Entitlement, impunity (and other kicks and giggles of the digital age)

Temperature: a sunny 18/64.4 degrees. It was 21/70 degrees on Friday. So, more like June than the end of September.

Eating: apple pie.

Drinking: This year's Blossa is out, but I'm holding out until the temps go down before giving it a try.

Listening: to Keane play in my head... And if you have a minute why don't we go / Talk about it somewhere only we know?... Yeah, why not, somewhere more private than...all this.

Watching: Season three of Sanditon. That's more like it.

Reading: Just finished The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel, and I can't stop thinking about parallels with genocides taking place right now.

Writing: back and forth with friends and colleagues trying to gather steam, info and evidence to go after AI companies. Turns out we've been feeding the Behemoth, providing both original and translated material. Without consent, compensation, or credit of any kind. The fruits of our labor, our creativity, our imagination, have been hijacked and appropriated by pirates audaciously plagiarizing the internet. Public domain is one thing, but these looters have helped themselves to the intellectual property of others. Because they can. Because who's gonna stop them? Because it's the internet. But machines and their applications don't have agency, autonomy, or rights, so asking whether it's okay for AI to hoover the internet is the wrong question and lets the companies behind them off the hook. Companies run the internet. People run these companies.

Thinking: Is this right? Fair? No, just another demoralizing, infuriating thing creatives have to contend with. Many of us are puzzling over a paradox: every additional word/photo/post/illustration etc. only expedites our extinction. So what do we do? Clam up? Would that help? Should we stop feeding the freebooters, enriching these thieves who take and take and take? And yes we do understand and acknowledge that the arts have always been a carousel of influences and imitation, mirrors, echoes and mimicking, reflections, variations, extensions, extrapolations...but this is something else. These are our words, our pictures, our creations sucked into a machine, munched up and spat out at the other end, and passed off as someone else's product and idea to monetize. (And yes, it makes you take a good hard look at your own practices, past/present/future.) Regulate, or let these companies run rampant. Regulate, or they will keep reaping the profits while letting the rest of us to suffer and foot the bill for any damage done to critical thinking, deep reading, education, democracy, equality and the economy. In other related news, and speaking of moula, some really will do anything for a fee. Since it's not real but a fantasy (their take, not mine), gentlemen, in the spirit of innocent fun and good times had by all involved, I offer you a challenge. I challenge you to deepfake yourself into a SAW movie. You pick which one. You don't get to play Jigsaw or his apprentices, you get to play the victim; all the victims. Why SAW? Why not? It's all make-believe, right? No harm, no foul. [So. Contrary to the current understanding of the human brain and physiology, you have found an audiovisual medium that elicits zero emotions or reactions and is thus completely harmless to the psyche. By god, you're gonna win a Nobel with that one.] Come now, we're all adults here (apart from those who are not); if you can dish it out, you ought to be able to take it.

Feeling: Sweet baby Jesus, you tire me out, the lot of you. Good thing I'm a woman of a (from a? both) certain age meaning a woman of a certain rage; it's really energizing! Zero eagerness to please, follow paths, or be universally liked is quite liberating, and not much of a transition then, mentally, that is. More time on my hands now that the boys are young men, more powers of attention and concentration than most of my juniors possess, more life experience, patience and perspective. That's like the whole package right there, you scoff and snicker, eh? It sure is, innit, a package abrim with advantages, and a biliterate brain on top. Game on, gentlemen. Game on.

[This post was written by a living, breathing, thinking, feeling, bleeding, seething, empathetic human being, not a robot, algorithm, or artificial entity of any sort. If you're an employer/employee/entrepreneur diving headfirst into these waters, giddy with all your new assistant/time-saver/content and value creator can do for you, please remember that what you're consuming may, in part at least, be stolen goods. Hell yes, I'm angry. Aren't you?]

