Sarahbeth Caplin's Blog, page 51

“And what do YOU do?” In defense of writing in my pajamas

That dreaded “What do you do?” question. We’ve all experienced it. Some of us have no problem with it, if our jobs are in well-respected fields that make decent money, therefore allowing no one the opportunity to judge or condemn them. Others of us don’t loathe this question, exactly, but just brace ourselves for a buttload of questions that stem from ignorance or misunderstanding.

My job thrives on this question because despite all the technological advances, word of mouth is still the best form of advertising books. I’ve given away several business cards by answering the “What do you do?” question honestly. But there are generally two types of reactions, I’ve noticed, when I mention I’m a published author…

Reaction #1: “You’re published?? THAT’S SO FREAKING COOL. I can’t believe I’m standing in the presence of someone who is a real author!!!” (These people are nice because they can’t tell you the difference between indie or traditional, and don’t really care either way)

Reaction #2: (After blinking a few times) “Oh…how nice. What else do you do?”

Luckily I don’t get that response too often. Sometimes my insecurities cause me to wonder if people are secretly thinking it, especially when I’m asked this question by my husband’s colleagues in the medical field. But a self-made writing career can’t logically be compared to corporate jobs; it’s apples to kangaroos. I don’t do what I do to make money. I know I’m not always taken seriously when I talk about reading young adult books as “research” and using social media for marketing. But that is what I do; I accept it and own it.

I prefer the first kind of response because it allows me the luxury of pretending to be a bigger deal than I actually am. But both reactions can be irritating in their own way. Response #1 requires a full-fledged explanation of how the publishing industry works – that really, anyone with a computer can be an author these days, but not every author can sell books. Response #2, should you take the bait, requires an explanation of how YOUR choice of publishing works.

I don’t know how other authors do it, but over time I cultivated a routine that works for me. I wake up between 7 and 9, usually. Feed the kittens. Make coffee and read for about half an hour. Make breakfast, catch up reading blogs. Shift to working on novel (when there is a novel to work on, that is; I’m now in that “What do I do now?!” phase since Shades of Doubt has been sent to the publisher).

At work in the office with my two best co-workers

In between chapters I take breaks for that boring household stuff: putting up laundry, scooping the litter boxes, emptying the dishwasher, vacuuming, folding the laundry, cleaning one of the bathrooms. After lunch is my “marketing hour” where I go to various social media outlets (for me, it’s Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, and Linked In) and share blog links, engage with readers/followers, share other people’s links. I also have a stack of books about marketing and will read those for an hour with a cup of coffee, which counts as “homework.” Then back to writing. My next project, until another book idea comes along, is submitting essays to magazines that pay for accepted submissions.

All of this encompasses a typical 8-hour workday. Netflix does NOT get turned on until after dinner: my personal rule. It’s taken several months, but even if I don’t sell a book every day, rarely a day goes by that I don’t earn new followers, shared content, or tidbits from other writers. Sure, I could use another part-time job to supplement income, but the only person running this business is me: if I don’t devote 110% of my time to it, it will never grow into something that supports more than just my Starbucks addiction.

So to everyone who assumes that writers write for fame and money (lolz, WHAT fame? WHAT money??), please get your facts straight: I’m a writer so I can work at my own pace, making my own career decisions, in my pajamas.

Filed under: Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, cats, Indie Author Life, self-publishing, Writing

‘Fifty Shades’ and pornified rape victims

In a typical college romance novel, he’d be a gorgeous but troubled sex god who’d cure all my deep-seated psych issues with a good, hard fuck. I’d smell his misogyny and abusive tendencies from miles off but my brain would turn to hormone soup, because abs. That’s the formula. Broken girl + bad boy = sexual healing.

I wish I could say I wrote the above quote, but alas I did not. It comes from author Leah Raeder, and in just a few sentences she sums up everything that is wrong with New Adult fiction today – and why I was hesitant to label my new novel as such. With certain genres come certain expectations, and today’s expectations for young adult romance are undeniably influenced by Fifty Shades of Grey.

