Sarahbeth Caplin's Blog, page 53

“It’s the most lonely time of the year”

Some of the first songs I learned by heart were Christmas carols – the religious ones, not the cutesy ones with animal voices the radio overplays. This is because my first “debut” as an actress was as an angel in the town Christmas pageant when I was eight. I grew up loving those songs, envying lit-up trees, gobbling up cookies and eggnog. But what those festivities lead up to is always, without fail, the loneliest day of the year.

It was lonely when I didn’t have a lot of Jewish friends to commiserate with, but the ones I did have had their own plans with their Temple youth groups that I was not a part of. It’s lonely still when other Christians talk about the traditions that mean so much to them, but I can’t get in the same spirit because making traditions as an adult is harder; they don’t just happen. They are cultivated over a period of years, often starting from childhood. Making up traditions as a grown-up just isn’t as fun.

I was twenty-three years old the first time I decorated a tree, and ran around my boyfriend’s house on Christmas Day in red pajamas shouting “SANTA CAME! SANTA CAME!” because Jewish kids never got to do that.

It’s safe to say that Christmas, the season (ie: Advent) is completely separate from December 25th (which we know isn’t Jesus’ real birthday anyway). I loathe December 25th today as I did growing up: everything is closed; there are only Christmas movies on TV; no one around to hang out with. Sure, I could look at it as just another day to read in my favorite chair in my pajamas all day, but somehow it’s different when I choose to do that on my own volition, not because there’s nothing else to do instead. Run out of a kitchen staple, like milk or pretzels? Too bad, you’re stuck.

So yes, I am a Grinch who hates Christmas. But I have always loved Advent.

This year’s Advent will be my hardest, as my mid-faith crisis is in full swing. But the songs I learned as a child are still just as beautiful, particularly this line from O Holy Night: Chains shall he break/for the slave is our brother.

I have my concerns about how reasonable it is to believe that a virgin woman conceived a baby, and that baby was raised from the dead after he was crucified as an adult. I have so many questions the Bible doesn’t directly answer, but I love the Christmas season for reminding me of what matters most in this life. For a time, I have renewed faith that mankind is something unique and precious – not doomed from the beginning of existence. It takes a great deal of faith to believe that. It makes me wish that Advent could last year-round.

Since I have yet to find a new church home, it’s still Chinese food and a movie for me this year. Actually, the Chinese food is mandatory no matter what traditions might develop throughout my life. There may not be much spirituality in that, but there is camaraderie, and that to me is compatible with the meaning of Christmas.

Filed under: Religion Tagged: Christian culture, Christianity, Judaism

Hell or Cheeseburgers?

In the early stages of conversion, I thought I was exchanging Judaism – a set of rigid, outdated rules and regulations – for a faith that only required the humility of routine repentance. But I quickly found I had another big bone to pick with Christianity as a Jew: evangelism.

Oh, how evangelists bothered me. I resented not being able to walk to class at times without having some visiting preacher (they came frequently to my liberal party school) thrusting a pamphlet in my face, with bright red letters screaming “TURN OR BURN!” The au­dacity of some evangelists I’ve seen over the years just appalled me. And now that I, too, was Christian, evangelism suddenly became my responsibility. I just knew there was a catch somewhere. With Juda­ism, there were kosher laws. With Christianity, evangelism.

I would have rather given up cheeseburgers.

Weekly Cru meetings didn’t turn me into a sign-carrying preacher with a bullhorn on a sidewalk corner. In the staff’s defense, this is what they had to say about it: if you talked about Jesus to bolster your own superiority complex, you were doing it wrong. Evangelism – or as they called it, “sharing your faith”– is supposed to be an act of love. Christians should talk about Jesus the way most people talk about their significant others. I was supposed to gush about Jesus the same way I raved about The Hunger Games and Jane Austen.

Okay, I guess I could get on board with that.

In my experience, evangelism is done best when it is lived, not just preached. The gospel is supposed to transform one’s life in such a way that others can’t help but notice. At the same time, if I’m seen helping an elderly woman cross the street, or donating large sums of money to charity, no one will immediately assume it’s because I have Jesus in my heart.

But even after the gospel was condensed into bite-sized pieces so I could (kinda sorta) understand it, putting the message into action was another chal­lenge. I can’t lie here – I was terrified of rejection, especially from the people my Cru friends thought needed to hear it most: my parents.

The older girls who took me under their wing told me gently, albeit sternly, that I needed to tell my unbelieving parents about Jesus – sooner rather than later. My dad apparently needed to hear it more, being a rebound cancer patient and all. “You just never know when the Lord might call him home, you know,” they would tell me, as casually as “Can you pass the chips?”

I broke out in a cold sweat at the thought of saying to my Jewish parents, “Hey Mom and Dad, do you mind sitting down so I can share the gospel with you?” Yeah, that would go over real well.

I don’t know why I wasn’t furious with those girls for being so insensitive. I guess I really thought they were only trying to help me.

