P.J. Fox's Blog, page 24

Want To Read The First Chapter of The Black Prince Before Anyone Else?

Then sign up for my mailing list!

Within the next few months, I’ll be releasing the first chapter–and possibly even the first few chapters–to mailing list subscribers only.  There’s a method to my madness on this: The Black Prince is going to be a wild ride, and I don’t want any spoilers for those new to the series, or who don’t want them.  This way, exposure can be avoided!  And is purely optional!

Plus, I have this mailing list, and quite a few of you are on it, so I really should use it for something…

Is This Book Really Necessary?

Why does the world need (yet another) book on the publishing industry?  On how to succeed within it?  Why does the world need more books on how to write?  Isn’t this all kind of redundant?

I get these questions, periodically.  My frontline answer is usually something to do with research, and how vital it is.  Mastery of the subject, and all that.  I, after all, am biased; I’m coming to this party from an academic background.  When I was in school, each semesters’ worth of books cost more than my rent.  But it occurs to me that a lecture on the importance of research doesn’t really answer the question, because it doesn’t speak to the underlying issues that spawned it in the first place.  Yes, research, yes, mastery–but why?

It’s the age-old question, and the central question to all marketing: what’s in it for me?

There’s a line in Self Publishing Is For Losers that reads, “It’s absolutely fine to treat writing like a hobby…but you can’t treat something like a hobby and at the same time expect it to succeed for you like a business.  Success, in any field, will only come as the result of your total commitment.”  And therein lies the crux of the matter: too many would-be writers half-ass it, and wait for a miracle to occur.

Half-assing it can come in a lot of different forms: from reacting inappropriately to criticism, to giving yourself permission to act like a total tool on Twitter because “you were upset.”  There are as many ways to take your ball and go home as there are human failings.  Although they’d undoubtedly argue with me, because they feel like they take themselves extremely seriously, these writers are half-assing it.  I have a secret for you: taking yourself seriously and committing yourself 110% aren’t the same thing.  Plenty of people take themselves very seriously, and yet fail to translate that peculiar species of malignant self love into anything worthwhile.  Into any actual production.

Expecting everyone to love your books and going off on them when they don’t, or expecting to succeed in an industry without learning how it works is the worst form of foolishness.  You can’t conquer a discipline until you’ve mastered that discipline and mastery isn’t something that comes from telling everyone you’re a writer.  Or telling yourself that you’re a writer.  Any more than putting on a suit and visiting the courthouse makes you a lawyer.

If you’re “too busy” making art to learn how to appropriately market your art then you might love art, but you’re not a professional artist–in any discipline.

Success is not random; success is not the result of miracles.  Yes, a spot of good luck can grease the wheels but getting hit by good luck is a little like getting hit by lightning: fortune favors he who stands outside, in the storm, holding a lightning rod over his head.  Mastering your subject is how you hedge your bets; it’s how you put yourself in control and, in so doing, direct the course of your own career.

Refusing to understand how the business of writing works doesn’t make you “artistic,” it makes you someone who’s passed the reins of their destiny to someone else.

There is no such thing as too much knowledge.

Your Own Copyediting: A How-To Guide

I’m a horrendously bad copyeditor who’s had to learn to be–if not a good, then at least a passable one, because keeping a copyeditor around for us is like finding someone to teach Defense Against The Dark Arts.  So in case you’re in the same boat as I’ve found myself in before, right now, or you just plain can’t afford to spend an extra thousand dollars on your manuscript, I’m going to share my brilliant tactics for how to fake competence in what can be an extremely tedious and enervating subject.

