Beating up the Common Sense Fairy - again.

This week, the Church of England managed to shock everyone who hadn't realised the institution was run by a bunch of misogynistic dinosaurs by rejecting the idea of allowing women bishops. In other news, apparently Saudi Arabia is now notifying male "guardians" when their women leave the country via a text message alert. It makes you wonder just why certain males are so terrified of acknowledging half the species as capable, functional human beings.

Since I'm lucky enough not to have been born and raised in a society which appears to give females slightly less rights than the average domestic animal, I'm going to concentrate on the first issue. It applies to the second, but since the only way to get someone that hysterically terrified of an empowered woman to listen to reason might require either a major miracle or a medical lobotomy, I'm going to leave that alone right now. It just slaps reason in the face repetitively until it gives up and sulks in the corner.

As for the CoE thing - well, apart from alienating any parishioners with ovaries and a functioning brain cell, as well as good many with testicles and a functioning brain cell - what, exactly, did this achieve?

An institution that begs and cries for support from the public, and beats its breast over waning support happily swapped its comfortable slippers for a pair of good strong boots, and kicked the Common Sense Fairy's teeth down her throat. Well done, there.

To be perfectly honest, the whole thing bores the hell out of me. Why? Because this should no longer be an argument. This should no longer be a debate of any sort for reasoning human beings.

It's the same stupid, condescending reasoning behind designing little pastel pens for us "dewicate wittle flowers", or special needs laptops because we can open the latch without spoiling our manicure - and ooooh, look, a scrap-booking app, because girls like that kind of stuff, right?

*crickets*

It's boring because by now it should be perfectly obvious that females are capable of functioning, and even talking in public without fainting on demand.

It's obvious because if you trust females to be teachers, nurses, doctors, pilots, sports players and journalists, not to mention CoE priests, why do you have an issue with a woman performing any other function on the planet?*

Why was this even a bloody debate/vote to start with? And what, exactly do women need to do to prove their worth as intellectual equals? Go into space? Been done. Play sports traditionally associated with males? Done that. Start their own successful business? Done that too. Run a country? Check. Fight for their country? Yep. Become serial killers? That's been done too.

Defining someones ability by their genitalia makes as much sense as allocating them jobs based on their zodiac sign. Just because some people believe in it, doesn't make it valid. It's about as smart as deciding someones worth based on their religion, race or sexuality, which shouldn't ever be tolerated or condoned.

Unfortunately bias almost always has its roots in fear. Now, I have no idea what the males in the CoE synod are afraid of, and I've never understood the threatened masculinity argument. (Check your pants, sunshine. If you have dangly bits you're probably male, and by definition masculine. It's not going to vanish if you clean a plate. I don't think they make dishwashing liquid that works that well.)

Is it an ego thing? Once again, not sure of the argument here. It's a pretty big planet. If our bodies still fit on it, the egos probably will too. All of them. Girls and boys.

There is no logical argument to exclude women. There is no logical argument for treating a female as a possession instead of a person, or a mentally deficient child that needs to be rewarded with pretty shiny things for dressing up and talking without dribbling down her chin. There is no logical argument for attempting to remove a woman's control over her body, thoughts or emotions. And yet it happens, day after day, all over the world.

Why? No idea. The Common Sense Fairy still has concussion, and couldn't give me an answer on this one.




*Arguing that a woman should know her place will result in me pointing at you and laughing. I know my place. It's anywhere I want to be, on my terms and in my time.

The little mugger that wasn't

So the Weekly Moment of Mortification was a bit different this time around.

I was walking from the tube station to work, and not paying as much attention to my surroundings as I should have. My body was stomping along the pavement, my ears were being treated to some pretty good old Queens of the Stone Age, and my mind was trying to catalogue everything I wanted to do when I got home from the office.

QOTSA gave way to The Killers, and I was absently humming along to it (as you do), when a large gloved hand descended in front of my face. (It's pretty easy for anyone's hand to do this to someone who is smaller than the average twelve year old. Just saying.)

My reaction? Raised back-fist to push the hand away, and pull my other hand round to punch my would-be mugger - who turned out to be our fairly new team-member, looking horrified and making squeaky "Nonononono!" noises. Ahem.

On the bright side, as I pointed out to him once he stopped dancing all over the pavement, I never actually touched him. I never threw the punch either, since I realised who it was almost immediately. (The other bright side would be that as he's over 5'10", and I make 5'3" by the skin of my docs, I'd have to be standing on a box to actually do severe facial damage. He didn't look convinced.)

