My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?
I've got an awful lot of writing that is half formed, and less time to solidify it into actual posts while I'm visiting my mom, but I wanted to pause for a moment and thank everyone for getting me to the next major milestone.
I knew we'd hit two million this year, but honestly, I thought it would be March or April. I didn't think it would be within the first month, never mind the first week. The success of The Narrative of Normalization (already the number two article of all time) and the even stranger success of my FB page's comment policy (which is number three of all time) vaulted us over the two million mark as day seven was wrapping up. I mean I can't get 95% of my FB page to read ANYTHING that isn't a pun on a macro, but suddenly....bam.
Two million! TWO MILLION!! That's the population of Houston (which, strangely enough, is close to where I am visiting my mom).
And as always, my thoughts turn to all of you. I literally couldn't do it without all of you. Thank you all so much for reading and helping this scrappy, two-bit blog start to scrape out a little dream shaped space in my world. And I will keep writing as hard as I can and try to get us even faster to three.
Come see the full comic at:
http://jensorensen.com/2016/11/15/donald-trump-election-win-reactions-cartoon/
If you are still trying to convince yourself that a Trump presidency will not be that bad, here is (some of) the cognitive dissonance that exists within that narrative of normalization:
That a presidential nominee who you praised for not being a typical politician (one who goes back on their promises) will go back on their promises.....but only the ones you don't like (like cutting YOUR government support or maybe that Muslim registry that DID sound kind of scary). The ones you liked he'll do. Absolutely.
That nearly every person who has either lived through or studied Hitler's rise to power suddenly, all at once, decided to become melodramatic and overwrought. For no reason.
That he says what he means and you like that. Except for the stuff that you swear you weren't okay with him saying. You're not a racist or anything. That was just bluster. But the stuff you agree with wasn't just bluster; it was totally sincere. You are able to tell exactly which things are bluster and exactly which things he has high integrity about.
That a guy who lies almost every time his mouth is open was totally telling the truth to you. Totally. And sure he lies all the time, but he's right about all the stuff you agree with him about. Yep.
That a presidential nominee who bragged during nationally televised debates about scamming freelance workers and spent twenty-five million to settle a fraud lawsuit can be trusted to know exactly where the water's edge of "conflict of interest" is between his personal investments and US interests and doesn't need the slightest oversight.
That a presidential nominee who bragged during nationally televised debates about scamming freelance workers and spent twenty-five million to settle a fraud lawsuit totally wasn't saying anything he had to to win so he could defraud YOU.
That these appointments aren't terrifying at all. Breathtaking cronyism in a historically uneducated and inexperienced cabinet with a bent towards white supremacy and anti-LGBTQ+ policy is only alarming because everyone on the left is a sore loser.
That Republican paranoia about shit that Obama never said he would do (like taking away your guns) was justified, but our fear of explicit campaign promises is blowing things out of proportion.
That Russia hasn't ever done anything enemy-ish, is absolutely blameless, would never do such a thing, and you should mock everyone who thinks otherwise. Even those seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies. Because what did they ever do.
That nothing bad ever happened when a president decided not to pay attention to an intelligence report. *cough9/11cough*
That your vote was all about economics. Not even a teensie weensie bit about race or bigotry. (Even though those "identity politics PC folks" sure had it coming!) Despite the fact that Trump's tax plan very clearly spelled out that your taxes would be (and will be) going up unless you are a business or in the top 1%. But let's go with the economy. Absolutely.
That intelligence agencies are somehow only trustworthy if they are accusing Hillary Clinton of a crime.
That someone who has called American citizens of the opposition party his "enemies" in a taunt that a twelve year old 4channer would find petulant egged on by a mainstream constituency that is delighted at how much pain and suffering "those fucking coastal elites" are about to endure is somehow going to heal the divisions of our country.
That the party that once used "pinko commie" as an insult to the left to insinuate that they were in league with Russia is now darned cool with those guys and their curious blend of anti-LGBT, one party, imperialistic oppression.
That after enduring eight years of birther crap, racism, faux lynchings, literal burning effigies, the rhetoric of taking the country "back," watching the Tea party rise as a Koch brothers astroturf movement involving a bunch of white dudes in revolutionary war costumes calling the administration of a right leaning Democrat (with an infuriating penchant for compromise) "tyranny," as well as an unprecedented obstructionism at every single level of government, liberals should just "get over it" because "He won."
That the REAL problem is that a group who is trying to get everyone the same rights, achieve equality, listen to others' lived experiences, and empower those pushed to the margins of our society is lacking empathy. If only we'd learn to build a bridge.
That in a country where the status quo is already violently unjust towards certain people, an administration that has openly voiced hostility towards these people will make things better.
That a head of state who chooses not only to ignore a foreign attack by our enemies, but also mocks the sitting president who retaliated with sanctions....then turns around and PRAISES the foreign head of state who almost certainly attacked us.... That THAT guy is going to keep US interests safe.
That a dude who didn't realize his tweet calling for a boycott of Apple was going to reveal that it had come from an iPhone somehow knows more about hacking than 17 U.S. intelligence communities and a host of private analysts.
That a guy who brags about grabbing women by the pussy isn't sexist and it totally wasn't even a little sexist to go ahead and vote to make him the most powerful person on Earth.