The question is why.

I have no personal vendetta against E.L. James. Really, all I think she set out to do was capitalize on a taboo – BDSM – that even the most sexually positive people are reluctant to talk about in public. It’s a money-maker, plain and simple. As a woman with a family herself, I’m sure the last thing she intended to do was cause further stress to abused women struggling to have their stories taken seriously.

But that’s pretty much what’s happening. And it kills me a little inside to read the excited Facebook posts of friends who went to high school with my rapist, who probably still keep in touch with him, who are dying to see this movie. It kills me for a number of reasons:

Christian uses alcohol to numb Ana’s senses enough so she is easily manipulated into rough sex. By law, this is rape.

While I’m not interested in BDSM myself, my research and discussions with a few friends willing to share their experiences explained that there is heavy emphasis on “safe words.” If the experience gets too intense, you say whatever word you and your partner choose, and the activity stops.

Ana uses the safe word; Christian ignores it. This is rape.

Ana hides from Christian and occasionally fears him. This is a classic hallmark of abuse.

This is so eerily similar to what my ex-boyfriend did to me from age seventeen to twenty-two. I assure you, there is nothing sexy about it.

I have to believe that the reason for this story’s popularity is not so much because people find this sexy – although plenty of people might – but because it’s different. It’s not the ‘normal’ love story, where the male protagonist says all the right swoony things to invoke the usual unrealistic expectations of romance in real life. Authors have been there, done that. What’s happening here is a desire to break out of the mold that people expect by capitalizing on a darker side of relationships that is often overlooked.

But abuse is overlooked for a reason: abuse is, by definition, uncomfortable. Talking about it means acknowledging it, and acknowledging it means having to deal with it. The first hurdle for domestic violence victims is finding the courage to share their experiences with the right people. Now, it’s having to explain why the things that happen to a pretty girl onscreen are downright dangerous when the man doing them isn’t as rich, sexy, and mysterious as Christian Grey. Fans of this book attempt to redeem the story by explaining “it’s all okay” because he changes in the end.

Right. Tell that to the 4,000 women who are murdered by their partners every year. Their partners didn’t “change” despite every effort to make that happen, I’m sure. “I can change him” is the biggest lie ever told in the history of human relationships, and statistics continue to prove this with body counts. “I can change him” is one of the biggest reasons (not THE biggest, but one of them) that women stay.

Which brings me to my own 55-thousand-word response to Fifty Shades of Grey, its fans, and its producers: Shades of Doubt’s title refers to the varying degrees of disbelief that rape victims face when they share a story that defies the atypical media portrayal of a one-dimensional rapist hiding in the bushes, waiting for the chance to grab a Spandex-clad jogger. Shades of Doubt exposes the degrees of damage that “nice guys” like Christian Grey (though not nearly as rich and not always as good-looking) can inflict on their partners when consent is ignored. When the “nice guys” refuse to consider that there is anything wrong with their behavior.

How would readers feel about Fifty Shades if Christian didn’t “change” at the end? If the broken girl stayed broken?

Tell me when two enthusiastic, consenting adults engaging in sex started to lose its appeal.

See also: This is not a ‘love’ scene

Add Shades of Doubt on Goodreads.

Filed under: Rape Culture, Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, Controversy, Facebook, Fifty Shades of Grey, rape culture, Writing

Shades of Doubt excerpt: “The average woman wouldn’t make this up” Part II

Enjoy another excerpt from Shades of Doubt, COMING SOON FROM BOOKTROPE!

Adelaide Scott is a 25-year-old magazine columnist for a a Cosmopolitan-style women’s magazine. Her new boyfriend, Jordan, is a photographer for Sports Unlimited, and is quite well-known and respected in his field. Until one of his ex girlfriends publicly accuses him of rape. Jordan swears he’s innocent, and Addie wants to believe him. So Jordan gives her a list of all his recent exes for Addie to ‘interview’ to prove he’s telling the truth. Addie will find out the truth…but it’s nothing like she expects.

