So I read an agent blog that really upset me. I found it offensive on several levels and I want to rant about it very badly. Except lord forbid anyone speak ill of agents or anyone in the publishing industry. (Never mind that disagreement and debate, often passionate, is something I treasure about my closet friendships, and I’ve been known to start friendships by disagreeing with people.)

But instead I’m going to tell you about my absolute adoration for horses and horseback riding.

If you read my blog on the books I read as a teen you can probably guess that I’ve always loved horses. As a child I snapped up every picture that was horse related (and really only loved unicorns because they were more magical, and usually smarter, horses) and I read every horse themed book I could find, including a few from the library that were almost twice as old as I was. If it had a horse on it, I wanted it. If it had a horse in it I read it.

Then one day, in my early teens I got tired of fantasizing. I wanted to really ride, to really be around horses. I found a local barn that worked out of a city park, that was not-expensive and asked for a trail ride for my birthday. Once I was there I noticed a handful of teen girls running around helping out. So I asked how I could get the job. The rules were: You had to be 13 (which I had just turned!) and you had to work for free. But you got to spend a lot of time around horses, and got to ride for at least half an hour a day for free. So I started working weekends at the barn.

And I LOVED it.

Then came the incident. I was targeted for bullying a few months in. I ignored a lot of it, and admittedly I was a teenage girl, so I made my fair share of bad decisions as well. But one day when we were lining the horses up for the paying customers one of the people who was bullying me pulled a horse with the very bad habit of kicking when others got too close to her between the horse I was holding and the horse in front of me. The mare lashed out rather spectacularly and if the gelding I was holding hadn’t yanked me back I would have been kicked in the head. (One of the good things about writing is that your manuscript will never kick you in the head, or rear up and flip over on you. The chances of it happening with a horse is low, but it can happen.) Now the girl did get in serious trouble (a 2 week ban from the barn) but when she came back it was a significantly larger chip on her shoulder and dealing with animals that weigh hundreds of pounds, I just didn’t feel safe. So I made the very sad decision to not go back.

Broke my heart. My dream died a little bit. But it didn’t go away. A year or so later I heard a new barn had opened up, that ran in close to the same way in a different park. So same, this is what I want for my birthday, oh by the way, do you need volunteers? Why yes, they did! They were completely without volunteers and I had experience!

Awesome! So began my longer stint in horsing. This one lasted about two years. It was all kinds of fun in the way that the other ones weren’t. In the winter, when the barn closed to the public the horses still need exercising and I got to help. And that summer I was hired (as in actually got paid!) to clean stalls and assist with the summer camps. Unfortunately they also brought in a trail lead who took a disliking to me, and so there was some bullying/clique-behavior again. but this time fucking no one was going to take my dream away from me. I wan’t going to leave until they told me to my face “We don’t want you here”.

Except then all the other volunteers bought horses. And my dad had lost his job and I’d given most of the money I made that summer to him. So it was pretty clear that they lived a life of dashing down to the barn to ride for a few hours before going off to school, and I didn’t. I didn’t have the family support a teen needed for horse ownership, or riding lessons, so if I was going to act on that dream I needed to be able to afford it and drive there, myself.

So a lot happened after that in my life. And at times I literally ache to brush a horse or lift tack, or rake hay out of an aisle. but let me tell you something ultimately dream crushing about horses–they’re fucking expensive. To buy, to maintain, to ride, to train, to breed. They cost a lot of money. I started looking into lessons, but there’s two flaws there; they, too, are expensive, and most barns focus very strongly on competing. I’m not interested in competing (and I don’t have the money for the higher level lessons, which start at $45 in the area). I just want to ride (and those lessons are still at the lowest I’ve found $25 for 45 minutes.) The gas costs to get out to barns from m side of town are equally scary. I mean, 20 minutes at least one way, then $25+ for lessons, then time to drive home.

Oh, it won’t stop me. It’ll delay me. It’ll make things harder. It’ll mean I’ll sit here looking at horse pictures on the net and feeling that clench in my chest, feeling so amazingly driven, and yet like the whole world is trying to stop me from pursuing that dream. I watch shows on KET and can almost feel the grit of sweat and dirt, I can almost smell the hay and the leather and the warm dusty scent of the horses themselves.

