Destiny Allison's Blog, page 9

Asking Amazon to Add a New Book Category for Women’s Empowerment

This morning, doing research for my upcoming book, I went in search of books dealing with women’s empowerment. I didn’t find much. Next, I searched Amazon for best selling books on women’s issues. Again, the search engines returned bizarre results. When I searched body image, I found results. Unfortunately, they were all in the pathology or eating disorder categories.

Body image issues are often not tied to either of these (and the category itself is shaming) but try finding a book about them outside these hurtful categories.

I searched for Lean In and found it in memoir and business. I searched for Brene Brown and found her in mental health/emotions and motivation.

I want a new category — one in which all these books are easily found and work in tandem to help women feel empowered and gain traction not only in the book industry, but in their everyday lives. So I wrote the company and asked for it. Here’s what I said:

Hi,

I’ve been searching for best selling books on women’s issues. There is no category. I’ve looked for best selling books on body image and they are all either in eating disorders or pathology. Brene Brown is in mental health/emotions and motivation. “Lean In” is in business and memoirs.

Women are woefully under-represented in book publishing and, when they do come out with a book that might help women take their rightful place, the search functions and category placements seem to render them, again, less important.

I’m wondering if Amazon would radically increase sales of these kinds of books (and help the women who need them find them more easily) if Amazon created a new category of books for women’s empowerment. Just a thought. Thanks for considering it.

If you feel Amazon (and other book sellers) would benefit from this kind of category, maybe you’ll spread the word and join me in telling them that women need a room of their own.

This Doesn’t Help the World

If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time on social media. My Facebook feed is filled with cute animals, people dancing, politics, and propaganda. It is also filled with outrage, pain, and bewilderment.

We’re all hurting. Every day, we’re inflicted with tiny cuts so small we don’t notice them. But, in spite of their seeming insignificance, we bleed.

Yesterday, this image offended me. So did Sinead O’Connor’s word choice in her impassioned response to The Rolling Stone. Neither helped the world.

A few days ago, I saw a cartoon of Hilary Clinton in a bucket. The caption read, “Two fat thighs, two small breasts, and a whole lot of left wings.” The image hurt. Every woman, hell every person, deserves more respect.

I’m tired of the vitriol, of the hateful comment streams, of the sting of a thousand, tiny cuts.

So I have an idea. From now on, when someone says something particularly nasty, I’m going to reply with #Sorryyourehurting. When someone posts an offensive meme and/or a nasty comment, I’m going to say #ThisDoesntHelptheWorld.

Maybe, just maybe, if I engage gently I might make some small change.

What do you think? Will you join me?

Race to the Finish

I saw this image on Facebook this morning and had to laugh. In so many ways, it’s an excellent graphic of what women face in the workforce. But, thinking about it again, I had to wonder about the race itself.

The woman’s terrain lends itself to slowing down, to curiosity and exploration. The broken wall, pond, and garden feature juxtaposed with the industrial elements have my creative juices simmering.

I’m curious. If you had to choose a path, would you choose the easier one? The one with the fewest hurdles? The one without a landscape worth exploring?

If we stop for a moment, break the chain that hinders us and leave that ugly weight behind, do we get to define not only who wins the race, but the nature of the race itself?

What do you think?

Over the Wall

Photo credit: Pictify.com

I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Thinking more than writing. Thinking more than talking. Thinking more than doing. You know what I got for all my effort?

Fear.

It paralyzed me.

Who am I to think my voice might matter?

What can I say that might help?

What if someone actually listens and I get slammed by the trolls?

Or, worse, slammed by those I seek to support?

When I wrote, I over-wrote.

When I talked, I stuttered.

Then, late last week, I told a customer about my fear. Tongue tripping and sweat dripping, I explained my new book and how I wanted to navigate the narrow passage between opposing walls of Internet vitriol, how I wanted to build a bridge between them – a safe passage, a resting place for bruised hearts, a new dialog.

She patted my hand. She can do that. She’s got twenty plus years on me and isn’t afraid to let me know it.

“Destiny,” she said. “Don’t waste your time in between the walls. Go over them.”

Oh.

Soooo, I turned down a traditional publisher who wanted me to make changes to make the marketing easier (i.e. compress the book into a traditional category), contacted my editor and cover designer, and reached out to a couple of publicists.

I’m going over the wall.

The Romance Diet is a feminist book with a male hero. It is a diet book without any recipes or exercise tips. It is a love story. The villain disappeared twenty-eight years ago, the heroine falls apart.

The first rung of the ladder feels pretty easy. What do you think? Are you climbing, too?