Repeat the last point for racism, xenophobia, ableism and every shitty bigoted thing he has said or done. But it totally isn't even a little bigoted that all this stuff wasn't a deal breaker, and liberals are just being "hateful" to suggest it.
That "the least racist person you'll ever meet" appointed a white supremacist to a new White House position.
That a person with an ego so frail that they take to twitter at the slightest criticism (be it from SNL portrayals or a Broadway musical with the audacity to hope that all US citizens would gain equal protection) is going to be an effective diplomat, and totally won't have a nuclear power rattling its saber at him before he's even sworn in.
That negative three million votes is a "mandate."
That the problem with a widely diverse groups struggling against the bigotry of cis het white male lawmakers to enact policy that will not target and possibly help marginalized groups is that we are "elites."
That diverse coalitions of folks coming together in big cities where they all are exposed to other points of view are the ones living in an ideological bubble and the group that was 86% white voters needs a bridge built to them.
That nuclear proliferation is a big competition and Trump can "win."
That the guy who not only has been conspicuously silent about the shocking uptick in hate crimes but has also demanded a list of the federal employees involved in combatting the rise of extremist groups (but won't say why) isn't going to be as bad for minorities as he's being painted, and all "those people" are just making mountains out of molehills.
That being cheered on by Nazis is not an inauspicious sign.
That calling Obama racial slurs and racist epithets are just free speech, but pointing out when Trump is lying with facts should be cracked down on because it's so hateful.
That someone who hates taxing the rich and hates unions and hates regulations and hates bipartisan cooperation isn't talking about the social hegemony of cis het white men when he wistfully looks to the past while invoking a promise to make America "great again."
That it's too late to admit you've made a mistake and join us in our every effort to #RESIST
Have you enjoyed this post and want to see more like it? Do you like Writing About Writing and want to see it thrive? Do you want to grudge follow me and be there to laugh when I open up to my "inner circle" about my pain and angst? Support my Patreon, and for as little as a dollar a month (that's less than the cost of a movie every YEAR) you can take place in patron-only polls, "VIP room" discussions about future writing projects, support the writing that entertains you, and help me pay some bills so I don't need five day jobs. Plus more benefits for bigger donors.
When you see me next (on Monday) two major things that have been in the works for a while will be rolling out like the Autobots after Bumblebee discovers some energon. Well, technically three–I have a shit ton of half finished articles at this point and I just need the damned time to sit down and finish them.
But let's focus the two sort of "project" updates. Some of the "Best of" Menu stuff hasn't been updated since 2015 ended, and even though I've had some spectacular excuses in this shitweasle of a year, having that hang over me like the Unupdated Menu of Damocles™ has been "teh suck." Listing the best articles for a year isn't just a matter of going back and looking at their page views. There is a list of "best by month" list too, and as the best by year posts get plucked from the best by month list, I have to put in the "fourth place" articles for the month. It's not a tremendously hard thing, but it's time consuming and this year has been a landfill inferno (that's what happens when a trashcan fire is not enough).
The other project is a Patreon. I've been waiting for the new year so that if it did well, it wouldn't add further complexity to my 2016 taxes, and to put plenty of distance between it and my rather...um... Kickstarter self promotion. I'll have more to say about it when it goes live, but the short version is that if you want to contribute amounts as little as a dollar a month to Writing About Writing there will soon be a way.
I'll also be at my mom's until the 12th. I'm usually able to get some writing done there, especially since our schedules are a little off (I'm a west coast night owl and she's an early bird in Texas). Once I get back I'm FINALLY on the spring schedule I've been working so hard to get to.
*There actually might be a post tomorrow. But I was planning on finishing it tonight, and I just got tapped to do 4pm to bedtime (9ish) with The Contrarian, so that's how it sometimes goes around here. One of these days when writing is a better paying gig than...well literally almost anything else, I won't have to snap up every opportunity to make some dosh. Oh who am I kidding, I love that kid and would probably do it anyway. Besides, it's good to see him one more time before I head to my mom's for several days. But let's get on to December's Best, the three articles that will go on to world renown and immortality: Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Doing Amphetamines (Personal Update)
December has been so so so so so so much better than the rest of 2016 for me as a writer, but sometimes there's still just too much going on.
The Not Writing Part
When you want to write for money, there ends up being a lot of parts of your job that aren't actually writing.
So the three articles that actually did the best this month weren't from this month. As is detailed in the "Major Housekeeping" update, several posts were moved here from the Social Justice Bard blog before it shut down, and they actually did better than any others even though they were technically older reruns. Here are the best of them. On "Crappy" Social Justice Teachers
My "can't even" about the comments on my Facebook page went from figurative to literal.
At over a million followers, gentle reminders have stopped working, admin-ing comments has become virtually impossible, delicately explaining is a waste of my time, and my patience for unacceptable behavior is exhausted. Too many people ordering a double helping of savage without even a side order of chill. The laws of large numbers are starting to ensure that even if thousands upon thousands of people understand the spirit in which something is presented, someone will be having a bad day or not read carefully or think they understand a phrase that they don't, or read in maximally bad faith....or even just be a troll in my dungeon.