As an adult I have the freedom of being able to spend money on what I want to, and being able to drive where I want to go. But I also am saddled with the responsibility to put my dreams behind my family’s well being. Sometimes I think the only way I’ll ever be able to ride again (or groom, or hell, even muck stalls) is if I get rich. Other days I’m damned determined not to let the amoun in my bank account stop me.

There are always ways around financial restrictions. But very few things are a dream crushing as discounting a person’s passion, ability and drive just because they don’t have the cash to line the pockets of those who possess the objects of dreams. No, it’s not any barn owner’s job to let me ride just because I want to really, really badly. They have to pay bills too.

But it’s a very sad thing when accomplishing dreams becomes not about ability and skill and fighting against the odds, but only things that the rich and the entitled can do. And it’s a terrible thing when people assume paying for something is the only way you can show you’re serious about you passion. Funny, isn’t it? How that’s the exact same thing rip off editors and self publishers say. “Well if you’re serious about you career you HAVE to pay editors and self publish because that’s the only way to break in.”

Yeah, agents should make more for all the work they do. But not off the backs of writers, especially not when you consider agencies have a stable of writers who they can profit off of, but writers are limited in their number of products. Sadly, I think that writing, and likely agenting as well, are becoming second jobs, rather than something you can do to support yourself. But charging an entry fee for the instructor to even consider giving you a ride, much less a lesson, dismissing those who can’t pay it as not serious about their craft all the while claiming the applicants complaining because you just want to make money is unfair (or worse, profiling, akin to racial profiling) is a bit much.

Writing Riding is hard. It’s already filled with constant demands, hoops to jump through, close calls, near misses, tiny victories and passionate failures. Even if you read all the books, take all the lessons, perform beautifully in the ring you could fail due to chance, subjective moods of the judges, and being outclassed by the competitors. Picking the shows agents to the best of your ability, polishing your performance query, and making sure your horse manuscript is in the best shape that it can be still doesn’t guarantee success. Why make it harder by making riding publishing something only people who have spendable cash floor can even consider doing?

Ultimately, what K.D. James said here is true. Allow me her to summarize:

When I’m ready to sell my product, I’ll enter the market as it exists at that time. Or stay out of the market until it improves. Or find another market. Those are my choices.

But hey, this is my blog, and I’ll rant if I want to. (Also I’m ranting after working for the day, while preparing dinner.)

If you’ve read Rot I would really appreciate a review At Amazon. See, the more good ratings and sales a book has the more Amazon’s system recommends the book to other buyers, which increases the chances or more sales.

If you have issue with Amazon I’d appreciate reviews (or just ratings) at GoodReads or LibraryThing or Shelfari as well.

ETA: Wow you guys are awesome. Thank you so much!!

I do a lot of socializing via Twitter these days, primarily because it’s fast, easy and I can check it if I’ve got a few minutes or ignore it. This weekend I found the fabulous author Robin McKinley reacting to a tweet she saw earlier, wherein a bookseller admitted to “accidentally overcharging” customers who bought the Twilight books in an effort to either encourage them to buy better books, or punish them for poor taste. I was unable to find the base comment in context so I don’t honestly know if it was said in jest. I can only hope so because besides being theft, said actions are morally disgusting.

In the horror world there is A LOT of hate for the Twilight books. It comes from the misguided belief that they are horror (because they have vampires) when they are, in fact, nothing of the sort. The growth of paranormal romance has taken creatures that used to be found only in the horror section and made them capable of genre flexibility. I started reading horror because that’s the only place I could find supernatural, but not in a traditional fantasy form, elements in books. Some people bemoan this “violation of horror territory”, which I find rather silly because the way I see it the new genre flexibility of supes lend to them a longer lifespan and a larger audience.

Anyway, let me say I’m not a Twilight fan. I find the books stodgy, dull, overwrought, poorly written, led by Mary Sue and I admit to flaming jealousy of the sales figures there of, and to more than a growl or two when every damn person follows up “Oh you’re writer?” with “What did you think of Twilight?” I despise that these flimsy books have somehow become the standard that all book lovers must aspire to. However the author has nothing to do with that. That behavior is all in the fans’ heads and is no different from the rush to go see the latest movie or sitcom episode in order to be “hip” or up to date on pop culture.

