Random Jordan's Blog, page 8

My Issues with Straight Romance

If it wasn’t clear, these days I tend to mostly read and write reviews around books that are often placed in the ‘unconventional’ categories for romance. Regardless of whether romance is the focus or not I’ve often gotten tired of the same old things coming up with straight romances. Many of which are not only harmful ideals but downright insane. This is why I’ve never truly been one of those people who loves ‘chick-flicks’ or the romance book equivalent, despite really loving all the sappy romance-like non-sense.

This doesn’t mean I won’t read a series or a book because it has a straight romance in it. I recently read the entire current Imp series by Debra Dunbar and still enjoyed it despite it having many of these straight romance clichés or tropes in it. But that does mean I tend to roll my eyes or completely gloss over those areas of the book because I know what’s going to happen and I just don’t end up caring. And I call these clichés and tropes because I’ve seen them enough in the straight romance books I used to read plentiful that I’ve grown tired of them, even if others might not consider them tropes (I never bothered to check TV Tropes).

The ones I’m going to discuss are not necessarily in Debra Dunbar’s series, nor are they necessarily in every straight romance, but usually at least one of the ones I will talk about is in every straight romance I’ve come across. In fact there’s only one series I can actually think doesn’t have one of them and that’s the Harry Dresden books (out of the books I’ve read).

You are Abusive to Me and Now I Want You More

This is probably one of the biggest issues I have with an insane amount of straight romance books. Like, this seriously shouldn’t be happening, but it does… in massive loads because for some reason there are women that absolutely LOVE these stories. It completely just blows my mind. Some of the biggest and most famous that pretty much everyone knows are Twilight and Fifty Shades of Gray, but there are plenty of others (including in the Imp series by Debra Dunbar, and Game of Thrones).

There are a few books that manage to show an abusive relationship exactly for what it is, rather than romanticizing it, like But I Love Him. But those are not the kind of books I’m talking about. That one recognized the relationship was bad from the beginning. The ones that concern me are where the relationship continues to be abusive, but the character doesn’t recognize it and just loves the person more and says that’s just the way they are. There’s no bad break-up, all these stories end with a happy ending between those two characters in a relationship that clearly bad for them.

It’s those kinds of books that tell a girl who the person they are with should be at the very least emotionally abusing them, otherwise they aren’t the right person. I’m honestly a bit afraid of how the dating scene will be for the Twilight fangirl generation. And this scares me because I have a friend that has gone through this shit as one of the girl’s who loves Twilight and is in the dating scene. She’s been in MULTIPLE abusive relationships, and continues to think it’s her fault when they end, and continues to think the boy is the most perfect thing ever and was only abusive because he had a ‘troubling past’ as if that’s an excuse to be a total dick half the time to someone. Or that the other half the time when they seem to act sweet, makes up for their total dickishness.

I Hate You, which Means I really Love You

I will give a small credit, that I have seen this trope in one or two F/F Romance books, but both of those books had been F/F remakes of originally straight classic novels, so I don’t count them, but I’m still acknowledging they exist. For the most part though, this is a common obstacle in pretty much every famous straight romance novel that doesn’t have an abusive relationship like the ones I mention above. Heck, sometimes both this trope and the one above mix together to form the biggest nasty ever.

This one always starts off as the two people who will eventually fall in love with each other, absolutely hate each other. Maybe the guy did something douche-y to the girl, and now the girl just totally resents the guy, yet for some reason the two keep ending up in situations that force them together and eventually the girl sees that the guy is really just a nice guy that was caught at a bad time. Some times the books or stories make a point to make sure the audience is aware that there were circumstances that caused the guy to be an asshole on their first meeting so you can sympathize with him and actually try to cheer on the girl getting him.

My biggest problem with this one is that the first time I ever saw it was in a TV Show called Ranma 1/2. Which I believe that show, shows perfectly how this tends to only be an issue with straight romances. The main character is first introduced to the main love interest in this show as a girl, so they are both girls and they are good friends right away. Things go well. Then the main character changes back to being male and their first interaction is getting caught at the bathroom door with both of them naked. From then on, they BOTH hate each other, while everyone around them just keeps saying: Oh, it’s because they hate each other that they really love each other.

Even better though is a classic novel example, a book that many people always say: Oh it’s the best!

Pride and Prejudice.

Yes, this is probably one of the first books that really did this, but that doesn’t make it any better. It’s likely because of this book that so many other romance novels follow along with it and use the two main love interests hating each other as the main obstacle through the whole novel.

And this is actually the reason for most of these tropes I’m talking about. All of them do this as a means of creating obstacles to prevent the characters from being involved with each other. The TV show Castle, and like twenty others do this same thing to make sure the two characters never get together, because as soon as they do all that tension is gone. Tension that was built on the idea that the two characters hate each other. I don’t know about you, but there are like a billion damn normal obstacles in the way with relationships and getting together with someone, and chances are you don’t give someone who’s an asshole to you the time of day, regardless of some act of god that forces you to interact with them.

You Are Mine

This is the main one that just downright pisses me off. It’s strange that it is only something I frequently see in straight romance too. But I think I should explain this one first. More often than not this line occurs in a lot of erotic areas of a story. Particularly when the couple might be having sex and then suddenly one of them says ‘You are mine’, or ‘mine’ or ‘you’ll always be mine’.

Now I have no problem with two people saying they are each others, or one of them confessing to the other that they are that persons. This is actually seen in a really cute moment between Willow and Tara in the Buffy series, with Tara admitting that she was Willow’s and that it was actually a discussion between the two.

In that case there is a connection between the two people, and it’s not one person taking, it is one person giving to another. This trope that pisses me off is when it is clearly just one person literally taking the other person, as if they own that person now. One of the biggest TV series I saw this for so frequently that I had to finally stop watching it was True Blood. Constantly the vampires in that series are claiming people left and right as ‘theirs’, as if no one else has any say in the damn matter. And ironically, the one F/F relationship in it with a Queen vampire never actually says that she owns the other woman.

The worst offender for this is straight erotica though (which I’d place the True Blood series in). It’s like two straight people during sex have to have one of them claim the other before they can orgasm. It just… it’s one of the most mind-boggling things I’ve seen that really just makes me want to put a book down immediately or turn off a show. It may not seem like much, but it holds the point that often times a woman never is ‘complete’ without either owning a man, or a man owning her, and that pisses me off beyond belief.

And worst of all, is that all of these things I’ve mentioned are really lazy things. You have the people hate each other because you can’t think of other millions of obstacles between two people getting together. You have one be abusive or threatening for the same reason. And you have one of the people claim another during sex because you feel you need some kind of dialogue in the sex scene, without interrupting the flow. I get it, but it’s total bullshit and incredibly damaging things that people are writing about.

To be fair though, there is one trope I have seen rather consistently with F/F fic as well that I find incredibly interesting to be such a frequent thing.

I’m Straight…but I Love You

The amount of F/F books (Possibly M/M books too, but I don’t read those) I can think of that have a straight character that is ‘turned to the gay side (We have cookies)’ is intense. It’s like the go-to option when an F/F series needs some kind of obstacle for the love interests to overcome. I understand it, sometimes yes, there are girls that weren’t really straight and were just following things because it’s what they thought they had to be. And yeah, sometimes everyone gets a crush on someone who doesn’t have the right sexual orientation. It happens, but you’d think with F/F books it just happens all the damn time! Heck, even my book has a ‘straight’ character that’s had their sexuality kind of waver because of another girl. (Which goes to show I’m not just criticizing other people’s shit).

And I’m not talking about the people who like never knew two girls could be together or anything like that. It’s usually ones where the straight girl has been friends with some gay girls for a while and knows it’s totally something that can happen, but just continually says they aren’t interested, and then that one girl comes along to change it all.

It’s such an interesting consistent trope to see in F/F fic though, since apparently it’s totally okay for a girl to convince another girl that they can have sex and a relationship, because they are going from straight to gay. It shows that sexuality is fluid, and that sometimes people do jump from gay to straight or straight to somewhere else entirely. Yet at the same time Lesbians often have to be the ones to reaffirm that their sexuality will not change, even if they really want a straight girl to change her sexuality (Shane from the L word, I’m looking at you).

Though I can understand this one at least. It’s definitely more likely for a straight girl to switch than a gay girl to switch, especially when it comes to the whole bicurious, experimenting thing. It’s just still an amusing trope to consider with sexuality at large.Unlike the other tropes though, I don’t largely consider this trope to be damaging, since it’s often unlikely for a straight guy to think they can turn a girl straight because they saw a girl turn another girl gay. Hell I’d be amazed to see a straight guy that actually reads or watches F/F fic that isn’t all about playing to male fantasies (like porn).

Branding, Contributing and Promoting for Authors

Resources No Author Asked for, but they all Need

I recently had a conversation with a few people on twitter about branding, as well as contributing content and spreading the word of content you find, while also still promoting your own stuff, and where the line is for that. Especially when it comes to authors and their blogs and twitter accounts. And considering the company I run with requires me to do many of the things authors actually need to do to get their stuff promoted I have a collection of resources to offer to other authors who have similar questions. After all, it’s not hard to come across posts that talk about what you should do with your branding but no one really discusses the fine line between branding and just advertising, and for authors it is crucial! So first I want to start with branding itself.