Thus, the time has come for an official commenting policy so that folks won't be making their best I-just-ripped-this-guy's-helmet-off-and-it-turned-out-to-be-Robert-The-Bruce-Mel-Gibson-as-William-Wallace-during-the-battle-of-Falkirk betrayed faces when I ban their asses.
Here's the TL;DR part for those of you who don't want to have to read very much:
This isn't 4chan. You don't get to say whatever you want because of "free speech." It's my space. Think of it more like you are in my house and I am putting on a show for you. If you are abusive or contemptuous, comport yourself in such a way that any human being with feelings whose hospitality you were under wouldn't invite you to come back, if you use bigoted slurs, if you are dismissive or derisive about posts that would be commonly labeled as "social justice," promise to (or threaten to) flounce from the page, "dare" me to ban you, or post spam links to either your own writing or a commercial site, or do slimy hitting on people in the comments, you may be banned without warning.
Smol point- If you slam the door on your way out, it'll lock behind you. And if you dare me to kick you out, I always, always ALWAYS will. If you're joking around ("Blokt!"), please make sure I know it.
I care about you and I care about you achieving your goals. What am I if not a supportive, but occasionally firm cheerleader? If you flounce, I'll help you stick to it because I know that's what you would want. If you tell me you're going to flounce, but don't seem to be able to find the door, I'll make sure you know right where it is. If you threaten to flounce in a spectacle, I'll make the decision much, much easier for you. I'm here for you, pal. Plus that's just rude.
Tiny point- No, I'm not going to stop posting links to my blog. Ever. At least once a day (sometimes two or three, just to annoy the haters). That's the reason this page is here–to try to drum up a few hits and build an audience. (It's only kind of worth the effort, but it's better than nothing.) You don't ever have to visit the blog if you want to just enjoy the puns and the inspiration memes and whatever I find about writing that tickles my brain, but the snotty emails and whiny tears telling me that my page would be "so great if you just stopped all that self promotion" will be used to fuel my Genesis device.
Your tears keep me young. I'm actually 248
Reasonably moderate sized point- I'm up to fifty or so PM's a day. (Deplorably, none are million dollar contracts! I mean why did I even want to be a writer again?) Most are spam or asking me for some kind of free editing or beta reading or to share their own page something. So I don't even reply to the majority of them. My freelance/tutoring rate is $60USD/hr and TRUST ME that you don't want me doing copy editing (though I'm pretty good at content/developmental end). If your solicitation for help does not include some indication that you plan to pay me or do me a comparable service, I will simply ignore it. (I get way way way too many of those every day.)
Check out my Facebook FAQ, and you'll probably find the answer to your question. At least you'll find the answer to 95% of the PM's I get.
Also if you PM me, please keep in mind that I'm just a human being. I listen to the Encanto Soundtrack, watch Hawkeye with my family, play Fallout 4 and cuss when I stumble into an Alpha Deathclaw at 12th level, love Robert Asprin books despite myself, can't tell when someone's flirting with me (to. save. my. LIFE.), and try to write every day. I'm self conscious about how gaunt my face looks in some light after I lost a bunch of weight because of cancer, I cry when large swaths of my friends excuse torture so long as it is done to the "right sort of people," and have a really, really bad next-day if I eat too much pizza. Messages demanding I do X immediately or take down Y post because you didn't like it or "HOW COULD YOU..." will be cheerfully ignored. Add in some schoolyard shit talk to this kind of bullshit, and I will do my best Strong Bad "DELETED!" as I ban you.
Kind of slightly large point- As of this writing, I cannot (and in many cases will not) read the comments on this page.
There are OVER a million of you and one of me. (Well…sort of two. But usually it's only one of us at a time; my assistant only jumps in when I'm unable to.) I often max out the 99 notifications for this page in less than two or three minutes. I cannot POSSIBLY keep up with all the comments even if maintaining FB were my only job (it's not). Furthermore, what was once a playful community with the occasional legit jerkwad easily dealt with has become more and more like the bottom half of the internet (and all that that implies). I actually avoid the comments unless I suspect it's a post which will attract bigots and I need to do my banning thing. When half a million people are seeing something, the law of large numbers suggests that someone, somewhere read it wrong, is upset about something else, needs lunch and a nap, wants to pick a fight, or just generally is going to be a complete anal seepage dripping asshole about it. I know it's a statistically tiny amount, but the number of people confusing shitposting with clever makes me weep, and when people think that disagreeing with something they see automatically means they can behave in the worst way imaginable. I know you just came here to attack and now you're feeling such a good time, but I like parading through people's rain. Seriously though, enough people are really, really mean that it hurts my soul. It's honestly not good for my mental health to even try to read them all.
Which means three things pragmatically:
ONE: if someone is being a complete ass in the comments, send me a link through PM, and I'll decide what to do. (Ban them. Warn them. Rickroll them. Whatever.) But I miss 90+% of what's going on in the comments, so don't count on me to step in if you haven't notified me–I probably don't even know it's happening. Please send me a link so I know WHERE the problem is happening. I post several posts a day and sometimes the comments go on for a week or more, so I'll need help finding where to go.