“Just pray that the Holy Spirit will give you cour­age,” they said. “God will protect you!” they said.

Maybe they meant well, but they had no damn clue about reality. What they ended up doing was nearly scaring all the Jesus out of me, because if I wasn’t brave enough to confess my belief before my parents, how would I survive the Tribulation?

Truth be told, I felt more Jewish surrounded by gentiles than I ever did around other Jews.

My friend Bethany was convinced she had a fool­proof method of breaking “the news” to my unsus­pecting parents. “Just tell them that you’re preg­nant,” she advised. “But before they can fall over in shock, that’s when you say ‘Just kidding! I’m not pregnant, I’m just a Christian.’” Ideally, they’d be so relieved that I wasn’t pregnant, believing in Jesus wouldn’t seem so bad.

I wish it were only an out-of-wedlock pregnancy I had to tell them about. That would have made my life much easier.

I started to have this reoccurring dream, clearly foreshadowing my “coming out” to the world as a Christian. In the dream, I was wearing a cross neck­lace I kept tucking under my shirt every time I passed a Jewish friend or family member. Just like Pinocchio’s nose every time he told a lie, the cross grew bigger every time I became self-conscious of it, to a point where I just couldn’t hide it anymore…and eventually everyone saw me for what I really was.

The only problem with that dream (actually, it’s quite a big problem) is that Jesus famously said anyone who denied him in life would be denied access to heaven. As intriguing a figure as he was to me, those words were haunting. They still haunt me to this day, and it baffles me that a religion with teachings as beautiful as redemption – that is, making broken things new again – and being “fearfully and wonderfully made” in God’s image also teaches a doctrine as frightening as eternal torture. Couldn’t God change the whole “system” if he didn’t want any of his children to go there? Or at least make his presence more obvious to skeptics? Is he not powerful enough to do something about that?

Some days my faith feels beautiful, and other times it feels like nonsensical madness. But even in my relationships with other people, there are qualities I love, and others I can’t begin to understand…and possibly never will. I wonder if God is any different, though it’s fascinating to me how that mystery factor draws some people in, and chases others away. “A God that’s small enough to understand isn’t big enough for my worship,” I’ve heard. But at what point is too much mystery a dealbreaker?

Excerpted from Confessions of a Prodigal Daughter

Filed under: Religion, Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, Campus Crusade for Christ, Christian culture, Christianity, Confessions of a Prodigal Daughter, hell, Judaism

Why Another Rape Book? Part II

So you may have heard that I’m working on another book, tentatively titled SHADES OF DOUBT (I’m not in love with the title, so I’m open to further suggestions). While I’m normally my own worst critic, I think this is my best work thus far, because for once I don’t have any specific “takeaway” for readers at the end. The central themes are rape accusations and the nature of consent – and I know readers will come away with a variety of opinions. That excites me because dialogue is the catalyst for social change. If we want to see a world where rape accusations are taken more seriously, and surrounding rape myths are peeled away, these discussions need to happen.

I love this book more than my others because there are no real conclusions. There is no outright moralizing. This book is also difficult to write – more so than Someone You Already Know – because I want my accused rapist to be a fully developed character, with a background and (gasp!) some good character traits. Because even rapists have them – they are not so easily typecast as villains like Disney characters are, being evil for the sake of being evil. They can be charming. They can be pillars of their communities. They can have loving, supportive families, good jobs, and loads of friends. That’s the sort of character I knew I wanted: one who intentionally comes off as an “every man,” thus making the accusation against him more shocking and difficult to prove.

My character Jordan is both easy and excruciating to create, because he is directly inspired by my own ex boyfriend. The one who raped, and walked. In the book, as in real life, the accused man does not see himself as a rapist. He refuses to consider any shred of validity in the charges against him because what the media portrays as rape, and what rape looks like in its most common form, do not always line up. Most victims are assaulted by people they know, and perhaps care for a great deal. While I don’t mean to suggest that all accused men are guilty – false accusations do happen – it’s incredibly frustrating to come across a person who does essentially admit to rape, but gets away with it because he wasn’t being “violent,” but rather “pushy” (does “boys will be boys” ring a bell here?).

I’ll let my friend Samantha explain it, from her post When Speaking to Men About False Accusations:

I’ve noticed a few things when I’ve talked to men about being “falsely accused.”

The first time I noticed this was a little over a year ago. At that point I was still really new to feminist conversations about rape culture and I was just beginning to familiarize myself with the data, and was sharing what I’d been learning. He brought up how he’d been “falsely accused” of raping a woman he’d been dating for a short time, and I did my best to not minimize what I saw as legitimate pain.

But, the conversation continued, and as he kept talking I realized something: the “false accusation” he felt so victimized by wasn’t actually false. In this particular case she hadn’t actually said he’d raped her, but that he’d assaulted her– and he had, by his own admission to me. He didn’t see it as assault; to him it was a small thing that he described with phrases like “being a little pushy.”