I apologised for nearly smacking him, and advised him firmly never, ever, to do that again. He just looked confused, because he didn't understand why my first reaction was to get physically defensive. He's a really nice guy, and I didn't have the energy to explain the whole lone female on a street dynamic, because I think this is something I could tell him until I was blue in the face and he still probably wouldn't understand it.  Most nice guys wouldn't. In case any of you read this blog, this is why:

As a female walking alone on a street, you are always aware that you are vulnerable. It's not so bad in daylight, surrounded by people. After dark, unless you are cataclysmically inebriated or utterly stupid, you are hyper-aware of this. And even surrounded by people, you never lose that sense of vulnerability.
(If you really want to understand what this feels like, strap a couple raw steaks to your shirt and wander through any large group of dogs, cats, or carnivorous beastie. I don't recommend wild-life parks for this one though. I'm not trying to say males are like any of these, btw. I'm trying to say this how vulnerability feels. Alternatively, you could walk down your main street naked, which will get you arrested, but might get my point across without someone screaming about me comparing them to a beast.)

So when a very large, very male hand enters into your field of vision unexpectedly, obviously headed for your shoulder or neck, and you are a female walking by yourself, your first response is fear. That's it, in the simplest possible way.

My only concern was not letting that hand land on me; it was moving fast and I'm a small girl. You don't need to punch me to knock me off my feet; an open-handed slap would do just fine.  When you're looking up at a descending limb it's hard to discern the difference between a potential slap and someone waving to get your attention.
Quite a few women would have screamed at the top of their lungs when that hand appeared. (Personally, I prefer saving my breath for running like hell - which would have been the step immediately after delivering that punch I was winding up for.)

The thing is, I don't think that most guys can comprehend the fact that someone they know - a friend, a colleague, a relative - can ever be afraid of them. They might "get it" on a logical level, but when they tap a woman they know on the shoulder and she jumps, or shrieks a little, or steps sideways and raises her arms defensively, their reaction is puzzlement. Because its them, and they know you. Most guys don't go through life knowing that there is a portion of the population who sees them as prey, as easy pickings.
Most women never forget this, because forgetting it will get you hurt or killed.

So guys, here's a bit of advice: if you see a female friend by herself in the street, don't run up behind her and grab her arm or shoulder. Call her name. If she doesn't hear you, walk until you're in front of her, in her field of vision, and get her attention that way. The response is likely to be a lot friendlier.

The Industry That Ate Itself

There's been a lot of hysteria in both the standard media and all over the interwebz the last week or so about Authors Behaving Badly, or at least, Not Up To The Standard Distinguished Gentlefolk Should Maintain.

We had the John Locke issue, where it was revealed that the author paid for reviews. Shock! Horror! (Explanation for sarcasm slightly further down this post. Pace yourselves, folks, I'll get there.)

Stephen Leather came under fire for daring to thumb his nose at people who were doing the same to him, and using fake accounts to do so. The cheek of it! How dare he not simply bend over and ask for more KY? It's really not done, old boy.

And R.J. Ellory got busted leaving somewhat lavish reviews of his own books and firing what would appear to be small nuclear devices consisting of 1 star reviews at his competition. Out of the three, this one puzzled me the most, but let's look at them in order, shall we?

Locke paid for reviews. I have a couple of responses to the outrage over this one, and the first is: if you think that he is the only author ever to do so, I got a bridge I'd like to sell you. It's all purty and old and stuff. Londoner's have thrown up on it for several hundred years, but they cleaned it up for the Olympics so it smells a bit better than it used to.
Furthermore, if you think that standard publishers never paid for reviews, whether through advertising in the media that employed their reviewers, or by funding things, or even directly (book reviewers need to eat too; I'm fairly sure they don't eat the pages of books they dislike so real food is probably welcome), you've passed the world of naivety and shouldn't be allowed to play with any money that doesn't belong on a Monopoly board.

What Locke did, despite the howls of outrage blowing through the internet, makes sense from a business point of view, and what Locke is, before he ever decided to write, is a pretty successful businessman. It's also worth pointing out that he could afford to pay for these reviews, and a large amount of said howling comes from folks who cannot. (Personally, I looked at the price it's claimed he paid and just about choked. That's a whole bunch of coffee and rent money right there.)

About the only grumble I have is that he never offered it as full disclosure in the book he published about how he achieved his sales. That said, although the reviews might have helped him, I doubt they were 100% the reason for his success; folks read his books, liked them, and carried on buying his stuff.
Screaming about Locke's sales being unfair because he bought reviews is about as useful as a toddler sticking grapes up his nose. It makes you look stupid, and eventually it's going to hurt you.

As for Leather - dear internet, for the love of green cheese, grow up. That news is old. It's also been pretty much an open secret for years; there was chatter about him doing this before I published WolfSong, and that's going on almost two years now. And some of his chirps are pretty damn funny, but maybe that's just me.
Also, dear screaming indignant fans, you can't have it both ways. If an author responds to anything remotely negative, with anything no matter how polite, they'd have a slighter better life expectancy if you strapped a raw steak to their back and dropped them in a shark tank. They'd probably also having a slightly better quality of life at that point in time.