TWO: I won't even see, and certainly won't reply to a lot of comments. I just can't. It hurts me in my tender fee-fees to try. I know some of you definitely are addressing the page admin with your comments, but you'll have to send me a PM if it's in some way urgent.
I've also ignored a lot of comments lately that either missed the point or clearly hadn't read the entire piece they were responding to. It's not personal; it's just a time thing. Read what you're responding to if you want me to take a comment seriously.
*Protip: demanding to know the answer to a question that is answered in the first paragraph of the post is generally a pretty good hint that you didn't do the reading.
Over the years, I have learned that (especially on the Internet) if you point out that someone clearly hasn't read something, they are more likely to attack than take the suggestion with some humility.
Also, if you really want me to reply, send a PM. Just remember that whole "human" thing if you tread that path or I will make 30-year-old pop culture references at you by saying, "You chose.......poorly."
No.
THREE: I don't have time to gently warn everyone. ("Now now. There's a human being with feelings on the other end of your apoplectic abuse.") I'm assuming you already know how to be a decent person and that the internet sometimes helps you to forget. If I see bad faith behavior, I'll just start swinging the ol' Ban Hammer™Mjölnir [I call it M.J. cause we're THAT close.] You should know better than to behave that way (and you WOULD know better in any space that wasn't online). My warnings are reserved for folks who maybe didn't know they were on thin ice.
And they get exactly ONE.
Large point- This is my page. It's free content for you delivered straight to your computer on an average of 12 times a day (depending on the FB algorithm). This free content you enjoy takes me somewhere between 30 minutes to 90 minutes a day of unpaid labor. I'm going to post what I want. I'm going to post what I find fascinating. What I find interesting. What I find funny. What I find engaging.
And I'm going to post my blog. Even though it's sometimes a very thin connection to writing, delves into socio/political issues, or talks about my personal life.
I welcome suggestions. I welcome dialogue. I welcome discourse. I welcome concerns. I welcome criticism. (As I said above, you will likely have to PM me to get my attention since there are so many of you, but I still welcome this stuff.) I will be especially receptive to the concerns that something I've posted has inadvertently engaged in some sort of institutional harm.
However, if you comment (or PM for that matter) like you're entitled to have MY page be whatever you want in the same way you might scream at the Spokane McDonalds night shift manager because there isn't lobsterthermidor on the menu, I can promise you that the conversation will go one of two ways: If you're just being boorish and demanding without regard for the fact that I'm not a robot in a skin suit sent from Khyron Beta Prime to please your every whim, I'll ignore while singing old Starship songs. ("And we can BUIIIIIIIIIILD this dream together...") If you're being abusive, I'll ban you. There are OVER A MILLION of you. Even if I had an interest in keeping everyone happy, I couldn't.
And, shhhhhh, I don't have any interest in keeping all of you happy. Some of you status quo defenders I very much want to disturb. To say nothing of bigots.
So I'll be true to myself, and if that bothers you SO. FUCKING. MUCH. that you can't give the ol' scroll wheel finger a quick workout, then you get to talk to me like I'm a sensitive artist and shit. Because I am a delicate fucking creative flower, goddamnit! FUCK!
Add to an above demand a threat to flounce if I keep doing what you don't like, and I will just assume that I should show you the door to save myself future headaches.
If, on the other hand, you're just going to feel jilted if this page isn't exactly what you want to see all the time, you should feel absolutely free to spend the next five years posting 10-15 pieces of content every day about once an hour to build up your own audience, and then you can make that page whatever you want.
No promises that I won't stop by and complain though. Just for the symmetrical beauty of it all.
This goes just as well if I post a joke you don't "like." I care (deeply) if I've inadvertently dehumanized a group of people. I don't care that some didn't get the joke or didn't find it funny or it made fun of Christianity or something. If you don't stop to look up what a phrase meant before assuming bad faith, that's not my problem. And trying to guilt me by telling me there are children or second language learners who might take it seriously won't really get much traction either since children shouldn't be here and I'm not billing myself as an educational site. Learning to navigate a world in which some written rhetoric involves satire, irony, or sarcasm is part of the cost of business in English, and my job on this site isn't to act as those filters for others.
Again, if something bothers you that much, drop me a PM and let's chat. But remember the "catch." If you want to get a message back: you have to treat me like a human with feelings. Last I checked, the cybernetic brain overlay had yet to take.
Beyond Hella Huge Point (about social justice)-
Every goddamned time I post an article or meme or anything that deigns to intersect with how writing and writers affect social issues,
...or an interpretation of a work of art or entertainment that challenges the status quo, how language reflects societal prejudice,
...or how whitewashed, sexist, and anti-LGBT publishing is,
....or the narratives through which we define our world that could use scrutiny,
a new gaggle of jerkwads end up being shown the door.
Or hell, even just post a little Content Notice on something they think isn't a problem–so much so that it must be mocked.
It's not that they disagree. Disagreement I can handle. The comments all over this page are filled with disagreement–we're definitely no echo chamber. The problem is they either decide to react in the most dismissive and derisive way possible ("This is SJW crap!" "Ableism? That's insanely [r-word] you [c-word].") in which case this page is not for them, and I don't particularly want to have to deal with that shit post after post...OR they outright lose their composure and abusively attack other members or me for taking the time and energy to attempt to explain the frame of an issue or share a personal perspective on a topic.