I didn’t have the chutzpah at the time to call him on it, but that conversation stuck with me.

It’s also usually played out that these men who are talking about being “falsely accused” of rape actually are rapists. They have a lot of justifications for why what they did wasn’t rape, I’ve found out. There are so many places online that are filled to the eyeballs-floating-in-shit brim with rape myths– they preach tactics like “those bitches actually do want your cock, you just have to convince them by giving it to them.”

We see these sorts of rape myths played out on a daily basis in our popular culture– Cersei and Jaime Lannister, for example. What many people saw as a “gray area” or “dubious consent” was actually just a rape myth. Cersei said “No” seven times , but Jaime assaulted her into shutting up and then raped her until she gave up being such a bitch and just admitted she actually did want it .

These are the sorts of things the men I’ve talked to who say they’ve been “falsely accused” tend to believe. There are victims of false accusations– I’m one of them. It should never happen to anyone.

However, I have yet to speak to a rapist– not even once – who sees that what they did was rape. They are delusional, but they have huge communities backing them up online, telling them all of the things they want to hear. It wasn’t rape– it was rough sex. It wasn’t rape– I just knew that she didn’t actually mean “no.” It wasn’t rape– I just got her drunk enough. It wasn’t rape– she was just unresponsive. It wasn’t rape– she was just crying because she was a virgin.

I hate that I found myself nodding along as I read this, because that is precisely what I was told. Back when I was dating *J, and before I changed my name (because the resulting depression, anxiety, and PTSD after my assault was so severe, I needed to start over), I heard too many times to count: You’ll change your mind if you just let me keep going, Sarah. You’ll like it if you just let me continue, Sarah. I didn’t clearly hear you say “no,” Sarah (because crying and shaking wasn’t obvious enough, apparently).

But I never once thought I was raped. He never thought he committed rape. Why would we think that? I loved him and thought I could trust him. He told me he loved me and cared for me deeply. He also joked about being a twenty-something virgin still, so “of course” he’d do what he could to get some action. And I was slowly being indoctrinated by Campus Crusade for Christ that men “can’t help themselves” around attractive women, so it all made sense to me.

If anything, I was the one at fault. I was the one who tried to look attractive for him. And even when I switched my tight jeans for sweatpants to curb his lust, I was still to blame, because didn’t I agree to see him in the first place? Didn’t I voluntarily let him into my house, into my room, with the door closed?

It’s bullshit. All of it. I used to lie awake at night, sweating and crying, thinking of J out there not realizing the full extent of what he did, and doing the same thing to other women. I did have my “moment” the day we broke up, when I told him “If you really loved me, you never would have forced me to do things I didn’t want to.” I never said the R-word, but I described what it meant. It made absolutely no difference because what I described is not how most people think of rape.

That needs to stop. That’s why I needed to write this book. And I’m fortunate to have a team of honest beta readers who let me know if there are places where my agenda is showing; where my accused rapist character is falling too much into Stereotypical Villain territory, and is losing some of his humanity. This book is not a form of revenge, and not so much a teaching tool, but hopefully an entertaining catalyst for discussion. Because chances are, most of us know a Jordan, or have met someone like him. And some of us have been Addie, the girlfriend, who is torn between wanting to believe the women stepping forward, but also doesn’t want to lose the man she loves.

Filed under: Feminism, Rape Culture, Religion, Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, Campus Crusade for Christ, Christian culture, Controversy, depression, Feminism, grief, rape culture

What a writing conference taught me about staying indie

Last Saturday was my first writing conference: well worth every cent. A great portion of the afternoon was spent on comparing and contrasting self-publishing versus traditional publishing. While much of the information wasn’t new to me – such as the possibility of surrendering creative control of your work to a publisher – a few tidbits did stand out, pushing me more towards the side of staying indie than actively pursuing a traditional publishing contract.

This doesn’t mean I’m dropping the idea of querying altogether. Reading my query letter to an agent – by far the most nerve-wracking part of the day – gave me that smidgeon of confidence I needed to submit it to other agents looking to represent my genre. The one I met with that day leans more toward traditional Young Adult (that is, characters who are still in high school or early college) than characters closer to thirty, which is the demographic my characters are in.

She also said my subject matter was “a little dark” (no surprise there), but it definitely appealed to her on a personal level. She told me my plot idea was “strong,” and even if her agency wasn’t looking for it, it is definitely a marketable concept. Wow! That’s definitely something I’ve never heard before, since my ideas tend to be difficult to categorize. I may not have gotten an offer for my entire manuscript, but that’s perfectly fine. I wasn’t expecting one, and just being told my idea was solid and marketable is my idea of a successful meeting.

That being said, here are some facts I learned about traditional publishing that are pushing me more towards staying indie:

The pay is not that great. The advance payment may be good, but an author selling his or her book for, say, $25 at Barnes & Noble will only make about $2 off it in royalties…and they may not even see that royalty for months after the purchase. Granted, this could all balance out if the book is a hit and thousands, if not millions, of people are buying copies. Compare that with the 70% royalty cut indies make, but they only sell a handful of books per month. It goes without saying that, to be a writer, you cannot be in it for the money alone. But as someone who does hope to write full-time, this is something to consider.