We had a deal

Finished watching Sanditon. If you haven’t seen it but intend to, stop reading now. If you don’t mind major spoilers, as in let me tell you how it ends, here goes: the heroine in tears, the hero all apologies, and the viewer aghast. I took a deep breath, then another, then mad-dashed online for information on season two. There is none. I mean there is info, and it says there is no season two. By which time you start doing the math (how many hours did I invest in this), and looking to contact Andrew Davies (oh, numerous viewers have already skewered him on Twitter), because WTF.

Mr. Davies, you have some explaining to do, and it better be good. You took upon yourself to write an Austen. A 21st century Austen, granted, but fiction of a certain genre. And certain genres come with certain expectations, and when you decide to trample on people’s expectations, they will have questions. Did you take a gamble, certain there would be a second season? If there was no such certainty, why not just make a miniseries satisfactory to all? A broad story arch is all fine and dandy, but you can’t end an Austen like you did. The arch is missing a whole lot of story. And a happy ending

And so, we are not happy with the ROI. Yes, investment. Genres are deals. Going into one, you know where you are headed. You expect to get there. That’s the deal. If you want to be surprised, you know to take another bus, one that takes you…where exactly, you don’t know. That’s the point. Poetry is the only exception, at least in my view. Poetry doesn’t have to be or do anything. No rules, expectations or limitations. If it’s a bus, it has wings instead of wheels, and there is no telling where it will take you. That’s the drill and the thrill.

Mr. Davies, you owe Charlotte a happy ending. You owe the viewers a happy ending. We are Charlotte, teary-eyed and disillusioned. You are Sidney, so very sorry it had to be this way. Now pull a Lady Susan Ex Machina, as I thought you would, to leave us with some hope of the bus turning around and getting us where we thought we’d go.

Now praise we great and famous men

At the Oscars. Again. Again and again. Over and over.

"Let us make a list of nominees in our image, after our likeness, to rule over gender, racial and ethnic minorities, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls through the doors of a movie theater."

The AMPAS needs an enema. Because this stinks to high heaven.

Things we lost in the fire

So. By now you're probably well aware of recent events re: EC, a situation that has gone from baffling to loaded to see you in court. If not, click on, there's nothing for you here, because, to quote Elton John, it's sad, so sad, it's a sad, sad situation, and it's getting more and more absurd.

Reaction/consequence recap: Countless readers have vowed to stop buying EC titles and several reviewers and/or bloggers have said they won't touch EC releases, past or present. Some authors have asked readers to stop buying their books in fear they'll never see the money and/or in hopes they'll soon be eligible for reversal of rights. Some have never had a problem with EC but are now caught in the crossfire. Many need every writing dollar, euro and pound and are horrified by the imminence of flatlining sales. Some have new releases coming out, books they started waaay before all of this started but works that will be DOA. Spectators are popping corn because if you can't laugh you'll cry but this ain't funny. Just business?

As if having to contend with pirates wasn't bad enough. Or trying to figure out Amazon, the effects of the adult filter, e-book return policy, KU and the new imprints they're rolling out. Distributor turned publisher. Now there's a hat that doesn't quite match the outfit. When you're in the business of making money for stockholders, preferably on your terms, terms that give you the winning edge, you don't do the competition any favors, you do everything in your power to hold on to those terms and that edge, for as long as you can. Knavish? Just business.

The current keeps getting stronger and many authors are tired of swimming in it, against it. Some will scramble to shore, some drown. I wouldn't be surprised if even those who've vowed to never-ever ended up self-publishing, going indie, because they feel they have nothing to lose. Many who've asked for their rights back see this as an opportunity to start afresh. A lot of talent up for grabs, except some of that talent is very wary. Live and learn. Read the small print. Twice. Third time between the lines with a lawyer. Sleep on it. Sleep some more. Then possibly say thanks for the offer, no thanks just the same. Once bitten and all that. Whom to trust?