 

John Oliver and Internet Harrasment

Last night I lay in the arms of my love and stared at the sky. Clouds like curdled cream clung to a brilliant half moon. A puff of air stirred the black-coffee sky. In the distance, a truck careened down the highway. Closer, a horse kicked a metal trough. A dog barked. Juniper and dust. Southwestern romance.

Sleep came before the sky cleared. I surrendered to its mercy, but woke hours later alone. I found my love on the couch watching John Oliver.

“You have to see this,” he said as I kissed the top of his head. “It’ll just take a minute.”

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Just watch.”

I snuggled against him on the couch and yawned. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

He squeezed my leg. “Hot. And Tillie was trapped outside and howling.”

Tillie is our oldest dog. At thirteen, she is snake-sleek and muscled. I want to howl like her when I’m old.

He rewound the video and I listened to John Oliver speak at lightning speed about Internet trolls, rape and death threats against women willing to speak about sexism, the ineffectiveness of law enforcement, and the absence of laws. Oliver finished the segment talking about revenge porn.

“You should have showed that to me in the morning,” I said.

“I’m sorry. I thought you’d be interested.”

“I am, but now you’ve got my mind going.”

Later, in bed again, he pressed his body against my back, the weight of him strong and comforting. I settled into him and murmured, “John Oliver was wrong.”

He twitched, regained consciousness. “What do you mean?”

“He did this segment on Internet trolls threatening women for expressing their feelings and ideas.”“Yes. Okay. He did…”

“But he ended the segment with revenge porn. He should have separated the two,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because revenge porn has nothing to do with trolls. Ending the segment that way changed the focus from women’s minds to women’s bodies and made the topic sexual again.”

I waited for a response that didn’t come. In the cool air, under a cloud-cloaked moon, I listened, sleepless, to him snoring.

Adding My Voice to the Feminist Chorus

It doesn’t seem possible I wrote my last post more than a year ago.  Days flew into nights flew into days – clouds casting shadows on the plains, Koyaanisqatsi at full speed, and not a moment wasted.

I learned to dance again, built two new businesses, and broke – kaleidoscopic shards splintered into a million pieces the only evidence of who I’d been.

Putting the pieces back together required some very strong glue.

I have a new book and it will be out soon. It is the scariest, most honest work I’ve done.

In a nutshell, the book is about body image, relationships, diet, health, and sexual assault.

I’ve skirted these issues in the past and failed to add my voice to the feminist chorus. That’s changing now. I have no choice.

I hope you’ll stick around and share your stories. I promise to share mine with you.

We Get to Choose

I’ve missed you. It’s been too long. For that, I’m sorry.

Over these last few months, as my new store got off the ground, I’ve affirmed a deep seated conviction. Life and art are not that different. Creativity is inherent in everything we do and art is not dependent on media. My store, Utopia, is as creative as my sculptures, my canvases, and my books. It evolves, changes, and grows every day. Because it does, I do. The relationship is symbiotic.

It’s also all consuming. Last weekend, my husband and I got away for the first time since the business opened. We drove south and camped in the Cibola National Forest near Magdalena, NM. The experience, as always, revived us.

On one of our walks, we ventured over a fence and discovered a couple of crumbling homesteads. After exploring one of them — rickety stairs, creaking floorboards curled up at the ends, stained concrete walls tinted and worn by time and weather, we hiked further up the trail. Turning to look behind us, we stopped short. The breathtaking view of red rock cliffs towering over the ponderosas juxtaposed against the ruinous cabin impressed us deeply. It seemed, in that instant, that our lives are infinitely small. We are only the dash between dates and everything we strive for is irrelevant compared to what will endure beyond us. Then we shook our heads, kissed briefly, and proceeded up the trail.

This world, this land, this beautiful sky are vast and powerful. What can any of us do that can compare? Write a book?  Bear and raise a child? Scratch our names and a date into a cliff?

The only thing I can think of is love. Love our people, our planet, our creative endeavors. The forest and its towering cliffs are, by nature, impassive. We get to choose.

Fate in Writing

I am so happy to have Dan Levinson as a guest on my blog today. Dan is a native New Yorker, and a reader of all things fantastical. His debut novel, the sci-fi war epic FIRES OF MAN, is due out June 17, 2014 from Jolly Fish Press. 

Today is his cover reveal and I am very impressed. Check it out and then read on for a great post.

Fate in Writing by Dan Levinson

Have you ever read a novel, and thought, “My, this is certainly convenient”? Somehow, the protagonist has come across that key piece of evidence he needs to put the villain away for good; or he’s met his true love on a street corner, after searching for her the entire book. Miraculously, all the pieces have come together.