If what essentially amounts to free tutoring about how language affects people who aren't exactly like you is going to be shat on because you wanted to "win" an argument, have the last word, condescend to the suggestion that the world is unequal and our print media might play a part in that, or treat people like crap for sharing an opinion that challenges the status quo, Writing About Writing is simply not for you.
There is a one-to-one echo that exists within this reaction that I am pretty sensitive to (mild CN for abuse dynamics): abusers gas lighting their victims. Instead of taking a moment to consider why someone is upset, that they are accurately able to assess their own mental state, that they can be trusted to relay when they are feeling hurt, or that their life experience of marginalization may be something worth listening to, often they are told they are being dramatic or ridiculous and dismissed outright. Their feelings and even their actual experiences are invalidated. We see this in a personal relationship and it raises our hackles (hopefully), but when a group in social power (like men) do it to a group they have social power over (like women or gender variant folks) on a massive scale, it is considered perfectly normal behavior. And it can even cause the people who are constantly being dismissed and derided to question their own perceptions of reality.
(I think abuse and oppression have a number of shocking parallels, but maybe a post for another time.)
Let me be blunt about this. (Cause I've been sweetly dancing around the point until now.)
Y'all are fucking writers, and this is a page about fucking writing. You fucking ought to know better than anyone that words carry tremendous fucking power...possibly even to invoke fucking harm. Nobody ever silently went to war or committed genocide without fucking words fueling them first. No one ever articulated a justification for racism or sexism that caused people actual PHYSICAL HARM without using fucking words to do so.
And nobody ever said "let's fucking commit human atrocities because we're just that evil" either. They always always ALWAYS fucking rationalized it away as necessary for their own protection....and they did so using fucking words. "Just" words.
So if you sit on your couch every November 5th watching a dude in a Guy Fawkes mask bloviate between the fight scenes that, "Words offer the means to meaning," and then starts a revolution because the "truth and perspectives" of his words are bulletproof, and then you imagine yourself leading said glorious revolution with your own martial arts skill and throwing stilettos, yet you then turn right around and roll your eyes at "those damned Social Justice Warriors" being all "oversensitive" to some slur you didn't mean "that way," you are DROWNING in the irony of social power dynamics and your own double standards.
I'm not going to have a conversation every single time I bring up an issue of social equality with folks whose main conceit seems to be: "writers should be able to write whatever they want." You already CAN write whatever you want. You can write your sausage fest story with no people of color and one woman who constantly needs rescuing, and ignore every bit of advice out there about how to make deep and interesting characters Literally no one will stop you. And if you're in a situation where you can't write whatever you want (politically or socially), it's certainly not upholding the status quo that is what you're not "allowed" to write. Further writers often do write whatever they want no matter how harmful or objectionable. Rarely are their careers even impacted and occasionally that's what launches them. If these writers stay off the pages that criticize them, they don't even have to have their feelings hurt. So if you're going to react with hyperbole and loss of composure to anyone asking you to consider how and what you write....on a blog about writing, Writing About Writing is definitely not for you.
But CENSORSHIP, Chris! But FREEZE PEACH!
Do you know what I hear Danny? Nothing. No footsteps up the stairs, no hovercraft outside the window, no clickeyty-click of the little spiders. Do you know why I can't hear those things Danny? Because right now, no one is stopping you from saying whatever you want. I'm not a government agent. This page isn't a public park. You have conflated freedom of speech with entitlement of medium.....Danny.
In case that was too subtle.
If you've mistaken a governmentally protected freedom with the absence of consequence, feel free to study up on both again. (But for ten bonus points, see if you can identify the irony in trying to silence criticism by invoking your "free speech" ad nauseum.) And your little guilt trip, complete with a high school comprehension of the word "Orwellian," is not going to prevent me from moderating comments in my own space. This isn't even a social justice activism page. I'm going pretty easy on you comparatively. I don't expect you to be fully intersectional (or even to know what "fully intersectional" means). But the cliche that “You are awful and hate free speech if you block or ban people” is regurgitated mostly by the same entitled dillholes who don't like it when people have boundaries....at all....ever....about anything. I have like eighteen jobs and NONE of them are listening to you patiently explain why people shouldn't be allowed to define their own realities and tell their own narratives.
If you want to drop some hateful commentary, share my article in your own space with commentary. Otherwise be ready to be shown the door.
Frankly, I'd rather have a smaller following where those who normally run screaming from the comments sections on most of the internet feel comfortable participating in the conversation, than a large following where the Status Quo Defenders speak over and run roughshod over anyone who has the temerity to suggest that maybe arts and humanities do something wacky like affect social perceptions, that representation matters, and that once in a while we might ought to think about such things. The whole damned world will let the people in power decide what is ridiculous to care about (spoiler: it's always going to be anything that challenges their power in any way). Here I want an actually diverse conversation, not just more and louder and more hostile dismissiveness reinforcing the status quo and actively silencing such voices.