Some say this is killing their concentration, their writing mojo. Our craft, our business, our livelihood, is writing. That's what we'd like to focus on. Not to make light of Miss Litte's plight. Like I said, this ain't funny. None of it is, to any of us. Some lose sleep. Their peace of mind. Income. Editors. Readers. Books. Traction. Faith. Some feel like crying. Like crawling under a rock and dying. Taken for a ride then thrown under the bus at the end of it. Victimized? More like collateral damage as someone put it. Powerless, like a pawn. A lot of frustration in the air but above all else, above everything else, a deep heartfelt sadness. All the hours, all the hard work put into books, the passion and dedication... What's going on? When will this be resolved and how? Whom to trust?

We have genuine concerns. We've asked fairly simple questions. If the answer is awkward or complicated, if it's a hard pill to swallow to either the publisher (any publisher/distributor/vendor/party in this joint venture of ours) or to us, whatever the solution or the answer, we'd like to have it all the same. Writing is our passion, absolutely. It's also our profession, so let's keep things professional, doing business. Truthful answers delivered in a timely and professional manner. Facts and acts to match. Thank you. That is all.

What can you do? Your money, your choice. You can always keep track of and keep in touch with your favorite authors. Listen closely to what they're saying and if you really want to help act accordingly. Many of us are hurting, trying to make sense of it all, trying to make plans, which isn't easy when you feel you don't have all the facts and you can't see the endgame, only speculate. Some just don't care anymore and are lashing out and that's the depth of their despair right there, how bad it's gotten for them. I won't judge and I can hardly blame them, they didn't start the fire. All of us will suffer the consequences of a wide variety of ever-gathering actions and reactions coming in from all sides. What a business.

What am I going to do? I'm going to take the kids to BJJ and then I'm going to work out until I taste blood. My meditation. My medication. I just took a trip to secure more work so wish me luck, although luck has nothing to do with getting the job. Being good at what you do, improving your skills i.e. your odds, that's what it's all about. Blood, sweat and tears? Like nobody's business.

P.S. Things I've learned working with/for people around the world:

Have a problem? Fix it.
Made a mistake? Admit it.
Spoke too hastily, too harshly? Apologize.
Never toy with people's trust. Never play with their money.
Respect and goodwill once lost is often lost forever.
Cause and effect. In that order. Don't get confused.
For every action there's a consequence. The same applies to non-action.
Don't let temporary become permanent.
There's no stopping a setting sun. Doesn't mean it won't rise again tomorrow. 

Too cut-and-dried? That's business.

Mala fide

Temperature: on the rise

Eating: can't, there's a bad taste in my mouth

 

Drinking: my last cup of sorrow regarding a professional/business matter. Enough.

Watching: nature put on a summer dress, how beautiful she looks

Listening: to life roar every time I step out, what a lovely sound

Reading: something that made me want to tell someone to go sit in a corner and think about what they did while I go sit in mine and think about what to do next because this...this is...just... Enough already.

 

Writing: back in the politest of terms telling them I've been patient, I've been reasonable and I've been understanding and that I'm at the end of my rope, when what I really want to do is scream at the top of my lungs. “Enough already.” Seriously. Enough is enough.

Feeling: on the ropes, sweetie darlings. Sorry to sound so negative, I try to focus on the positive, summer's coming and a proper vacation and travels and adventures, but if you only knew.

Many a little makes a mickle

Temperature: a rainy 8/46 degrees

Eating: what's left of that Saturday night of sheer delight, see below

Drinking: not for a while, had too much fun and way too many cocktails just the other night with a couple of couples we invited over for dinner

Watching: The Wind Rises and Rio 2 with or without the wee ones real soon

Listening: to the poetic soul of Anthony Joseph

Reading: another disheartening blog post on the price of piracy

 

Writing: wrote a round of takedown requests just the other week thinking fuck you very much, even visited a forum where users thanked one another for sharing Alex, a book they could have bought for $0.99. You can imagine what my share of those ninety-nine cents is. And so you probably imagine I won't miss those cents. But those cents add up. Ten books here, thirty-four there, another one hundred and twenty some place else. Many places. Way too many places.