Unfortunately, since authors are not emotionless robots that only live on your bookshelf or in your kindle, and since most of them like other humans don't always have the maybe-I'd-better-not-do-that filter on permanently, sometimes they respond like humans. The danger of the mob-the-author mentality is that it gets to the point where authors cannot say or do anything that might be slightly controversial once they reach a certain visibility, and that is dangerous. That's the whole stick-em-under-the-stairs-so-respectable-folks-don't-see-em vibe that pushes all my alert buttons, and it needs to stop. Don't ask me how - humans sometimes seem very good at tearing others down, and then standing around shuffling their feet and wondering why they don't have anyone left to play with - and I have no idea how to change that mentality. I don't understand it, and all I can do is try to avoid it.

Then there's Ellory, and as I mentioned earlier, this one had me scratching my head a bit. He's not the first author to be busted this way, but he is one of the biggest. That's not what has me puzzled, though, as I mentioned on twitter last week. What does confuse me is this : where did he find the time to do this? And why did he do it?  This isn't the standard jealous indy author with an axe to grind - this is a respected, traditionally published, award winner author, with multiple books to his name. (M&S, eat your heart out.) I have no idea why he did this, and of the three, it's the only one that really irks me, because leaving nasty reviews simply to disrupt someone else's sales is a shoddy move. It's something I associate with people who think pulling the wings off of flies as being high entertainment. Leaving love-letters to ones self in the form of an Amazon review, while cringeworthy if caught is one thing. It's embarrassing, and the authorial equivalent to that scene from American Pie, but it's not quite as, well, dickish as trying to hurt fellow writers and being too cowardly to use your own name.

And for all my points on that, he is still entitled to free speech. The one star review system is abused by people with their own agenda on every site that uses it. I'm not saying what he did is nice, but he is as entitled to do so as everyone else. Case in point - there are now a couple of 1 star reviews against his books by people who posted them because of him being exposed. So what makes any 1 star vendetta more righteous than another? To me it just highlights the fact that review sites and the internet makes it very easy for mob wars to start, for people to be vindictive for whatever weird sense of satisfaction they get from being pretty dickish themselves.

But I really want to know how he found the time. Writing a review takes a bit of thought and effort. Writing multiple reviews using multiple accounts (at this point my mind always starts wailing "How? How do they set up multiple accounts when I can hardly get one to work? Whah!" and then goes and sulks in a corner) and jumping onto the forum boards using those same accounts? While still writing books and living life and getting awards and stuff? My only explanation is that he has access to a real-life version of the Tardis.

Dear Mr. Ellory:

I'd really, really, like to take a ride in your time-space bending machine. I  promise not to ding it too badly and will bring it back once I've sorted out the lottery and kicked my high-school nemesis in the soft parts.

Love,
Me.

The best part of the Olympics

The main Olympic games ends today - the Para-Olympics is just around the corner, and I always think it's a pity it doesn't get as much attention or funding - and I've been thinking about the best part of the games.

There were massive highlights:  Michael Phelps bowing out with the most Olympic medals any athlete has achieved; Chad le Clos taking gold from Phelps in the mind-blowing finish of the 200m butterfly, Usain Bolt loping home for gold in three separate races with the indolent grace of  a cheetah; Nicola Adams, Claressa Shields and Katie Taylor making history and taking gold in the women's boxing, Oscar Pistorius getting to the semis in the 400m. Mo Farah winning two golds and Jessica Ennis taking the Heptathlon gold.

There were moments of heartbreak too:  Shin A Lam weeping on the piste for 45 minutes after a time-keeping SNAFU of utter WTF proportions; Ntumba Silva being disqualified because his disgrace of a coach failed to check the stipulated weigh-in time, Tyson Gay missing a medal place by one one-hundredth of a second and unable to hide the tears.

But while those were highs and lows for both athletes and audience, they weren't the best part. The opening ceremony was great, and I'm pretty sure the closing will be too, but nope, not the best part of it. The best part was the spirit I saw displayed by athletes from around the world; the spirit that burned.

It showed when Phelps took le Clos round the pool as the new Olympic champion, both of them beaming at the audience. It showed when Kirani James switched his running bib with Pistorius after the semi, with James taking first place and Pistorius finishing last. It showed when what seemed like half the athletes in the games made it obvious that they supported Ye Shiwen over some very unfounded sour-grape like remarks made by various commentators and coaches. It showed when her fellow team members quite firmly put  a presenter in their place for moaning when Rebecca Adlington didn't achieve gold and obtained a bronze instead. It showed every time an athlete cheered for and congratulated their competitors, or commiserated with them after an event. It showed when they wept on the podium as their national anthem played.

Forget the politicians scrambling for sound-bites and making encouraging noises over sports (it might help if you'd - oh, I dunno - stop cutting the funding, maybe?), and the grand-standing in the media. Forget the pressure put on every competitor to do the almost impossible and win - this is a competition, and somebody has to lose - and the almost predictable back-lash when medals aren't obtained. Forget Boris dangling off a zip-line and the rabid howling of the tabloids and the sheer idiocy of the "plastic-brit" controversy.