Branding for Authors

Authors have somewhat of a unique version of branding considering they aren’t technically building a business, but they still have to decide on a brand, which is often times either the name of their main series, or their author name. And out of all the stuff you will do to establish that brand, choosing it is actually going to be the easiest. But I’m not here to tell you how you should choose your brand. The biggest issue is establishing it. If you aren’t sure where to start there are plenty of posts around that like from Bad Red Head Media, who actually goes a little into site optimization. I’m going to give you all the juicy little details though when it comes to your content. After all, the most important thing a writer produces is the writing. But novel-writing and internet writing can actually be a bit different.

Do it for Others

I always hear from writers that they often write for themselves, and I can completely understand that, but I’ve never been down that path. I do write things I would want to read, yes, but I specifically WRITE because I want others to experience it. And when it comes to promoting and getting your ‘brand’ out there or your books, writing for others is the key! When you sit down to write a blog post or really anything, consider why you are writing it, what you are trying to say and most of all… what can a reader get out of reading it!

You’d think this is completely contrary to what a blog actually is: talking about yourself. You can talk about yourself! But it should lead somewhere, provide a lesson, produce humor, it should give something to the reader so that not only do they take something back from having read your blog post, but they want to share it with others because it impacted them.

I’ve always been a firm believer that humor goes a long way. And it might suck for some of you that say you just can’t tell a joke or get people to laugh at what you write, but if you suck at it, then work at it! That’s the only way it will get better. Humor is infectious across the internet too, the videos and blog posts and stories that tend to go viral are often ones that people can laugh at! Which brings me to the next thing.

Find the Emotion

There is one thing in common with every viral thing on the internet. Emotion. It doesn’t matter whether the writing or video makes a person laugh, cry, be inspired, or angry, they all elicit emotion from the people reading it. Of course it’s easier to say these kinds of things that actually do them, but among the writing scene Ksenia Anske often has a lot of inspirational things to say. It’s important to still be yourself, when trying to get emotional responses from people, and the best way to do that is to make sure you are putting emotion into your writing on the internet.

When you are putting in that emotion, people will see it. And if all you have is anger, tap into it. Don’t be afraid of the emotions that often get labeled bad. It’s not just things that people like that get promoted across the internet, it’s also the stuff that pisses people off. Of course, be ready for the backlash from that like when a reviewer trashed an Anne Rice novel and all the fans brought holy vampire vengeance down on her for expressing her opinion. But, I wouldn’t have linked to this reviewer or known them if they hadn’t caused that anger, so anger can be just as powerful.

Learn to Promote… Others

There’s a common idea in the SEO industry, that relevancy is crucial and when it comes to writers, relevancy can be stretched quite a bit. I talk about a lot of different things, from diversity and sexuality to fairy tales, but if there is one thing I do the most it is promoting others. Specifically I promote those that are in my same niche essentially. I talk about and write book reviews for writer’s like Malinda Lo (who has a great piece on LGBT stereotypes in writing) and Elora Bishop (who has a lesbian fairy tale project), because they have books that not only I find interesting and worth talking about, but also because I want others to experience that writing. And this promotion is a two-way street. You see, when someone then looks up reviews of books by those authors, they are likely to come across my blog reviewing it and discover I also have a book that would fit within those same categories as those authors.

By learning to promote others, you literally promote yourself. I’m not going to tell you the best way to promote others, there are hundreds of ways and all of them can be quite effective; retweets, linking them in your posts like I’ve been doing as providing resources, having conversations with them. It can all have an impact, and best of all, this isn’t even mentioning that those people you are essentially promoting are more likely to promote you back! And the less promoting you have to do of yourself, the better. Because no one likes a person who is constantly promoting only their works, especially if you are spamming everyone’s DM box on twitter the moment they follow you.

The Little Details

There’s so much more I could discuss on this topic, but I feel closing out with some of the minor things in the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) industry that benefit writers and are such small things that often get overlooked! And worst of all, no one ever talks about them, except people in SEO.

Titles

One of the big ones, is titles. Titles of your blog posts have massive impact on your internet visibility. Yes, witty titles can be great! But chances are when you title your post “The Sausage adventures!” and it’s a post about your experiences through high school, where you one time make references to sausages, it’s probably not the best title. Often times witty titles will make you less visible to the internet world and search engines, or visible to the wrong people. There is a compromise though. Go for the boring title like I have for this post, Branding, Contributing and Promoting for Authors, as your basic title; the one that ends up in the url. Then your first line can be with a ‘heading 1′ tag and be your more clever title.

By doing this, I ensure that the people (authors) looking for information on branding, contributing and promoting are able to find this post, while also having my wittiness clear the moment the post is opened up. It maximizes my exposure by drawing in the right people, and not those random people who were looking for sausage festival information.

Sub-headings

This is one of the areas that I often keep missing with my incredibly lengthy posts. Breaking up your blog posts makes people more likely to actually finish reading it. It’s all about bite-sizes. And that includes your paragraphs. Yes, in school you are taught that your paragraphs should be 5-8 sentences long. And I’m telling you throw that idea in the trash. It is perfectly acceptable to have a one sentence paragraph, in fact for dramatic effect it can be crucial!

When it comes down to it, your writing should have as much white space as possible. This is one of the areas that Ksenia Anske suffers with from her blog. It’s large paragraph chunks, which not everyone wants to bother reading because it just looks SO imposing to read through. By breaking it down in smaller paragraphs and adding sub-headings to it, you make it more digestible for the average reader that will come across it. You can also be quite witty with your sub-headings as you chose.

Although sub-headings are not the only thing you need to or can use. Bullet points, and numbering can be just as effective. In fact posts like on cracked which often do a numbering system show that sub-heading and numbering system in effect. They are more digestible because of it.

Maximize Your Impact

When posting, or especially contributing to other sites on the internet, maximizing your overall impact with that particular piece of writing can be everything! This includes making sure your posts are able to be up at certain times, so that the most people will see it when you first release it. But it also factors in things like keeping a steady schedule too. If people know you will have content on particular days, they are more likely to read it and spread it to others as well, something like a daily routine similar to a newspaper.

But there is an area of maximizing your impact that is always over-looked. It’s not just about the initial impact, but prolonged exposure as well. Making sure your title is fitting to the post will let it be found in search engines better, linking to that post in other posts you make on other sites will also spread exposure! If you previously talk about and provide tips on writing diversity into books, then instead of re-hashing things you said, linking to that article can have more of an impact and cover more without you saying as much on a side topic.

Don’t forget about tags either! What you tag your post with will also determine how well others find it. Which brings me to the final point.

Bibliography it up!

If you’ve done any kind of academic writing, you’d know very well and probably hate the bibliography. And I’m not saying you should include a list of resources where you got all your information for your post at the end of the article. But you should be linking throughout the article! To more than just you and your site. Putting links throughout the article is the internet way of providing your resources, and better yet! You can even provide references to stuff that would only make sense if someone read a particular thing on the internet. Want to make a joke in your post, but afraid most people would miss it because they haven’t read a particular web comic strip? Just link it with the joke!

One of the biggest things in SEO is using your links! Don’t be afraid to link stuff, don’t be afraid to take a moment in the middle of your blog post and go and search for particular videos or articles you want to spread to others. You’ll find people are more likely to enjoy and spread your posts out there when they also include other great posts. Plus the link color and text can also be a way of breaking up the white text, though you shouldn’t just link for the sake of linking, what you link should also be relevant in some way, like the two links in this paragraph to help authors with their ‘platform’ or otherwise called ‘brand’.

The End… of the World as we Know it?

As a final note, don’t forget to communicate. We live in an age where you don’t even need to write a book to have an impact on thousands of people. Just a tweet there, or a few words here and you can make a difference in thousands of lives with your written word. So interact, communicate, and most of all spread your word.

Cause everyone has a story to tell.

So what’s yours?

The Only Advice I’m Ever Comfortable Giving

I’ve talked about all sorts of things, whether on my blog or in person, or in chats with people or hell even to myself when no one else listens. And over the course of my short life, I’ve given a lot of advice. Some of it I was certainly not the appropriate person to give it, and some of it I was the only person who could give it. Regardless, a lot of people have followed that advice, whatever it may be, and it hasn’t always gone well.

In fact, one of the reasons I tend to avoid giving writing advice despite being a writer with like a novel, is because of the concept of advice. Probably not what you were expecting me to say, unless you’ve read some of my other posts where I talk a lot about concepts of stuff.

You see, I am a person, someone who has gone through some points of life, and enough to create a series of biases. The biases aren’t necessarily bad, they are just biases that help me sort through shit loads of information, like a filter. These biases or ‘experiences’ that I’ve encountered and the wisdom of gained about myself and knowledge I gained about others are all things that are, no matter what, particular to my universe.

My universe is the way I perceive the world, everyone has a different one, and in essence your universe is these biases that you create from your experiences. So it’s certainly clear that no matter who you are, you will not experience everything there is in the world within your short lifespan. That’s not a bad thing, it’s the very reason that makes us unique. It’s why I’ve lauded that immortal beings would be incredibly boring unless they had some kind of ‘experience wipe’ frequently because they would all be the same. But, because you won’t experience everything out there, you might have one or two experiences that are KINDA the same as others, like at the most general level.

Like you have eaten ice cream. Someone else has eaten ice cream (not me). You both had that general experience, but the act of eating the ice cream is only a piece of the experience that has forever placed a bias in your brain. You could have eaten your ice cream with your uncle who had sexually assaulted you when you were younger and ever since you managed to confront that massive ordeal you have always hated ice cream, but before then you loved ice cream because you internalized that was something good your uncle had done for you. Another person could be completely indifferent to ice cream because they never had it as a ‘reward’ as a kid, it was just another food to eat.