Really, there are two major requirements for being successful as an independent author: good writing and marketing savvy. You ARE a business owner if you choose to self-publish books, and it was good for me to hear that the bare minimal requirements of having a “media presence” are things I’m doing already: maintaining a website, blogging regularly, and being active on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus).

The common denominator for indies and traditional authors alike is that success (however you define it) takes time. An online platform is non-negotiable for both, if you want your books to be read. The success rate for traditional authors is sped up due to connections agents have that indies have to find on their own, but if time is the only major difference in successful book sales, I’m fine being patient and working that much harder on my own. I’m far too possessive of my creative powers to ever give them up. So if one day I am offered a traditional publishing contract, I will refuse to sign it if I am prohibited from self-publishing. An agent should be considered a business partner, and both he/she and the author have the readers’ interests at heart.

The good news is, publishers who are ONLY looking for debut authors are becoming archaic and outdated. Just like employers who refuse to hire people with tattoos will eventually realize that everyone and their grandmother is inked these days, agents and publishers will catch on that aspiring writers are turning to self-publishing at increased rates because anyone can learn how to do it. So when it comes to choosing future clients, there will be very little choice but to partner with authors wishing to become hybrids.

The hardest part of owning this type of business is having very little control of outside factors: what will readers want? What if Amazon crashes one day? How will I be able to stand out when there are so many platforms out there?

The bottom line is to just keep educating myself about the growing markets. And most importantly, to keep writing.

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

Naked butt pictures and “real feminism”

What does it mean to be a “real feminist”? I’d say it requires one to believe in the inherent worth and dignity of women: the spectacular concept that we deserve better treatment than that of second-class citizens.

It’s just too bad we can’t all agree on what that looks like in real life. Particularly the “dignity” part.

I am no slut-shamer. If a woman decides to pose naked for a magazine, fine. I’d never do it, but that’s me. It just blows my mind that so many women and men alike see this kind of exhibitionism not just as someone’s choice, but as something to be jealous of (because all women who have pride in their bodies would shed their clothes for the world, is the underlying implication). Doesn’t that sort of fly in the face of the whole concept of personhood – something women have been fighting to prove for, I don’t know, centuries? Millennia?

“Personhood” being this radical idea that women are more than breasts. More than objects to masturbate to. More than just vaginas.

That’s why I agree with Glee actress Naya Rivera when she commented on the latest nude photo spread of Kim Kardashian that is rumored to #BreakTheInternet. “I normally don’t, but…you’re somebody’s mother.”

I don’t agree because I think mothers aren’t allowed to be sexy. I agree because of the implications for young girls who are facing enough sexual pressure already simply by growing up. And for a young girl to see her mother become so successful for her appearance alone…well, that just seems a little counter-intuitive.

That being said, it’s wrong to call Kim Kardashian a slut. Name-calling is never okay. I am critiquing the decision to pose nude, not the woman who made it.

I ask you to please take a moment to consider what we’re really saying when some of the loudest preachers of feminism today (in the celebrity realm) are women whose entire careers are bent toward catering to male fantasies, effectively confirming that sex appeal gets you further ahead than intelligence or a college degree can.

That’s the message I read when another singer releases an album where her ass is more prominent than her face. That’s the message I receive when a woman is called “brave” for being open about her role in the adult film industry to pay for college, and somehow that’s a bigger deal than education being so expensive, students have to turn to porn to afford one in the first place.

But it all boils down to choice over principles, so that makes it perfectly acceptable. It really seems that if you have any standards about sex and the human body at all – even if you don’t impose them on others – that makes you backwards, unprogressive, and unenlightened.

What I see is not empowerment, but increasingly lowered standards for success. It’s beyond pathetic that in 2014, we have not advanced to a point where sex appeal is not just part of a woman’s career, but a launching pad for one (and don’t mistake me, people: I don’t think sex appeal in and of itself is a bad thing).

If that makes me a “bad feminist,” so be it. This is “empowerment” my ass (yes, that was an intended lame pun).

Filed under: Feminism Tagged: Controversy, Feminism, Kim Kardashian, Pornography

Owning the story I didn’t want

It’s three days until my 26th birthday, three weeks until my wedding, and about six weeks until the end of the year. I’m sitting here at my desk sipping coffee and thinking…This isn’t how I expected my life to go. At all.

That’s a mixed blessing. I never thought I’d lose my father before he got to walk me down the aisle; no one asks for that. But I also never envisioned myself getting married in the first place. I thought I was one of those people who is “called to singleness,” and I was in the process of becoming okay with that right until I bumped into Joshua in the student center of Kent State, and was unexpectedly asked out on my first date in…well, um, ever, actually (that Sadie Hawkins date in 10th grade doesn’t really count).