I care about how to question whether narratives are reinforcing institutional harm. I care about how much of the writing that exists (even wildly popular writing) often reinforces harmful status quos like racism, sexism, heteronormativity, transphobia, and more–things are ingrained in many of our narrative tropes or through our lack of or type of representation. If you want me to be vapid about the impact of writing and stick to linguistic prescriptivism that makes fun of legitimate English dialects (often in a vaguely racist and definitely classist way) or those who struggle to get the right homonym, drops the same dozen articles (and their knock offs) over and over on how to publish your novel/find an agent/write a query letter, and never really asks you to think hard thoughts about how powerful writing is in creating the stories shape our culture, Writing About Writing is positively absolutely unequivocally not for you.
"Because maybe....JUST MAYBE, arts and humanities affect social perceptions and that's worth examining once in a while..."
If we can't at least consider and think about these things, we're just telling the same stories over and over again, not really exploring new ones.
In case that little Rantsalot moment was too gentle or esoteric: If your reply is nothing more than "This is PC bullshit!" or "This is crap. You're the real sexist!" or "Shut the fuck up with this pandering crap!" (or any of the thousands of variations on this theme that is intended to silence through dismissal that I've heard over the years) and certainly if you use bigoted slurs or double down on your "right" to be sexist, misogynistic, racist, transphobic, homophobic, ableist, or fatphobic after you've been asked to stop, I will use my admin tools to show you the door*.
Don't worry. The other million of us will carry on without you.
You don't have to agree with me. You DO have to play nice in my playground.
Me and M.J. hitting the town.
Get it?
"HITTING" the town...never mind.
*Once upon a time when I was getting such comments once a month, and before loved ones had cancer and before I had cancer and before there were kids in the picture and before I needed to write a novel four years ago, I had the time to warn and explain the problem gently with each person in an exhausting choreographed dance (that lead to a banning or a flounce 99% of the time anyway); however, I do not have the time or energy to continue to do this. I will simply protect this community from harm and/or that status quo defender bullshit. ADDITIONAL INFO The Just Not Worth It Clause You are in my space. (You are not entitled to be here.) You are generally welcome as long as you refrain from a few choice behaviors (see above). However, I am under no obligation to extend infinitely my hospitality to those who are constant sources of negative energy and make my work unpleasant so long as you technically don't break the rules. It might take a while for me to recognize your name, longer still to watch you for a while, and even longer to decide what to do, but if you are constantly argumentative, unpleasant, bellicose, condescending, and generally negative, I will eventually show you the door. Because this is my space, and it's just not worth it to me to have to put up with that on post after post. And if you're firmly and often representing yourself as unwilling to understand issues such as systemic inequality, the scripts of oppression, the difference between bigotry and pointing entitlement culture, or things like that, I may eventually decide that my space is not for you. Guest posts:
I'll leave up anything (even if I don't fully understand it) unless it is to a commercial site or it is self-promotion. The former will be removed and the poster banned. The latter will be removed (and if it keeps happening the poster will be banned). If you want to promote something on my page, message me. Whether or not I say yes will depend on how much it has to do with writing. Basically I'm not going to let people spam my readers.
Pedantry:
Knock yourself out, (lord knows I could use the help) but keep in mind the other rules before you decide that what your grammar fix needs is to be slathered in the gravy of bumptious superiority. I'll fix it if I can. The more obnoxious and condescending you get about it, though, the more I'm going to look at that ban button like Sylvester looks at Tweety. And if you are being classist and racist by mocking a legitimate dialect of English or a second language learner or something, Tweety's not long for the world. Links in comments:
If they're not absolutely relevant to the topic or are clearly self promotional, I'll erase the comment. If it keeps happening I'll swing The Ban Hammer™Also, just so you know, I kind of hate people who respond to my writing about a topic with someone else's writing about the same topic. Like I know it's petty, but I'm here to promote my OWN shit, not someone else's.
Bot Commenting:
The engagement is appreciated, but the generic reply-to-anything comment will eventually get you banned.
Trolling Comments to Hit on Folks:
I ban anyone who trolls the comments hitting on femme presenting folks. No questions. No appeals. You will be shown the door. This is not the space for that and I want those folks to feel safe commenting here, not as if doing so is going to open them up to being oozed.
(And just to anticipate a possible social script designed to protect this sort of behavior, if you can't tell the difference between genuinely striking up a conversation that MIGHT end up in a "Hey would you be okay with a friend request?" and the behavior I'm talking about [usually appearance based, usually IMMEDIATELY focused on a friend request, almost always cut and pasted to multiple people], then you shouldn't be doing either.)
Post Attribution:
I get macros from all over the intersphereweboverse. Pinterest. Other pages. Friends share things they find with me. Old posts. Even Tumblr. The internet is like that with people posting and reposting. Original attribution can be incredibly hard to find after things have been through multiple layers of reposting (even with things like reverse search images, which even if they always worked [they don't] add enough annoyance and time sink to an already thankless labor of love to make it not worth it). Plus many artists are happy to see their work proliferated just so long as it has their watermark on it.
As a content creator myself though, I know how much it sucks to watch something you made go viral for someone else without so much as a link or even attribution. If I've posted something that belongs to you or someone you know or have posted a webcomic with a watermark that you can't bear to see not linked with a URL, let me know and I'll edit the post.
