P.J. Fox's Blog, page 18

You Can’t Handle The Truth

There’s a meme making the rounds, comparing welfare recipients to animals.  I won’t give it airtime, here; you can google it easily enough.  The idea is to be all cutesy and tongue in cheek, like, the government says don’t feed the bears!  Which is great, until you stop to consider that you’re referring to the 90% of welfare recipients who are children.  And elderly, often veterans.  Yes, the same veterans you just posted a meme about respecting.  And working households.  And just plain other human beings, just like you.  Other human beings who deserve the same respect that you’d have accorded to yourself.  My (further) reaction to this meme, and others’ reaction to my reaction, is what I’m going to discuss.

I posted a response on my public page:

There’s a meme going around, comparing individuals who receive welfare to animals. I’d ask you to think long and hard before sharing it. First, there’s no moral high ground in engaging in this type of holier than thou, dehumanizing crud–regardless of the group it’s directed toward. Looking down on others doesn’t make you better than them; it makes you someone who’s comfortable living in their assumptions and, too, someone who’s desperate to make their own life situation seem more palatable by putting down others. But moreover, when you share things like this, you never know who’s reading–I mean, who’s really reading. All too often, we do judge people on the basis of our assumptions. There was a former Celtics player who lived in front of the law school I attended. People looked at him and they saw a lot of things, most of them not very good, but they didn’t see a world class athlete. They didn’t see an ex millionaire. And when people look at me now, with my nice house and my nice car and my nice whatever, they don’t see a kid for whom the occasional frozen dinner was an exotic treat. I grew up going to food pantries; I grew up being made fun of, because I was poor. I grew up on welfare. And when you make these kinds of jokes, thinking you’re in “safe” company because I, and others like me, don’t conform to your prejudices about “welfare queens,” you show me just how fake you are–and just how shallow that “Christian spirit” really runs.

I posted a similar response on my private page, but with the caveat that anyone who shares memes like this or agrees with them–or the sentiment in general–should take themselves off my page.  Because we are emphatically not friends.  “I’m not friends,” I wrote, “with people who engage in this holier than thou, dehumanizing crap to begin with–regardless of the group it’s directed toward–but I’m especially not friends with people who obviously look down on my origins this much.”  As no one immediately leapt to de-friend me, which I knew they wouldn’t, I added my own little tongue in cheek comment about how people were dick-less cowards who only had the “courage” to spew hate when they thought they were among friends.

Well.

You’d think I’d been attacking puppies with flamethrowers.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that would have generated less of a response.  I was “spewing hate.”  I was “to love others unconditionally, as the Savior, who taught us by His example.”  And “love and kindness is what it’s all about.”  Which…has anyone actually read their Bibles?  If Jesus taught us one thing, as His purported followers, it was that loving people means not enabling them.  Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan?  Jesus wasn’t going around high-fiving the (metaphorical) Levites of his day.  If it’s following the Savior’s example to shame children for receiving SNAP benefits, then, I’m sorry, there must be another “Savior” of which I’m not aware.

More people need to remember that Jesus was a dirty hippie who provided free food and universal healthcare.  He didn’t go around, making people feel better about their moral disabilities; he told them that if they didn’t do likewise, that if they didn’t extend charity to the least of their fellow human beings (start reading at Matt. 25:40), that they were going to Hell.  That they didn’t know Him.  That they were empty tombs (Matt. 23:27–28).  Gee, I guess He was “spewing hate” too.

Listen, if you choose to live your life in such a fashion that you–again, choose–to perceive any criticism as “spewing hate,” then you’re going to have a problem.  But there’s a bigger problem here, and that’s cowardice.  Moral cowardice, and the regular kind, too.  Part of being an adult is taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions.  If you’re brave enough to say something–whatever it is–then you should be brave enough to hear people’s responses.  Not everything everyone thinks, in response to your existence, is going to be good.  And, you know, that’s okay.  It doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with you and nor does it mean that there’s anything wrong with the other guy.  It just means that people are different–and that’s okay.  The mistakes we make, in terms of the words we let slip from our lips, might not define our character; but our response to others’ responses does.

