Tag Archives: Twitter

Writerly Web Sites

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So the last time, I focused on sites that helped with the craft of writing, namely editing. Today, I am going to give you a few sites to help with some other things.

First up is David P. Vandagriff‘s Contract Counsel page. He also writes the Passive Voice blog and tweets as Passive guy. Passive guy has breaking news on the business and legal aspects of the writerly life. Both pages that he maintains has a wealth of information about the business of writing. Because, like me, I am assuming that writing is not something being done for the fun of it or as a when I think about it kind of hobby. But rather, because writing AND making some money is the goal. So while I know that it might be more pleasant to focus on the art aspect of writing, don’t do that at the expense of the business of writing. Stay abreast of current happenings. You’ll be glad you did. Plus, if you are unagented and get a big 6 5 publishing contract, he has rates for having a professional look it over for you. Always a good thing.

Next up is Stephie Smith‘s contest chart. Yes, that’s right- contests. At some point, you will need or want or be encouraged to enter your writing in a contest to pitch it in battle against other writerly types. Seriously. Even if you don’t like competition, writing as a business is ALL about competing. When you submit to an agent, you are competing. When an agent or you submits to a publisher, you are competing. When your books get released into the world wide marketplace, you are competing. So take this shit seriously. And along the way, enter a few contests. Not only does this help develop you as a writer- it really does, it also gets your writing much needed exposure. Maybe a few of the judges in the competition see your work. Never hurts. Especially if you are unagented and the judge is from a house that only accepts agented work. This gets your writing which would have never crossed their desk in front of them. And if you win? Sheesh, accolades are never a bad thing.

Last but not least, boys and girls, are writer conferences, retreats and workshops. Stacey O’Neale has a list on her site. It is by no means a comprehensive list. Locus has a conference list and there are several other sites that list lots of these go and learn some crap events. Going to these events serves several purposes. First, there is the networking aspect. You get to meet a lot of people you normally wouldn’t have ever met if you’d stayed in your writing bat cave. Second, you might actually learn some new shit about writing. No one knows everything about how to be a great writer. No one. You can always learn something whether it is an advanced class or a beginners class. Even if you think you already do it correctly, go take an entry level class to reaffirm you are the shit. Or it might show you a new way of doing old shit. And last, writing is about what’s happening IN THE WORLD. Get out from behind your computer and/or desk and go experience some shit so you can incorporate that shit into some new writing. Seriously.

Plagiarism

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So there was a big brouhaha this past weekend when Lorelei James found out that @AlisonGilmore had ripped off her entire book and put it up as her fanfic and then to a blog. AlisonGilmore claimed she was writing the book chapter by chapter. She wasn’t. She was and is a thief of the highest order. She ripped off someone else’s work and claimed it as her own. There was a huge internet smack down. HUGE. Like by several people all getting into the act and it brought her blog pages down and she ended up shutting off her twitter account. She now has a new twitter account and has made it private. Only the internet isn’t “private.” Not at all. The internet is very public and is forever.

Limecello posted a blog about the internet takedown.  As did Rilzy on her blog. They both have several pictures of the images capturing the twitter logs and the blog and the subsequent takedown. They have a, forever on the internet for all time and for anyone to see and read,  blog entry about the blatant plagiarism AlisonGilmore engaged in when she ripped off Lorelei’s book. The book was ALL JACKED UP.

Plagiarist aren’t new. They are the necessary evil when you are an award winning author. Only the internet makes it so much easier to find them and ferret them out. Like ridiculously easy. Almost as easy as it makes for someone to do the ripping off. So the internet is both a sword and a shield. It cuts and protects all at the same time.

What it can’t do is make stupid people smarter. Or people who can’t write, write. And that’s what it boils down to. Plagiarist are inherently lazy, stupid and weak. No talent is involved when you steal someone’s ideas and storylines. Word for frickin’ word.

AlisonGilmore sent a tweet that said in effect- writing romance, erotic romance and erotica is for talentless dweebs. I won’t go into why writing GOOD smex is hard- almost as hard as writing comedy. But what I will go into is my response to AlisonGilmore’s talentless dweeb comments. My tweet is below. I bolded what I wrote in response to her tweet. What I wrote is true. And it was a kick-ass response to her assertions.

 

D.R. Slaten ‏@DRSlaten 14 Jun

Plagiarism is for people who can’t think. @laurahunsaker @megantgrimm @loreleijames smut is for people who can’t write.