Or if it's yours and you want me to just take it down, repost with attribution, or whatever to handle the situation. Unfortunately, there are some people will try to claim credit for something they didn't make, even editing out an existing watermark, so I'll be looking for some small indication of actual source-age. (Usually that's a trivial matter for a content creator of linking the original post.)
I am happy to do this. But please remember a couple of things: First, you need to message me (rather than just comment) if you definitely want me to see it because I don't reliably engage with comments (see above). Second, be kind. There are basically a million of you and one of me and I am putting up 15 posts a day, so what seems like a trivial effort to you on a single post may not be to me, especially over time. If you want to be the attribution police rather than just a friendly "Hey I found a source on that post for you!" feel free to go run your own page and find out what a headache it can be.
Responding to Posts (Especially Answering Mailbox Questions) Without Reading the Article
Listen....
This one gets like four and a half stars.
I am a flawed, frail human being.
One of my human failings is that even though I understand the FB algorithm and how engagement helps, it really annoys me when I post something I spent an hour (or two or three or five or EIGHT or MORE) writing, and people jump into the comments to take it upon themselves to read answer the question CLEARLY without having read the article. It just irritates the fuck out of me.
It's like reading your own shit at another author's Q&A. It's like using your "question" at a convention to talk for five minutes and then say, "Do you agree?" to a panelist. I'm glad you found the question provocative (I really am!), but JOIN the conversation. Don't start a new one of your own in MY comments. Sometimes these replies don't even realize they're suggesting exactly the same thing I did or have used one or two of the same examples. It's great that we're all on the same page, but how rude! It's like those cartoons where someone suggests something and then another character says the same thing. In the world of comments at the end of posts, you usually at least see people who have engaged with the article (sometimes they clearly didn't get past a certain point before commenting, didn't understand a part, or were reading in bad faith, but you generally don't get replies that disregard the source material whole cloth. Social media means an awful lot of people jump in to tell you what they think of the title and/or preview text. Knock yourself out (I guess), but be ready for your admin to hide or delete your comment.
You need to start your own blog for this shit
If you want to reply to something, enjoy. If you want to disagree with me, have fun. (Just remember all the other rules.) However, if you want to write some shit that is seriously longer than the post you're replying to, go find your own platform. And if it's just some "take down" shit (especially of the I-didn't-manage-to-finish-reading-this-or-read-it-carefully-before-I-got-angry-and-slammed-out-many-paragraphs) variety, I'm probably just going to hide it. It's an admin power that pages have. You and your friends will be able to see it and give each other high fives, but no one else will. Arguing with "You should be writing" macros:
Uh...whatever cooks your churro, boss. You do you.
However, let me add a couple of things: as I dig through the depths of the internet for and/or create such memes that aren't a profusion of sparkling hot white guys, keep the bigoted slurs out of your polemics if you don't want to get banned. You can yell at macros reminding you to write (or whatever) like old man yelling at cloud if that's your jam, but bigotry is no more acceptable as a reply to a You Should Be Writing macro than anywhere else in this space.
Second, I have a folder full of people thanking me. Literally hundreds, maybe thousands of messages basically saying that the daily reminders were wonderful for their motivation. I'm not going to stop because your complaints get more and more hyperbolic, but I will eventually assume that my page is not for you.
Arguing with other macros or posts:
If you have a significant ideological problem with a quote or an idea or post, I first invite you to sit with it and think about what insight it might offer. Not everything is about you. It might not be saying what you think it is. Have you read it in the best faith or are you running it through an ideological lens and assuming that I'm saying something maybe I'm not? I post things regularly that are mutually exclusive because sometimes they're for beginners, sometimes for veterans, sometimes for people who are prescriptive about language, sometimes about people who think they don't actually need to learn grammar, sometimes for cocksure folks who won't suffer an editor, and sometimes for those who need a little pick me up to their confidence. Some things are for people who want to be capital W writers and need to stop making excuses. Some are for people with executive dysfunction who need to be kinder to themselves about what they can and can't do. If you can glean a point, a conceit, or a thesis that might be valuable to some writer SOMEWHERE, maybe it isn't quite so important that you kick in the doors, knock over a vase, and make sure everyone upstairs can hear you screaming that you don't absolutely love it.
Far be it from me to suggest that a single 280 character tweet is going to contain all the nuance or that a prescriptive tumblr post has advice that you won't be able to imagine an exception to, but if you can find something interesting, useful, or edifying to your writing, that's probably why I posted it.
Okay, you've had a deep breath or three and you still don't like it? It's okay to let people know you're doing the opposite of endorsing the message or that you see a glaring gap in context, bring the nuance! I welcome it. However, reading clinging to a worst faith read, assuming that any advice is panacea and that you are entitled to tear into it, the poster, anyone who agrees, or ME using the most hostile and hyperbolic language you can come up with because that's how the internet works will not go well for you. Not here. Save that shit for Reddit.
I posted a thing you REALLY disagree with:
I post things I don't even agree with myself. (Not harmful things, but stuff about craft or process.) Not every writer is going to agree on every way to be a writer--beyond reading and writing a lot. Go ahead and disagree, but if you get into that "How ever could you POST shit like this?" territory, it might be a short conversation. Poll Nominations:
If you don't go to the blog webpage and make your nomination a comment, it won't end up on the poll. If you don't go to the blog webpage and make your nomination a comment, it won't end up on the poll.IF YOU DON'T GO TO THE BLOG WEBPAGE AND MAKE YOUR NOMINATION A COMMENT, IT WON'T END UP ON THE POLL!