Fate, destiny, serendipity . . . A familiar set of words for what some might consider an alluring type of deus ex machina, just sitting in our writer’s toolbox, tempting us to be used. One might say they represent an arbitrary coming together of elements, where the writer’s hand can be seen behind the pages, neatly arranging, moving things into their proper places; even dismiss such a thing as trickery, or laziness, or a lack of inventiveness.

But is that really the case?

While it’s true that a coincidence unearned has a certain sense of cheapness, of potential conflicts unfulfilled, this is not the only way to utilize such concepts.

So how to earn it?

First and foremost—foreshadowing. That, above all else, can sell a quirk of fate to a reader. For when there is legitimate foreshadowing—moments that reader can go back to and say, ‘aha, it was all leading to this, even though I didn’t see it’—then the final denouement is no longer arbitrary. It makes sense. It feels organic, like it belongs in the narrative. Proper use of foreshadowing shows that the hand of fate has been present all along, silently pulling the strings.

So what are some good foreshadowing techniques?

Imagery is one. A recurring image, or set of images, especially when described vividly, can lend an almost mystical quality to whatever you’re trying to highlight.

These images can be external—something in the character’s environment that has an opportunity to return. Or they can be internal—a metaphor, used to describe the character’s inner state, or reaction to circumstances that echo the eventual “serendipitous twist.” However you choose to do it, the imagery should be evocative; it should stick in the reader’s mind; it becomes a motif.

Another great device is the verbal warning. This can be as simple as subtle references to the eventual outcome, scattered throughout conversations with the character in question. Or it can be used more overtly: supporting characters—perhaps even random passersby—offer advice or admonitions, pointing toward or away from a certain course of action. Of course, the main character should probably defy this advice at every turn, or at least not fulfill it completely. It is only at the end, when the character finally listens (ideally breaking out of some negative pattern of behavior), that the puzzle pieces “miraculously” fit together. In this way, it feels like the character is earning his or her just reward.

Now, “fate” can not only be used to unite, to expedite, but also to do the opposite: to tear apart, to create conflict, to evoke tragedy. This may be the best use of it, I think! Consider Romeo and Juliet, those “star-crossed lovers.” It was as if fate conspired at every turn to drive them apart, make them agonize. Their deaths result from the most tragic of misunderstandings!

Tragic coincidence—I feel that is one of the most effective techniques a writer can utilize. And when something bad happens—something that makes a character suffer—I believe readers are less inclined to balk at the unlikely chance of such occurrences. Life is by necessity chaotic, and so when a character’s “destiny” seems to create a downward spiral, it feels easier to accept. When, by some freak happenstance, one bad thing piles atop another, no matter how implausible, it seems somehow more “real” than were it to be good thing upon good.

When used properly, “fate” can be a very effective tool. It can create a sense of depth, of powerful inner workings the reader isn’t privy to. It’s a risk, to be sure! But with forethought, and careful execution, even the most unlikely and opportune of resolutions can feel not only possible, but appropriate! So earn your twists of fate! And write, write, write on!

The Hollow Living – I need YOUR help!

destinyallison:

Congrats, and happy to reblog!

Originally posted on C.N. Faust:

Hello my darlings,

The Hollow Living is very close to its intended release date (November 1st) and I would like to, over the next few weeks, market it as aggressively as possible. But to do so I need YOUR help!

Here is what you can do!

ONLINE: 

– Like and share my FACEBOOK page! https://www.facebook.com/cnfaust

– Direct people towards my website for the other books in the series – http://cn-faust.com/

– Share links, covers, reviews, testimonials, pictures of you with a thumbs up, on Reddit! http://www.reddit.com/

– Create a featured post on your blog! Do you want to host a giveaway? Email me at cnfaust@outlook.com and we will talk!

– Tweet about it! (I am still trying to make #pharunswag a thing, lol). https://twitter.com/Glitzkrieg_King

– Add The Hollow Living to your to-read lists on Goodreads and / or recommend it to friends! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18652761-the-hollow-living

– Reblog this post!

– Do you…

View original 96 more words

The Hollow Living - I need YOUR help!

Reblogged from C.N. Faust:

Hello my darlings,

The Hollow Living is very close to its intended release date (November 1st) and I would like to, over the next few weeks, market it as aggressively as possible. But to do so I need YOUR help!

Here is what you can do!

ONLINE: 

- Like and share my FACEBOOK page! https://www.facebook.com/cnfaust

- Direct people towards my website for the other books in the series - 

Read more… 195 more words

Congrats, and happy to reblog!