That’s just adding in one other factor besides ice cream and it’s already complicated as hell, imagine how each one of the unique experiences you go through completely shapes your unique bias. Then imagine coming up with something to say to someone in the form of advice that will manage to overlap with every other person in the world.

There is none.

Well, almost. There are a couple actually and there is one in particular that comes from my immense bias and it is in fact the only advice I am ever comfortable actually giving someone despite the fact that it is the advice I have given the least.

Find the stuff in your life that brings you down

Then overcome it, while reaping the benefits.

That’s it. And that piece of advice is the most general I could ever get with it. And I’ve rattled around with what words to use and what I should say about it. But when it comes down to it. Through the course of my life, if there was ever one lesson I had nailed into my head repeatedly by ME it was this.

I feel like I do need to put some perspective to this though.

I’ve had asthma my whole life. MY WHOLE LIFE. I was on a respirator since I was a baby and had never been good at breathing. You could say I was born without rhythm in my body, the rhythm that comes from a steady beat of breathing. For the first twelve years of my life, I believed I just couldn’t do that much physically because I couldn’t breathe well. That I shouldn’t exercise, that I shouldn’t play games, that I needed to stay away from cats that made things worse.

Until I took a choir class. I couldn’t read a note to save a cat’s life, but I had one thing, I had an awesome Soprano voice. Which is odd, since a higher voice actually uses up more air. But it started with singing, I started learning to control my breathing with singing. And before long I was holding those high notes and doing what was largely impossible considering everyone thought I was a boy, a boy in a school with all the other boys who had at least started puberty.

Eventually I completely lost my singing voice when my voice eventually did drop, and practically over night. But the thing I didn’t lose… my breathing control. In fact when my singing voice died out, the first thing I did was started running track. Yeah, a person with a serious case of asthma running track. This was when I started to realize though that asthma wasn’t bringing me down. It never had brought me down. Asthma was a way of training me. You see, even before the singing having asthma you sometimes LITERALLY have to fight for every breath you can get. By having asthma I learned to use my oxygen in the most optimal way that I could, because I was taking in significantly less than others around me. I HAD to learn.

But it wasn’t until singing, and then track and eventually cat ownership exposure, that I realized I had this super power. That by having this asthma which I was always blaming before, I actually had a finer degree of breath control than most professional singers had. The only thing I had to learn was that my asthma wasn’t the problem. It was me that was the problem. I had just given up and accepted that I couldn’t do things because of the asthma when really I could do things BETTER. It just took WORK.

And this isn’t the only thing too. I suffered through the same thing with a reading disorder and now I review books. This was my dyslexia, which you can still see in the books and pieces I write because when I write I say the words out loud in my head, which makes me write like I would talk, and because of dyslexia I have a tendency of using a word that sounds very similar to another word AS that word. That doesn’t stop me from writing though, and even better, it lets me see words in an entirely new light. Because of my phonological dysfunction I don’t take words at face value, I make new ones and give old ones new definitions and because of this I’m not grounded by what a word MUST be. I’m only grounded by what the language offers me.

This phenomenon is not something only I’ve been through. I’ve run across many others that have battled through something everyone else called a serious ‘disease’ or ‘dysfunction’ when it’s really just a super power masked as a hardship. A hardship that has to be DESTROYED before that super power shines through.

And it doesn’t stop at just illnesses or cognitive functions. Anything in your life that is bringing you down can be destroyed so that the super power, the benefit, can shine through. But it can only be done with work, it will be tough to overcome it and it will require work, so much of it, but there is nothing more satisfying than running a god damn 5k when you could barely walk a mile without passing out a few years ago.

It WILL be tough. And overcoming it will take so much strength, strength you never thought you had. And even more time, time you DEFINITELY have. But here’s the thing. Even if you don’t have some disorder, or there’s no one in your way, and you can reach everything you are going for… you need to overcome one thing. Because everyone needs to overcome this one thing.

Yourself.

YOU are the greatest thing in your life that is bringing you down. And only you can change that. Only you can overcome it. And when you learn to overcome yourself, you will learn that the only limitations on you and your life, are the ones you make.

So stop making them.

Follow Your Flow

I’ve discussed the concept of the “flow” in my life before but never in a written medium, and I think I really need to, especially with some reason information that has appeared in my life.

I don’t tend to live my life by a set of predetermined morals or morality in general; many things I would consider perfectly acceptable are things many others would find terrible. But this is more due to the fact that morality is being able to draw the line where things are good and things are evil. And nothing is ever that case in real life. I simply chose to live my life as it comes with the idea that I may do anything in my life, anything at all, But if I chose, I will choose to do what benefits me, or benefits someone around me. In essence it comes down to a ‘lesser of two evils’ kind of thing, except with way more than just two evils (or goods) to choose from.

This identity around morality is actually already established as a religion, one that I don’t follow, but I do take pieces of its tenants as my own. That religion is Taoism (Daoism) and you may know it from it’s incredibly famous simple of the Yin-Yang. And actually the book that this religion comes from is used all throughout China, and many Chinese people follow the words of wisdom in the book (Tao Te Ching) regardless of their own personal religion.

In the Tao Te Ching (Often credited to Laozi) it states a few key phrases that have grounded me. The first is in consideration of the above remarks I made around my morality.

“When goodness is lost, it is replaced by morality.”

The idea is that if you already need to ‘establish’ a morality then you are already pushing the lines of what you had deemed was good and what you deemed was bad in your gut. You already did something that you didn’t think was ‘good’ and then feel to protect yourself and prove you are good you have to establish what you believe is morally right and wrong across the board. Sometimes good things can look wicked, and some times the most wicked things can look incredibly good.

The very act of establishing a morality pushes you into a zone that leads to the next phrase.

“When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly.

When people see some things as good, other things become bad.”

Putting this phrase simply means… judging will hurt your view of the world. The reason I don’t establish my morality and why some things I do many people have considered ‘bad’ is because they’ve already decided what is good, an action, that doesn’t take into account the moment, or the situation… in essence people who judge are not aware of the flow, let alone following it.

And so we get to the flow. Which, believe it or not there is a Taoism ideal around this very same concept. It was made more famous by Bruce Lee with his style of martial arts stating that ‘you must be like water‘ which actually comes directly from another phrase that Laozi had used in the Tao Te Ching. Two phrases in fact. The first is:

“The best people are like water, which benefits all things and does not compete with them.

It stays in lowly places that others reject. This is why it is so similar to the Way.”

This phrase talks in the same light as Bruce Lee in saying that being like water is a good thing, the best that you can be, because water does not judge, it flows, or sits, or remains where it must, based on what is around it. And this is the very basic concept of what the flow is… or as once again Taoist might put it: Wu Wei

Wu Wei when translated actually has multiple meanings, not all of which I will be talking about as I will just be focusing on one of the meanings which is: Flowing with the moment. Some of the other meanings include ‘non-force’ and ‘acting spontaneously’ and ‘non-action’.

This is in essence what ‘The Flow’ is. A mutable concept to show that you are best yourself when you are acting spontaneously without acting. Or… Flowing in the moment. Now, I’m not going to speak for Wu Wei or Taoist belief because as I’ve said before I am not Taoist, they simply have the language that helps me better explain my concept.

The flow is important to me. It’s why I tend to stay almost entirely within the moment, and it’s why I often seem so ‘laid back’ as many people have put it. Because like water, I react to what comes at me, within the moment, rather than adjusting myself ahead of time. The irony in this is that my reflexes are actually terrible and I can take more than a few seconds to think of things I want to say, which means I can seem like I stumble over words at times or just keep quiet entirely. Which keeping quiet is another phrase from Laozi about how people who know nothing are the ones breaking the silence.

This staying in the present is far more important to me than morality honestly. I’d rather follow my flow which can lead me down hundreds of paths, than stop myself because I thought something was morally wrong. I should explain a bit more of what the ‘flow’ is to me though. As it’s not just being in the moment, it’s more like a feeling I get in the moment.

Have you ever saw someone and instantly realized that somewhere down the line you and that person would fall in love? Or how about just instantly knowing something about a person when you see them, even though it should have been something you would need to ask them about?

That is what the flow is all about. It’s a feeling stuck in you that informs you of one or another direction you should go. It’s that feeling you get when you just know that you need to go down the street, or need to stop and help someone jump their truck. You don’t HAVE to do those things, but somewhere deep within you, you just get the feeling that you need to do them. That is the flow, it’s a stream you follow, a path you go down, and everyone has one.

This shouldn’t be confused with destiny though, destiny you have no choice over. With the flow it is all entirely your choice, you can choose to not stop and help jump that truck, and you won’t even feel that you had missed something, because your flow will eventually find you again and give you another feeling you can follow or not. But generally, if you follow that feeling of the flow you find your life to have a lot more meaning and power and understanding than you would normally.

I can’t say I’ve always followed my flow, but I keep to it as often as possible, and to do so means I often don’t plan, or expect things to happen and just kind of do them as they come and stop doing them as they go instead. It’s made me incredibly adaptable to life and the world around me, faster than most of the people around me. And the flow doesn’t always provide me with things that are morally right to most people. I’ve cheated on some people by following the flow, I’ve gotten others to cheat on their loved ones because of the flow, but in doing so the flow always led me to something that I found perfect. I may have gotten someone to cheat on their loved one, but it resulted in that person making a decision that would change their life for the better, a decision they never could have made if they hadn’t done what I provoked them to do.

Often times my flow leads me to a lot of ‘poetic justice’ kind of things. Some times I’ve done bad things, and some times as a result I get to see incredibly good things come out of it. And some times that doesn’t always happen. Regardless I’ve learned to follow my flow more often these days and stick with it. However, the future has been getting in my way, as well as the past. And I think if there is one phrase that can sum up the power of following the flow. It’s this:

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past.