How can your poll possibly not have [thing I like]?
Because no one nominated it? Or no one gave it a second? Or they did and it did not survive an earlier round? Everything is reader based. If you want to see your titles make it, get involved sooner.
J.A.Q.ing off
You might think I can't tell the difference between asking questions and "just asking questions" about something but it's actually breathtakingly easy. (Particularly when combined with "It's really obvious that you haven't actually read that.") So understand that after thirty years of being online and 15 years of teaching, I know the difference between a sincere question and bait when I see it.
You're so Clever:
One of the double edged swords of a community this large is that there is often a "race" to be the first to make a clever quip with almost every post. No problem when they're funny, but sometimes people mistake clever and mean. If the timber of these quips seems always to be discouraging or elitist (or some other variant of shitty), you may eventually find MJ thirsts to revoke your commenting privileges.
Shitty comments:
One of my admin powers as a page runner is to hide a comment so that only the person who made it and their friends can see it. I use this liberally when people are just being general jerkwads. You can cry your maudlin tears about free speech or whatever, but I make no bones about moderating the comments in my own space. If you don't have the decorum to treat your unpaid host with a tiny bit of decency, he doesn't have to suffer giving you a platform by proxy.
I only ban people if they're being bigots or extremely harmful. (It's always particularly funny to watch people who say "Watch, now we'll get banned because we disagreed," go right on commenting about how I censor them.) If you imagine that you are seated around a table with everyone you're talking sipping a tasty beverage of your choice and being watched by a group of students taking a class on how to discuss issues like adults, you will probably do just fine.
Please also see my Facebook FAQ if you have more questions.
If you're enjoying this blog, and would like to see more, the writer is a guy with a rent and insurance to pay who would love to spend more time writing. Please consider contributing to My Patreon. As little as $36 a year (about a cup of coffee every month) will get you in on backchannel conversations, patron-only polls, and my special ear when I ask for advice about future projects or blog changes.
What is the worst book you just couldn't put down?
They're the books you hate to love (or maybe love to hate). But even though you couldn't stand them (or maybe you just knew you shouldn't be enjoying yourself), you just couldn't stop reading them. Whether they were deliciously bad and you grudge fucked those pages with your steely eyeballs, or it was more like movie popcorn, and you just didn't notice one handful of nutrition-less mouthful after another until you had finished the entire bag.
The Rules:
You may nominate TWO (2) books. Obviously the fifteen books you hate can't all be the worst. Any nominations you give me beyond your first two will be ignored because I'm a bad human being. (Though I will count them as "seconds" if someone else nominates the same book.)
As usual, I leave up to you what "worst" means. Trashiest? Worst written? Most train wreck plot? Biggest let down because people told you it was great? I'd rather be inclusive.
You may, and SHOULD, "second" as many of the existing nominations as you wish. Nothing will go on to our poll if its trashy awfulness doesn't have a second.
Note: While I technically take nominations from anywhere, you should make a comment to this post. Comments left on social media where I cross post (like my Facebook page) don't tend to get seconded there because they are so quickly buried beneath ever spewing content.
Thank you everyone for participating in December's "Best Book That No One Seems to Have Heard Of" poll. I know it was a little weird for a poll, given the irony that the fewer people had heard of it, the worse it would do. But I hope everyone got some good books for their To Be Read list–maybe that they hadn't even heard of.
I tried to wait for some of the ties to get a definite winner, but for every one that went away, another showed up somewhere else on the poll.
I will make sure that our next poll is a little more traditional. Perhaps a redux from the early days of the blog–now that we have more readers. On that note, stay tuned. It will probably be up a little later today.
Text results below.
To Reign in Hell- S. Brust1828.57%
Exquisite Corpse- P. Z. Brite812.7%
Callahan's Lady- S. Robinson812.7%
The Principia Discordia Malaclypse the Younger711.11%
Libriomancer- J. C. Hines57.94%
Emerald Eyes- D.K. Moran57.94%
Middlesex- J. Eugenides46.35%
The Abyss- O.S. Card34.76%
The Master and Margarita- M. Bulgakov34.76%
Night's Dawn Trilogy- P. Hamilton23.17%
I guess this means that a bunch of people cried bitter tears that a vacation fell on a day they had off anyway, and now none of the staff are coming into the office to do some work. Bank holiday. New years....observed.
This despite the fact that they live down the hall, and all I wanted was a quick update. We could have been done in ten minutes if everyone had just done their crap. (Besides Monday is Sloppy Joes day and Grendel's mom makes the best ones ever.)
The Sci Guy told me not to turn the system on because only he knows how to set up the firewall and that the whole thing would be "vulnerable" to hacking by Evil Mystery Blogger if I tried to initiate the system without him.
But I'm sure there will be no problem firing up the mainframe for such a quick update.
I guess since we can't do a real update today, I'll just remind everyone to vote in our Best Obscure Book poll. Results will go up tomorrow.