Read aloud.  Read your manuscript aloud to yourself.  Don’t mumble.  Read it like you’re reading it to another person.  I read to my dog.  This, more than anything else you can do, is going to help you focus–really focus–on every single word.  No matter how many times you’ve read something eyes-only, read it aloud and you will spot something you’ve missed.
Complete at least two passes.  Ideally, one for “natural reading”-type mistakes, the same things your reader will pick up as he reads along, and then a second time, line by line, paying attention not so much to the overall flow but to the mechanics of each sentence.
Remember why you’re doing this.  Now is not the time to dwell on, for example, the higher order concept of hyphenation.  Your goal isn’t to hyphenate every single word that could be hyphenated but, rather, to create a document that’s easy and pleasant to read.  That doesn’t, through spelling and grammatical errors, take the reader out of the story.  No one is going to read this book going, wow, you could’ve hyphenated that and didn’t.  But they will notice if your book has ceased to be about telling a story and has become, at some point, a decorative exercise.  Punctuation is not decoration; it’s utilitarian, and that’s all.

There are, of course, other tips and tricks you can use.  But these three are the most important; because they’re not so much tips and tricks as guiding principles.  I adopt a utilitarian approach to all of my editing (you can read more about that here), and I maintain that the most vital thing is to “remember why you’re doing it and remember, too, that good editing is functional editing.  It’s not about honoring your own personal esthetic so much, or navel gazing about what that esthetic is, but producing a book that’s functional to its purpose: entertaining people.”  The single most important thing you can do, when copyediting, is to not lose sight of that fact.  Once you’re at the point where you are copyediting, substantive changes should no longer be made.  If, in rereading your manuscript, you start thinking that this line could be different or that word could be changed, then you are not ready for copyediting.

This is polish time: spelling errors.  Punctuation errors.  Things like misspelled words and double commas.  Trying to do both copy and substantive editing at the same time is going to mean giving neither aspect of improving your manuscript the attention it deserves.

Does Stephenie Meyer Have To Deal With This?

Sometimes, in my less charitable moments, I wonder that.

Does she have ex-Mormons crawling out of the woodwork to tell her what an idiot she is, based on nothing more than the fact of her being in the church?  Does it hurt her feelings, when complete strangers make assumptions about her and, on the basis of those assumptions, call her an idiot?  Or worse?  Or when, however polite they are they, without bothering to get to know her, come to her and expect her to justify her beliefs?  On Twitter?  In the middle of a Saturday afternoon?

Is this normative behavior?

Right now, I’m speaking to all the ex-Mormons out there: I’m sorry you’ve had a bad experience.  I truly am.  No one deserves to be made to feel badly about themselves, for their beliefs.  For doing whatever they feel, in their heart of hearts, that they have to do to be true to themselves.  But holding me, or anyone, accountable for what “members” have done isn’t solving anything.  Nor will it ever.  Treating others with the same hurtful disregard for their individuality that you, yourself have experienced isn’t the kind of “paying it forward” that makes the world a better place.

Expecting me, someone who doesn’t know you from Adam, to share my most personal and private details–which is what justifying one’s faith amounts to–is counter-productive.  If you don’t want people doing that to you, and I know you don’t, then don’t do it to me.  Or anyone else.  Moreover, holding me accountable for the actions of a third party is…the nicest descriptor is illogical.  I’m not that person, and engaging in any kind of dialogue with me can’t make up for what was done to you.

Neither will robbing me of my faith, as seems to be the main objective in these interchanges, rebalance some invisible scale.  It’s not people’s stated religious beliefs–in any church–that causes them to be jackasses but, rather, the failings of human nature that at times cause us all to be jackasses.  This church does, in fact, value diversity.  As Heavenly Father values diversity.  But to confuse the teachings of any religious organization with the practices of its members is to make a foolish mistake indeed.  President Uchtdorf makes the point that “sometimes we confuse differences in personality with sin. We can even make the mistake of thinking that because someone is different from us, it must mean they are not pleasing to God. This line of thinking leads some to believe that the Church wants to create every member from a single mold—that each one should look, feel, think, and behave like every other. This would contradict the genius of God, who created every man different from his brother, every son different from his father. Even identical twins are not identical in their personalities and spiritual identities.”  He makes this point precisely because so many members have forgotten its truth.

Joining this church is no guarantor against sucking.  A lot of people suck.  Some get better, and suck less; some continue to suck.  Arguments about this being “a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints” aside, no one is immune from sucking.  No one is perfect.