If you are anxious, you are living in the future.

If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”

Guess which one is the best to live in? I can properly account for all the times I’ve been depressed being a result of me thinking about the past. And all the times I’ve shown anxiety or anxiousness I’ve been thinking of what might happen in the future (especially with people and conversations). But most of all… all the times I’ve just felt… absolutely at peace I’ve just been living my life, following my flow, and taking things right as they appeared in my present.

As a final note I highly recommend reading the Tao Te Ching if you can get your hands on it, and if not, there are still some great quotes you can find from it if you look up Laozi.

The Faerie Hour – The Princess Plea

Hello princes, princesses, knights, faerie folk, and everyone in between. Welcome to the Faerie Hour, not quite an hour and not always filled with faeries. My name is Jordan and I will be your guide through our faerie tale today. This tale has been given the name ‘The Princess Plea’ and like all of the faerie tales for the faerie hour it has a specific ending coming from the Once Upon a Time Card Game.

The ending this time is: So she revealed her true identity and they were married.

Enjoy

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The Princess Plea

Once upon a time there was a young princess who always relented that her brothers got to do the things she wanted to do. When they left on a hunt she would call to her youngest brother. “Surely if you may go on hunt, then so may I, as I am older!”

Her three brothers laughed in unison before the youngest exclaimed, “You cannot go because you have not learned horseback.”

The brothers then dismissed the princess and were off in a trail of dust and dog barks. The princess fumed in their wake before the idea struck her that all she had to do was learn horseback and she could go too. So she dashed off to the stables where a dusty stable girl emerged. The girl was covered in a layer of dust in almost exact degree that the princess was covered in a layer of sparkling gems.

“Can I help you, Princess?” The stable girl asked and the princess perked up and rushed to her.

“Yes! I must learn to ride a horse so I can go to hunt too.” Unlike the princesses’ brothers the stable girl didn’t laugh.

“And why would a princess dressed so fine want to do that?”

“Because it is fun and I would very much like to go on an adventure.”

The girl nodded at that and beamed a smile. “Then you must learn. Come with me.”

The princesses’ eyes brightened and she jumped into the stable girl’s arms to hug her, despite the dirt that coated her dress now. “Th-”

The stable girl covered the princesses’ mouth before she could finish. “No need to say it, as I will require one gem from you as payment.”

“Of course!” The princess plucked one of the three beautiful gems from her tiara and handed it over. From there the stable girl had the princess change into something a bit more practical for riding and over the next month the princess grew into a capable rider. But it was the time the princess spent with the stable girl who had been her favorite, and when it had finally come to end, she realized how much she missed it and the stable girl.

The princess only lamented for so long before her excitement at an upcoming hunt had finally gotten the better of her and she forgot all about the stable girl. So when the time came she went to her brothers just like before and demanded to go with them, already riding a horse so they could say nothing about her horsemanship. Her brothers only laughed again though and the middle one leaned over to yank her girth free and they watched as her saddle came undone and she fell to one side.

The middle brother came around to her side and looked down at her. “You cannot go. Even if you know how to ride, you do not know how to fight or hunt. Dangerous people and animals are out there and we cannot watch out for you.”

And after that they kicked up a trail of dust and were off to the rest of the hunt. The princess coughed and hit the ground with a fist. Where could she learn to fight? There was no way she would let her brothers win and tell her what she couldn’t do.

So the princess picked herself up and ran straight to the armory inside the castle. And the first person she spotted, a young woman cleaning a stack of armor, was attacked with whirls of the princess trying to explain that she wanted to learn to fight. The swordswoman managed to calm the princess down.

“I’ll teach you, but it will cost you. One gem.”

The princess didn’t even think about it and pulled the second gem from her crown and handed it over. She didn’t care about the gems after all, just learning how to fight. She was about to say thank you but the swordswoman stopped her from it as well.

And with the gem the princess helped the swordswoman finish buffing the armor then they got dressed and the first of many months in the princess training to use all manner of weapons occurred. It was exhausting and difficult but the princess never gave up and once again she found herself enjoying the time she spent with this swordswoman and looked forward to each practice.

After over a year of work each day the princess had gotten far enough in her training that the swordswoman told her she was capable enough and the only thing that could help her now was real application of her skills in true combat. On the last day before they were to conclude though, the swordswoman said, “Thank you, for trusting me to help you and for your friendship.”

The princess blushed and was going to say thank you too but the swordswoman cut her off. “I have to go now. You know what to do to pack up.”

The princess was both disappointed and happy that she finished her training as she wouldn’t be spending time with the swordswoman anymore. But when the day came for another hunt she met her brothers at the starting area of the hunt with a sword on her hip and a horse between her legs and a few pieces of armor that the swordswoman had given her to protect the most important areas.

The brothers were no longer laughing and simply told their sister to go home. This was not a job for her. She wouldn’t budge though and finally the oldest brother told her, “Get down and prove you can fight.”

The princess jumped down and before she could pull her sword out her eldest brother had hit her jaw and made her stumble away and fall to the ground. The princess gripped her mouth but when she noticed her brother wasn’t done her other hand pulled out her sword just in time to block him. She kicked him in the knee and jumped up bringing her blade to his throat as her brother groaned in pain. The princess smiled. “See, I can fight.”

The brother ground his teeth and added. “But you can never hunt. You are a princess and princesses don’t do that.”

The princess slid her blade up and sliced lightly across her brother’s cheek before she pulled away from him and got back on her horse. “I am the princess. So I should be the one to decide what a princess does and doesn’t do. And I’ve decided I will go on an adventure myself.”

And with that the princess trotted off into the thick forest before the hunting party. All the prince brothers were completely shocked, and they didn’t even call or ride after her.

The princess was riding through the forest for quite some time before she felt tired and she got off her horse. They kept going with her leading the horse but eventually she finally had to sit down at a tree. The princess was about to drift off to sleep when a young slave girl appeared from the bushes with bloodied feet and hardly a sack for clothing.

The princess was instantly standing and rushing to the girl to help her to the horse. ”Are you okay?”

“Yes, I was just running away from my masters and I think I got myself lost in this faerie forest.” The slave girl explained while catching her breath.

“Faerie forest? Is that why my brothers hunt in here?” The princess gasped as she looked around. It did seem a little odd here.

“Yes, you didn’t know that and you are traveling through it?”

“I guess I didn’t realize. I’ve heard stories though.”

“Many of which are true and some are not. All the more reason we should leave.”

The princess nodded and helped the slave girl up on the horse before they took off in the direction the princess had originally come from. They rode longer than the princess would have liked, feeling sore all over and still they did not seem to get out of the forest. The princess began to worry but the slave girl told them they couldn’t rest in this forest and they had to get out first.

It seemed to be getting late, and the princess and slave had grown so exhausted that they both were close to falling asleep on the horse but a bright light shined and woke them both up. The light came from a ball falling toward the ground, which soon faded to reveal a faerie woman, shining just as brightly as the ball had been.

“What are you doing within my forest?” The faerie exclaimed with a soothing but somehow violent voice.

The princess was about to speak but the slave girl put a hand over her mouth and whispered, “Let me do the talking.”

The slave slid off the horse and stepped closer to the faerie. “I mean no harm by entering your forest, I simply had to pay back a debt I owed to this princess.”

“You owe a debt to this mere human?” The faerie asked and the princess was thoroughly confused now.

“I do. I have thanked her and you know that bonds me to return the favor. That favor was to get her out of here.” The slave girl explained. And the princess tried to remember, but she couldn’t recall the slave ever thanking her.

The faerie thought for a moment then waved her hand and she was a ball of light again moving away. “Then get her out of my forest and go back to your master.”

And so the slave girl and princess were left in the dark once more. Though neither of them were quite as tired as before.

The slave girl turned to the princess and smiled. “We need to leave now before she comes back.”

“But…”

The slave girl sighed and waved a hand over her body, and suddenly she was the stable girl. She waved it again and she had now taken the form of the swordswoman. And with one last wave she was the slave girl again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but we need to go. When she finds out this wasn’t sanctioned I will not be able to get us out of here.”

The princess was amazed and just nodded before the slave… swordswoman? Stable girl? had thrown herself on the horse and patted it. “Go. We can get out for now, just follow the path.”

They were both off with the horse and hardly minutes had passed before they found themselves emerging from the faerie forest. On the edge of the forest were the princesses’ three brothers and even her father.

“We were worried you were going to perish to the faerie!” The father cried as he ran up and pulled his daughter down from the horse to hug her.

“I might have, but she helped me escape. And… I think she’s helped me many times before.” The princess explained as her pulled from her father and pointed to the slave girl who was climbing down.

“A slave?” The brothers all said in unison.

“No. She taught me to ride a horse as a stable girl. Taught me to fight as a swordswoman and I helped her in the forest and she in turn helped me out of the forest as a slave girl. But she is none of those.” The princess explained.

“But then who is she?” The father finally asked.

“She’s the person I love the most. That’s who.”

The princes, king and even the girl who had become many forms were shocked. But the princess didn’t even wait and stepped to where the girl held the reins.

“You surprised me, but I was glad it was you. The first thing I thought when I felt a little lost in that forest was that I wished you as the stable girl or the swordswoman would come to help me, and you did, but in a new form. And that’s love right? I loved that time I spent with you, more than trying to go out on my adventure. And I don’t care who or what you are cause I’m pretty sure I love you and love spending time with you.”