These people shone. They burned with spirit, with determination, with sheer guts - Manteo Mitchell finished his section of the relay on a broken leg, which puts him into the realm of bad-ass of the year for me - and they lit up the events they were in with the sheer joy of it.

They were beautiful.

They were why we watched the Olympics.

*********************************************

J H Sked is the author of WolfSong , Basement Blues , Die Laughing , and Quarter the Moon  and a contributor to Sweet Dreams, all of which are on Amazon as ebooks.

How not to be a twit (Rant Alert)

I realised something earlier this week. Although I love twitter, and I'm on it a lot - not always posting, often just cruising around - I hardly ever look at my main feed any more.

The reason is pure and simple spam overload. Almost every tweet at a given time is pushing something - usually books, since I tend to follow a lot of other indie authors. They beg, they plead, they occasionally compare their writing to the Latest Big 6 Thang (which automatically puts it onto my DNR list, because odds are - nope, your writing is nothing like whatever the hell you claim to be better than). And it saddens me, because I've met some great people through twitter, and even some of them appear to have been replaced by marketing spam-bots. There is a special place in the seventh circle of hell for the inventors of spam-bots, and when I meet up with you in the after-life I intend roasting a marshmallow over you. Just saying.

I've tweeted links to my books - usually when they're free up on the kindle store, but I tweet the link maybe twice a day. To be totally honest, the last couple of times I forgot about it. The thing is, I love reading. But there isn't a hope in Hades of me clicking the link you just posted, and I'm going to list them here.

1) I'm usually broke. I scrape by month to month, and if I'm very lucky, when pay-day rolls around I have a few square quid in my pocket. I discover new authors usually be downloading a freebie, and if I like what I read, I will hunt down and happily pay for the next couple of books if my budget lets me. Anyone pricing their book at higher than £5 gets a fleeting look of regret, because I'm not willing to blow my budget on a single book when I can get two or more for the price of one. I never buy off a twitter link, and I've been on that site for over a year.

2) 99% percent of the authors tweeting only link to the Amazon.com book, which I can't download here in sunny London. It also means I can't even check out the full description or download the sample. Skip. Very rarely I'll remember to make a note of something recommended by someone else - usually not the author, and check it out once I've dragged my sorry butt home from work.  Most of the time, it's a case of get home and face-plant and pray for Friday so I can actually get some writing done on the weekend.

3) It. Annoys. The. Crap. Out. Of. Me. It annoys me because I check out everyone who follows to make sure they interact a bit with folks, and if all they do is promote, promote, promote, I don't follow back. I'm on twitter because I like to chat to folks, and jabber about everything from my latest fun experience with spiders to the evilness of the London transport system. So I have no idea how my feed is suddenly spam-city, but I look at it, growl, and jump over to my lists.

4) To add insult to injury, some of the folks on my lists appear to have fallen victim to the Great Spam-Bot Body Snatching experience, and all they bloody tweet is ...... links. To their books. No more interaction. No more jokes or chats. Just. Bloody. Spam.

6 months ago I'd scroll through my feed, catch up with a few folks and have a bit of a chat. Now, since I haven't updated my lists in a while, I have to hope and pray I remember their handle and search them up - and hope they haven't turned into the author-spam-bot from hell over night.

My response? Well, I haven't done a tweet about my books in a while, unless you count the last blog excerpt, and I'm seriously thinking about culling down my follow list. I have no issues with losing followers who spam me repeatedly, because all I really want is my old twitter feed back.

If you are an author, or blogger - I have no issue with you tweeting about it every now and then. We live in an on-line world where often the only way to get anyone to pay attention is the internet equivalent of flashing your boobs at the bar-tender to get served,  (yes, it works. Only on straight guys and bi-curious girls, though, and only the first time you do it. Be warned.) but be prepared for the back-lash if that is all you do. If you provide no more value to someone following you than the Duracell Bunny, you lose your voice. It gets skipped over in the sea of links, and screams of "Buy me! BUY MEEE!"  are becoming as annoying as the toddler kicking and screaming on the supermarket floor because nobody will give him the candy he wants.

Mix it up a little. Chat to people. If you get my attention that way, odds are I'll at the very least check your stuff out. I might not like it, and I might not buy it - but I'll still talk to you. And auto-DM's are just another form of spam that make me want to roll on the floor and bite the carpet; don't do that either. It puts you back in the boob-flashing/Duracell Bunny category, and trust me - there's no longer anything unique about either one of those.

    *********************************************

J H Sked is the author of WolfSong , Basement Blues , Die Laughing , and Quarter the Moon  and a contributor to Sweet Dreams, all of which are on Amazon as ebooks.

The Universe and Society vs Art

Weird things happen when you try to write part-time. I'm pretty sure they happen to full-time writers as well, but since I've never had that perspective, I can only talk about it from the other side of the road.