I’m secure in my beliefs.  You can read this (or not) to learn more about why.  I wish everyone were secure enough in their beliefs, no matter what those beliefs are, that they felt comfortable doing the ol’ live and let live.  What’s true to me is no more or less true, depending on how many others share my beliefs.  My truth doesn’t come from the words on a page, or anything that anyone told me I “should” believe.  It comes from my heart.  As I hope, for you, that your beliefs will always come from your heart.  And that, whatever they are, they bring you joy.

I have nothing invested in changing anyone’s mind; I just want us all to be happy.  I want us all to make it.  Have I done missionary work?  Yes.  But, by the same token, I respect that there are many paths to Truth and, indeed, many different truths, large and small.  We all, as Paul said, see through the glass darkly.

I don’t make assumptions about people based on their religious preferences.  Doing so would make me the buffoon, because it would mean that I was close-minded and comfortable in my prejudices.  The only way to know someone is to get to know them; there are no shortcuts.  Assuming that someone’s religion can tell you who they are is like assuming that their race, or gender identity can.

If you’d like me to think highly of you, then treat me as you, yourself would wish to be treated.  It’s as simple as that.  If what you want is for someone to come to you, out of the blue, and tell you what to believe and why, then fine.  If what you want is for someone to make assumptions about you, without actually getting to know you–or caring enough about you, the individual, to bother trying–then fine.  But I suspect that’s not what you want.

I will say this, to anyone–in or out of the church–who’s wondering: if there were no room for hippies and seekers and, indeed, people who wrote books about demons and cannibalism and kinky sex, then there would be no room for me.  I don’t exactly fit anyone’s mold, although I do bake a mean cookie.  And I’m a member in good standing of this church, not because of my domestic skills or my political views or my blonde hair or my acceptance of doctrine but because I want to be.

I struggle; everyone struggles.  Life is about struggle.  I’m not about to deny anyone anything that brings them joy, that makes them feel better about being exactly who and what they authentically are.  That, for me, is this church.  It’s the support system for me the wife and mother and me the writer of graphic and dark-hearted books.

So let’s just all love each other as individuals, shall we?

You Can Now Buy My Books…

Through the power of the widget, this site now links you directly to Amazon.  As you scroll down to read and absorb more of the awesomeness that is my posts, you’ll see that there are now cute little thumbnail pictures decorating the sidebar.  Click on any of them and go straight to that book’s Amazon page.  Unless, of course, it’s “coming soon” in which case there is no Amazon page.  Yet.

Well, that all was kind of obvious.

But hey, it doesn’t take a lot to get me up in the morning.

The Evolution of Word Count

In these days of ever-lengthening manuscripts and agents’ “rules” about what entrees into what genre “have” to be what length or they’re unsalable, it’s worth remembering that The Great Gatsby rings in at just over 47,000 words.  In other words (no pun intended), by today’s standards, a novella.  So where did the magic number of 85,000 come from?  Who decided that, despite the continuing success of ultra long books like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (almost 200,000 words), Gone With The Wind (over 400,000 words) and almost everything Brandon Sanderson has written in the past decade, anything over 100,000 words was a no fly for a first book?

Or, conversely, that anything much under 80,000 words wasn’t a real book at all?

We’ve seen that traditional publishing follows, rather than leads the industry.  As I originally wrote for the Evil Toad Press “about” page, “our goal, both as a publishing house and as a provider of a la carte author services, is to bring the world books that it might not otherwise see.  Increasingly, traditional publishing follows rather than leads the market.  The focus is on what sells: on clear genre categorization and well-defined audiences pre-primed to buy one book by having bought a hundred others just like it.  Genre-defying, or otherwise original books often have a hard time finding a home, simply because they’re too original.”  A trip to Barnes & Noble amply proves this true.  The Da Vinci Code does well and suddenly there’s a new section: religious thrillers.  A genre is born.