I have rolled my eyes, and given my honest opinion of what I have read of the series, and gladly suggested better books. I even own a snarky T-shirt that says “And then Buffy staked Edward. The End.” But I don’t go around trying to school fans on the errors of their ways. And I would never try to punish them–especially at the risk of my professional reputation, my place of work’s professional reputation or the chance that I would lose my job by doing so.

Booksellers, readers and librarians are asked to give advice and give recommendations all the time BECAUSE THEY ARE TRUSTED. A bookseller who only recommended inspirational stories to me because they were Christian and thought those are the only books people should read would not get my money. Customers need this trusted link between themselves and all the options on the shelf, and they need them to not be…well, somewhat biased is okay, because we’re all allowed our favorites, but other than selling/lending books clerks and librarians should not have an agenda. The customer/clerk relationship is not about the clerk, it’s about meeting the customer’s needs. The goal is to get the customer a book THEY want to read, not make them read what you think they should read.

Reading is a very private thing. When reading each book affects each reader differently, and each reader is looking for something different out of the experience. We can read in public or private, we can talk about what we read or not, but reading is about the author telling a story and communicating one on one to a reader. Lots of individual readers, but a story must communicate on some level to the reader.

As readers, writers and book bloggers we have the right to talk about books and what we’ve taken out of them and how they’ve affected or failed us, theorize as to their literary value, judge the merits of the skill put into them and weigh the elements contained within them. But when it comes to other people all we have the right to do is make recommendations. No one has the right to dictate what we should be required to spend our personal money and time on. No one should be allowed to punish us for what we choose to read (provided it’s legal, consensual and hasn’t caused harm to anyone.)

It’s important to remember that you are not the only reader out there. People read for all kinds of reason and love all kinds of story elements. Clearly, the romance and horror industry proves that “value” in a story doesn’t mean only literary, historical or artistic merit. The average book is read for escapism, for entertainment, to take our mind off our bills, our health, the jerk that cut us off in traffic and the fact that the lawn needs to be mowed but it’s rained or been oppressively hot every day this week. People read to connect with characters. The success of the Twilight books suggests that they are succeeding in communicating with an audience and the thing about audiences is that there are a lot of them out there and many of them cross over.

Who are we to judge one book worthy and another one not? All we can offer is our opinion and take on a story’s elements. This is why I don’t believe in criticism, but rather evaluation, because part of criticism is deciding for other people what they should read, find in a book and enjoy. And it’s not my place to make that choice for anyone else.

I’ve been an avid, and flexible reader for as long as I can remember. Books were always my approved escape method, and before my mom died television was for Saturday morning cartoons and when I was sick, not every day. I would always read almost every thing (except in those few years between child and teen, when I swore to never grow up and read boring stuffy grown-up books when I could keep finding fabulous ones in the kid’s sections.)

The amusing rant from Justine Musk on her original take of the Sweet Valley High books (and the decision to update and re-release them) has got me thinking a lot about the books I cut my teeth on, why I liked them, and how I might react differently to them now. I never read the Sweet Valley High books, thought I had a SVH theme “journal” that was less journal and more fill in the blanks SVH trivia. But it had a magnetic flap that held it in place in a time where all the other journals had those silly little breakable locks.

I did, however fall for a few other popular series, namely the Babysitter’s Club by Ann M. Martin, and the horse inspired (did I ever mention I was horse crazy?) Saddle Club series by Bonnie Bryant and the Thoroughbred series by Joanna Campbell. The later was a favorite for longer, because the characters were typically teens and it dealt with more adult themes (like dating, and even the death of some of the characters.) I don’t know why, to this day, I was so drawn to The Babysitter’s Club books, because I wasn’t a baby sitter, and didn’t really want to be. But in reflection I’m also pretty happy with that series on an intellectual level because two of the seven or so character were non-white, and it commonly dealt with issues like divorce, remarriage, family safety and even job loss (for adults). I guess there the draw was that there were a lot of real-life issues (like one of the characters being a diabetic) that snuck in.