We can choose to learn.

Or we can choose to adopt the entitled mentality.

That it’s not “spewing hate” to attack people who are different than you, but it is for those people to say, “hey, that’s not okay” is the epitome of entitlement.  It’s basically promoting the idea–just like the meme is–that a certain group of people are somehow less.  That their voices matter less.  That they should be Christlike, not in the sense of Christ thrashing the money lenders out of the Temple but in the sense of being doormats.  Which, incidentally, Christ never was.

I tell my family, let people teach you who they are.  Everyone uses the same phrases: golden rule, honesty is the best policy, Christlike behavior.  They show you what those phrases mean to them, however, by their actions.  Because they might be the same words, used over and over, but they almost never mean the same thing.  Which, clearly, is a principle at work in this post.  I open my Bible and find a very different Jesus–and a very different instruction on ministering to the poor–than some other folks.  Which, incidentally, kind of makes me wonder if they’re reading their Bibles.  Too many of us, while professing to be Christians, choose to ignore what Christ would teach us.

I attend a non-denominational church now and one of the things I’m glad I’ve escaped is this notion of a prosperity gospel.  Which I always hated.  Mormon doctrine presents wealth as a byproduct of righteousness; if you don’t have it, then surely something must be wrong with you.  An aspect of my former religion that, ironically, I managed to be unaware of until shortly before I left–although I certainly felt its effects, and continue to do so now in the form of former friends woefully predicting my financial demise now that I’m an apostate.  Unfortunately, this fixation on wealth equaling righteousness has had the effect of making a lot of really good people really blind–people who, in my eyes, should know better.

I have the right to disengage from people who talk down about my origins, just like the people who’ve disengaged from me, because they think I’m a sinner, also have that right.  Freedom of choice should be a thing.  But freedom has, at the same time, never meant freedom from consequences.  The world might be unfair, but making a classist or a racist joke in front of the wrong audience and being robbed your chuckle isn’t among its greatest problems.

The Demon of Darkling Reach: FREE This Week

The Demon of Darkling Reach is free for download this Wednesday, May 13 through Sunday, May 17.  If you haven’t read any of my books yet, now’s the time!  If you hate it, well, it was free anyway (Fox smiles silently).  And if you did enjoy it, please consider writing a positive review.  For every thousand copies I sell, or give away, or transmit to the public in whatever fashion, I probably get one review–if that.  No really.  I am not exaggerating.  Which, honestly, I’m not all tears about the situation or anything.  It’s enough to know that people are enjoying my books.  Which is, really, why I write.  And it’s nice to know, too, that because so many of you have bought and enjoyed The Demon of Darkling Reach, when the time comes my son will be able to attend the college of his choice.  The “college fund book,” as it’s come to be known in our family and by my accountant, has been a blessing in our lives.  It was tremendously fun to write, as well.  Hiatus or no hiatus, I’ll be sad to see this series end.

Mistakes To Avoid When Selling (Anything)

Much of the “do this, don’t do this”-style of marketing advice relevant to book sales turns out to also be relevant in other arenas.  And visa versa.  Indeed, I think it’s a very good thing to step outside the proverbial box and examine trends in other industries.  Success is success, particularly when it comes to customer relations.  Which is what sales–of books, jewelry, or widgets–is all about.  You might not think of things like blurbs as customer relations, but they are.  As are high quality photographs of your jewelry, if you’re selling online.  Because, ultimately, they’re different means of achieving the same thing: closing the distance gap.  Physical, and metaphysical distance.  In the comfort of his own home, a potential reader can’t hold your book in his hands.  Can’t flip through the pages.  Can’t sit down with it, for an hour, before the bookstore closing forces him to make a decision.  The same is true with jewelry, or any other good.  But, of course, as I’m currently involved in launching a jewelry line I know a little something about jewelry as a discrete item.  You’re not there, prepped and ready with an elevator pitch and your product isn’t there for them to examine.

So what do you do?