Support authors. If you like it, buy it, the slogan on that forum read. In that order. As if they were doing us a favor. I felt sick inside. So damn sick and tired and I know what you're thinking, “Don't go there. Why did you go there? Why do this to yourself?” Look at that pic on Denysé's blog. Look at that royalty check. I'm still waiting for mine, hoping for the best, expecting the worst. That's why. You want to make sense of things. Am I really that hopeless? Are my books really that bad? Sales have plummeted, books tank, so you wanna know why and what's wrong because how the hell else will you be able to fix things. But how do you fix this? How do you make it better?

Any suggestions? Anybody? And don't say just ignore 'em. Some authors do. Most can't. They feel that's like giving permission. Like a shopkeeper turning a blind eye to shoplifting as long as someone buys something, but when they steal more than you sell... That's not what you'd call a sustainable business model, is it? And if you are to treat writing as a business you have to take these things into account so it is kinda hard to just ignore it and it's becoming ever harder for many of us to justify our profession, business-wise, you know. Working for free is not a vocation (except for the very wealthy, which for the most part authors aren't), it's volunteering.

Feeling: I want to write as Dita too. But do I want to feel like this every time I do? Mad, sad, bad? Is that why I've navigated toward other shores? Not just because I got mouths to feed and bills to pay and talents I want to put to good use but because of the emotional toll Romantica has taken? So I come out as the strong and stoic type. I'm much more sensitive and vulnerable than you'll ever know. All authors, all artists are. We have to be or else we lose connection with the world and ourselves, with the tangible and the invisible, with everything we feel so keenly and love so dearly and try so desperately to put down in words. Do you understand what I'm saying? Can you sympathize?

Authors don't necessarily need a publisher. They need a good editor and maybe an agent and even a lawyer. Readers? Do authors need readers to write happily ever after? Some are starting to think that they don't. That if there's no money, no future in writing for publication i.e. the reading public, then what the hell are they doing pissing in the wind? Writing makes them happy. The business end of things makes them miserable. Cut the business end of things and go back to being happy. Problem solved.

I kid you not, folks, that is how some of us feel, and I will never ever forgive those making things so damn hard for all of us if some of my favorite authors go back to writing for the desk drawer. Put that in your pirate pipe and smoke it. If you can get your hands on it. Which you won't be able to because it will be hidden away with all the other precious things in their life and if you'd shown some respect when you had the chance maybe we'd still be enjoying the fruits of their labor. I dread the day but it's coming. For some of us, it's just a matter of deciding today's the day. You think working on a dream is hard. It's nothing and I mean nothing compared to giving up.

Support authors. Buy a book. If you like it, buy another. My heartfelt thanks to all readers who do.

Hey brother

Lances at the ready, gentlemen, I'mma climbing on a high horse. Cue groans oh gawd it was such a lovely day what now? International Women's Day! Yes, I know, but I was kinda busy on Saturday, and this year's theme stands every day of the week/month/year. Equality for women is progress for all.

You gotta wonder sometimes, and gents please don't charge before I've had my say and please please don't take offense because I do not mean every man on the planet, but are men stupid or something? You really want to shoulder the burden, financial, political, enter areas of overrepresentation here, on your own? Like really really? Because women sure feel that way sometimes, that you're making life unnecessarily hard for yourselves keeping your own counsel, upholding your old boys' clubs, anti-social networks closing the door on fully capable, willing and able women, people differentiated by the fact that their breasts tend to be bigger than yours.

Considering that our breasts have nothing to do with our brains, they sure play a big and baffling part in the oddest of times and places. The same goes for other discriminating factors. Irrelevant. At least they should be. So don't go there. With your eyes, or your hands. Your thoughts? Keep them to yourselves if you're with Camp Chauvinist. And go camp somewhere else. It's 2014 for crying out loud but you wouldn't believe it reading the Everyday Sexism Project stories and suchlike.