Check out other excerpts here and here. And if you’re curious why another novel concerning rape and consent is warranted, click here and here.

***

“So I met with another one of Jordan’s exes today.”

“Oh, that’s right. So is JJ still not a rapist?”

Talk about a loaded question. Holding my wine glass by the stem, I spin it on my knee, contemplating how to answer. “Long story short, he tried some kinky things she didn’t like, so she asked him to stop, and he likened it to a second-grader pulling a girl’s hair to tell her he likes her.”

Kiersten’s eyes bulged as she held her glass close to her lips, as if anticipating shocking news that would require an emergency pump of alcohol to face. “That’s it?”

“Uh, yup. That’s what she said.”

That’s what she said. Ha, ha.

“Wow.” Kiersten sets the glass roughly on the table, causing the Merlot inside to vehemently swish. “Jordan’s dated some pretty weird women, if that’s their definition of assault.”

“Well remember, they weren’t the ones who accused him. Only Samantha did.”

“Right. Why don’t you just forget the whole ‘interview’ thing and get the information you want straight from the horse’s mouth? Quit wasting your time with his exes and just talk to Samantha already.”

I had considered doing that. Funny how Jordan didn’t recommend I do that in the first place. Unless she’s just too volatile, too fragile to confront. Not to mention, I could never use a fake identity with her. She’d know exactly who I am and what I’d want from her.

“Maybe I will later,” I say. “This is still worthwhile, though. I’m too intrigued to give up now, especially when there are still two more names left. I’m halfway done already.”

Kier shakes her head. “Allow me to give you my unsolicited opinion, since I’m your best friend. You aren’t getting anything useful from them. At all. They sound like lonely, jilted women who saw an opportunity to dress up the story of their failed relationships to get sympathy, and you know what? It’s working. Don’t you see? Maybe they’ve seen through your little charade and are just playing you.”

“I don’t think that’s what–”

“They’re cobbling together stories to put doubts in your head so you’ll dump Jordan! That’s what they want! They hate him for not wanting to get serious, so this is their payback. Not the best kind that I’ve seen, but still ruthless in its own way.”

“And what could they possibly have to gain from this? Wouldn’t falsely accusing someone only come back to bite them in the ass?”

Kiersten seems to consider this. “You would think. But who says Jordan dates smart women?”

It only took a few seconds to realize her mistake. “Oh, shit, Addie, I didn’t mean…”

“You meant to say that Jordan only dated bimbos before he met me,” I clarify for her. “Thanks to me he’s raising his standards.”

“Exactly what I meant. Cheers?”

We clink our glasses.

Filed under: Rape Culture, Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, Controversy, rape culture, Writing

On writing with cats

Working from home with small animals is a lot like having toddlers: they always want something. They don’t know how to leave you alone (not that they’re supposed to). True, you could go to another room and lock them out, only to feel like a horrible person as you listen to cries that sound like, “Mommy, why do you hate me?”

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Meet the two cutest distractions in the entire world, Catniss Everclean…

And Zoey

I remember the first time I saw the apartment I now call home. I was in Ohio for several months taking care of my Dad, and left full trust with Josh to pick the right place and move in. When I finally saw it in person, I thought, This is great, but it’s missing two things to make it perfect: bookshelves and kittens.

Josh was “meh” about the bookshelves, but totally on board with the kittens. We adopted them from a local shelter a few days before Christmas, then only 8 weeks and 12 weeks old. They have been nothing but adorable trouble ever since: getting into things (even after kitten-proofing the apartment), jumping onto forbidden surfaces like tables (well, one of them could jump, the other would try and hilariously fail), not understanding the concept of a litterbox (that, thankfully, has been solved).