You mind the gap.  Hey.  See what I did there?  But really.  Understand what it is, understand what it means to your potential customer, and act accordingly.  Now, in that vein, let’s move on to specifics.

DO reevaluate your prejudices.  It took a few solid sessions with Hugh Howey’s blog to help me understand that “indie” didn’t equal “failure” and to thus even consider self publishing as an option.  It took finding out that Etsy’s vast online network of cottage industries complete, in total, somewhere in the ballpark of a hundred million dollars of transactions per year and that top Etsy sellers earn 65,000 per month–or more–to shake me out of my assumption that “cottage industry” meant “lack of ambition.”

All too often, we don’t research things because we’re so convinced that we already know the answer–and thus, in turn, our prejudices become self-fulfilling.  Break out of the box and see what other people are doing.  Not to follow in their footsteps but to learn from them, so you can create your own, individual path.  Which you won’t be equipped to do, in the slightest, unless you learn everything you can about the different business models available to you.  And that means understanding why, firsthand, authors who could publish through other channels go the indie route–not relying on your assumptions.  Or, indeed, understanding why a team of people capable of generating a million dollar a year business would choose to team up with Etsy as opposed to doing something else.

Assumptions are toxic to success, in every field.  Speaking for myself, after reviewing the various options–and there are a lot of them–I decided to go with launching my jewelry exclusively online and exclusively through Etsy even over and above more traditionally appealing options–or appealing-seeming, at least–that were handily available.  Like a brick and mortar boutique.  And, keep in mind, I’m already in the ideal location for what I do: my target audience is all around me in Salem, Massachusetts.

But guess what?  Assumptions aside, they’re going on Etsy, too.  Etsy is where people go to find handmade jewelry, especially jewelry in new and cutting edge designs.  From the finest of fine jewelry to the cheapest bottom of the dime store barrel baubles, you might assume that people want to see these things in stores but they don’t.  Just like you might assume some things about the publishing industry.  Because you’re approaching the problem from the perspective of a seller, not a buyer.  Which is a mistake.  When it comes to jewelry, specifically–and here we’re discussing global trends, rather than attempting to account for each individual’s viewpoint–consumers tend to associate brick and mortar jewelry stores with “my grandmother.”  They’re where you go for something expensive, well made, and traditional.  If you’re lusting after a skull and crossbones, on the other hand….

Jewelry stores say, “open hearts collection.”  Or whatever.  Etsy says, “diamond encrusted cat.”

Which brings us back to the all important issue of knowing your market.  Which, like we just discussed, means thinking, not, how can I cadge some of this business but if I were in this person’s shoes, how would I shop?  Are you planning to purchase your next athame at Kay Jewelers?  Do you automatically put a book back on the shelf if Random House isn’t emblazoned on the spine?  The answers to these questions aren’t obvious; treating buyer expectation as a series of toss off statements might not guarantee failure, but it will almost certainly prevent you from achieving your full potential in terms of marketing success.

DO know your bottom line.  And not just because that shit’s a tax write-off.  When it comes to both writing and art, you encounter no end of people who claim to understand that “writing (or art) is a business,” and self-importantly moan on about the ignorance of everyone else.  Which would be fantastic, if all it took to succeed was standing in the mirror and striking poses a la American Psycho.  In the real world, however, success is a lot less about being a bloviating blowhard and a lot more about understanding things like workload and overhead.

Yes, your business is a business.  But convincing yourself of that is only the first step.  After comes keeping meticulous records.  And that means knowing, down to the penny, what you’re spending and what you’re bringing in.  Take a common issue in online sales: shipping costs.  You don’t have to worry about this if you’re in publishing (unless you’re super old school), but selling jewelry or other forms of art necessarily leads to the problem of uniting it with the buyer.  Shipping is important.  And yet most sellers guess–either dramatically under-charging or, indeed, dramatically over-charging for the service.  They charge 4.00 in shipping fees when shipping is really 4.75.  Which might not sound so bad, but depending on your volume of sales can add up to a few hundred dollars a month.  Or they don’t factor expenses like shipping materials into the cost–of the shipping or, indeed, the item.