I have one, every woman does, starring that part of the female anatomy that makes many a man stir and stare and many a woman insecure for life. This was way back when I had hardly anything to make you stare or stir, a time when I didn't know if I liked what I saw or what I would be seeing in a year or two, but there they were. Now. Picture a bus with many school girls, young and a bit older, on board. Along comes a gang of three boys, 17 to 19-year-olds, about to play a game as they make their way to the back: breast spotting. Breast spotting with running commentary.

I had plenty of time to realize what they were doing. Plenty of time to watch their faces, see those smirks, listen to their lewd remarks and laughter, hear other girls hiss and curse. Time to wish I was someone else, somewhere else. I intended to look away, pretend I saw or heard nothing, brush it off with indifference. I ended up looking the boy who stopped in front of me straight in the eye.

Big mistake. I still remember what he looked like and I still remember what he said, but I was thirteen years old and I hated them, those boys I didn't know and never saw again with the fire of a thirteen-year-old, and that makes the whole episode that much harder to forget. To them it was just a stupid game. To the girls in that bus they were just stupid period. But when the games and comments start piling up some girls really do stop listening and some girls stop talking and some girls stop believing they'll ever meet a decent guy and if they do he's probably just pretending or a recovering asshole about to relapse and who wants that, you know.

I'm not kidding, gentlemen. I kid you not, I've held a girl's hand, tried to talk her out of giving up on you, told her there are plenty of good men out there because I knew there were, just you wait and see. So for the love of all that is holy please don't make your life unnecessarily hard, okay. Don't be an insensitive jerk. It's 2014 for crying out loud meaning you're very much at risk of being on the receiving end, the punch line of a sexist joke and who wants that, but what goes around comes around, you know. Or as a former card-carrying playboy now a father of three girls put it: "Poetic justice much?" I wonder what he'll teach his daughters about men, what he'll tell them about his wild days and ways.

Many women have turned feminists, and I mean hardcore, card-carrying feminists, after breaching the gates of power or breaking through the glass ceiling only to be confronted by some card-carrying chauvinist questioning her every move and word. Many men have turned feminists, and I mean hardcore, deeply concerned feminists, upon the birth of a daughter. They look at the world through the eyes of a woman and don't always like what they see. They know what kind of boys their girls will face along the way because they've met them all, maybe even been one of the worst kind once, and there's nothing they can do about it now but be responsible, empathetic role models not just for their daughters but their sons as well.

I know men who wish women ruled the world. I know women who wish we did. Most people I know just wish we could get on with the business of living and loving without having to hide or exploit or abuse or excuse or resist or explain our own sex, or the opposite one. Making a power struggle of it is a monumental waste of time and resources and we're kind of running out of both on this planet so...truce?

Empowering your sisters benefits all you misters. There's nothing in this world we wouldn't do for you. You've capitalized on that. There's nothing in this world we can't do. Why not capitalize on that too.

All yours,

D.

All hands on deck

I know it's Friday and you're gearing up for a fun night and a funtastic weekend but it's also International Day of the Girl Child so could you do me a favor and lend me a hand in support of girls' right to quality education?

Thank you! Love you!!

Here's how:

Sign the petition

Raise your hand using Facebook

Or tweet a picture of you and/or your friends raising hands, just please make sure you add the hashtag #bcimagirl

Why should you care if some girl you don't know can't go to school or some woman you'll never meet can't work? In this economy, global, connected, skewed, screwed, can we really afford not to educate girls and employ women?

He-men and gentlemen, women are more than happy to carry their own weight, share the burden. We don't consider it your responsibility or right to act, speak or choose on our behalf so why do you? We're here to help. So let us. All of us. Each according to their talents. Can we really afford to waste a single pair of capable hands?