Which should tell the publishing world, if nothing else, that books create genres–not the other way around.  Harry Potter spawned a new renaissance in YA; The Sorcerer’s Stone couldn’t originally find a home, because it wasn’t the same simplistic drivel that audiences had come to expect.  Almost every author out there–including me–has a story of how their book was rejected for being “unreadable.”

But, you know, the thing is that if all it took to be a bestseller was following some third party’s arbitrary set of rules, then every most formulaic book out there would be a bestseller.

Whereas, in reality, it’s the game changers, rather than the game players, that dominate sales.

Why?

I personally think that it’s very hard to write a good book while still slavishly paying attention to things like word count.  If you’re telling the story you have to tell, that’s really your story and your vision, then it’ll be the length it is.  Period.  Good books are good precisely because they’re about story, not formula.  Twilight’s many imitators are not outselling Twilight, and this is why.  So it’s worth remembering, the next time you feel a stab of ice-cold fear deep in your bowels because some agent’s website is holding forth about what makes books “salable,” that according to these rules, chances are, none of your favorite books are.

Part of the problem, too, is that agents–and authors–get word count confused with the far more important issue of reader expectation.  Assuming, often incorrectly, that one is central to the other.  Whereas, it’s been my experience that no one ever left a book at the bookstore because, “gee, the blurb was awesome, the cover art was compelling, and the first two pages totally gripped me, but the spine seemed about one half inch too short.”  Rather, reader expectation–again, in my experience–has more to do with the actual content of the book.

As I Lay Dying, A Separate Peace, and Slaughterhouse Five all clock in at under 60,000 words.  Slaughterhouse Five, indeed, at just under 50,000.  Making them, according to the same people who teach them in class and extol them as examples of a bygone (and vastly better) age, not real books.  Does anyone else but me notice this logical disconnect?  That the same person who’s invariably going to tell you that Atlas Shrugged is her favorite book would reject the manuscript, were it given to her today, as too long?  Not politically correct?  Who’d invariably cite reasons why the protagonists were unlikable?

It’s unfortunately true, especially in this industry, that nothing succeeds like success.  Which means that, equally unfortunately, nobody’s going to give you the time of day until you’ve proved yourself–and it’s virtually impossible to do that while sublimating everything that makes you different and wonderful and special into a set of arbitrary standards.  Turning yourself, as it were, into the Stepford Wife of books.

Write something good enough that you can defend your choices–including word count–and then keep defending it.  Decide what you stand for, as Clay Christiansen says, and then stand for it all the time.  Don’t let anyone talk you into neutering your characters, or your plot, against your better judgment; trust me, there’s time enough to sell out, later.  Go for your dreams, first.  Publish the book you want to publish, and go with the publishing method–not that feeds your end-cap fantasies but that makes getting that book, your book, in your hands a tangible reality.

The rest will come, or it won’t.  No publishing method, just like no word count, can ensure success.  All you can ensure is that you’re staying true to yourself.

The Black Prince Update 2

Good news!  As of this morning, I’ve completed the outline for The Black Prince.  This outline represents the sum of my notes–on the computer, on sticky notes, on the backs of napkins–all integrated into one complete document.  Which, of course, will be added to as I actually begin to write.  I’m always creating notes, as I go, for what’s going to happen next.  Every story evolves, I think, as you write it.

So when, exactly, am I going to write it?

I start Monday.

Give me a few months, guys.  I’m almost certain that, given the massive amounts of exciting things that are going to happen in this book, I’m going to split it up into two volumes.  Which begs the question: would you rather get your hands on part one sooner, or have them both released, later, at the same time?

PJ’s Rules for Editing

Twice a year, I go through the house from top to bottom and clean it out.  Junk drawers, things hiding in the backs of closets and under beds.  I’m not talking about a deep clean, although I do that too–and also more than twice a year–but a complete reorganization.  Because, however organized you think you are, there’s always room for improvement.  I have a house rule: with the exception of holiday decorations, if you haven’t used it in six months, throw it out or give it away.  I don’t resell things; there are enough people in need that charity never goes to waste.  If I could afford to buy it the first time, I can afford to give it away, now.  And, each time, this process usually takes about a week.  Sometimes a little more.  After which point, I have to call it a day and move on with my life.  Because I have a life.