But they are more than just fuzzy fixtures in our home. As my anxiety comes and goes and depression waxes and wanes, these critters have been the best and most effective form of therapy. They give me more of a reason to get up in the morning, and not just because they’re hungry: they figured out how to open the bedroom door and will gently chew my ears to wake me up. We snuggle for a few minutes before breakfast and morning coffee and more cuddles.

Then, it’s writing time. Most of the afternoon, really, is writing time, often with one of these furballs in my lap:

Sometimes they make typing difficult:

And the breaks in which I attempt household chores next to impossible:

But sometimes they understand that Mommy has things to do, and reluctantly accept it by napping on the floor next to my writing chair.

Never before have I had stronger justification for taking my work to Starbucks for distraction-free writing.

Or not…

“Zoey, I need that laptop case…”

“Nope, I has claimed it.”

Except I don’t think I’ll use that excuse often, because these girls will only be kittens once, and have already doubled in weight during the last month (Catniss is now THREE pounds, and Zoey FOUR pounds, those little chunkers).

It might take me twice as long to finish my next novel with these lovable distractions, but these girls (collectively called The Kitten Littles) are the closest I expect to get to motherhood, and I’m enjoying every moment.

Filed under: Other stuff, Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, cats, depression, self-publishing, Writing

When Christians suck at loving people (because sometimes we do that)

I’ll say this much about Facebook: if I ever canceled my account one day, I’d be missing out on 80% of blogging inspiration. I’m a stay-at-home writer with two adorable kittens who are growing up too fast for my liking, so I don’t overhear interesting public conversations nearly as often as I creep them on social media.

That being said, here’s a post that was shared from preacher Ray Comfort:

When Homosexual actor and author, Stephen Fry was recently asked what he would say to God if he faces Him after death, his answer was, “I’d say, bone cancer in children? What’s that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault. It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil.”

Let’s help this atheist bolster his case against God, by broadening his argument a little. It’s not only bone cancer that kills children. They also get brain, blood, and lung cancer, suffocate from asthma, die from Ebola and of heart problems. Millions of children have also died of pneumonia, diarrhea, hepatitis, tuberculosis, and a thousand and one other diseases.

Then there are the hundreds of thousands of children who have been killed in earthquakes, floods, famines, tornadoes, tsunamis, and hurricanes.

God has also let children become sex slaves and be used in pornography, have bombs strapped to them by terrorists, and allowed millions to be murdered in Nazi Germany and in hundreds of other wars.

Then there are those children who have died through Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and the millions who are slaughtered each year through legalized abortion.

Mr. Atheist, if you really want an explanation as to why there is so much disease, endless suffering, injustice, and death, read your Bible. It will tell you that God did not create the world as it is, and it is us who are guilty of sin.

But, you’re an atheist, so you don’t believe God’s Word or heed His sober warning of Hell. So you are stuck with what the Bible calls a willful ignorance.

One other thing. The Scriptures will also show you that there’s no greater delusion of grandeur nor any greater arrogance, than for sinful man to stand in moral judgment over Almighty God. But if you remain as you are, you will find that out when you face Him.

I’m not going to break down every issue I have with this response line by line, because that’s too exhaustive. Frankly, it’s not the response itself I find disturbing, but rather the tone in which it was given. Based on my limited knowledge of the Bible, Comfort’s response is accurate. Nowhere are humans promised an easy life, and that promise seems amplified for those who call themselves followers of Jesus. Disciples and saints have a long and tainted history of torture, persecution, and martyrdom, so if we criticize the idea of a God who allows that sort of thing, we’re criticizing all of Christianity, too.

But how many of us have *really* witnessed suffering up close? How many people have tried to return to their lives after war, the suffering presumed to be over, only to relive it again and again from PTSD? How many rape victims live in constant, debilitating fear? How many survivors of abuse and injustice?