The girl stood shocked for a moment then smiled back at the princess. “I love you too. So much that I broke rules and helped you when you asked for it. It took away most of my magic, and I had three chances for you to prove that you also loved me. Otherwise I’d become something…” the girl shivered, “…horrible.”

The princess hugged her, “But you aren’t and I do love you.”

The girl smiled and her body suddenly lit up, which forced the princess to step back.

The princess had no doubt as to who the young woman was that was left when the light cleared and she ran forward and kissed her.

And so she revealed her true identity and they were married.

Living as a Woman: What the Fey Does that even Mean?

No, seriously. What does that even mean?

So, within the trans community (and you don’t want to say there isn’t one) there’s a very common word used among us, that word is ‘Gatekeeper’. You might have heard it before in this context, but essentially it stands for a therapist. Because as current laws stand within the United States, to be able to do anything involving a medical transition of your body you have to get the okay from a therapist. Now I’m broadening that phrase there, because it can be case specific, as some people might need to go through a therapist for anything medical, while others can get hormones and then go through a therapist to get to a bottom surgery or top surgery, and even some people never went through a therapist to get these things. It comes down to where you live and what you want to do for your transition really.

Regardless, the gatekeepers exist because they have control over that kind of thing (the legalities and moral and ethical dilemma around why they have that is not something I’ll be discussing). And one of the things they control as well is seeing you go through a process that is deemed ‘Living as Your Target Gender’. Now I use that phrasing, but in reality for trans women (MTF), the phrasing that is more commonly used by pretty much every damn person is ‘Living as a Woman’.

But… the very use and idea of that phrase is just… mind-blowingly ridiculous. The use of that phrase makes me go… fuck no wonder there are feminist out there who are like ‘trans people are just a product of our misogynistic and patriarchal society’. Cause they see THIS bullshit. This bullshit that a trans person is FORCED to go through with if they want to transition. (Oh and I’m sure there are more things but this one in particular is my thought direction).

Now seriously, think about this… for a real damn good second. What does living as a woman mean?

Did you say dressing up in women’s clothes? Well, I’ve been doing that for close to four years now yet I’m continually still asked ‘when are you going to start living as a woman?’. So, that’s not it.

Did you say wearing make-up, and doing your hair, and nails and making sure you look pretty and best like a woman? Well, 1. Fuck you. 2. Do you realize how misogynistic and straight-up stereotyping that is to women out there? How many women do you know that don’t wear make-up, don’t touch their hair except maybe to brush it (if even that) and don’t try to look pretty? Bet you know at least one ‘Natural born woman’ that fits that.

Maybe you went with the remaining option though. Did you say so that you are gendered as a woman by other people? Well, that’s the most interesting choice of all because… you don’t have control over how you are gendered. Seriously, if you don’t believe me, ask any damn androgynous person you know. You can SWAY the direction of the majority of people who might gender you, but you don’t have control over what OTHER PEOPLE chose to refer to you as.

Yes, you can ask someone to refer to you by a certain gender, but that doesn’t mean it will always happen (in fact it frequently doesn’t happen though many times by accident). Still, the line is that you don’t have control over what other people decide, and if other people have decided that you are a man even if you asked them to refer to you as ‘she’, then they are going to treat you like a man, doesn’t matter if they continue to call you ‘she’ or not. It’s already been decided in their head. And if you are close around androgyny that the person can’t quite be sure, they won’t stop thinking about it until they have a confirmed category to set you in, whether or not it’s one you want.

And so, with all of those covered (even if you said all three or a mix of them) what is left? How do you define living as a woman? What does it entail? What can it possibly mean?

And I honestly don’t have an answer for you, that fits for everyone. Because that’s the thing with this phrase. It’s not the ACT of ‘living as a woman’ that is the exercise, it’s the thought.

When it comes down to it, you are transitioning because there is clearly something that cannot be satisfied with the way you are gendered currently, or the way your body is, or something around that. So asking yourself ‘What do I get out of living as a woman’ or ‘How would my life be the same and different when living as a woman’ can be a more powerful exercise than the act itself, in determining why you are transitioning or why you need to transition.

So here’s my answer.

I don’t want to live as a woman. In fact, I don’t even identify as a woman. To me, a ‘woman’ has a Fuck load of connotation and bullshit hefted onto that word and identity, a whole bunch of stuff I don’t want to touch, and that’s not me. I say connotation because that means it is just the word and identity as it pertains to my experiences. Instead, I want to live as a girl. And no, that doesn’t mean I want to be young forever or never grow up; fuck that shit, I’ve called forty-year old’s girls. What I mean is that the connotation of what girl is, is far more fitting to my identity than the connotation of what woman is (which is heavily laden with a lot of misogynistic bullshit for me).

So when taking the same concept and asking myself well, How would my life be the same or different living as a girl’ I get into all kinds of strange areas. But this it what it came down to. I like, literally smile, when before ‘mis-gender’ me as a girl, or call me her. I get that pure feeling of joy, while when people ‘mis-gender’ me as a boy, or call me him, there is nothing. Just nothing, no happiness or sadness, just indifference. And it’s entirely possible this is because I’ve just been called a boy enough in my life that I’ve become emotionless toward it, but I’ve lived quite an androgynous life and have been called frequently in the same day a girl and then a boy, and then a girl again. (Since I was around 8 and on as far as I can remember for my life).

And every time I was happy to be called a girl, and indifferent with a boy. This alone is enough for me to consider pursuing a transition ‘socially’. But it doesn’t even stop there. The other area for me comes in a two-fold and it has to do with freedoms and ironically assuming stereotypes.

A boy cannot wear a dress, a skirt (kilts can even be frowned upon in the US), heels, tights, and many accessories without either being told they should not or cannot wear those (by both sexes though strangely enough it’s more common for ‘women’ to say it), or without being told they are clearly gay and haven’t realized it or haven’t come out. Seriously. It seems like a joke, but its a serious issue for me because I’ve been told I should cut my hair because only woman or (excuse me) “fags wear their hair long”. And not just once… many times. And as much as I can state that I’m fine with people assuming I’m gay (because I am, just… gay for girls), it’s yet another area that someone else thinks they know more about me than I do and that frustrates me to ALL bloody hell. I don’t even enjoy sex with a guy (I know, I tried) but just because I chose to wear a pair of “women’s” jeans that show off my ass really well I’m suddenly ready to jump in the fuckin sack with the next hot guy that passes by. As if my gender constantly being questioned by OTHER people wasn’t enough shit for me to deal with, I then have to deal with OTHER people automatically labeling me with something that is really about as far from my personal choice of labels you can get.

And I know what you are thinking, oh but girls get the same issue, if they dress too ‘masculine’ they’ll get called butch, or a lesbian (again assuming their sexuality by their attire). But here’s the thing. The idea of being called butch or a lesbian is AWESOME to me because in some ways those are close or similar or are my identity matches. (I’m likely to still call out your bullshit about calling me a lesbian because I wear some beat up jeans though, because it is bullshit) This means yet another tick for something that rights itself in my life by ‘living as a girl’.

But there’s one more final one that originally I had attributed to living as a girl, but it doesn’t fall under that category, it does however fall under the category of why I want to go through with medical transition. And that has to do with my body image. No, I don’t have some kind of belief that I need to have a super skinny body (in fact I like having some weight, especially ever since I realized having some extra fat means my boobs get bigger). This body image issue comes from 1. my love of the vagina, and 2. My frustrations with my body kind of being halfway in and halfway out of both of the binary genders. To put it in the best way possible, if I ever did want to live in a way that people were gendering me as a guy, having a vagina, boobs, and no facial hair does not hinder my ability to do that. If I want to fuck someone by the penetration method, having a vagina does not hinder that (in fact I more commonly use strap-ons than my dick already and prefer that if it’s an option). But as my body is currently. Having facial hair DOES hinder my ability to live in a way where I am being gendered the most as a girl. Having a sharp facial structure does hinder that. Having a penis does hinder many areas of sex I would prefer to have done and do.

This may all seem really logical and specifically done or something but I’ve had somewhere around 3-4 years to think about this shit, before even touching hormones, which means I’ve gone to the trouble of laying all this out for myself to show why I’m doing this transition, why I’m putting up with all the bullshit I’ll be dealing with around it. Because even with answer that question, my goal with my transition is not to ‘Live as a girl’. My goal is to live as me, whatever the fuck that means, whether I want to gender as a guy, or gender as a girl, or be super androgynous so people have to stop and ask themselves what my gender is. When it comes down to it, I just want to be able to be me, the entire me, and that means giving me the best options, and transitioning my body at the very least provides those options I’m currently really lacking.

With all that said. I don’t agree with the idea of ‘Living as a woman’. I do think trial and error with things like make-up and clothes is definitely an important thing (with wearing that stuff out in public) but because this ‘living as a woman’ thing comes from a design that was meant to make sure if you transitioned you would be a super hetero, stereotypical and traditional female, I do not agree with forcing someone to fit themselves into that traditional hetero female role (regardless of transition or not). It reinforces a lot of bad things that a transwoman (and others) should be unlearning around misogyny, expectations, and the worst of all and the thing I hate to hear the most ‘What a Real woman does or doesn’t do’.

So the thought and question around it is great to consider, and the act of experimenting with things that you may not have gotten to experiment with because you were trying to play the part of a good boy is very effective at determining who you are, but let the experimentation be free-form, don’t box us in, when the whole point of a transition is to make the box that had been keeping us locked away all our lives go away, not replace it with a new one.