Some will advise one, some the other (largely depending on their individual opinions about buyer perception).  But in either case, that’s the advanced game.  So long as you’re factoring in the cost somewhere, though, you’re not missing out on a car payment.  Overcharging, though, is no good either.  A buyer might forgive a shipping charge of 3.75 when the actual envelope carries 2.50 worth of postage (in that case the additional 1.25 would be–a very carefully calculated number–to cover packaging costs and overhead), but 10.00 in shipping feels dishonest.

In terms of writing, this means knowing exactly how much you’re paying for services like interior formatting and exactly how much you’re paying for whatever form of marketing you’ve decided is appropriate.  Know, again, down to the penny, when you’ve recouped those costs.  Earning 10,000.00 on a book is great…unless you’re still in the hole for another 1,500.00 above and beyond that because of all those Facebook marketing campaigns.  The human brain is good at fooling itself, which is why casinos pay out winnings in smaller chips.  Ten hundred dollar chips seems like less money, somehow, to most people than one thousand dollar chip.  Likewise, a few small payments to places like BookBub can seem like drops in the bucket compared to the thousand or so you dropped on formatting but guess what: if you sit down and tally everything up, you’ll probably discover that you spent way more on the “cheap stuff.”

And by “sit down and tally everything up,” I mean with math.  Not soft, pleasant, made up numbers in your head.  Because again, your brain can (and will) fool itself.  Don’t believe me?  Tell me, in the next ten seconds, how much you spent at Starbucks over the past month.  Write that number down.  Then, grab a price list and whip out your calculator.

The difference between us is I know I spend a couple hundred a month at Starbucks.

I account for that cost.  Same as I account for the cost of using the air conditioner more in the summer and my son’s growth spurts.  Three trips to the mall for new shoes in one month?  Check!  It sounds obvious but you can’t know if you’re succeeding unless and until you know if you’re succeeding.  And that means knowing your bottom line.  Which yes, is also going to help you refine your relationship to your product and thus your communication with the outside world about that product.  You can’t win the game if you don’t know the rules–or, for some of you, what field you’re even on.

And finally, do NOT spam.  Not potential customers and not other artisans (or authors, or whomever).  There are two kinds of spam, in my experience, both of which are equally bad: “buy my product” spam, and ego boost spam.  Let’s tackle the second one first.  Ego boost spam is something I’ve gotten a fair bit of on this blog, as well as on Goodreads.  Would be writers coming here–probably the tenth site they’ve visited that day–to use me as a mirror.  Whether it’s attacking one of my books as a whole or nitpicking my grammar in a post (usually incorrectly), they shore up their vision of themselves as literary luminaries.

What do I get out of the experience?  I don’t have what I’ve always assumed must be the hoped for response, which is thinking, “wow, that person must be a genius.”  Instead I think, “wow, that person must have an ego of glass.  What a buffoon.”  Nothing says my insecurities are ruining my life like a troll.  And yes, using someone else’s work as a springboard for discussing how your work/life/command of the English language/cats are better is troll-like behavior.

You win friends and influence people not by trying to impress them with your stellar powers of awesomeness but by being real.  So be real.  Treat others as you would want to be treated.  And as I’m guessing “worship me, a complete and total stranger, ’cause I’m so amazeballs” doesn’t work on you….

Now, as to the other kind of spam, I don’t leave negative feedback on Etsy.  Or on Amazon.  Or on eBay.  It’s one of those “never try to teach a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig” things.  This is someone’s business, however poorly run, and posting public, negative criticism only embarrasses them.  It certainly doesn’t solve anything.  So if I have a problem, I contact them directly.

They, unfortunately, do not do the same.

If I favorite something in your shop, do not convo me to remark on this.  Do not tell me what you think of my favorites list.  Do not ask me personal questions.  Just like in the writing arena, a bad attitude impresses no one, in no arena does “buy my book/jewelry/peridot encrusted house elf” generate sales.  Online shopping is supposed to be a private experience.  People, for the most part, like that it’s a private experience.  An experience of which they are in complete control.  Remember, they stay home to shop when they could be going to the mall.  People reaching out to me is just the sort of thing I’m trying–and probably you’re trying–to avoid.  I like the illusion of being alone on Etsy, damn it!