It should be so obvious that these events are life changing, and even life ruining for many. Soldiers battling trauma in their heads often end up committing suicide. Traumatized people often turn to dangerous substances to stave off memories and cope. How many of them turn to God in their trouble and find no answers that make sense? We can’t trivialize this, even if, as Christians, we expect to suffer.

Especially as Christians, we can’t trivialize the wounded places that questions like Fry’s come from. These are questions with no solid answers that can turn people away from God and organized religion altogether, which can have more consequences than a loss of belief and identity: loss of family, loss of respect, maybe even loss of jobs, depending on where you live and what you do (and if you don’t believe me on that, speak with my friend Neil at Godless in Dixie, who lives in the heart of the Bible Belt and can explain better than I can just how wrapped up Christian culture is with every facet of someone’s role in society).

If Christians care at all that the type of questions Fry is asking are causing people to leave the faith, we need to take them seriously, without the snark and especially without the condescending labels “Homosexual actor and author” and “Mr. Atheist.” What purpose do those serve other than to display arrogance?

Sadly, the comments weren’t much better. Some Christians seemed to relish the idea of Mr. Fry one day wetting his pants on Judgment Day realizing his whole life as an atheist was a lie, and even went as far as making ‘hellish’ puns on his name and how it relates to his eternal fate (yeah, sorry, couldn’t resist making one myself there).

Is this how we are called to respond when people ask tough questions??

I’ve been asking the same questions as Mr. Fry for some time now, and I can assure you that if I was responded to with “Well, Ms. Feminist/Ms. Jew-ish woman/Ms. Frizzy Curly-haired person with big glasses,” why would I feel inclined to go back to a church again?

I probably wouldn’t, because a religion full of people who don’t remember how to love is like a high school lunch table of Plastics holding a sign that reads YOU CAN’T SIT WITH US.

On a related note, here’s a similar post from a few months back: What Christians get wrong about love.

Filed under: Religion Tagged: Christian culture, Christianity, depression, evangelicals, Facebook, Feminism, First World Problems, grief, hell, Homosexuality, Judaism

The caveat of ‘being saved’

“I will pray for Jesus’ intervention in rescuing those poor girls.”

That was a response to an article highlighting the prevalence of sex trafficking at major city events like the Superbowl someone posted on Facebook. It’s a sentiment that acknowledges the horror of forced prostitution, which I agree with. It offers hope, which I would love to hold on to.

But ultimately, it’s rare for men, women, and children to be rescued from trafficking. So while I believe that “Jesus Saves,” statements like these really make me wonder what, exactly, we mean when we say that.

More to the point: if one rare person is saved from this horrible fate, finds a supportive community, and goes on to become a pillar of society, does he or she have the right to say this new life came from God? What about the millions of others who weren’t so lucky? What about those who stay enslaved their whole lives? Does saying, “God spared me” somehow negate the importance of all the other human beings who were not spared?

This is one of those permanent unknowable territories for me. But how does anyone really know?

When I got offered a contract with Booktrope this week (!!!!), my first response was, “Thank you God!” But what was I thanking him for, exactly? This offer didn’t fall from the sky; I worked for it. I’ve been working on this manuscript for hours every day for the past month, sometimes deleting entire sections that didn’t read as well on the screen as they sounded in my head. It was a seemingly endless process of writing, revising, deleting, and re-writing. Lots of head banging and cursing at the coffee pot for not providing me with more muse.

But in the end, I’m the one who submitted it. I earned that contract. If I’m “blessed” for it, maybe what I mean to thank God for is my writing talent (though four years as an English major in college helped cultivate that, too). I am thankful for this opportunity that, one way or another, came across my path.

That’s a very shallow comparison to a child who is born in an illegal brothel and relentlessly abused, however. Confronted with that evil reality, I can feel my views of God’s direct involvement with humanity shift more toward Deism than Christianity: a belief that he created the world and everything in it, but is relatively inactive today. Christianity tells the story of a God who is directly involved, always – and that’s a worldview I would prefer to believe in, because I can’t accept a broken world without redemption. But when we think of grace, salvation, and blessings as tangible things – being pulled out of literal wreckage and brought to a safer place – I think that’s missing the point.