Still, I move forward with the knowledge that my house is more inviting and, more importantly, easier to use.

Editing is very much like this.

You’re doing it for a functional reason or, rather, a series of them.  Which is vital to remember: otherwise, you can end up dicking around with your manuscript, moving commas back and forth and agonizing over word choice, until the exercise has long outlived its usefulness.  Make the corrections you need to make, to make your manuscript the best it can be, and then move on.  So that’s my first rule of editing: remember why you’re doing it and remember, too, that good editing is functional editing.  It’s not about honoring your own personal esthetic so much, or navel gazing about what that esthetic is, but producing a book that’s functional to its purpose: entertaining people.

And, depending on what you’re writing, maybe also enlightening them.  Or scaring them.  Or teaching them how to code.  But the most useful instruction manual on teaching people how to code won’t serve its purpose if its too dull to read.

Then we have:

It’s not “your writing style.”
Don’t fall in love with words (and phrases).
Don’t use words interchangeably.
Don’t be afraid to take criticism.
Listen to reader feedback.

All the other rules are in service to the first one.  Which isn’t so much of a rule, per se, as a guiding principle that should apply to all editing decisions.  When my husband was the editor of his college newspaper, he had writers telling him all the time that “that’s my writing style.”  “No,” he’d say patiently, “grammatical errors are not your writing style.  They’re not anyone’s writing style.”

There’s a big difference between vomiting words onto the page and getting it right.  Yes, you can at points make a conscious choice to deviate from the rules of grammar–but you have to know those rules, first and, more importantly, know why you’re ignoring them.  And I’m talking in one specific case, not in general.  Mastering the English language (or whatever language you’re writing in) isn’t “having no creativity.”  If you equate learning  your craft with failing at it, you’re not creative enough.  The truly creative artist, whatever his medium, sees the rules as a chance to explore.  They help, rather than hinder.  Because part of honing your skills in your particular craft is understanding how to use the rules to your advantage.  They’re there to help you: as a writer to communicate.

A big problem, though, is that people do fall in love with their own prose.  They develop certain favorite words, phrases, or even paragraphs.  To which I tell them: if you really love something that everyone else is telling you needs to go, take it out and paste it into a separate document.  You can always add it back in later.  Usually, however, people discover that by the time they’ve finished editing their manuscripts they’ve forgotten it was ever there.  There’s no one word or phrase that’s so magical, you need to use it exhaustively.  Conversely, there’s no one word or phrase that, if removed, will ruin your story.  If you’re so in love with one particular thing, you need to ask yourself: why aren’t you equally in love with everything else?

This may, indeed, be an opportunity to reorganize (but more on that later).

Words are not interchangeable.  Even synonyms aren’t interchangeable; each word has a subtly different meaning.  And if you’re doing it right, you won’t want to use words interchangeably, or for them to be interchangeable.  Part of writing is honing in, with laser-like focus, on exactly what you’re trying to communicate in each sentence: not on how it sounds to you, but on what specific imagery you’re trying to give the reader.  On what feelings you’re trying to provoke.  On what thoughts.

Once you realize that, the issue of word choice becomes a lot easier.

There’s an old adage, attributed to Stephen King although it’s been around a lot longer, about whether as a writer you’re writing for others or writing for yourself.  Which is, unfortunately, mostly taken grossly out of context.  Because, ideally, you’re doing both.  You should always be writing for yourself; this, whatever this is, should be an idea you can’t help but share.  Something completely, utterly, and totally authentic to you.  And, when giving your vision life, you should remain true to that vision.  But part of remaining true to that vision is communicating it successfully, so that others can share it.  This is true whether you’re writing or painting or sculpting or doing anything else.  Art is in the feelings it provokes–and successful art provokes the feelings you want it to.  Mastery over your craft means mastery over how it’s received.  Because, you see, your craft is in the receiving; is in its release into the world.