The Saddle Club books also features a black main character, the most horse savvy girl in the club was Carole, an Army brat. This series is laced with horse-facts and, as a girl with no actual experience riding, but big dreams that involved my own horse, I gobbled it, and any other horse-themed book I could find, up like candy. I got a good twenty or so books in before I out aged the main characters and started looking for something a little more mature (and something a little longer for my money).

That’s around the time the Thoroughbred series came out. It started with a girl my age at the time, who wasn’t perfect, but was stubborn and determined and hard working. This is also around the time I started figuring out that wishing wasn’t going to make things happen for me, and that teenage-dom was going to be a shake up. I read a good ten or so books in, then two things happened, I got tired of the main character switching all the time (I fell in love with the books over Ashleigh and identified with her, not the others, who were nice, but a new main character every 4-5 books wore on me) and also I started working at a real life barn, which was nothing at all like the racing  barn in the Thoroughbred series. In fact through my high school life I learned a lot about the horse world, even getting a job offer at Churchhill Downs late in my high school life, and I’d pretty much figured out at that point that I’d never have the money or drive to ride to compete, and I was tried of taking care of other people’s horses for them. (Ironically now I would love to take care of other people’s horses for them, because I suspect that kind of work is the only easy I’ll get to enjoy working with horses again.) It was a really adult decision for me at the time, and likewise, pretty hard, sort of like I was giving up on a dream.

In all that time where I was learning what it would take to live my biggest dream (at that time) the horse books stopped being escapsim for me, so I looked for something else. I’ve always had a real weakness for paranormal and it used to be that the only place you could find paranormal stories was in fantasy or horror. I guess it’s no surprise then, that I read a lot of both. I never liked the R.L. Stine books. They always went for that cheesy last twist and I largely found the books shallow. But I found plenty of other interesting books that flirted with the dark and scary for teens. Anyone who says Twilight is an original never read LJ Smith’s Vampire Diaries books. I was a big fan back in the day, and read all her books, from the Vampire Diaries, to The Secret Circle (about a potentially murderous coven of teen witches), Dark Visions (about modern psychics, like remote drawers, empaths and psychometrists), The Forbidden Game series (possibly one of her least popular, but it was about an elf, in the dangerous, Norse magic sense, who was stalking a human girl), and the Night World series (which mixed shifters, witches and vampires). Sadly the Night World series was post poned, with I think 4 books remaining to be completed and the author vanished into obscurity.

Other authors should take note though, LJ Smith fans were so devoted and didn’t for get her or her books. The used books trade for her books when they went out of print was insane. At one point I found the Vampire Diaries books on ebay for $50. Then, a few years ago Smith resurfaced. With the teen horror market in a different place than it was before (and her fan base still wondering what happened to those Night World Wild Powers) Smith’s books were re-edited, re-released and the Vampire Diaries sold to CW and is now a fairly popular show. I’m glad that the smith story has a happy ending, and that both the fans and authors survived those missing years.

In the same time period I read a lot. My teen years were rough and I had a book-a-day habit. I went through a vampire phase, which led me into some pretty strange places, like the Vampire Twins series, about, well, a pair of twins who discover they were genetically prone to being vampires and have to face their dark sides (in the form of their not-pleasant vampire father). As well as Caroline B. Cooney’s vampire trilogy (The Cheerleader, Return of the Vampire and The Vampire’s Promise), which is about a vampire who works out a deal with the teen girls that live in the house he haunts, to drain their classmates and give their skills and abilities to the teen girl. So the girl invariably want to be talented, popular, smart, etc and trade in their classmates to the vampire for these things. These two series showed me about the different interpretations of vampires and opened me up to other things as well, namely trying out adult books.

I remember another vampire-themed horror book that got a ton of rereads from me, about a teen girl who goes to live with her uncle who operates a creepy wax museum and lives in an apartment over it. The teen discovers the town is being plagues by a vampire killer, who it turns out is one of the teens that hangs out at the wax museum and thinks he’s becoming a real vampire. It wasn’t actually a supernatural book, but I remember it was the first place I ever hear the term deadpan being used, and I found it pretty gruesome at the time. (I cannot remember the title of the book, or the author, but I remember it had a green spine and I think there were fang marks on the cover, made by lipstick like the killer in the book was leaving on his victims.)