Love,

The Imp

Copyright and Fairy Tales

So before I get started with this frustrating topic, I want to mention that some of this is my moral opinion, while other things are fact based on legal cases and legal definitions and so on (which I will source if I find them), if I have not sourced it that does not mean it isn’t true, and if you find a source that matches or counters what I have said I will amend the post appropriately. With that said, this tends to be a hot topic, specifically around plagiarism and what is fair to be used or not. So I’d prefer to keep things gentle and mild as I’m not here to actually debate anything, I simply want to answer a question(s) that I’ve asked myself many times.

That question happens to be surrounding the Legalities of things that are deemed ‘fairy tales‘ and their frequent use in literature and novels and movies and all other types of media. To start I need to mark what I define a fairy tale as, since many people tend to have different definitions of what a fairy tale is, and mine is rather broad.

Fairy Tale: A work of fiction that incorporates fantastical folkloric elements as powerful forces, beings, or characters. It always possesses magic in one form or another (even if not necessarily called magic) and may or may not begin with ‘Once Upon a Time’ and end with ‘Happily Ever After’. However, it always is something that could have occurred sometime in the past, present or future of our living world, despite having elements that the average person does not see in our world (even if it might be stated that it is in an entirely different world).

I recognize that this definition is incredibly broad, but that’s the point. There’s A LOT that can fall under this branch, including many works in the “Urban Fantasy” category. In fact it could be argued that most of Fantasy could fall under this category, and for good reason. So, with my definition done I’d like to move into the realm of the legalities around ‘Fairy-tale Retellings’ and more.

You’ve probably heard of the phrase Fairy Tale Retelling before, as it could be considered an entire genre with the amount of works out there that are attributed to it. Such as Scarlet, Ash, and even my novel series Beyond Ever After. And you are probably wondering at this point what I mean by the legalities around this kind of stuff, clearly people have redone those fairy tales, as they’ve been written and turned into TV shows and so on, and they draw from sources that can be traced back thousands of years in some cases, which means they are well out of the copyright era. So the case is closed right?

Not quite.

There are a few reasons why, but I’ll start with the first one. Copyright Laws.

You see, copyright is… and I’m going to openly steal a phrase many whovians should recognize… ‘Wibbly Wobbly Timey Whimey’. The truth is, you copyright LITERALLY anything you have written. The note from this morning, and the five hundred page novel are all copywritten the moment you wrote it. But copyright itself is an unusual system since when you copyright something you have taken intellectual property of it. But what does that intellectual property entail?

Well, the best way to put it is in a series of: What you can Do!

Say you want to write a novel with the main character named Luke Skywalker. You can do that. So long as you do not make that main character meet an old man, have that man give him a high-tech sword made of light, and then have him learn telekinesis and be really good at driving and have great reflexes. By that point, you’ve crossed into the territory of not just using a name from another copyrighted source, but the intellectual character with that name, which puts you in copyright infringement, when just the name was fine.

Interestingly enough, you can do all the stuff I mentioned above, so long as you change the name of Luke Skywalker to something else and so long as you change your setting, such as being in the modern world instead of a galaxy far, far away. Or you can not have all that above and just have a blond, blue-eyed ‘farm-boy-looking’ character named Luke Skywalker and you still wouldn’t be in infringement because you can’t copyright a character’s name or look.

This sounds a little fishy right? But that’s the thing, copyright is very mutable. And actually quite difficult to prove against unless it’s literally straight up plagiarism which can be shown (such as word for word text copy). Essentially when you’ve copyrighted something, no one else can produce the same work that you produced, and… then some not quite definable areas of things like if someone does a character with name, look, history, persona, and events that occur to them the same as yours. Essentially if someone does copy close to everything about your novel regardless of whether it was word for word text copy or not, then that’s copyright infringement, but there’s not really any known values and if you are stuck in that murky area, then if the work is famous enough it will likely win a copyright infringement lawsuit.

You might be thinking at this point how someone can copyright a name and look of a character then. That’s where Trademark comes in, which is a whole other messed up and vicious ball game, as you can’t actually copyright a character name or title of a book or pretty much any name/title (which means yes, you can have a book titled the same as another book so long as the inside content was different and the book title wasn’t trademarked which they usually aren’t). Trademark does that, and I think one of the more famous Trademarks is Tinker Bell. This trademark is actually owned by Disney, but there was a lawsuit around it with another company that owned the trademark Tinkerbell. Regardless, in my hypothetical example above if your main character was instead a tiny fairy that sprinkled dust and was called Tinker Bell, that is instantly trademark infringement, but not copyright infringement, as you would then have to have the tiny faerie named Tinker Bell go on a ‘plot’ or adventure that is almost identical or nearly the same as one used in the faeries series by Disney.

Now the whole issue with names, I bring up because in my work I frequently will reference characters that would be counted as ‘fairy tale characters’ but I include a lot of more recent works, such as Peter Pan, but also ones that are still under copyright because it hasn’t even been fifty years, such as “The Last Unicorn” and “The Princess Bride” both of which easily fall into my fairy tale category and are essentially the fairy tale books I grew up with.

Now I don’t steal any part of these novels, and I’m more than happy to mention that they inspired me in various ways, but I don’t use any of the events or even the characters. I do however use a name for one of my characters (actually a title). That is “The Dread Pirate Roberts”. That name was never trademarked, however the novel it comes from is still under copyright, which means, can I fairly use that name?

Well, yes, actually. This is because the character name is actually Alonso Roberts, and is only fleetingly referenced as ‘Future Dread Pirate Roberts’ because he wants to assume the pirate title known as “dread” eventually. This means my use of The Dread Pirate Roberts actually falls under the realm of referential use for TRADEMARK LAWS. I tricked you didn’t I? You see regardless of my use of ‘The Dread Pirate Roberts’ no one owns that name or title as a trademark, which means it is fair use for anyone regardless of what copyrights may have that name in them. As long as I steer clear of having him wear a black mask and have him rescue the woman of his dreams I don’t have to worry about copyright infringement… because I do actually own that character and although he has a title that can be connected to a known name he is not remotely the same character as that one. But this is theory, based on trademark and copyright laws.

In reality, and where I wanted to go since this is what sparked the conversation in my head, my use of ‘The Dread Pirate Roberts’ actually falls into the Fan Fiction category of copyright. Which may surprise you to discover that you can actually copyright fan fiction (legally). This essentially means that the owner of the novel with the character ‘The Dread Pirate Roberts’ could sue me if they so wished, but as to whether it would lead to a successful lawsuit would depend on whether my use is deemed as ‘Fair Use’, which is yet another mutable term which has a few elements that can be defined such as brief use (which is what happens in my novel). This means even if William Goldman chose to sue me over my use of that name (which all accounts I can find of him would say no), I have a strong case backed by lack of trademark, fair use law, and referential law in copyright that should guarantee that I’m allowed to use the name for a pirate character. Which is enough for me to warrant actually using the name in my book.

With all that law out-of-the-way though, I mentioned something briefly in the last paragraph, about how in reality my novel falls into the category of Fan Fiction. Believe it or not, a lot of works that are not just Fairy Tale Retellings fall into a fan fiction category but aren’t set as that because they have been changed slightly or produce fan fiction on works that are in public domain now. Books like Gay Pride and Prejudice, or the Lizzie Bennet diaries, and pretty much anything that could be marked as a ‘retelling’ would fall in the fan fiction category.

And I know, Fan Fiction tends to get a lot of crap thrown onto it, about breaking copyright laws and so on, which is not helped by people like Cassandra Clare and her Frankenstein fan-fiction. But there is fan fiction that can be copyrighted legally and I use the word fan fiction because that is what it is, you wouldn’t be retelling it if you weren’t a fan of the original work (regardless of whether you wanted to see events different).

But this brings up an interesting point of Fairy Tale Retellings, as yes they are fan fiction of fairy tales (many of which are essentially fan fiction or re craftings from the Disney versions). It’s accepted that since these re-tellings are around works that are in the public domain they can be used, and that they aren’t copyrighted. But they are actually. If you retell something like Pride and Prejudice or the Little Red Riding Hood Story, your retelling is copyrighted even though the source material of that story is in public domain. This means yes, Disney does in fact own the copyright of THEIR version of many fairy tales such as Cinderella. But only theirs. This is known as Derivative copyright. They are taking something that is already in the public domain (or copyright) and expanding on it by changing it from written work to movies. (And eventually books with the slightly revised version of the fairy tale). This derivative concept is what allows people to republish old works that had previously been in the public domain as something they can sell and copyright.

It is because of derivative copyright that you still have large collections of the Grimm Fairy Tales that you buy, because those tales can continually be re-constituted into a new collection of tales by just adding or removing a few and rearranging them.

As you can imagine, this means fairy tale retellings in general can fall in this category as well, this means that while you hold copyright of your new derivative work, you actually only hold copyright of the elements that you changed from the original. So if you have a retelling of Red Riding Hood that is set in the modern era of our world, you can potentially hold copyright if someone tries to do the same thing, but you hold no copyright over that person if they just use the plot of red riding hood with completely different characters and design in the modern world, because the red riding hood plot itself as well as those characters are in public domain still and not something you had copyrighted.

To put it more simply, the change Disney made is that they turned the stories in films which essentially means that Disney has copyright over those fairy tales if they are made as a movie, but not the tales or characters themselves.

And that’s where we touch on the next area: Copyright between retellings.

If two people make a fairy tale retelling of Red Riding Hood, they have copyright over that retelling. This means if another author comes along and writes a retelling of Red Riding Hood, so long as the work is tangibly different from those other two retellings and from the original source, it can be copyrighted. This accounts largely to why you will see many different endings to the same fairy tale these days (even if it’s only slightly).