The same, of course, is true on Amazon or Goodreads.  When someone leaves a bad review of your book, for God’s sake don’t track them down.  I’ve had authors do it to me and it’s awful.  My disliking their book is not a personal criticism; I don’t even know them.  But to be honest, having someone fling verbal excrescences at me because I pointed out the obvious that her book promoted rape culture is the major reason I no longer leave book reviews.  Anywhere.  Including on Amazon.

Now, did any of this change my mind?  Of course not!  My opinion of someone, in a situation like this, generally only worsens.  As, I’m sure, does yours.  If I have a question–and this applies particularly with marketplaces like Etsy–I expect the seller to respond promptly and sensibly.  Not with strange, drawn out tales about their cats or underpants or whatever.  And yes, I’m speaking from experience.  I might still buy that one particular item, if my heart is really set on it, but I likely won’t visit that shop again.  Likewise, if an author is really rude to me on Twitter I’ll probably give their next book a pass.  Because Fight Club has a point: no one is really that special.

You might be able to succeed on the strength of having the best book in the world, or the most unique jewelry in the world, or whatever, but chances are your book is merely good (or even merely great) and your jewelry isn’t so amazing that no other jewelry artisan could ever compete.  More likely, if you succeed, you’ll do so because you made–and continue to make–interacting with you a pleasant experience.  You’ll succeed, because you’ll be the kind of person whom others want to see succeed.  All the artistic merits in the world might be, the legal term is necessary but not sufficient.  Understanding, as clearly as possible, who you are and what your purpose is–that’s the ticket.

By Way Of Update…

So…this break is stretching into a “probably through the fall” thing.  Why?  Well, for once, it’s because I have some good news!  I’ve had cause to ponder, at various points throughout my life, the notion that times of illness and adversity can lead to great things.  Are, perhaps, great things in the making of which the illness and adversity are merely necessary parts.  Sort of like being pregnant, but in the purely existential sense.  The process of bringing my son into the world was certainly a miserable one, as I almost died, but although I only relive it in my nightmares I also wouldn’t trade a single minute.  My son is the most wonderful person in the world and his life gives mine meaning.  The same is true with my husband: we got together young and grew up together, and while we’ve had our ups and downs–both between each other and against the outside world–those ups and downs have made us who we are.  They’re certainly a large part of why our relationship is so strong.

Illness, injury, death…now what?  Well, getting back into making dolls reminded me of how much I like making other things, too.  Most especially jewelry.  Which I’m doing.  Which…one thing led to another and some other people were interested and the short answer is that a miracle occurred.  At some point near the midpoint of the summer (details to follow), I’m launching my own jewelry line!  Yes, really!

That’s a big deal.  At least for me.  The overall theme of the first collection is what can best be described, in these early stages, as a three way convergence of steampunk, art nouveau and Wicca.  I’m still working on my dolls, too, as I have a number of orders to fill there as well.  My studio these days is a busy place.

And books?  No, I haven’t forgotten about Hart!  If all else fails, I’ll be back to telling his (and Tristan’s, and Isla’s, and Rowena’s, and Asher’s, etc…) story by my birthday.  Which is November.  And I still fully intend for the final installment(s) to be out about a year from now.  While putting out thirteen books in a year (that I wrote in three) was an awesome experience, it was also exhausting.  The industry standard is still one per year (unless you’re George R.R. Martin), although I’d anticipate that changing.  Richard Laymon was asked, once, how long it took to write a book.  “Twenty-five years and six months,” he said.  “Six months to write the manuscript, and 25 years to learn how to write.”

You Can Now Watch Me Online!

I’m about halfway through my writing hiatus–I expect to start working full time on The Black Prince again at the end of the summer–but in the meantime, by way of update, I have a YouTube channel!  Right now, I’m mainly talking about my art, and to some extent personal my personal experiences, but as time goes by I’ll also be talking about my writing: both the process and the individual books, themselves.  You should subscribe!