The thirst for more vampire books pushed me into picking up other books, like Ann Rice’s vampire series (then her Witching Hour series because I’d liked the vampire series), Mercedes Lackey’s Diana Tregarde series, SP Somtow’s Vampire Junction (and later Moon Dance, which still blows me away every time I reread it), Poppy Z. Brite’s books and eventually Laurell K Hamilton’s books (thought the vampire burn was fading then, and I was happy to see she had more than just vampires in her world).

Despite the vampire craze I had a side-love for a rather obscure teen fantasy series, The Secret of the Unicorn Queen. It mixed science and magic (and unicorns!) in way I hadn’t seen before and as a budding writer I was fascinated that it appeared to have been written by a writing group sharing the world setting and characters and doing it rather well. It also gave me a break from all the adult setting and themes (but not like adult, adult, because I was a junior in high school before I ever picked up the Anita Blake books and I’d dropped out of college and had my first child before those books devolved to where they are today.)

But the biggest influence to my reading habits, and the one that still means the most to me is Christopher Pike. With a few exceptions I sucked his books up like chocolate shakes. Pike is often compared to Stine, but they were always different. For one Pike didn’t stick to horror. The Eternal Enemy, for example deals with androids and time travel, and The Starlight Crystal is also a dark SF book. Stine had stalkers and killers, but Pike had reincarnated goddesses, witches on rampages, and then there was The Midnight Club, still one of the most heart breaking books I’ve ever read, about a group of terminally ill kids living in a hospice together who gather at midnight and tell each other stories. Cliche, maybe, but anything could, and did happen in Pike’s books so it was rather wild.

I read Pike… well I still read Pike, though most of my collection was lost in a move years ago. Some of his books are being reissued as well, though it looks like my favorites aren’t among them.

So what books meant a lot to you as a kid/teen and how did your reading tastes evolve?

ETA: It bugged me so much I had to look it up and I found the vampire/wax museum book I was looking for. It’s Vampire by Richie Tankersley Cusick.

So a lot lately I’ve been experiencing preconceived notions based on book page counts. There’s been Stephen King’s massive tome, Under the Dome, clicking it at 1074 pages. Now I’m not a King fan, but I do have an appendage or two stuck in the horror pie and it’s impossible not to hear about the god that is King in those circles. I have to admit I wouldn’t pick up Under the Dome, even if I was wanting to reconsider my dislike of King’s style because my major problem with King is that he’s just way too long winded for my tastes. If i feel this way about his 300-400 page books, I can only imagine how bad this book would be.

Then there’s also been The Passage, an 800 page, much hyped book by Justin Cronin. Again at 800 pages I can’t help thinking something somewhere could have been cut out to make it a tighter book. Heck, I’m a Harry Potter fan and I still think the last few books could have been improved with the loss of at least a hundred pages each.

On the other side of things I’ve read two novelettes for review lately that at about 30 pages each just weren’t enough to do more than pass a bit of time. Now in the modern world of smart phones and ereaders a 30 page story still could mean the difference between sitting at the doctor’s office or DMV and getting agitated and angry, or having a decent way to pass that unavoidable wait time. But since most readers still aren’t reading like that, ow am I, Michele sitting on her couch looking for a great story, supposed to take one that takes me less time to read than wating an episode of CSI would take?

Of course, I’m not exactly neutral on the subject. My novella Rot is about 60 pages, including illustrations, not necessarily a satisfying length for some readers. But after I wrote it I spent a lot of time considering how I’d market it. It’s a damn awkward length, not a novella that might show up in bookstores, since those seem to be around 100 pages in length to sell well. But it would have been impossible to cut the length down to a longer short story.

As a writer I know that sometimes these kinds of stories just happen, and you’re stuck wondering how or even if you should try to sell it, or just wait until you’re famous enough to put out a collection and stick it in there. As a reader I know I also judge a book based on word count, even sometimes shying away from long works from writers who are new to me, or not being willing to pay for a very short work from an author I don’ t already auto-buy.