Through all that, I developed a quarter-life crisis of faith, which didn’t happen overnight. There was seminary…bouts with depression and anxiety…personal crises…the usual stuff (well, maybe not seminary). That’s quite normal for anyone, but it’s especially traumatic when you go through the tedious process of converting, upsetting your family, finally reaching a mutual place of respect and understanding, and then having to wonder…was it all for nothing? Or is this just a particularly damaging pothole in the middle of the road?

I mourn the certainty I had in college. Man, I used to be so solid. I used to be this iron-clad woman of conviction. She had her problems, and could be quite annoying, but at least she was consistent.

Like a typical millennial, I’ve found some solace in the blogging community. I follow many Christian bloggers: funny, articulate, deeply intellectual people who remind me that it’s perfectly okay to pursue faith while deeply enmeshed in doubt. Then there are opposite perspectives, like this guy who grew up in the Bible Belt as a devout Southern Baptist. But at some point during adulthood he started to question everything he was taught, and ended up leaving it all behind.

You may be thinking: why are you reading this stuff if you’re still determined to remain Christian? This can’t be helping you. Well, it is and it isn’t. I’ve never met him, but I respect Neil. I like the way he organizes his thoughts so that discussion and alternative viewpoints are welcomed, not antagonized. He’s a breath of fresh air in the midst of stereotypes that say all atheists are angry about something.

But I’m angry, too. I’m angry because he raises important questions that many Christians prefer to sweep under the rug, doing more harm to the faith than anything else: like why a supposed good God doesn’t do a better job of warning his children about hell (and why is there even a hell in the first place?). Why did he order genocide of women and children? Why allow the tree of good and evil if he knew humans could eat from it?

(I’m still working through those questions, in case you’re wondering. So don’t ask me for my opinion).

Aside from the doctrinal debates, I’ve witnessed deep damage to the cause of Christ by Christians themselves: Christians who follow a “prosperity gospel” that praises God for close parking spaces and shiny new possessions while children all over the world die of malnutrition and other preventable causes. Christians who perpetuate the same tired rhetoric over and over when it would be so much more beneficial to drop the sales pitches and ask people to simply share their life stories. Sometimes I’m embarrassed to claim these people as my own, and admit I’m part of their tribe.

Which brings up another valid question: Why do I still care about being a Christian in the first place?

Lately I feel like I’m toeing the line between faithful and agnostic. But a big turning point for me was realizing I don’t have to choose between faith and reason. I believe literature can be used to communicate truths about humanity even if the story itself didn’t happen exactly as it’s written – and while parts of the Bible function as a history book, other parts of it are literature. I see traits of the kind of person I want to be in Jesus, for there is no one in history quite like him. And being Jewish himself, he is woven into the rich history of midrash – the practice of scholars expanding on specific aspects of Scripture that are commonly overlooked (like how did Sarah really feel about Abraham carting their son away to be sacrificed?).

The entire Jewish tradition embraces questioning without having to know all the answers. Because Christianity is born from Judaism, I don’t see why that aspect cannot be embraced in Christian tradition as well. It frustrates me sometimes, this Christianity with all its principles and doctrines that, quite frankly, seem ludicrous and unintelligible. But I so badly want to believe in redemption – the idea that broken things can be made new and beautiful again – and I cling to the hope that Christianity offers that.

Does that make my faith a crutch? Maybe. But for all the trouble I went through to claim it, I’m simply not ready to give up on it yet.

Filed under: Religion Tagged: Christian culture, Christianity, Controversy, First World Problems, hell, Judaism, marriage

How many words does it take to tell a good story?

Preparing for a writing conference is one of the scariest and most exciting things I’ve ever done. Exciting because I get to meet writers in real life, not just in my computer! But it’s scary because there’s always that pesky tendency to compare my work and success with theirs.

And then there’s the pitching part. I signed up to pitch my latest story to an agent. I don’t think I need to describe how intimidating THAT will be.

I submitted my query letter ahead of time and got it back last night. My WIP is unfinished and currently thirty thousand words. I don’t have a final word count goal; I never do. My stories end when I feel they are finished. After reading the comments on the query letter, though, now I’m starting to have doubts. My longest work is just shy of fifty thousand words, and according to the pro who read my letter, no agent will touch a manuscript that is not a minimum of sixty thousand words.

My first thought: What! They won’t even LOOK at it? That’s not fair! Novellas are a legitimate form of literature!

My second thought: Well, these people are professionals. They know it requires a minimum amount of words to tell a good, well-developed story. They know the publishing world way better than you, and they certainly aren’t idiots.

Like any writer, indie or otherwise, I enlist a great deal of trust in my beta readers to tell me if a story is ready for publication. Now I worry that, despite their honesty, I published half-assed, under-developed stories. The reviews overall don’t suggest this is the case. But that doesn’t mean I don’t worry. I am and will always be my worst critic.