Why Are Dolls So Expensive?

pjfoxwrites:

The value of your book isn’t in its per unit price–or its mode of publication.

Originally posted on The Art of PJ Fox:

The following also appears in this site’s “About/Contact” section.

When You Purchase A Doll, What Are You Really Purchasing?

This section could also be titled, “why are your dolls so expensive?”

Indeed, why is any art so expensive?  It’s just vinyl (or paper, or whatever), isn’t it?  By way of answer, since I’m also a writer, I’m going to illustrate a few points using books.  Books and art might appear to be valued differently, but they’re not.  Both are valued, ultimately, in terms of how successful they are at conveying an experience.  There’s a reason Stephen King’s IT, say, has sold millions of copies and the books on the remainder table haven’t.  They might all be crafted from the same basic materials–wood pulp, glue, etc–but they’re not, therefore, equal.

What you’re buying, when you pick up that book, is a story.  Not the materials used to convey the story, but…

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FREE PORN!

Or as I like to call it, tasteful erotica.  The Prince’s Slave, the complete series, will be free from Friday, April 24, through Tuesday, April 28.  All three volumes!  So that should give you some fun weekend reading.  The Prince’s Slave is a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a dark and graphic look into a dark and graphic world and my answer, at least, to the question of: how would this story be told, if it happened in modern times?

Who is today’s Beast?  What makes any of us a Beast?  And how do–not how should, but how do–any of us react to those desires in our heart, which come upon us suddenly and which we don’t understand?  Which we’re told we shouldn’t have?  Which we judge ourselves for having?

The Complete Story

I have it on good authority that WordPress is letting people down, vis a vis linking them to my other blog (https://artofpjfox.wordpress.com/).  So here it is, in all its glory.  The whole, gruesome story.  Please feel free to share as you think appropriate, and of course to share your thoughts in the comments.  Oh!  And for those of you who wish to see the satanic dolls, they have a Facebook page.  You can also see them on Instagram; my account is @foxycupcake.  See what I did there?  ‘Cause my name is Fox.  I’m so clever…

Would You Like An Excommunication With That Doll?

I’m not saying I never expected to be called an agent of Satan.  Or to be compared to him directly.  I learned the awesome airbrushing skills I use on my dolls abusing various public monuments as a teenager.  And I have a sense of humor that sometimes, according to my husband, leaves something to be desired.  But the last reason I thought anyone might have a problem with me–really and truly–was because I repainted dolls.

Dolls seem so inoffensive.  They’re little, chubby-cheeked monuments to joy that you can put on your shelf and admire on your way to the bathroom.  Whatever could be upsetting about a doll?

It turns out, a lot.

You may not know this, but according to my (former) church, painting dolls–and, indeed, representing the female form in general–is the next best thing to committing mass murder.  Possibly even worse.  My dolls, and yes, this includes toddler dolls, are “pornography” and Satan wants people to look at them so he can “trap and ensnare” them.  My viewpoint is that anyone who considers toddlers “pornography” doesn’t need my help to find Satan.  But I digress.  Apparently any representation of the female body, in any context and at any stage, is the work of Satan.  Which means that, clearly, only agents of Satan are interested in not being repulsed by glorifying the female form.

As one especially shrill detractor reminded me, via email, “Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden clothed!”  Which…indeed.  I’ve spoken before, on this blog, about why I think it’s so important to resist body shaming and, indeed, those thoughts represent merely the tip of the iceberg as far as my pro-feminist views.  And it’s not like anyone is calling out the numerous men posting selfies of themselves shirtless.  Adam and Eve might have left the Garden of Eden wearing spandex, but–if you accept the creation story, in any form–God also made man (and woman) in His image.

Are inoffensive little naked doll bodies, ahem, “porn?”  The point of the anti-porn movement is, among other things, that women are people. NOT objects of lust. To reject any representation of the female form, however non-sexual, as pornographic is to do exactly what the anti-porn movement protests: to affirm that the female body can only be a sexual object and is, therefore, a source of shame. But, lest we forget, there is nothing inherently shameful about the human body. This is–again, if you believe the hype–a vessel given to us by our Heavenly Father and thus worthy of praise. Praise which can, and should be, completely non-sexual.