So what about you, do you get intimidated by, or pass on books based on their page count?

This is a BP post, so keep moving if you don’t want to hear it.

So, long story short, a BP pipe has been gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico for almost forever and BP has been reaction with the speed of a turtle on pause. Everything they have tried has failed, so now they’re trying to keep all media out of the area, using the local sheriffs and coast Guard as their own personal force of bullies. The good news is, hey it’s create in job in the area still suffering from Katrina. The bad news is this might just destroy the world. (Okay, so I’m skeptical of that, but no one can say that this spill is a good thing.)

Obama let his balls drop a bit, sending BP a bill for $69 million in government clean up costs. As awesome as that is, most of us are sitting around, hundreds if not thousands of miles from the Gulf, wondering what the hell we can do.

So here’s some answers:

Donate. Here’s some places helping.

• The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana
• Defenders of Wildlife
• Emerald CoastKeeper
• Greenpeace International
• Louisiana Wildlife Rehabilitators Association

Donate hair (pet and human) for spill clean up materials. Try to get your local salons and pet groomers involved.

Boycott BP brands including Castrol, Arco, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, Wild Bean Cafe, Safeway gas.

Reevaluate how you use oil period. There are free things you can do, like turning off appliances and lights, lowering your car and heating uses. Also consider the “hidden” ways you use oil, through products like plastic (storage containers, plastic utensils, plastic wrap) or even home products like siding and roofing materials. NatureWorks is a company that manufactures plastics without using oil. Consider buying from them, or getting their products stocked at your store.

I’m not a fan of consuming more as a way to be green, but there are a lot of things you should think about when buying. I’ll never advocate buying a new appliance or vehicle just because it’s more energy efficient, but if you do need to replace something anyway, get the best you can. Water heaters, furnace, dryer, washers, whatever it is. If you use plastic storage bins (for food or what not, they certainly do have some benefits over other types of storage) use the hell out of them. We get plastic containers when we order chinese, and they go right into the dishes to be washed and reused later. We get the more permanent form of food storage containers, and even those kinds that are supposed to be disposable get used for as long as they function.

There are lots of better articles out there on conservation, and even some that don’t tell you to go out and buy electric cars and push lawnmowers. I advise you to really think about what you’re being told and your own personal life style. Taking actions, in the form of lifestyle changes is a process and it’s about evaluating your own actions and what’s available around you. It helps if you know what products you are using because of their availability or out of habit, your own buying and waste habits and the misinformation and poorly covered information out there.

The “green” movement very often focuses on buying something, usually something expensive (new cars, new appliances, even those canvas bags can be expensive!) because we are trained by society to consume. To make a lifestyle change to have to step back and ask “Do I need that? And do I want to buy that?” No one should feel guilty because they can’t afford a hybrid car, or because their lifestyle (hello kids!) demands plastic dinnerware instead of metal. Remember that if you have to replace broken dishes constantly that’s just as bad, from a consuming point of view, as having a set of plastic dishes that don’t break when a child drops them.

Also keep in mind that what you see isn’t always what you get. For example ebooks versus print books. Ebooks don’t use paper, but readers are made of plastics, many of these devices (like cell phones) are designed to be replaced/upgraded every few years, and who knows how environmentally friendly those batteries are. And yes, paper books are made of trees, but trees that grow for years, counteracting CO2 in the air. (Another bonus to having a home garden is that vegetable plants are plants, oxygen producing, healthy, GREEN plants.)

But there is a lot you can do that might not help with the oil spill directly, but will affect the oil consumption you might be taking for granted right now.

I knew what I wanted to take a picture of from the moment I saw this week’s theme. Reflective brings to mind mirrors and a state of thinking. Mirror bring to mind a story I read that perfectly encapsulates my idea of reflection. But first, my picture.

And now the story. In the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett there’s a character that I adore named Granny Weatherwax, who is the quintessential old wise crone/witch. She does astounding things all the time, most amazing of which is giving people exactly what they think they need to preserve their happiness, health and lifestyle. Logic goes a little funny around Granny Weatherwaxc, mostly because it finds her rather intimidating.

