writers): “Stalking The Hands That Feed You” edition

I was out of town this weekend, and when I got home, I had all sorts of messages on twitter and Facebook. “Have you seen this?!” followed by a Do Not Link link. “I have to know what you think about this!” Well. I feel sick. And scared. Every time an author has a meltdown at a blogger, we all shout the same things into the social media vortex. “Every book gets bad reviews!” “Bad reviews can sometimes sell the book better than a positive one!” “It’s a matter of personal taste.” But then another author v. reviewer interaction comes along, more extreme than the last. Sites like Stop The GoodReads Bullies encourage abuse of and retaliation towards bloggers, stoking the flames so that each new “drama” is more radical and perplexing. I’ve long said that a site like Stop The GoodReads Bullies was going to get someone killed. And I am not exaggerating or being histrionic when I say that I fear that author Kathleen Hale’s actions have opened the door to that possibility. I don’t say that lightly. By Hale’s own admission, she stalked blogger Blythe Harris. In a long, unhinged essay for The Guardian, Hale tells the story about how a blogger caused her mental anguish significant enough to justify not only online stalking, but a premeditated visit to the blogger’s home, followed by the article exposing Blythe Harris as a blogger using an online pseudonym. The opening of the article draws on the time-worn cliche of “book babies” (with a tasteless comparison to Post-Partum Depression) in what is a transparent plea for a level of sympathy that excuses the actions that will be recounted in the rest of the tale:

“In the months before my first novel came out, I was a charmless lunatic – the type that other lunatics cross the street to avoid. I fidgeted and talked to myself, rewriting passages of a book that had already gone to print. I remember when my editor handed me the final copy: I held the book in my hands for a millisecond before grabbing a pen and scribbling edits in the margins.”

As an author, I find this to be worrying behavior. I’m not a mental health professional, so I can’t diagnose or declare someone mentally ill, so I won’t. But I will say that if one of my author friends were behaving this way, I would be gravely concerned for them, even if they were inexperienced or anxious over the release of the book. At first read, I assumed this description–and the following anecdote about her editor pulling the red pen from her hand–were humorous exaggeration. As the article continued, I began to doubt. According to Hale’s recounting of the story, she was approached by Blythe Harris on Twitter:

Her name was Blythe Harris. She had tweeted me saying she had some ideas for my next book. “Cool, Blythe, thanks!” I replied. In an attempt to connect with readers, I’d been asking Twitter for ideas – “The weirdest thing you can think of!” – promising to try to incorporate them in the sequel.

The order in which these events are listed is disingenuous; Hale makes it sound as though Harris contacted her to suggest ideas apropos of nothing, when in reality, Hale invited conversation, a fact that is dropped in as an afterthought. Hale’s curiosity led her to Harris’s GoodReads profile, where she found a one-star review of her work, with some harsh words expressing Harris’s dislike of the book. Hale writes about the warning that pops up when an author tries to leave a comment on a GoodReads review, but she doesn’t admit to leaving a comment. Whether or not she did, I have no idea; Harris has since made her GoodReads profile private.

“Blythe appeared on a page called Badly Behaving Goodreaders, an allusion to Badly Behaving Authors. BBAs, Athena Parker, a co-founder of STGRB, told me, are “usually authors who [have] unknowingly broken some ‘rule’”. Once an author is labelled a BBA, his or her book is unofficially blacklisted by the book-blogging community.”

Athena Parker is a pseudonymous identity that convincing evidence has linked to author Melissa Douthit. As STGRB has routinely stalked, threatened, and doxxed bloggers, using Douthit as a source in an article about stalking is either hilariously contradictory or tragically appropriate.

“In my case, I became a BBA by writing about issues such as PTSD, sex and deer hunting without moralising on these topics.”

I have to argue that the rest of the events in Hale’s anecdote are what make her a badly behaving author, not her choice of subject matter. She describes an “attack” Harris made against a fourteen-year-old GoodReads reviewer. Some authors and readers have pointed to Harris’s interaction with the teen reviewer as “bad behavior on both sides,” of this issue, but Hale’s obsession didn’t start with seeking justice for that incident, it was incited by a one-star review. As far as I can tell from Hale’s own account, the only action taken by Harris that justified Hale’s relentless stalking was that single review. The process of retaliation began the moment Hale engaged with STGRB. According to Hale, she was advised by a friend who was an editor to reach out to other authors who’d received negative reviews from Harris. I find this claim dubious in the extreme, but perhaps Hale found the one editor in publishing who feels engaging with a critic is a sound decision. She contacts several authors and finds only one who will speak, under condition of anonymity:

“She responded – “Omg” – and immediately took our conversation off the record. “DO NOT ENGAGE,” she implored me. “You’ll make yourself look bad, and she’ll ruin you.””