Christianity is all about bearing suffering: confronting it, braving through it. Not avoiding it. And that was one major element that attracted me as I endured the aftermath of a friend’s suicide, an abusive boyfriend, a sick father who never made it to my wedding, and the demons of depression and anxiety that plague me on a regular basis. When I prayed regularly (something I find extremely difficult to do these days), I prayed for healthier ways of enduring pain. Not avoiding it. Because I know this is a world where nothing is guaranteed to be fair. I know that I, one of many fallen beings, am not any more unique and worthy of being handpicked from a car accident or a tornado than any of my peers.

I’m sure if such a thing ever did happen to me, I would thank God. How could I not? But I would thank God in such a way that acknowledges the mystery of my survival, and pray that I could live in such a way that it isn’t wasted.

Filed under: Rape Culture, Religion Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, Christian culture, Christianity, Controversy, evangelicals, First World Problems, grief, Writing

Authenticity as a form of marketing?

I love that time when the end of a book is in sight, and the final plot points and conclusion are already mapped out in my head. If I push myself past my daily word limit, I’m confident I can finish the first draft of SHADES OF DOUBT this week.

Which will bring me back to a dilemma I’ve kept on the backburner for the last few months: do I stay indie or attempt to query? I considered querying for my last two books, only to get excited and impatient when my cover designer showed me images she just “threw together” that convinced me no traditional publisher could do it better. While being my own creative boss is great, ultimately the decision the stay indie has been about my lack of patience. I could sign a contract with an agent this week and not see my book in print until the end of next year. That’s pretty typical in the traditional publishing world.

What motivates me to reconsider staying indie this time has more to do with my first-ever strategic marketing plan: something I never thought about as thoroughly as I should have with previous releases (and every author, regardless of how they are published, needs a solid marketing plan to build a buzz and sell books). Some topics are just difficult to make attractive to people, and I’m stubborn about tackling darker stuff like spiritual abuse and rape. How do you dress those up and make them look appealing?

You can’t. That was my mistake before: those are subjects that can’t be dressed up and packaged neatly. To reach the audience I want to reach, I have to present the grittiness in a realistic way that may be triggering for some readers, who will probably avoid my book if there’s a risk of traumatization. That’s fine. But for other readers, they may see a story that resonates with their own and feel understood, perhaps even comforted. I hesitate to call this group my “targeted market” because it’s not just about getting them to open their wallets and purchase my work. Rape culture is an issue I care about deeply, which is why I want those readers to participate in my “marketing strategy.”

What do I mean by that? Starting in the spring (hopefully) I want to open my blogging platform to abuse survivors to share their stories about not being believed. The stories can be shared with names and links to their own social media pages, or anonymously, if preferred. Bottom line: I want to get people talking about something that is not talked about enough, or is talked about in ways that degrade and dehumanize the victims. For every person who’s heard an abuse story that sounded “unbelievable,” I want to have honest discussions about why that is. All of this is relevant to the themes of the book, which I hope is entertaining as it is compelling.

If you are interested in sharing your story, please fill out the box on my Contact page.

Filed under: Rape Culture, Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, Controversy, Indie Author Life, rape culture, self-publishing, Writing

Why speak up at all?

My first “rape book” – as it’s come to be called – dealt with two teenage victims learning how to survive in the world. Obviously, the accused characters were presumed guilty from the beginning. They didn’t get any say in their defense because it wasn’t about them. A story that is meant to empower abuse victims has to belong to the victims. SHADES OF DOUBT purposefully takes a different approach, though, and is therefore harder to write because it tackles a scenario that is far too common: a respected pillar of the community is accused of assault. The majority of people who know him come to his defense, because “good guys” like him don’t do that.