Sometimes it feels like the entire universe is hovering over you, waiting for the chance to punch you in the face. This usually happens when you've just recovered from the last serious issue, are back on track and writing again, and the birds are chirping and the sun is shining and your mind is in fluffy kitten and unicorn territory.

And it's often arbitrary things. Like the flu. Or the stomach bug I had last weekend that killed four or five writing days for me, because I couldn't look at a screen without whimpering and making gentle heaving motions. Travelling for work and forgetting your power-cord for the net-book, trying to write during your lunch hour and having everything commented on (loudly) in Spanish by some annoying female you don't even know but would dearly like to slap, being too scared to take the net-book in during torrential rain because if it fries you are screwed - and losing those five hours of writing you could have had for the week as a result. Saving your book and realising the next time you open your programme that you had a bug that has just wiped the entire frigging thing off the map, and your last back-up seems to have corrupted.

Sometimes it's not so arbitrary. The first Crescent book I wrote was destroyed by a jealous boyfriend who couldn't accept the fact that I wasn't cuddled up to him on the couch watching t.v. twenty-four seven and cooing adoringly when he opened another beer. This was back in the days when hard disks and floppy's still existed, and believe me when I say they did not stand up to being stamped by a fairly large bloke in work-boots.

That and a few other moments of trauma (not relationship related) meant it was years before I tried writing another book. I still played with short stories but full length stuff - nope. It took a good long while before I did that again.

But the thing is, eventually I did it. I stopped telling myself I couldn't do it, or it wasn't worth it, and I started another one. It was awful. Tried another. Oh, mummy. That one was bad. Start again.

I moved to London and started re-writing the last one, the one that didn't make me cringe too much when I put the disk in and had a re-read.

In the meantime I got a short published in a US fanzine, and pretty much did the happy dance for a year on that one.

Broke my leg. Six months of not being able to spell my own name, (I have no idea why anyone thinks drugs make you more creative. The stuff sure doesn't help me much, and I don't like feeling stupid. Then again, they were NHS strength pain-killers) let alone do any decent writing. Started re-writes again after that. In the meantime, I started a university course and work stepped up a notch when I was allowed back full-time.

The point is, real-life happens. A lot of writers - especially the folks doing this part-time - are also looking after kids, mortgages, and a whole bunch of real-life stuff I don't need to worry about. I have no idea how they manage, but they do. And every time - every single time - the universe bitch-slaps them, they get up and keep doing it. They keep writing.

And the reason this is amazing is because most folks, when you tell them you write, or that you want to write,  don't consider it a real job. The same applies to my musician friends, struggling artists, and actors that I've met.

It's a pretty weird attitude because every single one of those people - the ones that roll their eyes and make comments about you wanting to be the next J.K. Rowling (different audience, but frankly, I'd love her sales) or sweetly advise you that you'll never pay the bills doing it - every single one of them watch t.v. or movies, download music and rave fanatically about their favourite bands, or wait breathlessly for the next book in the series they HAVE to have. Every. Single. One. They all need entertainment, they all desperately want their chosen favourite to lift them away from their everyday life - but they don't consider it a real job. They don't think of it as work.

None of the folks who shake their head when I say I write would do that if I told them I was studying to be a plumber or electrician. They wouldn't tell a kid who dreams of being a footballer to get their head out of the clouds, or laugh at the older girl trying to get her nursing diploma part-time.
I'm not sure why, but I think it stems from the impression that art - all art - is something intangible, that it's created by gently rocking in a hammock while sipping a cold beer, and The Artist waves a little finger and Something Great is Created.
They don't realise that behind the guy on stage making that guitar walk and talk are years of frustration and bleeding fingers and lugging your gear into lousy bars and hoping nobody throws a full beer can at your head tonight. They don't realise that the artist selling their paints for £800 a pop spent three frigging years drawing rotting fruit in a stuffy classroom before they figured out how to see an apple properly, or the absolute ecstasy that came with that switch. The dancer with blood and torn corns in her ballet shoes, the actor that marches into an audition with a confident strut and smile and walks ten miles home because he can't afford the bus fare.The writer that pounds on a keyboard until her legs and fingers go numb because it's snowing and she can't afford to cover the heating bills so the furnace isn't on, and will go and thaw out under a pile of blankets and then write some more.

They don't know, and one of the reasons they don't know is because we sell them dreams. We sell moments of time that transport them and if we do it well, they never know the effort behind it. Because dreams break easily, folks. They splinter and crack like fine crystal in a deep freeze, and we know it, and we will move everything to make sure that doesn't happen. We wrap them in pretty shiny packages and we give them to someone else and hope that dream works for them, just for a little bit, because we can't stop dreaming. We can't stop producing. And that takes work.

I can't fix your plumbing, change your wiring, or perform open-heart surgery. But I can produce little dreams, little moments in time for you, and I will keep doing so. Even if I have to keep the day job.