A fellow writer–the same one who plagiarized me–stopped talking to me because she “wasn’t talking to me to be insulted.”  This in response to a mild criticism I’d made.  Which…don’t join a writing group if you don’t want to hear criticism.  Or, better yet, don’t leave your house.  But, most importantly, don’t equate receiving criticism with being insulted.  Going through life with the attitude that the only way people can interact with you is by praising you to the skies in all things is a recipe for disaster–and, in my mind, calls into serious question what you want from other people.

Someone I follow on Twitter observed yesterday, quite accurately, that the same people who spout “be nice” all the time are often the same people who do so while attacking others…and then turn around and sob that they’re being bullied when people tell them to cut it out.  Others asserting boundaries isn’t “bullying” and people having criticisms is a fact of life.  As a professional editor, I’ve been on the receiving end of more than my fair share of verbal abuse and I can tell you, it isn’t fun.

Nor does it change my opinion of the writer in question–or his writing.

Which brings me to my final point: listen to reader feedback.  Sometimes it’s useful, sometimes it’s not.  But your readers, more so than any ivory tower excursions into how books “should” be shelved or what rules govern which genre, can teach you what’s really going on.  Who your audience is.  What you’re actually writing.  What’s good, and bad, about your writing; what your strengths and weaknesses as a writer, the whole person, are.  This feedback can often be incredibly difficult to take…but can also be incredibly valuable.  The example I usually give, from my own professional life, being my realization that The Price of Desire wasn’t science fiction but alternate history.  The elements that, technically, did make it science fiction were greatly overshadowed by the fact that the story itself didn’t fit with reader expectations for that genre.  It’s been far better received since it was re-shelved.

So, People of the Internet, is there anything I’ve missed?

Anything you wish I’d discuss further?

Any questions?

The Black Prince: Okay To Write Fanfiction?

So what’s my position on fan fiction?

Yes, with reservations.

First, I’m flattered.  I’m glad you love the story.  These characters are real to me, too.  And any writer’s goal should be for readers to wonder, after the book is done, what happens next?  Fan fiction is a natural extension of that question.  So if you have your own ideas about what happens to Tristan and Isla, or what should, go for it!  And, while you’re at it, please feel free to cosplay my characters…

My reservations, however, are that there’s a fine line between fanfiction and profiting from someone else’s intellectual property.  Fanfiction is fine, across the board, so long as you’re offering it for free and attributing the source (i.e. telling people, at some point in the story, that this is fanfiction based on The Demon of Darkling Reach).  If, however, you’ve written something substantially different enough from my work that there wouldn’t be a copyright infringement, optimally I’d like you to contact me and ask for my permission.

I realize that, of course, I can’t require this.  However, opening a dialogue with the person who’s inspired the work on which you now wish to turn a profit is only good business ethics.  I’m a person, too, and I have a family to feed, too.  And, as you’ll discover if you do publish, the writing community–like any professional community–is small.

Moreover, regardless of your goals re: publishing, I’d love to read your work!  If you share something with me and I like it, I’d be happy to write about it, and share a link to it, on this site.  It’s fascinating, from the perspective of being these characters’ creator, to see how others have interpreted them.  For anyone who wants to talk about this with me further, or to share links, my email is pjfoxwrites@gmail.com.

Which is really my point, here: that ideally writing, of fanfiction or anything else, should be a collaborative effort.

The “R” Word

Last winter, when the snow was three feet deep, I seriously contemplated taking a crowbar to someone else’s car.

This winter, if it happens again, I’m going to–and the fact that I’ll be breaking the law in the middle of the church parking lot be damned.  As someone who’s been going to church on a regular basis my whole life, I have no illusions about the type of person who goes there.  As one of our leaders observed, years ago, the church is a hospital for sinners; not a museum for saints.  And I subscribe to that theory fully.  Or, as a different leader observed more recently, “God has only ever had imperfect people to work with, and that must be terribly frustrating for Him.”  Church, like Starbucks, is full of jackasses.