Our justice system is (supposedly) structured around “innocent until proven guilty,” but the exact opposite mentality falls on the rape victim to prove her accusation is valid; she is a liar until proven otherwise.

Consequently, this story is supposed to be a lot more mind-bending: did he or didn’t he? Should she believe him when he says he didn’t do it, or should she investigate? Heck, what would any of us do if someone we cared about were accused of a terrible crime?

There’s no shame in saying we’d choose steadfast loyalty. When I think of the men who matter most in my life – my husband, my brother, my late father – I can’t stomach the thought of any of them purposely hurting anyone. I can’t imagine them capable of inflicting that kind of pain. If someone came to me and claimed to be assaulted by one of them, what would be my most logical response?

Once upon a time, I’d have called such an accuser a liar and gone on with my life. But I’ve been the accuser before: I agonized for years about whether to speak up, because I knew the shared acquaintances between myself and my rapist would essentially be forced to pick sides, and I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to involve outsiders unless I absolutely had to. But the statute of limitations came and went, leaving me with little choice. I spoke up…and prepared for consequences.

As you can see, none of my fiction is without autobiographical bits. I don’t share many of my character Adelaide’s values, but through her I seek to understand the mindset of those who know and even love my ex boyfriend, and how my speaking out made them feel. Believe me, I am not unsympathetic. However, my interactions with humans over the course of 26 years have shown me that anyone is capable of anything: myself included. Especially myself (for further validity of this theory, watch Breaking Bad. Really).

I didn’t ask for what happened to me, but I am responsible for how I handled things after, and the fact that I even contemplated certain means of justice – like going directly to my rapist’s family – troubled me. I spent many sleepless nights thinking of what I’d do if someone accused my little brother of rape, and if I’d be furious that that idea was even put into my head, or…if I would look into it. Because if you’ve never been a victim of abuse, or known someone who is, it’s hard to understand the importance of taking all accusations seriously, even if they concern people you swear are innocent.

It pains me to write that. But because my author brain thinks of characters as real people, their dilemmas become my dilemmas. Their pain becomes my pain. I want this book to ask questions of the reader that keeps them turning pages to find out what happened (or didn’t happen). I want my accused rapist to come off as a real ‘guy next door’ sort of person that any of us might know. If you ever read this book and ask yourself, “Why bother speaking up at all?” hang in there. That answer may not be self-evident, but it’s there.

SHADES OF DOUBT is almost finished and doesn’t have a release date…yet.

See also: Why Another Rape Book? and Why Another Rape Book? Part II

Filed under: Rape Culture, Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, Controversy, rape culture, self-publishing, Someone You Already Know, Writing

SHADES OF DOUBT: “The average woman wouldn’t lie about this”

The light at the end of the tunnel is now visible with SHADES OF DOUBT. As I have yet to edit the first draft and decide whether I’m going traditional or indie again, no release date has been configured yet. My best guess is possibly Fall 2015, but we’ll see what life throws at me :)

***

     It’s a surreal thing to pretend this is a normal evening by going through the usual motions of preparing for a date, but nothing is normal about this; nothing can be normal again. I never considered how the court of public opinion might be a rape victim’s only hope of justice, if she realizes she’s been raped at all. I never thought it would be such a difficult process to even comprehend that it happened. A few months ago, “I didn’t know I was raped” sounded as ludicrous as being “just a little bit” pregnant – you either are, or you aren’t; it happened, or it didn’t. The thought of a woman just not knowing strained credibility. It defied everything I thought I knew about common sense, about being able to read people’s motives and intentions if you looked closely enough. If you saw what was plain and obvious in front of you, and not what you’d prefer to see.

Almost ten years later, I still think about that night with [character name removed to prevent spoiler], and how it never felt right. It was disappointing, to say the least, but that’s not unusual for a teenage girl’s first time. It was disappointing because I expected to be taken care of, and that trust was gravely misplaced. All these years I berated the naiveté of teenage Addie, for being so idealistic and stupid. But that blame was also misplaced.