I’m reminded of all those book reports I had to write in high school where there was a minimum of five required pages. This was annoying, since I could perfectly summarize the book and what I thought of it in half that amount of pages. The key, I thought, was choosing the right words and using them well.

So what do you think? Is there a required minimum amount of words to tell a good story, or is it highly subjective, depending on the subject and genre?

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

Why Another Rape Book?

As I’ve discussed before, one of the best advantages of self-publishing is the ability to write about anything you want. Even if it’s not, from an agent’s standpoint, very “marketable” (and that’s a highly subjective term). If you’ve been following this blog for a while, or if you’ve read any of my books, you’ve probably figured out that I lean more toward the dark and the serious. In particular, religious turmoil (like this book and this one) and the real hardballs like consent.

That last topic is huge: no one book can adequately do it justice. Which is why that subject will appear again in my next book, tentatively titled SHADES OF DOUBT. Unlike Someone You Already Know, which focuses on the victims of abuse, this book takes a different spin by focusing on the accused perp himself, and the girlfriend who wants to defend him.

Why does this subject matter so much to me? Because I used to be that girlfriend. Only the assault I tried to excuse and justify was my own.

Crime reports show again and again that most victims are assaulted by someone they know. And whatever you think a rapist is “supposed” to look like, the majority of them don’t come across that way. Too often, they are popular, well-liked, respected pillars of their communities. They often have good jobs and loving families. They are, quite frankly, the last people you’d expect to be accused of something like rape.

Which is why so many accused rapists never see a day in jail, much less the inside of a court room.

You may have heard the expression “gray rape.” It’s a favorite of defense attorneys and politicians who try to explain away rape accusations with little evidence by claiming they are the result of misunderstandings. He wanted it; she didn’t; he read into the situation one way; she says something completely different.

This is a book that will explore the personality, relationship history, and family background of one accused “gray rapist” in an attempt to understand how he turned out the way that he is. What complicates matters even more, both in the book and in real life, is that plenty of men commit acts of rape and don’t see themselves as rapists. There are people who genuinely believe that saying yes to sex once means saying yes to sex at all other times. There are people who believe that sex is something they are “owed” after a nice date. And the women who suffer as a result are often brushed off with, “Well, you know how men are.”

I want this book to be an instigator in the discussion of why we say such things. I want readers to come away with an understanding that rape is not the black-and-white issue many of us think it is, even though it should be. I don’t expect all readers to agree with me. But the important thing is to start talking.

You can read the first chapter here. Also, here is the full synopsis (no release date yet, but stay tuned!):

Adelaide Scott is a 25-year-old relationship advice columnist for Stunning! Magazine. Her new boyfriend, Jordan Johnson, is a renowned photographer for Sports Unlimited. On the surface, he is everything a woman should want: Good-looking, hilarious, and charismatic. Their relationship seems perfect…until an ex-girlfriend confronts him, and publicly accuses him of raping her.

Jordan swears he did nothing wrong. In fact, he’s so confident in his innocence, he draws up a list of all his ex-girlfriends for Addie to “interview” in order to prove he’s a good man. Desperate to believe he’s telling the truth, Addie complies with his request, using the magazine she writes for as her cover: She will pretend to undergo research for a future column about sexual assault, in which the former girlfriends will be anonymous participants. But what if the women don’t want to talk? Or worse – what if Addie doesn’t like what they have to say?

It doesn’t help that her best friend and editor, Kiersten Sharp, sees rape as a black-and-white issue, with no shades of doubt. Addie is about to discover that the truth – in all its forms – is complicated, and not at all what she expects.

Filed under: Feminism, Rape Culture, Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, Confessions of a Prodigal Daughter, Controversy, Feminism, Indie Author Life, rape culture, Someone You Already Know, Where There's Smoke

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE Birthday Sale & Chapter Excerpt

In honor of my birthday next week, my latest novella WHERE THERE’S SMOKE is on sale for 99 cents until November 8th, then $1.99 until the 12th, when it will return to its usual price of $2.99. Like stories with intrigue, suspense, and a bit of controversy (homosexuality, forbidden relationships, spiritual abuse)? Now’s your chance to give it a try for less than a cup of coffee. Full synopsis and chapter excerpt below.

Pastor Henry Collins is hailed as a hero after rescuing a teenage girl from a burning church. But the real reason he was at the right place at the right time is known only to him and Hannah Mercer, the teenage girl he rescued: a girl whose faith has more to do with keeping up appearances than anything to do with God.

Lia Anders is a classmate of Hannah’s: a girl whose coming out as a lesbian resulted in immediate expulsion from the church. As an unlikely friendship develops between the two, Hannah begins to realize the error of her hypocritical ways, and encourages Henry to make a decision that will forever alter the course of their lives. But for Henry, the price of living a lie is easier than owning up to the truth.

Where There’s Smoke is a story that asks: who are we really? Are we the sum of all our actions? And is the note we finish our lives on the most defining of them all?