Halloween dress down

Looking to dress up this Halloween, thinking about something naughty? This is what the ladies have to choose from, just to flash a few: 

 

 

 

 

If you insist on going out half-naked in this weather, you can't go wrong with these items, now available at Netpinky.

And for the gents (and decidedly not available at Netpinky):

Hmm. There's naughty and then there's naughty and there's something wrong with this picture. I think I'll keep my clothes on until I can figure out what it is. Until then, have a fun Halloween and a fantastic week, sweetie darlings!

Wow

I just lost today's blog post. The whole post. Wow. A whole morning's worth of writing. I was working on the draft I had saved (in Blogger), I was going to add some links at the end of my post, and managed to delete the whole post, and before I could go back to the draft, Blogger kindly saved the changes for me, i.e. the blank page, which is all I have left of today's blog post on the invention of the vibrator. The title and a blank page. Wow.

I'm going to scream now. And then I'm going to go kill the heavy bag. Cry in the shower. Have some lunch. Take out all my notes and start over. I'm sorry your trip here was wasted. I'm an idiot. Id-i-ot. Come back tomorrow, you hear. This week's Frisky Friday just turned into a Smexy Saturday.

Zen and the art of car maintenance

Do anything interesting this weekend, dearest denizens? I spent quality time with my hot man from the cold installing winter tires. We're getting pretty fast at it. A couple of years from now we'll be ready to hit the NASCAR and Formula 1 circuit. What? It's not rocket science, just nuts and bolts. Two cars twice a year, a collaboration between husband, wife and proper tools, semiautomatic chores that free the mind for thinking and talking.

I don't know how much *quality* quality time we spend together, as the concept is generally understood. It makes every other moment sound somehow subpar when I rather enjoy those mundane moments of working together, side by side, doing things as a couple or as a family. "Nothing special" can be just as fun and meaningful as the Kodak moments, even more so. Look back on the moments you remember best and cherish most. Pretty ordinary things you did with friends and family? Yes? No? Wouldn't know, wasn't there?

Maybe Hubby and I are just lucky to enjoy each other's company so much. Or maybe we're clueless, so horribly settled that's all we know, but what I do know is daily life doesn't stress me out, it's a sanctuary. It's the outer world that has been driving me nuts lately, sweetie darlings. Bullying, bigotry, anti this and anti that. It makes me feel three hundred years old, as if no progress has been made, always two steps up and two steps back. I know it's not true. I know it's only my own frustration talking, but when someone starts talking about the True, Obvious, Natural Order of Things as ordained by this and that and the other... It makes me want to scream.

On a cerebral level, I can't help but admire such single-mindedness. On a purely amygdalaic one... You know you make me wanna/Shout/Kick my heels up and/Shout/Throw my hands up and/Shout/Throw my head back and/Shout! It's the stuff fundamentalism is made of. I grant you it is a rock, a solid foundation, on which to stand on. But on that bedrock stands a fortress of a fellow man unwilling to rethink or review. Between us stands a wall, the you're-either-with-me-or-against-me mentality.

I'm not with you, nor am I against you. I don't plot your demise or dream of revenge. [But when I'm Queen Sovereign of the Known Universe, you're first up for post-conflict exit counseling.] I hope for a higher common ground, a human league where everyone stands on the same footing, free and equal in dignity and rights, regardless.

So I scale that wall to see if you're still there and, sure enough, you always are. You retreat behind a monumental righteousness I could never take on because I'm not the Rock of bloody Gibraltar nor do I stand on one. What I do stand behind is the belief equal rights are human rights and everything else is unnatural selection. In that sense I'm as bad a monomaniac as you are.

The disowning, negating, dehumanizing, the rhetoric that sounds as old as it sometimes makes me feel...  It drives me up the Cliffs of Insanity, down the Pit of Despair. And then I remember slavery is almost gone, women's suffrage has mostly been won. Things have changed. They can only get better. With time, with patience, with small daily measures and grand gestures alike.

I bid you good night, dearest denizens. I bid these times good riddance.