Anyway, in one book Granny faces down a very powerful witch, who amplifies her powers through mirrors. After the final showdown they both get trapped in a mirror world filled with mirrors. A gate keeper of sorts tells them both that when they find their true self they will be set free. The other witch runs off to find the mirror which contains her true self. Granny Weatherwax simply points down at her chest and says “This one’s real.” (or something similar, it’s been a while).

This so captures the idea of reflection to me, that reflections are powerful tools, but they aren’t the real us.

The photo captures this concept for me because the mirrors show twisted reflections (somehow I didn’t end up reflected in them either, which is amusing) and because they are surrounded by such glitz and glamor. Like I’ve been feeling lately, like I have to put forth this image of glam and perfection, or at least entertainment, but it’s not real. It’s barely even a small slice of my life that people even want to see. What they really want is the (to continue the metaphor, the mirrors are from a merry-go-round) ride and to lose their ownselves in it for just a few moments.

I think as a writer it’s easy to forget that the reflection is not really us and that the people around us, all of them, cannot help but to impress their own needs, emotions, experiences and fantasies on us. It’s very hard to hold onto your individualism in family life, and in life as a public artist (or a public person period).It’s very easy to try to live up to everyone else’s expectations and sacrifice your own, or to dwell too much on that moment of ride, or fantasy that you forget what the core of life really is.

This post is about the bad things, or at least the sad things, that many writers don’t ever talk about. No, I’m not maudlin at the moment, but being an author isn’t all sunshine and rainbow (or blood and guts, depending on what you write).

-It doesn’t stop being a fight.

You think it’s a fight to get words done and get submissions out and get an editors attention? This fight doesn’t magically stop when you’re published, it just shifts. Before you fight to get words in, but after that sale you might have contract, which legally binds you into delivering the next book on a set schedule. Yeah, lots of publishers are understanding, but writing isn’t about stolen snatches of time anymore, it’s about a second (or third) job. And you might be getting read now, but that also means everyone and their mother has the right to judge your books (and often they think they have the right to judge your life too, and many authors can tell you about the completely off base hate mail they’ve received because of a comment on a board, or a blog, Twitter, or just something from their book, or worse something someone told them about the book.) There’s also the Lost effect, where your book or range of work has wowed readers so much that they come to expect the utterly mind blowing from you, and eventually almost nothing you can do is as good as the “good old days” when your audience was experiencing your work for the first time. That’s not even getting into things like trying to promo, and watching your sales numbers.

-It gets lonelier the more successful you get.

It’s a really sad fact, but when you’re a newbie you can waste tons of time on message boards and blogs and writing sites, in crit groups and writing fan letters. You can openly talk about your insecurities and your small victories, your irritations and disappointments. Then you sell something and all of a sudden you’re an author, and a few things happen. (Oh, they will happen. In varying degrees, but they’ll happen.)

First, you’ll run into people who now want your time, your opinion and your help. Most will be nice about it. Some will be asshats and just demand it, often because they bought your book and think that means you owe them. But almost all had very little to no time for you, if they even knew you at all, before your big break (or little break).

Second, you’ll run into people who were friendly/your friend before. But if you aren’t at the same place in your career as them, or you are focused on meeting contracts or other obligations, you’ll become known as an elitist, too good to hang out with them anymore. Most will just let you go with some sadness (and believe me, you get a little sad too, when you don’t have the time to decompress and talk/vent). Some, however, will get angry at you, or bitter at your position (because success is relative, one book does not a career make). They might go so far as to demand something from you for supporting you and being your friend for so long, or they might get upset and furious because you aren’t submitting to the same places as them, and aren’t after the same kind of career as them. Unfortunately I’ve seen this be much worse in the small press and epresses, where there can be a strong attitude of loyalty, to the point of silliness, and you can be accused of all manner of things if you don’t submit solely to the small presses, blindly support every person you know who opens their own magazine. The truth is, some projects are meant for the small press. And some are meant for the large press. But in some heads loyalty doesn’t allow for that.