                                                 *********************
J H Sked is the author of WolfSong , Basement Blues , Die Laughing , and Quarter the Moon  and a contributor to Sweet Dreams, all of which are on Amazon and enrolled in the Kindle lending programme. 

Moving the goalposts - why I don't like amending published work

I'm seeing an interesting trend now by authors to amending already published works. Not fixing spelling errors, punctuation or formatting (oy, formatting. So very much my weak point) but actually changing the story itself. Changing plot points, rewriting character arcs, in some cases changing the ending to something completely different.


Some of this has been in response to reader feedback. Some authors feel this is a good way of inter-acting with readers, and some of these readers agree. This was  bound to happen; in a world where you can publish - and unpublish - at the push of a button, the real surprise is that it didn't happen earlier. But I can't say I like it.

There's a couple of reasons for that, and to lay them out properly I'm going to come at from two perspectives, both as a reader and as a writer.

From a reading point of view, this would annoy the holy hell out of me. If I've invested time and energy (not to mention money) in a book, changing arcs, story lines, character behaviour and endings is going to flip out of that universe at the speed of sound. By all means release an expanded edition - King did this with the Stand, and I loved it - but don't mess with the story itself. It makes me feel cheated. It makes me wonder why the hell you published the first version to start with. If you don't believe enough in your world to hold to its inner core, the truth of the vision you initially put out there for the world to see, how can you expect me to this as a reader?

The books I love I really, really love. The books I enjoy I will come back to; it's rare for me to really like a book and never read it again. And if I come back to it and you've changed integral parts of the story line, you've destroyed that world for me. That's it. The trust I had in your world is gone, it's shattered, and not all the comments of "but this is better" is going to restore that. For one thing, it's condescending, for another, it's whiny, and lastly, a part of me will always feel that justifying what you wrote should remain in the precincts of school reports and keeping your teachers happy. I'm not your English professor.
The odds of me picking up another story from you? Nil. (And if you do this to me while I'm in the middle of the book - which recently happened - this Lil Constant Reader is going to go nuclear. 8 amended versions in 3 weeks. I no longer visit that site, and reminders from it go straight to my junk mail, with a muttered "bugger off" from yours truly.Ugh.)

From a writer's point of view, I can understand the wish to make it better and keep your customers happy. Guess what? There will never be 100% happiness from your readers/customers. Never. That only happens in very cheesy adverts.
There are parts of WolfSong I'd love to go back and re-do or eliminate all together. If I did that, I expect I'd get lynched by the people that read the book and liked it, and rightly so. I write a book, I polish it as best I can, and once the beta-reading and editing is done, it gets published. I've republished Wolfsong previously as edition two in an effort to eliminate formatting issues, but I made it very clear there were no changes to the story itself.

My paying customers are not beta-readers, and treating them as such in both unethical and rude. It's like handing someone a bowl of cornflakes, yanking it away just when they've gotten used to the taste, and replacing half of it with granola. Do that to a customer, and odds are you'll end up wearing a bowl of badly combined cereal on your head, with milk dripping slowly onto your shoulders. And if you're still wailing "But it's better!!!" at this point, you deserve all the karma you are going to get.

The other thing, purely from a practical view-point is - when do you stop writing the bloody thing? Once it's published, you need to move on. Move onto the next story, the next world, the next universe, otherwise you will still be re-writing the first book in thirty years, rocking gently and mumbling to your cats. If you need to rewrite, you need to do it before you push that publish button, because if you intend on rocking your readers world, you want to do it in a good way, not in an OMG if they change this frigging thing ONE MORE TIME kind of way. Your readers trust you to build them a world they can step into and enjoy with the security of knowing that world is fixed. Changing that world - breaking it apart and remaking it into something new - upsets its evolution, both for the reader and for the author. Make it interactive by all means - add pictures, links, and sound-files - make it entertaining, make it exciting, but most importantly, make it trustworthy.


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J H Sked is the author of WolfSong , Basement Blues , Die Laughing , and Quarter the Moon  and a contributor to Sweet Dreams , all of which are on Amazon and enrolled in the Kindle lending programme.

Having a social life and writing

It's been an interesting couple of weekends because I appear to be developing a *gasp* social life again. As in going out and meeting up with people and just being a person, not me the author or me the employee.

I made the decision some time ago that if I wanted any sort of writing career I needed to write. Since I work full-time, that means weekends and evenings are pretty much writing, editing, or doing book covers. I can't complain because I love it, but at the same time I think it's very easy to fall into the trap of just not meeting up with people and friends and living your life. I have a couple of Skype buddies (hey Jason & Tabs) who keep me sane, but actually leaving the house and meeting people doesn't happen often. I'm single, I don't have kids, and my immediate family are all very far away from me; I have nothing forcing me to interact with others.