And like I said, if you can’t so much as lay eyes on a woman–of any age–without being consumed by lust then you don’t need my help to find Satan.  It’s no woman’s job to “help” a man have self control.  Men don’t rape, and otherwise abuse women because women exist.  They do these things, because they’re bad people.  And a society that holds women responsible for their behavior isn’t helping things.  Nor are all the people who contacted me, helpfully explaining that showing a man a naked women–again, of any age–was like “inviting an alcoholic into a bar.”

So let me get this straight: a woman is like a harmful drug?

As a parent and as, you know, a human being I’m a role model.  And I’m not going to get behind the idea, actively or passively, that there’s something wrong with being a woman.  That a woman’s body is somehow “less,” or that women who embrace their bodies, in whatever way feels authentic and empowering to them, deserve to be shunned.  Too many kids are killing themselves right now, because too many people are reinforcing the idea that they don’t matter.

Is this what Christ had in mind?  Trans kids killing themselves because people keep telling them that their identity is invalid, kids–gay, straight, and everything in between–starving themselves into oblivion because they too have swallowed the lie that there’s only one “right” way to be a woman?

Part of one of the responses I wrote, to various church members, reads as follows:

Our decision was absolutely in part motivated by the response I’ve gotten from people, over the past week.  By the private messages telling me horrible things about myself and by the responses, such as yours, rushing to judgment.  By being made to feel that I am a bad Christian by expressing myself artistically and a worse Christian by establishing boundaries, in saying, “certain opinions are not okay to express, because they serve no constructive purpose.  Certain ways of people communicating with each other are not okay.”  The fact is, as “harsh” as it might be to accuse someone of, as you say, “misusing their religion and building up their own righteousness,” that’s exactly what’s been happening: people, and more than one, prioritizing an abstract “right” above actually practicing the teachings of Christ.  Which were, and are, about love and communion.  As Jesus reminds us in Matthew 23, following the rules for the rules’ sake, without regard to the righteousness of the results, is not in tune with His teachings.  I find it really sad that my contributions to the ward, and the friendship and the help I’ve offered people, are apparently not considered in this calculus of whether I am a decent human being and whether, perhaps, my point of view might actually be of some merit.

You didn’t offend me; you hurt my feelings.  I understand that you were trying, from your perspective, to do the right thing.  I wish, though, that people would stop to ask themselves whether their judgment was reasonable before they rushed to it.  If someone sees a picture of a naked toddler doll and has sexual thoughts, or feels like an alcoholic in a bar, then that person doesn’t need my help to find Satan.  I don’t feel as though the response to me, or to what I was saying, took into account me as an individual, my character, or really, even questioned, whether they themselves were being righteous.  I am tolerant, and I do value tolerance, but as a human being and a woman and a Christian I do also know that it’s incumbent upon all of us to speak up in the face of injustice.  As I pointed out in my original status, I am concerned that in our rush to ban all images of the female form from our minds we’re veering dangerously into shaming women.  And disagreement with that point of view could have been expressed without comparing me, or my art—directly or indirectly, in a public Facebook comment or in a private message—to Satan.

I care passionately about raising my son to be a good and decent man, and to have a meaningful personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  And part of that, for me, is raising him to love and respect women.  Not as sexual objects but as people.  I would like to see this opinion receive as much weight and consideration, and as much respect, as the opinion that I am somehow leading other people’s children astray by—of all things—making dolls.  If seeing a Disney princess partially unclothed invites Satan into one’s heart, then what does that say about our view, collectively, of women?

I felt absolutely no love, or even friendship, in any of the responses I received.  And that made me sad.  If transient feelings of offense—and, in this situation, I am the one who offended—causes people to throw everything they know about a person, their history with a person, and everything they themselves want to experience from the golden rule out the window, because they think they’re right, how isn’t that misusing their religion?  We all fall short sometimes; only one man was perfect and none of us are Him.  But to the extent that we’re willing to tell others they’re falling short, or expect them to entertain that opinion, we should be willing to hear it about ourselves.