This is the advice Hale should have heeded. Instead, she continued to monitor reviews, following a “ripple effect” in which she implies that Harris’s review tainted the opinions of others. After searching her name on Twitter, Hale finds that Harris is “ridiculing” her:

“Confronting her would mean publicly acknowledging that I searched my name on Twitter, which is about as socially attractive as setting up a Google alert for your name (which I also did).”

Authors, if you are unable to handle dissenting opinions of your work and your public statements, never search your name. Never set up a Google alert for your name. But what truly troubles me about this paragraph is Hale’s concern that publicly announcing her vanity searches would not be “socially attractive,” yet she seems to find nothing unattractive about publicizing her methodical stalking of Harris. Does this mean that Hale finds her own actions acceptable? Hale describes what she did next as “light stalking.” This included tracking down all of Harris’s social media accounts, and consuming material that was unrelated to Harris’s book blogging. Months later, against the advice of the anonymous author she again contacted, Hale requested that Harris interview her for a book club. Hale doesn’t admit openly to requesting Harris with the goal of obtaining her address, but she is provided with the information. Hale used it to find Harris’s home on Google Maps, to ferret out her phone number and even check census records in order to learn more about her. What she learned was that Harris was using a pseudonym–not a crime, even if Harris did once make a claim to the contrary. Hale makes plans to confront Harris personally, at Harris’s home. Though the anonymous author once again pleads with Hale not to, Harris reserves a car for a date months away. She continues to stalk Harris via social media, collecting information to prove that Harris was not what she seemed, and that Hale was being “catfished.” She attempts to back up her paranoia with professional opinions; one must wonder how the sources cited feel about their words being used as vague justification for Hale’s actions. But Hale wasn’t being catfished–Harris had been reviewing books as Blythe Harris before she reviewed Hale’s book. Harris had not concocted an elaborate persona in order to trick people; many bloggers review under pseudonyms to avoid having their public hobby linked to their private lives, much in the same way that authors use pen names to separate themselves from their work. Hale concludes her self-pitying narrative by explaining how she went to Harris’s house and confronted the person who lived there, a woman named Judy who made excuses for her links to Harris. Or, when looked at from a different angle, a woman named Judy who, unnerved when a stranger from the internet showed up on her doorstep, tried to protect herself. Hale continues to contact Judy and Harris via social media, until both of them block her and make their accounts private, a step that Hale sees as an admission of guilt, rather than the actions of terrified victims withdrawing to avoid further contact. The details are presented in such a straight-forward, unflinching manner that it becomes painfully clear that Hale, despite calling the personal visit a “low-point,” has no remorse, and expects sympathy and understanding from the reader.  She received it in spades; Neil Gaiman leapt into the online fray to declare Hale’s article fascinating, though he states that he doesn’t condone her actions. Anne Rice (predictably) praised Hale, although one has to question one’s actions if Anne Rice approves of them. Comedian John Mulaney is also a fan, and Frank Rich, a fellow Guardian writer and her future father-in-law, threw his support behind the piece as well. Danielle Paige presumed to speak on behalf of all authors in an incendiary tweet that sparked dozens of replies:

‘Am I being catfished?’ An author confronts her no. 1 online critic @halekathleen did that thing we all want to do! http://t.co/HN1BRgK7Fo — danielle paige (@daniellempaige) October 18, 2014

Others blamed Harris, or insinuated that her behavior was equally as disturbing as Hale’s. I am forced to reiterated that the only thing Harris did to set this stalking behavior in motion was to write a one-star review for a book she didn’t care for. Hale was not catfished. Hale is not a victim. She is an author obsessed with public reception of her work, and comes across as a deeply troubled figure. The victim in this story is Blythe Harris, whose privacy, both online and off, was grotesquely violated by a woman who was repeatedly advised to disengage. All this, for the crime of disliking an unstable writer’s book. For her part, Hale seems to view this essay as a comedy piece, stating:  

@gabydunn thanks man. The piece is self-deprecating and the fact that I am bonkers isn’t news to me. Xx — Kathleen Hale (@HaleKathleen) October 18, 2014

I have to assume that were the roles reversed and a persistent blogger had visited Hale at her home, she wouldn’t have such a blasé attitude toward stalking. But as Twitter user @Bibliodaze eloquently explained:

@TracyClark_TLC @Jenny_Trout They see Blythe & reviewers in general not as people. Hale depicts Blythe as a character in her story. — Bibliodaze.com (@Bibliodaze) October 19, 2014

In the coming months, I suspect that fewer blogs will host book tour giveaways with physical prizes that require an author to receive an entrant’s address. I suspect also that fewer bloggers will accept physical ARCs, and for a while, author/blogger interaction will be more guarded than it has in the past. There is no way for them to discern which authors will cross the line and visit their homes with accusations. There is no way for them to discern which might go further. I expect a few pseudonymous bloggers to stop reviewing books altogether, even as Hale supporters backpedal from their threats to reviewers:

The takeaway? Do not cross @HaleKathleen — or writers in general. You will read every word. Promise: http://t.co/x4kD2k9WDb — Amy MacKinnon (@AmyMacKinnon) October 18, 2014

Hale’s actions have harmed not only the book blogging community, but authors who will now be viewed with suspicion and caution by bloggers. She’s limited opportunities to reach out to readers via book blogs, not just for herself, but for all of us. The most troubling aspect of this story is that Hale, after writing an in-depth admission of stalking, is receiving any support or accolades at all. What she has done is not brave. Perhaps it’s not serious enough for the law to become involved, but the behavior itself, the stalking and intimidating, is at the very least a prelude to a crime. Hale didn’t go as far as assaulting Harris, but her supporters have, through their pseudo-intellectual praising of her bravery and “fascinating” retelling, normalized and rationalized the abnormal, irrational behavior that will one day lead to a violent altercation between an author with a wounded ego and a faulty moral compass, and a blogger who reviews the wrong book. I hope that those closest to Hale will view this article for what it is: a confession of dangerous behavior perpetrated by a deeply troubled person. I would have thought this would go without saying, but the lesson here is: Don’t do this. Ever. For more information on Hale’s essay, visit Dear Author, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and this Storify of relevant tweets.  

YA Debut Author Christine Allen-Riley

Today we are joined on the blog by my long-time Bestie and all around awesome person, Christine Allen-Riley! She’s here to share her debut indie YA novel with us, which goes on sale today. I’m so super proud of her, and the book is awesome. Check out what Christine has to say:

I’ve always loved young adult fiction. Some of my favorite books and authors are YA, and I’ve always wanted to write it.  I finally did it, and today, my first young adult story is making its way into the world! Eventide (Iron Falls, Book #1) is out today in both ebook and print, and I couldn’t be more excited!

Here’s a little bit about the book, and a peek at my gorgeous cover made by the incomparable Kris Norris.

The driver in a tragic car accident that killed her best friend, Devon Greer is consumed by guilt. When powerful

hallucinations convince her that she’s seeing Rachael everywhere, Devon thinks

she’s going crazy. But her friend isn’t truly gone.

To save Rachael from the faeries who

stole her, Devon must pit herself against the Court of the Sidhe. Once she witnesses

the true form of the fey, Devon’s life is in danger—and so are the lives of

everyone she loves. 

Now, Devon must not only protect

herself, but also Jonah Seafort, Rachael’s cousin and the only person Devon can

trust to help her. While the Sidhe walk among them, no one is safe…


If you know anyone who likes YA, or hey, if you like it yourself, I’m hoping you’ll give Eventide a try!

If you’re interested, here are the buy links.
 
Kindle, Nook, EveryOtherEbookFormatEver, Print

And if you fancy following me on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Instgram, Pinterest or Ravelry, please feel free to click on the links!

Bronwyn Green makes her YA debut as Christine Allen-Riley

Today we are joined on the blog by my long-time Bestie and all around awesome person, Bronwyn Green. She’s here to spill a secret and share her debut indie YA novel with us, which goes on sale today. I’m so super proud of her, and the book is awesome. Check out what Bronwyn has to say:

So, I have a confession to make. 

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned…

Oops. Wrong kind of confession. 

It’s like this.

Confession Number One: Bronwyn is a pen name, and I’m sure you’re all stunned by that startling revelation. I chose it while my kids were much younger and attending a super conservative school. I didn’t want them to have that “Your mom writes porn” stigma attached to them. 

Confession Number Two: While I love writing erotic romance, I’ve always loved young adult fiction. Some of my favorite books and authors are YA, and I’ve always wanted to write it. 

Confession Number Three: I finally did it, and today, my first young adult story is making its way into the world! Eventide (Iron Falls, Book #1) is out today in both ebook and print, and I couldn’t be more excited! 



Here’s a little bit about the book, and a peek at my gorgeous cover made by the incomparable Kris Norris.

The driver in a tragic car accident that killed her best friend, Devon Greer is consumed by guilt. When powerful

hallucinations convince her that she’s seeing Rachael everywhere, Devon thinks

she’s going crazy. But her friend isn’t truly gone.

To save Rachael from the faeries who

stole her, Devon must pit herself against the Court of the Sidhe. Once she witnesses

the true form of the fey, Devon’s life is in danger—and so are the lives of

everyone she loves. 

Now, Devon must not only protect

herself, but also Jonah Seafort, Rachael’s cousin and the only person Devon can

trust to help her. While the Sidhe walk among them, no one is safe…


If you know anyone who likes YA, or hey, if you like it yourself, I’m hoping you’ll give Eventide a try!

If you’re interested, here are the buy links.
 
Kindle, Nook, EveryOtherEbookFormatEver, Print

And if you fancy following me on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Instgram, Pinterest or Ravelry, please feel free to click on the links!