So why is it even a problem? Being a writer means you need to write, doesn't it? The problem with it is simply that writing means being able to observe people, and interact with them - because if you don't do that, you turn into the funny old lady with 17 cats who talks to herself a lot, and can't write about people because you don't know any.

I stopped socialising after I broke my leg - 2 operations and 6 months stuck at home and learning to walk again. And then I think I used it as an excuse: I can't go back to kick-boxing, I can't dance until 4 in the morning any more, not unless I want to lurch like a reject from a Walking Dead shoot for the next three days and I can't run (unless there is a spider involved, at which point the laws of physics are temporarily suspended and I put Usain Bolt to shame). I spent another 8 months on a walking stick while the physio insisted I'd never walk properly again, and although I hated that little piece of polished wood and plastic, if my brother hadn't forced me into long walks and taking it away from me I'd probably have been on it even longer. Because a crutch is still a crutch, even when it's a walking stick I'm not sure he realises how much I love him for doing that.

I limped for a long time after the stick got tossed. I'd walk into a pub or restaurant and people would stare at me. When I wore shorts or a skirt I'd get a few comments, usually from some perky little twenty-something   who'd tell me she'd never dare to wear that with the scars I have. My response was to wear more skirts and shorts. Because honey, you probably wouldn't dare to live the life I have either, and if my scars bother you, don't bloody look at them.

But it obviously had an impact because I withdrew even more. I started an on-line university course and began writing in earnest, and now I really had the perfect excuse. Between study, work and writing, I had no time to think of anything else, let alone do it.

So what changed? A few things.The recession hit, and the vultures politicians decided to stop the cap on university fees. I was getting funded by work, so although concerned, I wasn't panicking. Then this year I got made redundant, then I got redeployed - but there is no more funding for a university degree. I've deferred it until September, but barring some sort of financial miracle, I guess I'll be giving up that dream. More free time equals more writing.

 The biggest impact  I think  was flying to Australia to see my brother, who is one of the most social creatures I know, and realising that I was struggling to communicate with people. Some of them I've known for years. I had no idea of how to hold a simple, easy conversation any more, and it was disturbing. It's no use tweeting your little heart out and chatting on the internet if you cannot function in a social setting. It's unhealthy, for one thing. If your ambition is to be a writer, I think it's downright dangerous.

So now, when someone contacts me and wants to get together, I don't make an excuse. I say yes and go out, and hopefully I don't put my foot in my mouth too many times. I think I'm getting to the point where I can talk to people without sounding like some sort of strange little stammering robot again, and if I haven't quite made it yet,  people have been gracious enough to ignore it.

Last weekend I had the lovely  Mhairi Simpson over (check out her blog regarding my household ghosties &  *ahem* performance issues) and tomorrow I meet up with Jason McIntyre (hopefully without having an absolute fan-girl *squee* moment, because that would be slightly embarrassing) for a cup of coffee. The main thing I've realised is simply - I need to get out of the house occasionally, I need to meet up with real people, not just chat on-line, and if the writing slows down slightly, that's preferable to me riding the mental health wagon over a cliff.

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J H Sked is the author of WolfSong, Basement Blues, Die Laughing, and Quarter the Moon and a contributor to Sweet Dreams, all of which are on Amazon and enrolled in the Kindle lending programme.

Thoughts on Father's Day

Father's Day is celebrated tomorrow, June 17th in the UK, SA, USA and Canada. For me, it's one of those bitter-sweet days, because I'll only get to speak to my dad over Skype. While it's way, way better than using the phone, or worse, not being able to speak to him at all, I'm always left wishing I could reach through the screen and hug him. I miss him terribly.

Dad and I have always been close. My mom likes to tell the story of what happened at the hospital when I was born.

Nurse : "I'm going to give her to the parent she'll take after."

Mom : (anticipating, stretches out arms)

Nurse hands me to dad.

Mom: "What?"

Nurse: "Trust me."

Mom: "Oh, dear." (Covers eyes) "Oh, god. Why?" Mom wanted a girlie-girl. Trust me, anyone taking after dad is NOT going to fall into that category. Sorry, ma. But it does explain the tree-climbing, animal-loving adrenaline-junkie side of me, and the utter refusal to be stuck in pink frilly dresses.

Dad: "She's beautiful!"

Me: *hiccup*

At this moment in the story, my mom usually stops, arches one eye-brow, and clears her throat. "That nurse was so right."

One of my earliest memories is of sitting on my bed clutching Peter the bear, (who was loved for years and terribly mourned when his stuffing fell out) while dad sat next to me, big hands guiding mine across the words on the page of a new book. Dad taught me how to read before I ever stepped foot in a classroom, determined that I wouldn't struggle the way he did.

I remember him drawing a cartoon dog for me, over and over. I thought it was pure magic, that a few quick strokes of a pen suddenly evolved into this happy, smiley dog with slobbery lips and a cocked ear. He never said he was too busy to do it, either, and every time he drew it I felt warm and loved and knew I had the best daddy on the planet.