Normal women who have been jilted and broken-hearted binge on ice cream and Netflix for a weekend, sob with their girlfriends, and talk about how undeserving the guy is, how she’s better off without him. The average jilted woman doesn’t make a public accusation of rape.

Check out other excerpts here and here. And if you’re curious why another novel concerning rape and consent is warranted, click here and here.

Filed under: Rape Culture, Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, rape culture, self-publishing, Writing

What if everyone is a little bit liberal?

I’m quite impressed that the theme of this young adult group at my church is addressing tough questions: the aspects of our Christian faith that don’t make a lot of sense. Sitting at a table last week, we were all supposed to name something that we struggle to understand: for some, it was creationism vs. evolution. For others, the permissiveness of suffering, the inerrancy of the Bible, and whether miracles still happen.

By the time my turn came, I was surprised I was the first to mention hell. I couldn’t have been the only one thinking about it. In less than sixty seconds, I talked about the highlights of a blog post by my friend Neil, which has stuck with me, and bothered me, because what he has to say about reconciling hell’s existence with a good God makes sense to me. It bothers me because I agree with him on many levels, and I can’t help worrying that agreeing (or at least understanding his points) is the beginning of the unraveling: if hell makes no sense, if a God who doesn’t do away with such a place altogether makes his character questionable, does that mean the entirety of my faith falls apart?

When I was done speaking, I noticed the perplexed looks on people’s faces. “That’s interesting,” one said. “I never thought of it like that before…” Others nodded in agreement, and I started to feel sick. Clearly, I had just burst some kind of bubble, and I actually feared that I had accomplished the exact opposite of the Great Commission: Oh shit, I just deconverted an entire table of Christians into atheists.

Pretty sure that didn’t happen, but my next fear was just as ridiculous: What if they now think I’m a liberal Christian???

All through college, the phrase “liberal Christian” pissed me off and seemed like an oxymoron. Christianity is about a “narrow path,” for crying out loud; Jesus said so himself. What is “liberal” about that? To me, “liberal” implied making it up as you go along, cutting out parts that don’t make sense and rendering them useless and irrelevant. “Liberal” implied a desire to worship one’s self as a god.

But just as my definition of feminism underwent a drastic makeover, so too is my definition of this L-word that seems to drive so many Christians into a paranoid frenzy. If I am liberal, it simply means I am open to hearing alternate viewpoints. It means I’m willing to consider the possibility that I could be wrong about many things (though I certainly hope I’m not, but compared to centuries of scholars, let’s face it: I’m really not that smart).

This isn’t to say I no longer hold any firm convictions. In fact, anyone who “accuses” me of being liberal might be surprised to find out that I’m still adamantly pro-life (which is entirely different from being “pro-birth”), believe marriage is the ideal context in which to have sex, and I still inwardly chafe at the idea that “all religions are the same.” If both Muslims and Christians believe non-believers are destined for hell, they are not at all the same, despite similar teachings about how to treat our fellow man. Clearly, I’m not an easy person to categorize. But I don’t know anyone who is.

I read the blogs of popular evangelicals like Rachel Held Evans, and cringe at the criticism that she’s “too liberal” to be considered a leader in the faith, when my takeaway from her posts is that she’s simply unafraid to ask questions and address topics that many of us are thinking; we just can’t say them out loud because God forbid our faith is tainted “liberal.” It’s practically a death sentence, a label equivalent with heresy.

What is the opposite of being “liberal,” anyway? Conservative? Intolerant? Closed-minded? How are these terms to be used when they seem to be constantly in flux?

I’ve never met a person who doesn’t experience doubt and uncertainty every now and then, even if they hesitate to admit it. In this sense, we are all just a little bit liberal.

Filed under: Religion Tagged: Christian culture, Christianity, evangelicals, hell