Random Thoughts Part 6

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Why is it when you have guests in your home, your home doesn’t feel like your home anymore? It feels like you are the one on vacation and you’re in a strange location. Don’t get me wrong, I like having guests. It brings out the whole hostess in me thing. But the invasion of my home feels odd. It really feels like I am in another location if the people in my house are staying longer than an evening. Weird, right? Even weirder is that I WANT them to come and visit. But then I want them to LEAVE. It is a serious issue. A condition for which I have no cure. Damn it. I am a walking contradiction. lol

I don’t like the whole hurry up and wait thing we have going on in various parts of our lives. We speed on the roads only to have to come to an abrupt stop for traffic or lights or something. We hurry up to get to an arena for viewing- concerts, lectures, shows, etc., only to have to wait until it comes on. And then it is usually late. But we hurried to get there. Hurried to get seats. And in some cases, hurried to buy the damn tickets in the first place. We hurry to doctor’s appointments, dentist’s appointments, hair appointments, only to have to wait. Some of it is on us. We want to be first, on time, whatever. But some of it is just shitty traffic engineering. Bad light timing. Or shitty venue timing. Or just plain shitty doctors, dentists, hairdressers, etc. And don’t get me started on the hurry up and wait that goes on in airports when- god forbid, you have to fly somewhere. Jaysus.

When did it become okay to be misogynistic tools? Has the anonymity of the internet made the haters hate harder? I don’t think so. It as just allowed the cowardly bastard to express their hate using a wall to hide behind. Cowardly fucktards. Dude, if you are so sure of what you’re saying, so proud of who you are- BE YOU. Without hiding. Without shame. Without the sad stupid ass barrier of anonymity that internet use affords you. Because it also affords you the CHOICE of being all in by being ALL THE WAY OUT. Anything less is the pussification of your views and viewpoints. Stop being juvenile. If you can’t say it with your identity known by all and asundry, then you don’t have worthwhile viewpoints. At ALL. And just so we are clear, even if you do come out in the open with your vitriolic hate messages- against women, minorities, the moon in retrograde, it doesn’t mean you are any less of a fucktard. It just means you aren’t a hide behind the anonymity of the internet kinda of fucktard. Unfortunately, for you, your fucktardness isn’t something you change. Like losing weight, getting hair plugs, going under the knife to change your visage. No, your fucktardness is way past skin deep all the way into the marrow of your bones. For you, you will languish in the land of fucktardary until you draw your last breath. Yes, you asshat who belongs to the sfwa… this message is specifically about you and generally about all asshats.

Stop using your social media to turn yourself into spammers. You could be interesting. You could have sparking conversation, witty dialogue and kick ass discourse. I will never know because I unfollowed your ass, blocked your access and created a spam filter just for you. Cause that shit is just annoying. Seriously. STOP THAT SHIT. A shout out occasionally to promo your shit is cool. I get that. I do that. But if every tweet, every FB comment, every email is about your product- no matter what that product is, then you ARE A SPAMMER. A hated, reviled member of our electronic interaction community. You have just made yourself the red-headed stepchild.

That is all.

 

Shut the Fuck Up

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So I was on twitter the other day, yeah, I was on twitter. So sue me. And a published author is ragging on self-pubbed authors that can’t afford to get professional editing before self-pubbing. The thought was that the self-pubbed author shouldn’t publish if she can’t afford an editor. To which I say, Shut the Fuck Up. You bigoted bigotty bitch.

See, not everyone has an agent. And not everyone has a publisher. And not everyone has money. But those very same people have good story ideas. Which do I want more? A good story with some shitty editing or a shitty story pumped out by flashy editors and publishers? Take a wild guess. Good stories win every goddamn time. Can’t tell you how many books suck big fat donkey dicks coming out of the Big 5 publishing houses all polished up and pretty. No amount of spit shine can put a good spin on a shitty story. A old boring-assed safe story.

Don’t think that I think all stories coming from the Big 5 are shitty. They are not. But neither are all stories coming from self-pubbed authors all shitty. They don’t have the money or the connections to get their first stories edited. Maybe if they make something on their self-pubbed work, they’ll be able to afford an editor. My fingers are crossed. Cause some of the worst edited works I have read in the last year come from self-pubbed authors with good stories and shitty connections. And some of the shittiest stories I have read in the last year come from well-connected highly edited authors with money.

But the elitest asshole, who said the shitty edited self-pubbed authors should take their stories and go home, needs to sit down and shut the fuck up. We don’t tell bands not to cut shitty demo records cause they can’t afford better equipment or a decent recording studio. We make allowances for them. We don’t tell artists they should work in expensive mediums cause otherwise their art isn’t good enough. We make allowances for them. Why is it so hard to understand that a writer, just starting out, self-pubbing their work, might not be able to afford all the bells and whistles that a more connected writer can? Where is the allowance for them?