Dad showed me how to kick a football, bath the dogs, change a light bulb and where the Southern Cross sits in the African night sky. He taught me that originality is better than following the beaten path, that laughter is better than tears, and he never stopped believing in me, even when I turned into the Teenager From Hell and gave that girl from The Exorcist a run for her money. He taught me ethics, and blunt honesty (sometimes a little too blunt, so diplomacy has been a late-learned skill of mine), and that there is beauty in mundane things we often overlook.

He still teaches me, by example, to live life : the day before his 70th birthday party, he hopped on the back of my brother's motorbike and went on an hour ride through Glasgow. He has never entered a swimming pool using the steps, preferring to jump, and he gets up most mornings between 5:30a.m. and 6. (On holiday in Australia he slept in until 7:30, and was horrified.) 

Dad getting kitted out for his bike ride. 

He can be infuriatingly stubborn, another trait I definitely got from him; it took three years or so before he admitted he needed a hearing aid. He took an unseemly delight in terrorising new boyfriends and first dates; he did the typical father-interrogation with such glee it was hard to stay mad at him for long, especially since he'd head straight to the kitchen afterwards and giggle to himself.

He has a strongly defined sense of personal honour and justice, and is known to colleagues (yep, he still works part-time - retirement nearly drove both my folks up the wall) for his work ethic. Overall, telling me I'm just like my dad is one of the biggest compliments you can give me.

So tomorrow, I get to realise - again - just how lucky I was to have this man as my dad. How utterly blessed I am in my family.

Happy Father's Day, daddy. I love you.

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Quarter the Moon is free all weekend as a Father's Day promotion. Go here for the Amazon.com  store and here for the Amazon.uk store links.

Indie v.s. Traditional - War of the Words

For anyone who doesn't know - which I imagine is 99% of anyone who doesn't write and publish or is somehow involved in that world - there's been a steadily escalating war between two camps for a while.

In Camp One, which I'll call the Trads, we have the traditionally published authors. Got at least one book deal, might or might not be in print yet, loves traditional publishing with all the validation and trappings that entails.

Over here, in Camp Two, we have the Indies. Self-published, usually through Amazon, often Smashwords, Nook, all the e-friendly stuff. Some of them making big money, most of them not so much, but still slogging away at it.

Some have crossed over, from one camp to another, and been branded traitors, sell-outs, and every other insult two warring groups can come up with.

Lets have a look at what the war is about, shall we?

Indies: I've decided to self-publish. I'm tired of getting rejections/not earning out my advance/simply want control over my cover/story/want to earn more than the percentage traditional publishers give me.
Trads: Indies suck! They have no quality control, can put up as many books as they want as fast as they can write them, and some of them earn more money! EVIL SWINE!!
Indies: You are mind-controlled by the Axis of Evil Publishing. Come, join us, before it's too late, and they start sacrificing your kittens! Also, some of us earn more money than you, nyah-nyah!
Trads: EVIL! EVIL! You have no SOUL!
Indies: MINDLESS! MINDLESS! Here, have a banana.
Trads: AAAARGGHHH!! Bring me the head of Joe Konrath!
Indies: WE LOVE JOE KONRATH! WE WILL FIGHT TO THE DEATH!
Joe: Here, have a banana.

See the problem here is both sides seem to have embraced their method of publishing the way certain religious sects embrace their holy texts. If you aren't doing it my way, you're hell-bound. This is so ultimately and fundamentally stupid that for me, it's gone past interesting into the realms of black comedy.

Traditional publishing undoubtedly works for a number of authors. Nothing wrong with that; the same way self-publishing works for others. There are more than a few combining the two as well. So why, in the name of Stephen King's striped pyjama's are authors - any authors - taking time to throw mud at each other?

Why is it so important to you that someone several thousand miles away chooses to switch to traditional? Why the gasps of horror when a traditional author decides to self-publish? I follow Joe Konrath's blog because the man makes good sense and gives damn good advice on the self-publishing route, and I self-publish. I also follow a couple of traditional agents and writers, because the advice on quality and writing is the same no matter which route you go.

The saddest thing about this little war, which is tip-toeing out of mud-slinging and sneaking into even nastier territory, is that readers don't care.

Readers want books. They want good take-me-out-of-this-crappy-commute stories, or let-me-leave-my-boring-life-for-an-hour-adventure stories. Some of them don't buy Indies, because they think the quality sucks. Some of them only buy Indies, because they like the fact that a lot of those writers push boundaries in a way they couldn't with traditional publishing. They don't care that Author A thinks Author B is a soul-less architect of evil, or that Author B thinks Author A should put their big-boy pants on and take a chance, and why should they? All they care about is that when they open that book, or push the next page button on their e-reader, the story takes them away for how ever long they read for.

Put the mud-pies down and write, guys. That's all your readers want.