***

Without having to discuss it, Hannah and Lia kept within their self-imposed margins at school. Their “friendship,” if it could be called that, had an unspoken clause of staying within the bounds of Lia’s home. It was unfortunate, as Hannah was be­ginning to realize Lia wasn’t the deviant soul-snatcher her church would have her believe. But what could she do? If Lia were a true friend, she wouldn’t force Hannah to choose between her and Kaylee. Right?

Lunch hour remained the same. Their respec­tive tables were not far apart; Kaylee didn’t have to make much effort to raise her voice for Lia to over­hear her pre-lunch prayer: “Lord, we thank you for this bounty of food you blessed us with, and we pray you will use our witness to set an example for other students who are trapped in a life of sin.” The other girls echoed “Amen,” Hannah included, but a stolen glance at Lia made her lose her appetite. She didn’t appear angry or offended; she merely rolled her eyes at Hannah and returned to her book.

But within minutes, she disappeared.

It would have served Hannah right to be stood up, but after the final bell Lia was waiting at their usual spot outside the school, not a minute too late. “Ready to go?” Hannah squawked, shoulders hunched, preparing to be shot down.

Lia shrugged. “Sure. Whatever. Let’s go.”

She took off at a rapid pace. Without further question, Hannah adjusted the straps of her bag and took off after her.

“I think I did better on the last quiz,” she huffed. “But I still have a few questions about varia­bles–”

“Mmhmm,” hummed Lia, without turning around or slowing down.

“And maybe we could look at some of these homework questions? I think Maddix said they might be on the next quiz–”

Lia stopped short, causing Hannah to trip over her own feet to avoid crashing into her. “Do you and your little church minions think I’m deaf or something?”

A knot formed in Hannah’s throat. “What?”

“I have ears, you know. And they work fine. Your friends make damn sure of that.”

The knot wound itself tighter, threatening to strangle her. “Well, um, maybe you could switch tables and then you wouldn’t hear them.”

“Now there’s a colossal example of missing the point,” Lia snorted.

“What do you want me to do?” Hannah asked the ground.

Lia drew a sharp breath, poised to issue an ultimatum: give up Kaylee and the rest of the church crowd, or fail Algebra. Even before she asked, Han­nah knew she was thinking it, and promised herself not to put up a fight if that was what she decided to do. They each had their principles, and made respec­tive sacrifices in order to keep them. But just because Lia weighed the costs and decided she could live without friends didn’t mean that Hannah could.

“Nothing,” Lia sighed. “Just forget it.” They walked the rest of the way to her house in thick, smoky silence.

Tucked in the safety of her cozy kitchen, Lia still showed hospitality in setting out crackers and boiling water for tea. With their textbooks splayed open on the table, they could have carried on with business as usual, but Henry’s Just be kind advice chorused in Hannah’s head, prompting her to ask, “When did you know you were gay?”

Lia looked up, startled but not angry, as she poured steaming water into the mugs. “My whole life, pretty much.”

Hannah waited for a “Why do you ask?” to follow, but none came. “Your whole life? Really?”

Setting the mugs on the table, Lia responded, “When I was four, I told my mom I wanted to marry a girl. She laughed it off, but my dad rightly took it as an omen and urged my mom to take me to some kind of therapist. She insisted it was a phase and I’d grow out of it. Then, in first grade, the class had a mock wedding for the letters ‘q’ and ‘u’ because, you know; they’re always together in the English lan­guage. I asked the teacher why both letters couldn’t be decorated with lace. And that’s just the begin­ning.”

“So…” Hannah sipped her tea, realizing she was treading on thin ice. “So you mean…you didn’t choose to be gay?”

“When did you choose to be straight?”

“I…didn’t.”

“Then there you go.”

The workbooks were still open, but Hannah decided that wasn’t the lesson she wanted to focus on. “The youth group had a guest speaker who said she was cured of homosexuality not too long ago.”

“Hate to be the one to break it to you, but that lady is either lying or in deep denial.”

“Kaylee says with enough prayer, we can overcome anything.”

“Well, Kaylee says a lot of idiotic things.”

In her church, in their school, insulting the deacon’s daughter was tantamount to blasphemy. “You really hate her, don’t you?”

The words slapped. Lia calmly stirred her tea, but Hannah could detect a slight hummingbird shaking of her hand that held the spoon. “I don’t hate anyone, Hannah. The world has way too much of that already.”

Hannah wouldn’t have blamed Lia one bit if she did hate her. Even Hannah herself wondered what might happen if she dared to doubt Kaylee’s lunchtime prayers or evangelical campaigns as being less authoritative than the Gospel itself. But not because Hannah had opposing convictions–she’d believe whatever it took to have a place at their coveted table.

Hannah hadn’t realized the attractiveness of humility until her meeting with Henry. Henry, who blushed when she thanked him for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with her. Henry, who probably learned all the answers about life and faith from his pastor father by the time he was old enough to toddle, but still demonstrated a kind of patience that made her feel safe instead of stupid.