Third, you’ll run into people who don’t care. Which can be refreshing. Unless they don’t care because you’re not Dan Brown, so why should they give a damn about you.

Fourth, you’ll run into people who don’t see you as a person, but as a name who can give them a short cut. You’ll never be a person to these people, just a challenge and then either a conquest or a failure.

Fifth, you’ll run into fans (may the gods love them). They won’t always be fans of your work (Hi crazy “The Anita Blake books were written about me” lady!) but most will love just sharing their passion and knowledge with you. A few though will go too far. These are the “I’ve got a story idea you should write” (which I’ve already gotten a lot of and I’m only a baby writer), the “On page 46 you did this but what you should have done…” people, and the people who subsequently expect all your future work to be exactly like the book they fell in love with you over.

Some days you’ll long for the time when you were only trying to get editors to read your work, and those editors, at least, were professional to deal with.

- Working from home sucks ass.

Yeah, I can sleep in. Yeah I can write in my pajamas. But I also sit down to write and am interrupted by someone needing a ride, or a kiddo fight that needs to be broken up, a friend who has to be somewhere five minutes ago and needs me to watch their kid for a few hours until the other partner gets off work, the “I’m not going to make it in time, can you pick my kid up from school” person, the “why haven’t you blogged today” person, or the plumber, or the cable company or just some jerk teasing your dog outside. Jobs that you have to get up and go to are for a set time, and you know you’re supposed to be working during that time. Jobs at home become “Oh she’s just playing on the computer” or “She’s just reading and I’m bored, I’ll chat for a bit”. (By the way my career entails writing and reviewing, and my backlog pretty much means that even if I’m reading a book by an author I love I’m also reading it for review, and there are a dozen more waiting in line behind it. Which means reading IS still work, and DOES still need to get done, just like everything else on my to do list.)

In short, when you work from home you’re the one that’s always called upon to drop everything for other shit (true, it’s sometimes other important shit), and because the other people have set schedules and you don’t both other people and you yourself will say “Oh you can just work later tonight” or “while the kids are at school tomorrow”. Except the interruptions DON’T end, and you are just as likely to get asked to put off writing tomorrow during school time as you were today.

-You can’t be yourself anymore, you have to be “[Name] Professional Author” now.

As you get more of a following you will find yourself under more criticism for everything you do. Before when something angered you, you could make a vague reference about it to online friends, but now everyone and your mother are your Facebook friends, and not only will the person in question know you’re referring to them, but half a dozen other people will think you’re referring to them and send you mails about it.

Even if you’re just complaining in general about something (low paying markets, classic mash up novels, whatever) someone will think you are talking about them and react in kind. So you find yourself needing to be online, to have a presence and interact with established and potential readers, but you also find yourself completely incapable of actually being yourself anymore. You censor yourself, so as not to offend anyone. Then you get mad because you can’t speak your mind anymore, and because none of these people are really your friends if you can’t be yourself around them. And you want to choke on this teeth-baring sense of shut the fuck up and be nice to EVERYONE, when they are completely open to ripping your work apart, and making assumptions about your life based on what you chose to write about. Or you just pull back and stop interacting, at which point you’re elitist and disloyal to the fans who put you where you are.

- You forget why you started this.

Then you get wrapped up in all the things above, all the disappointments and frustrations and the natures of people. And you forget that this isn’t about the fan reaction. This isn’t about winning an award. This isn’t even about getting your next contract. You write because you love to. You love the words, the spinning of a plot, the slow reveal of characters. But all that get buried in publishing. It gets buried in your sales numbers, and dealing with people and you forget why you’re doing it, outside of the contracts, and the fan demand and the money.

So let me remind you; you’re doing it for the stories. For the process of putting words together and making them beautiful. You’re doing it for the nagging characters in your head that wouldn’t exist if you didn’t give them a voice. For the part of you that wants to know “What would happen if…” or even “Can I get away with…” You’re doing it for the amazement of how a line becomes a paragraph, becomes a page, becomes a chapter, becomes a book. Of how your own prose can still surprise you and grab you. Your doing it because you love it and you need to remember that, because there are times that all that bad stuff will overwhelm and disappoint you, and you fight back by knowing why you’re there in the first place.