Now note that I mentioned it had to be different from those other retellings. Although all the re-tellings are drawing from the same source, the author of that retelling still has rights around the intellectual property of what they did in telling that story. So if you want Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf to get together and have lots of wolf-like babies, you should probably be aware that you are encroaching on copyright infringement… but only where comics/graphic novels are concerned, as that is a plot and event that occurs in the Fables series which is a comic book retelling of many fairy tales… well… kind of retelling.

You see, there’s another area of fairy tales I haven’t really touched and that’s the ones that don’t really fall under the derivative category. In the comic Fables, there are fairy tale characters yes, but other than their name (which is copyrightable) they don’t have the same connection to their fairy tale counterparts because many fairy tale characters lack well… characterization (many don’t even have names, which makes them so recognizable across languages as being a similar story). Fables focuses more on the characters lives NOW, long after their story has been told and now they are living in the real world and dealing with their lives. This means everything from the fables series is really entirely new story-wise, and since the names can’t be copyrighted, this makes the Fables series actually copyrightable under just normal copyright laws, not derivative ones.

But in that case then, would a retelling that does the same thing, focusing the characters after their fairy tale happened be subject to copyright infringement then?

That one is kind of up in the air, since it can depend. If you are using the fairy tale characters but inventing your own world and giving each of the characters a personality different from the one’s in Fables and following a different plot, then you are okay. But if you start copying some of the character’s lives from Fables then you start hitting the murky waters that will depend on whether the creators of that series want to sue you.

It gets even better when I introduce something that was recently in the news. There was a ‘discovery’ of a bunch of new fairy tales recently in Germany, and those fairy tales can already be bought in the German language. Many of these tales are new, and some are ones we can attribute to ones like Cinderella. But in this case since it was just published are all the works in it held under copyright and can’t be touched except with fair use?

This one’s an interesting area, because the way anthologies work (which is what a fairy tale collection is) you can copyright each individual story to someone in the anthology and then copyright the anthology itself. This means each piece in the collection belongs to someone and then the entire collection as it is shown belongs to someone. But in the case of those recently discovered fairy tales, they were all previously published many years ago and were just uncovered again. This means that the individual copyright of those fairy tales has gone to public domain BUT the collection being re-released has been copyrighted. This means you can do derivatives of individual fairy tales from that collection, but you can’t touch the collection as a whole. Roughly…

Again, like everything I state in this there’s a lot of mutability when it comes to copyright as there are no clear definitions on a lot of things (including fair use) and you can get slapped with a copyright infringement lawsuit even though legally you were within your ‘fair use’ due to things like a work simply being so famous that it’s only ever attributed to a specific person (such as ‘Middle Earth’ for Tolkien). That is known as the Unfair competition clause, which essentially prevents anyone from using something that has been established even if it technically isn’t against copyright or trademark.

It’s because of things like the unfair competition and the establishment of things like some trademark laws that we end up with a lot of trademark bullying. In the end, the copyright and trademark legal systems (for America) are not even close to perfect and favor anything that is ‘famous’ over non-famous things. But at the same time if they weren’t as mutable as they are currently, then we would have a very long, frustrating and complicated way of copyrighting everything.

There is one last area I want to touch and that has to do with the incredible bullying around music lyrics in novels. This is particularly close to my heart considering the titles of each of my novels in Beyond Ever After are parodies of song titles out in the world. While song titles can’t actually be copyrighted (or trademarked), song lyrics are HEAVILY controlled as to their use and many novelists have been sued for using only a single line of lyric in their work despite it widely being accepted by most people (except the music industry) that you can use up to two lines of a song ‘generally’ under ‘fair use’.

It causes quite a few headaches for pretty much everyone with how much the music industry bullies people around use of lyrics many of which are only brief pieces of a line. It is easily on the level of trademark bullying. But I bring it up because I actually have two lines of lyrics in my first novel of my series… here’s the interesting thing though. I wasn’t AWARE that they were lyrics until just last month, despite the novel already being published months before that. The lines in the book aren’t word for word the lyrics and they are spoken as dialogue between two characters, but they are close enough that if someone was listening to the song frequently then read my book, they could probably notice it. Luckily the lyrics for that song are out of copyright, but it still brings up an interesting thing.

Song lyrics can LITERALLY be anything. Any lines of text you want could become song lyrics, and those lyrics are copyrighted (and strictly), so it could be argued that every novel out there is in copyright infringement based on the concept that there is a lyric out there somewhere that would match at least one sentence in that novel. This can be especially the case if you have any cliché phrases in your novel as songs are littered with cliché phrases often (particularly love songs).

So where is the line drawn with that? Well for the most part it tends to only be if the lyric is sung by a character or specifically mentioned as a lyric in some way. If you include two lines of lyric at the beginning of each of your chapters, that would count. But if your character says the words of a song lyric in a conversation that has nothing to do with songs, that shouldn’t count (but that doesn’t mean the music industry wouldn’t sue and win). In all my research I can’t actually find anything about using the words of a song lyric as say conversation and whether that infringes, but if it does… I would certainly devote my time to making sure I pointed out famous novels that had infringed on song lyric copyright to note how stupid it is to the degree it’s being managed.

The whole issue around song lyrics though brings up an interesting point around Disney using songs in their fairy tale movies, as they then have strict control over quite a bit of the movie that isn’t connected to just the original tale by it being song lyrics instead of just normal movie prose and pictures (which wouldn’t be copyrighted word for word).

Overall when it comes down to it, there’s all kinds of weird laws and restrictions and changes based around copyright and trademark without even touching fairy tales themselves whether it be in the fan fiction, derivative or regular categories. And as always, considering how much I discussed law in this one, I have to note that I am by no means a legal authority and I’m not providing legal advice, I’m merely discussing the laws and how they have affected me with my fairy tale series. Ironically I have to say this so I don’t get sued by anyone who might read this and be led astray by my random notes that may or may not be accurate in the years to come.

I might eventually discuss this topic again or one that is similar in my mind as I really wanted to talk about Urban Fantasy and Fairy Tales as well but never got to it. But if you have some other copyright questions look here.

So until then,

The Imp

Three Sixty-Six: Entry 46

Day 46: Three Sixty Six

The digital year of death 602,

The first time I met the pixie I could never describe it. All I knew was that I had to talk to her, I had to know her even if I didn’t understand why. It didn’t matter that we were both in the digital world and that I was part of the imp race and she was part of the pixie race in there. I don’t think it really mattered to either of us at the time. After all, pixies and imps would get lumped together all the time because that had such similar demeanors, despite our drastically different outer appearances.

But the outer appearance didn’t matter as much in the digital world. Anyone could look like anyone, so appearance meant little other than maybe to tell what groups you might be running with. Imps usually ran with more of the shady people, the kind that were looking for trouble. Pixies were the kind to start some trouble but only with the people who didn’t go looking for it. It wasn’t like we were some kind of Romeo and Juliet or anything, we weren’t. There were no restrictions about who you interacted with in the digital world except the ones you set for yourself. Those were just the stereotypes around our ‘species’.

So it wasn’t a surprise when first talking to her, we both just fell into a pattern and it was socially awkward at first because no matter what the digital world is still just as awkward as the real one. People in the digital world take on different looks and personas but that isn’t any different from the real world.

Our first few interactions weren’t strained but they were definitely lacking total heart. I think we both just wanted to avoid getting hurt, especially in a world when you can’t always know what you are getting into before you leap. But we took the jump eventually. And we fell.

We fell hard. It grew faster and faster until finally the ground hit us without either of us even realizing it. It was fitting, considering we had laughed about how people make a lot of references to love being like ‘falling’, especially in music. So it shouldn’t have been as shocking when we hit the ground.

It’s not bad though. As much as I thought this day I hit the ground was the worst in my life, like many people do, it was mild compared to what I’ve dealt with before. As an imp you have to kind of accept the crap in life, because you’ll either cause it, or be involved in it somehow. And the digital world is full of crap. But I can wade through that crap now with a bit of knowledge from a pixie, who tend to look at the brighter parts of life and enjoy them even when causing trouble.

It was the negative aspect I had accepted as an imp that had changed. It wasn’t gone completely, and it never would be. But a piece of the filter I use to view the digital world was cleaned off and left in tact, or better yet. The day I hit the ground in that mutual catch, one of the pieces of the demon mirror that is why I am an imp was jarred from me and freed, allowing at least a small amount of good to come through.

And now I often wonder whether Lucifer had felt the same when he hit the ground after being cast out of heaven. One of the legends of the demon mirror in the digital world was that when he was cast out and hit the ground, his eyes shattered into thousands of pieces and corrupted the humans into imps and demons and monsters. But nothing was ever mentioned as to how Lucifer felt after.

What if he suddenly always was able to see so much of the good in the world and relented in his error of ways.

I like to think that may have been the case. Even if I will never confirm it. It’s amazing what a fall can do for a person. Imp, pixie, demon, angel or other doesn’t matter. Because when we fall we have learned to give up whatever we lost in the fall and stand right back up again. Because we never needed it, the things we need most we can never lose when we fall.

And sometimes we have to be reminded of that.

Love,

Lucy

Blog Tour – Of Blade and Valor

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This is a Blog Tour post for the release of Cheryl Alleway’s novel ‘Of Blade and Valor’. You can find the rest of the blog tour here. This will not be a complete review of the book, as I was only able to finish around half the book, which means I cannot give a proper review. But there is plenty of other information. Cheryl is one of the authors involved with the anthology being released a few months from now. 