So that’s my rant. It’s hard enough to put yourself and your work out there for public consumption. But when we get assholes who talk about you to your face or behind your back, well, something is not right in Whoville, yeah? And it makes it hard for an insecure artist, musician, writer to want to put themselves out there. Our world is poorer place for it. Way poorer.

Random Thoughts Part 4

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Friday rolls around and my brain is fried, fried, fried. So once again, I am falling back on short random thoughts.

I really have serious questions about products in our society. I live in a new house. All the stuff in it is new. My air conditioner is new or was when I bought the house. I found out this week that it needs to be repaired. Already. Seriously? At only two years old, my air conditioning unit needs a $2000 repair? WTF? Does nothing last? Is nothing made to be durable? At some point the word durable will vanish from the English language much like durable goods. Everything is just disposable. But for some reason, I thought air conditioning units should last longer than two years. I don’t know why. I just did. And guess what else, the warranty is out as well. So the entire cost is mine. How’s that for a reality check? Look, I just think that some things should be built to last. You know, pride in the crap we make and all that. But apparently I am alone in this belief. Air conditioning makers have gone the way of light bulb manufacturers. And the instructions should read change after 60,000 hours of use.

Did you know Twitter can be addictive? It can also be annoying. See, it is addictive because I like having real time knowledge of the tidbits going on in the lives of people I know. It is annoying because so many people and companies use it as an advertising platform. Now, I don’t mind a shout out once in a while about some shit you want people to know about. But the constant bombardment of adverts is really frickin’ annoying. Stop it. I go and look at some of these constant advert peeps and they have a bazillion followers. I don’t know why. See I am going to their page to unfollow them because they have gotten on my last nerve. I am befuddled as to why more people don’t unfollow. Then maybe they would get the message. Stop the insanity. lol

So I found out what happened to my neighbor. A dude in a car that was a eduction coordinator for a local church got a case of road rage, followed him to the Best Buy parking lot and beat him up. Unbeknownst to my neighbor,  dude caused a concussion or some other head injury, a severe one and my neighbor died later that week after being in the hospital going in and out of consciousness. He slipped into a coma and died. He was 62. My neighbor was a really great guy. Funny, nice, neighborly. Now he’s dead cause some dude got pissed at a driving maneuver. Seriously? If I got mad at everyone that drove like an idiot, I would be pissed all day long. All day long. Here’s a tip for you, if you’re pissed at a driving stunt, go take a class on anger management or do what I do. Make up stories about why so and so is driving like an idiot. Here is an example. I saw a youngish woman driving like she was a bat out of hell. Cut me off crossing back into my lane after weaving in and out of traffic. So I told myself that she had smelly green crap oozing out of her crotch and needed to get to the gynecologist STAT. It made me smile, be more understanding and less angry. I didn’t follow her to a parking lot, beat the shit out of her and end up killing her. See, church dude is going to jail. Probably for manslaughter, perhaps for felony assault. Now two families will be without their dad. Only one of them will never come back. And when the other does, he will be branded a murderer. Sadness for both families all the way around. Smelly green oozing stuff would have been so much better. Local story in paper.

That is all.

Penalize Rapists, Not Females

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I found out about a rape yesterday through Twitter. Audrie Pott was raped at a party while she was passed out, pictures were taken and it went viral. She committed suicide at 15. Tragic.

Its tragic because there were three boys who raped her when she wasn’t able to even defend herself. Three boys whose mothers have to look at their faces and know they birth rapists. That they raised rapists. That if they had been a 15 year old girl, their sons would have raped them. That is a not very good thought for a mom, for a woman. In fact, it is down right horrifying. I hope those boys get tried as adults and that they are raped every day and every night of their incarceration. Even if they are not, I hope they experience exactly what they dished out. Is that mean? Yeah. I don’t care. About this I WANT to be mean.

I want their pictures put on the internet for all time so anyone who sees them, looks them up, googles them, it shows that they are rapists. I want them to wear a proverbial scarlet A around their necks. Innocent people need to be warned that those boys are predators. Parents of daughters need to know. Women in general need to know. And I want their pictures as rapists to go viral. In these cases, I am all about an eye for an eye. I could so get behind castration of them. Cause that would be an end to their career as rapists.