And this was before the thought was even raised that my church membership might be in jeopardy.  Because I was posting pictures of dolls on social media.  Naively, I’d thought that the lack of response to my books signaled acceptance; it turned out that they’d only made me a subject of gossip.  Gossip that I, of course, never got to hear.  Oh, a few people approached me–one at my and my husband’s anniversary party–to tell me that they were unreadably bad, or whatever, but I just chalked that up to a lack of social graces.  I knew perfectly well, too, that most of the people in my life, including my own good friends, hadn’t read my books out of fear of encountering an idea that wasn’t church-approved.  Which I respected; I’ve always been a pretty “live and let live” type.

My mistake was in assuming that anyone else was.

If there’s one lesson I want to teach my son, it’s that it’s okay to be yourself.  Gay, straight, or purple.  Cis or trans.  An accountant or an artist or a rodeo queen.  We are who we are, and I believe that this is as God intended.  In the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14–30), there’s no “wrong” talent.  No talent that God gives us, which shouldn’t be used.  Rather, the only sin is in not using the talents that we’re given.  In not living up to our full potential as individuals.

Why do we bury our talents?  I suspect because, like in my case, we’re being judged.  But in situations like these, who’s really the agent of Satan?  The person who’s doing their best to be true to their own artistic vision or the person whose goal is to coerce them into stopping, because of fear?  The person who encourages them to bury their talents, out of sympathy to pedophiles everywhere?

After years of defending this church as a place where there was room for everyone, it was distressing to learn that there was no room for me.  That the acceptable definition of “individual” only stretches so far.  I’d gotten used to the rude comments and the cold shoulders because I expressed no interest in voting for Mitt Romney and, indeed, supported equal marriage.  But at the same time it was liberating to realize that the acceptance I felt was coming…from me.

I don’t need anyone else to accept me, to accept myself.  And neither do you.  We’re all beautiful, just the way we are.  We’re all worth love, and acceptance, just the way we are.  Jesus, if you dig Him, accepted everybody; and all you need to find Him is your Bible.  And when I read mine, I find nothing about exposing yourself to judgment, and a lot about not judging.  God or no God, Jesus or no Jesus, what binds us all together is our capacity to love and we should remember that–and do it more.  Any person, organization, or situation that tries to make you feel like less, simply for being you, is the agent of Satan.

Walk away.

Choose you.

If this post helps one person, then I’ve succeeded.

Let me know in the comments.

Would You Like an Excommunication With That Doll?

pjfoxwrites:

Wherein Fox discovers that she’s no longer welcome at church.

Originally posted on The Art of PJ Fox:

I’m not saying I never expected to be called an agent of Satan.  Or to be compared to him directly.  I learned the awesome airbrushing skills I use on my dolls abusing various public monuments as a teenager.  And I have a sense of humor that sometimes, according to my husband, leaves something to be desired.  But the last reason I thought anyone might have a problem with me–really and truly–was because I repainted dolls.

Dolls seem so inoffensive.  They’re little, chubby-cheeked monuments to joy that you can put on your shelf and admire on your way to the bathroom.  Whatever could be upsetting about a doll?

It turns out, a lot.

You may not know this, but according to my (former) church, painting dolls–and, indeed, representing the female form in general–is the next best thing to committing mass murder.  Possibly even worse.  My dolls, and yes, this includes toddler dolls

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The Black Prince: New Release Date

Hello, folks.  So I have some good news and some bad news.  The good news is that there is now a firm release date for The Black Prince.  The bad news is that it’s in 2016.  The short answer is that after writing almost a million words in eighteen months, I need a break.  The slightly longer answer is that…I need a break.  Too much has been happening in my so-called “real” life: illness, injuries, and other catastrophe mean I’m needed away from the keyboard.  And in no position, mentally, to give Tristan’s world the attention it deserves.

So, for the time being, I’m focusing on my family and just enjoying time with them.

Depending on how things go, I should start writing again over the summer.