Cheryl Alleway was born and raised in Ontario, Canada. She is a lover of the outdoors, which provides her with the inspiration to create her stories and bring her characters to life. Her desire is to bring some insight to her readers, to open them up so they feel the depth of her thoughts and in turn heals her within. Ms. Alleway’s first love is medieval fiction, but beware: many different adventures lurk within her portfolio. Cheryl’s Address: http://allewaybooks.com

The Book Trailer:

I have a lot of grounding in historical fiction, I’ve even done a few book reviews on them previously, but for the most part I tend to enjoy the concept of incorporating and telling a story around historical events that have occurred in the world, whether they add fantasy elements or not. One of my favorites comes from Mark Twain and the events of Joan of Arc, even though that book is far from an easy read and not my normal level of books I tend to go with. This is often the main issue with most historical fiction, there’s a lot to say and a lot of exposition which can often ruin the story-telling aspect.

Of Blade and Valor falls a bit into this same issue, with explaining the history and the war that goes on with the Scots and English, though with a bit more focus on the character and family history instead but still within the bounds of the war. So the initial start of this book runs with the father of the main character, explaining his beginnings and how a ‘farmer’ more or less gains a unique skill of archery.

However this means we don’t even meet the main character for the entire story until a good 15% into the book itself. This isn’t a bad thing, as we do still see the father of Deb regularly, but this means that a good part of the beginning of the book could be considered more of a prologue or prelude to the actual story, as it was all back story that isn’t necessary to the entire plot but definitely assists with it. For the most part though, this prelude section of the novel actually had some really great scenes, including the opening scene, which included Jacob (the father) being dragged away by the English military in a form of drafting for war. The scene was great, but it didn’t end with being dragged off, it kept going on which depleted a well done moment with a bit more of exposition.

Regardless of the opening I did enjoy the main character, Deb, she’s a bit fiery and strong, and certainly well-developed with a long line of her family. However, because of the focus on the father in the opening and his life and how it led to Deb’s development (not to mention Deb herself) I wouldn’t refer to this as a feminist piece, despite the ‘strong’ female protagonist as the story promotes the ideals that masculinity is far more worth it in the world than anything else.

My biggest concern though was how much was pressed on the father’s life, but then when it came to the raising of Deb, most everything was just kind of waved over quickly, in saying that the mother died a few years after birth and that no one else really helped with raising her which explains why she acted more like a boy. I feel like there was a bit of loss in power there. But with that said, one of the biggest bonuses was the focus on the character and her courage in the world, though I don’t think it was necessary to compare her courage and bravery to that of a man, as it was obvious she had courage and it’s not solely a value of a man.

Still, not only was this character well-developed, but the writing offered a strong way of being able to paint a picture or a scene in your head, yes, occasionally it was bogged with exposition or heavy description but that refinement will come over time with further releases of books and more writing, so seeing that level of painting a picture and story shine through so well is a massive bonus.

Hopefully I will be able to get around to a full review later on, unfortunately my time was limited with being able to get through this book, but what I read definitely offered a good look into the older Scotland, and I would in a way compare Deb to Merida from the Disney movie, as they both used archery, but they had wildly different hair. They had many other similarities which made it quite interesting.

Overall this was a great piece to read, I only wish the format for the digital version was a bit better, as it was littered with page numbers and most of the text was squashed into a small area, this made it a bit more frustrating to read but I don’t fault a writer for not getting the format fitted up between digital and physical copies. If you at all love historical fiction, or like to read things on Scotland in general this is definitely one worth looking into.

I’ll close with a quick summary of the story for those a little more interested.

In the midst of war-torn Scotland, a baby girl is born to Jacob Douglas and his young wife. The conflict between the English and the Scots breeds trials of loyalty that tarnish the landscape, while Jacob teaches his strong-willed child the skills she will need to face her uncertain future. Behind the veil of war, villains pillage their land, pilfer what is not theirs and do not fear retribution for their deeds. There is none strong enough to make a stand; no one, until Deb Douglas. Keeping her father close to her always, he radiates a courage that motivates her fight for freedom, for love, and for her land. Deb rallies those she meets to join her cause, which frees the secrets from her past that have been buried for many years. While destiny is all-knowing, Deb never backs down and faces it all with the courage of a man and the heart of a Scot!

A note on Depression

It sucks.

That is all.

Okay, that isn’t all there is I have to say about it. But it does suck.

I’ve been battling with an interesting case of depression that I think I can properly allocate to: The Cuddle Blues, or more recently I’ve liked to call ‘The Demon Mirror Disease’. For those that don’t know what the demon mirror is, it was in a fairy tale where it was shattered and a piece of it got lodged in a hero’s eye and they could then only see all the negative things in the world, nothing else. So you might be able to guess where this is going.

This particular set of depression is consistently appearing in my life and for good reason. You see, I have a lot of problems with interacting with people. Quite frankly, I just don’t like people on average, I don’t like the lies, and I don’t like dealing with people when the majority of them can never just say what they mean to say. So I do a lot better by myself, and I am more or less something of a major hermit. I keep to myself, I don’t much care for going out or partying, and I sure as hell avoid relationships as often as I can.

As you can imagine this presents a bit of a problem though. As much as I don’t LIKE socializing, or interacting with people, or dealing with them. I am at least some part human, and humans require social interaction. There is no denying that. Sure I can go for longer lengths than a regular human (by my calculation nine months) before I require any major interaction with people, but once I hit that mark, if I don’t get interaction STAT, I spiral down into the cuddle blues. And I will damn well stay there until that is fixed or I have finally gone through with killing myself.

Yeah, suicide. Always a fun topic to bring up. But it’s a very real thing that I’ve fought against multiple times and people I know have fought against it. When I hit those cuddle blues, there’s no ‘oh I kinda feel blah’ or anything like that. One day I’m smiling and laughing, and the next I’ve got a knife over my arm because I’m just like: Fuck this world and all the people in it.

But underneath all that depressive shit, these cuddle blues affect me in a major way. The depression part to the point of suicide is instant, but something else remains if I go even a week without REAL interaction with a physical and present person. That thing is negativity. And oh, my cloud of negativity has gotten so large that I’ve literally had a talking to at work about how I was depressing everyone else in the office with my negative remarks. And the worst part… I’m aware of it, but they are the only thoughts that come to me. I’m more likely to notice how shitastic you are doing at your job or being a friend than I am at how awesome you played baseball that day.

That doesn’t mean that I can’t control myself with it. It’s just since it’s so subconscious it can take me a while to recognize it and then once I do I can adjust it but even then my sarcasm tends to bleed out and then no one can make sense of it and think I’m just being an asshole, which really I am.

Well, to add to this there has only ever been one solution I have found to ‘curing’ this cuddle blues. And that is having an animal. Doesn’t even matter if they can cuddle me, just as long as I can hold them, touch them, interact with them, talk with them. Then I can stave off the depression madness. Every time I’ve gone longer than nine months without an animal such as a dog or a person who is either a best friend or a significant other then I descend into this madness and it destroys everything.

I may have thoughts of suicide but that doesn’t mean I’ll act on them, I’ve come close a few times but I always get to that point to where I know it is going to hurt and then give up. The real destruction is that I may not physically commit suicide, but damn do I fuck everything up that I can get near. Any relationship I might be in, including friends, family, etc gets all kinds of negative shit until most of the time they just stop talking to me.

Additionally, a few times in my bouts of cuddle blues I will literally just stop going to work. Won’t call, won’t do anything, won’t say anything, I’ll just stop going. And more than not I’ll just lay in bed moping my ass off because I want to feel sorry for myself and my life and how bullshit the world is and how much of a mess I am.

This is largely why I’ve been trying to get to a point of being able to do my job on my time by being a novelist, cause even if a few days pass by that I don’t do anything but lay in bed I will still eventually get the job done.

This is also why I tend to push a lot of people away from me. And by a lot I mean pretty much everyone. I talk to my family maybe a couple of times a year at most, and I just don’t have friends. There’s only one person who consistently and regularly talks to me and that’s  because they are the only person in my life who has accepted that sometimes I’m gonna be a fuckin’ dreadful person and that most of the time I won’t start the interaction, but on the occasion I actually might want to talk I’ll have good things to say, I’ll inspire some thought and speculation of ideas. So they keep coming back to chat with me and they are quite honestly the only person I have still considered to be my friend.

Sure, I know plenty of people. And in a way you could call them friends, but they are friends on the level that you’ve had to interact with them and they don’t really care about you, or you don’t really care about them. They are just… the people around you.

And that above phrase is why I am most certainly a negative and terrible person, and one of many, many reasons why I’ve often wondered what I am even doing in this world anymore.

That’s why I accept I’m an Imp. It’s keeping me sane. It’s keeping negative, but alive and functioning on some level. Cause I may be a fuckin’ dreadful person. But I am the best god damn imp there ever was.

This was supposed to be my day of my serial, a new one in fact, but I’m not yet sure it will get done and it’s to no fault of anyone but my own for that. But I think this is an important aspect for me to discuss because I don’t just battle a case of procrastination, I battle my negativity and my depression consistently just to be able to keep writing at the very least. In fact at this point, the writing is all I really have in my life. It’s the only thing that has been keeping me going. The only thing other than pain that has stopped me multiple times from wanting to just… let go.

I won’t let go though. I may cry, I may spend a week in bed for no reason, and I may ruin every relationship and every person’s self-esteem that I know, but I won’t let go. I won’t just give up. I have stories to tell, and they are going to be told. No matter what.

Fuck, I need a drink.

And a hug.

- The Imp