I also found out on Twitter that schools are giving classes to girls telling them not to wear tight clothing, don’t walk alone, take a buddy to parties, etc. But no classes were held telling boys that raping girls is wrong, that no means no and that they shouldn’t victimize girls. I have two pissed off thoughts about this.

One, it penalizes girls for the boys behavior. It is like this. Think about a small village who has an unknown rapist running around. The town tells women because of the rapists they aren’t allowed out at night. The men can come and go as they please because they aren’t the targets of the rapist. Most of you would think it this is a sensible precaution. It is NOT. Men should have been confined to their homes after dark. The unknown rapist is male. No female raped another. Yet it was the women who were restricted as a class. Not the class that contained the criminal, but the class that held the victim. If they had restricted the men as a class, any man found out after dark could have been the rapist, which would help narrow down the who done it. And the class that held victims wouldn’t have been doubly penalized. The class that held the criminal would have been the ones to bear the brunt of the restrictions.

The same applies to young people. If schools are going to tell girls not to engage in behavior that might entice potential rapists without also talking to the boys about what is not acceptable behavior, we are in essence penalizing the class that holds the victims and not the class that holds the criminals. It is wrong. It is the wrong message to send to our young people. It is wrong to focus our attention on the victims. We should have a spotlight on the rapists and wannabe rapists. And it should be hammered home again and again.

Two, telling girls that what they wear undermines the control that boys have is STUPID. Even if a woman is naked, and she says no, having sex with her is rape. I don’t buy this argument when presented by the Muslin community, I don’t buy this argument when rapist present them. It is stupid to think that something a woman or girl does, like showing her hair or face or legs or belly, somehow makes men into slavering beasts who are unable to exercise control over themselves. Women and girls just don’t have that kind of power over men and boys. And we never will.  The only one that can control a person is that person themselves. Period. What a woman or girl does, doesn’t all of a sudden ameliorate a man or boy’s responsibility to be in control of themselves. Control of oneself starts and ends at oneself and doesn’t depend on another. EVER.

Excusing bad behavior on the part of the man, in the case of adult rape of muslim women who show their face or hair, and boys, in the case of teenage rape of teenage girls, is our society failing our daughters, our sisters, our future mothers, grandparents, our aunts, our wives. Failing them utterly. I couldn’t help myself isn’t a defense in drunk driving. It isn’t a defense in murder. It isn’t a defense in drug dealing. It just isn’t a defense. Period. This argument as presented by the muslim community doesn’t hold water because a vast majority of societies that don’t make it a secular or religious crime for women to show their faces and hair don’t have men going around raping them willy-nilly because they showed their faces and hair. The argument doesn’t hold water when it comes to what women wear either. Cause the vast majority of men and boys when presented with those very scantily clad women and girls don’t go around and rape them.

Allowing these types of arguments belittles men and boys. On a level that should be offensive to most other men and boys. You know the ones that do exercise control over themselves. Day in and day out. These types of causal excuses don’t allow men and boys to be responsible for themselves. It reduces them to mindless idiots who are no more than missing links a few steps down from Lucy. You know Lucy, the missing link. Good men and boys, you know the fathers, brothers, grandfathers, uncles, husbands should raise an outcry that they don’t want to be looked at like they are no more than our primate ancestors. Most aren’t. And they should be wanting to separate the wheat from the chaff. Insisting on it.

At the end of the new report about Audrie Pott, it stated that officials are looking into a completely different incidence of teenage rape followed by teenage suicide. Tragic.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/teens-charged-assault-girl-killed-18936576#.UWfdiMoqhio

Carina Press Tweet Pitch

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I just ran across a phenomena. Something for which I am sure Twitter is responsible. I have been glued to my computer screen reading the author pitches being made on Twitter. Carina Press, a digital first epubisher, is taking pitches from both agented and unagented writers.

I am totally getting into the story pitches. There have been several that I as a reader want to read. Wish they were already available. Then there were a couple that I as a writer wished I had thought of. It had been completely gratifying to browse all the cool ideas being thrown out by all these creative types.

It is also a learning tool. I can see the difference between a good pitch, a bad pitch and the really great pitches. Awesomeness all rolled into one.

And yes, I opened a Twitter account just so I could vicariously live the life of an editor at a publishing house. lol Not really. But still, it has been an eye opening experience.

If you have a Twitter account and a completed manuscript, check out #carinapitch on Twitter. check it out even if you don’t because it is really fun and a good way to waste a few minutes of your day.

Me, I have wasted many minutes of my day. But it has also not been a waste because if I ever get a chance to pitch, I will have learned something from the carina pitch today.