Henry. She would see him again in less than two hours. She ought to bring up the math lesson so neither her time nor Lia’s was wasted–and so she’d stop grinning like an idiot–but now she was far too curious. “Is that why your dad left? He couldn’t handle you being gay?”

The question had been knocking the walls of her brain ever since Lia had mentioned she had an absent father. Today it was barely contained behind the cage of her teeth; she opened her mouth to snack on a cracker, and it slipped out like a slithery eel.

“Wow, aren’t you brazen today.” Lia re­sumed stirring, even though the sugar had to be long dissolved by then. “He and my mom had a lot of issues, but yeah, I guess the different ways they viewed their dyke daughter was one of them.”

The last time Hannah heard the word dyke was over a year ago, when Lia first came out–obvi­ously not used in any positive sense. It baffled her how casually Lia used the word to refer to her own self. She was itching to ask her about it, but gorged herself on crackers instead. She probably maxed out her Personal Question Quota for the day.

But Lia hadn’t. “So why did your dad leave?”

It was now Hannah’s turn to shake. “I’m not sure.”

“Come on, I told you my ugly truth. Now it’s your turn.”

Hannah shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. Things weren’t perfect before, but I didn’t think…I never expected him to…” God, it was so embarrassing how quickly the tears welled and threatened to spill over. No one had ever asked her about it before, not genuinely. There were girls who wanted salacious details only, and there were the Kaylee types who patted her pain with “God can fix anything!” platitudes that were more annoying and hurtful than any gossip.

With her “Faith Face” strapped firmly in place, Hannah could fake her way through almost anything. She never expected to crumble so easily from kindness–especially from the least likely person to show her what that looked like.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry. You don’t have to share if you don’t want to.” But the tears already started flowing in snotty rivulets down her face, prompting Lia to move her chair to the other side of the table, next to her.

After what they’d just shared about their lives, it was ridiculous for Hannah to tense up when Lia hugged her–of course it was a friendship hug–but old habits were tough to break. The blazing thought Ohmygod a lesbian has her arm around me pulsed in Hannah’s head for a moment before she had the sense to shut it down.

And then she allowed herself to hug Lia back.

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Filed under: Religion, Writing & Publishing Tagged: Author Sarahbeth Caplin, Christian culture, Christianity, Controversy, Homosexuality, Spiritual Abuse, Where There's Smoke

So what does it mean to “die with dignity”?

I have been thinking a lot about Brittany Maynard. She’s been on my mind ever since I heard her tragic story, because it was released to the media just after my father died of cancer. Other than Robin Williams, I’ve never felt grief this big for someone I didn’t know personally.

I think it’s because I have an idea of where her family is emotionally right now (but only an idea). My pain is still fresh and raw, and that’s without having my grief under a national spotlight.

Brittany’s story matters to me because, earlier this summer, Dad considered making the same choice that she did. He didn’t, though. His reasoning was that he wanted to engage with friends and family for as long as he could. He didn’t want to lose any more days of consciousness, and I respect him for that.

But I respect Brittany’s decision, too. I know it was not made lightly. I also know that, for those who say it’s impossible to define a “quality of life,” pain DOES impact your ability to live well. I remember all too clearly the night Dad forgot to take his pain medication: it’s a night I hope I can forget. A few days later, over brunch, he described what it was like: how it robbed him of the ability to think of anything else, because the agony completely took him over.

I am fortunate to have never experienced that kind of physical pain; I only know emotional agony. I understand now that many depressed people don’t really want to die; suicide is just a means to get the pain to stop. If they could live depression-free, they would – just as Brittany would love to have kept on living if not for her fatal diagnosis.

I understand both sides of this ethical conundrum. Really, I do. It wasn’t that long ago I believed euthanasia was wrong all the time, in every scenario. But today, I don’t consider Brittany’s final act to be suicide. I don’t know how to define “dying with dignity,” but if that was how she defined it, how can I judge? I haven’t been in her place.

In my dad’s case, he died with dignity by living into the first few days of autumn. The doctors predicted he wouldn’t make it through the end of summer, so it makes me smile that Dad had his final moment of “Fuck you” to the disease by surviving most of September. He always had a strong, optimistic spirit, which everyone who knew him believes kept him alive for so long. In that way, the cancer did not win. That was how he died with dignity.

To paraphrase John Green, we don’t have a say in whether or not we suffer. But we do have a say in how we suffer. I still have very mixed feelings about euthanasia, but if we are unwilling to approach this subject with empathy, we will only cause more pain to those who are left behind.

My question for people on both sides of the issue is this: if there is such a thing as dying with dignity, what does it mean to die without dignity? Or can we define the act of death in any special way, since it is a fate that all of us will meet eventually, whether we want to or not? How do some do it “better” than others?

Filed under: Miscellaneous Tagged: Brittany Maynard, cancer, Controversy, depression, grief