And, like the Starbucks parking lot, the church parking lot is sometimes the scene of battles.

One of my good friends has a son, who is in a wheelchair.  Everyone in the ward knows this.  There can be no argument that it’s “okay” to park in the handicapped spaces, because “nobody’s actually handicapped.”  Thus equating taking a handicapped space to me, say, using the little boy’s room at Starbucks.  “They’re single-occupancy rooms,” I reason; “what does it matter if I disobey the edict implied by the little triangle skirt?”  Except, of course, taking a handicapped space is not the same thing–which, for this crowd, is higher order reasoning.  They’re still stuck at, “I know someone really needs this, but I’m going to take it from them, because I’m in a hurry.”

“I couldn’t get my ass out of bed in time to get to church before all the spaces were taken” is not a reason to prevent someone else from attending at all.  And yet they do.  “There was snow,” they whine.  Or, “whoever plowed the parking lot this week took up five of the spaces”–in a 300 space parking lot–“with a snow pile.”

So my friend and her son are left struggling to find somewhere, anywhere, to park.  Or not to come at all, because there simply is no place to park.  And while they’re both perfectly decent about it, I’m not.  I’m angry.

This is why you can’t use the r-word.

As a writer, I generally subscribe to the theory that words only have what power you give them.  Treating words like “bitch” or “fuck” as unmentionables gives them power–is what gives them power.  Because, in that context, they’re talismans.  One word is as good as any other; the meaning behind the word is what counts.

But it’s also true that using certain words can reinforce, for us, the underlying assumptions behind those words–because, in this case, it’s not the word itself that has power but, rather, the concept that the use of the word expresses.  This might seem like a fine, or even specious distinction to some but it’s not.  Simply saying, for example, the word “bitch” doesn’t make you a woman-hating monster.  “Bitch” can be used in a positive, or even empowering context.  I don’t think, for example, that because my characters swear and do other “naughty” things that they’re automatically bad or that my stories aren’t, to coin a phrase, faith promoting.  Because, again, context is everything.  Contrast that, however, with the person who uses “bitch” to encapsulate his preexisting feelings of hatred.

But, you say, isn’t that the same?  Aren’t you really just proving your own point, that using the r-word doesn’t matter if you’re not using it negatively?  And that even calling it the “r-word” attaches a stigma to an otherwise acceptable word?  After all, retard is simply a verb; trim a bonsai’s roots to retard its growth.

The answer is no.

When people greet my friend, and not her son, I groan inside.  It’s a wheelchair, not an invisibility cloak.  And yet…

There’s no way to call someone a “retard” in a way that makes them visible.

This isn’t like drag queens calling each other “bitch,” or arguing that any book containing swear words is automatically bad to read.  This is people using a word in order to facilitate their continuing to see another human being as something less.  To facilitate their ignoring that person as invisible.  It’s the worst slap in the face there is: assuming that someone can’t hear you when you call them the r-word, or talk about them in a way that’s compatible with using the r-word.  Do you honestly think the r-word comes up in the context of respectful, inclusive discussion?

Do people take breaks in their catcalling to ask women (or, indeed, nontraditionally gendered persons) if they speak Spanish?  Enjoy the opera?  Dream of traveling to Prague?

The r-word is completely self-serving: it tells the user, it’s okay to take that parking spot; your anxiety over being a few minutes late trumps someone else’s right to attend at all.  And, even worse, it tells other people that those feelings are normal.  Just like silence in the face of someone calling a woman a “bitch” or a “cunt” signals that we, as a culture, accept violence against women or calling a person of color the n-word signals (among other things) our continuing acceptance of white male privilege, silence in the fact of the r-word signals that, they didn’t really need that parking space, anyway.

What needs?

They’re just a–

Once you’ve conditioned yourself to believe that another person doesn’t have feelings, taking their rights away is a pretty easy step.