Arcane by Nonni Lumen

I picked up this book at a Rummage Sale.  It says it's "a true account of ongoing paranormal Phenomena".  I found the business card for a local B&B inside.  Since the book is set in rural Ohio, I wondered if there might be a connection.  As I struggled through, it became pretty obvious that this book is, in fact, about the B&B on the card. Unless there's some other B&B a mile from one town and 8 miles from the one it has the zip code of, near Swings Corner-Point Isabel Road, in rural Ohio. 

I say I struggled and that's no exaggeration.  The author occasionally uses the wrong word for one that's spelled similar.  (Gall/gull being my favorite.   I can't believe she had the seabird to publish this.)  The real obstacle is punctuation.  She randomly sprinkles semi-colons throughout.  At one point she quotes the Bible and her semicolon completely changes the meaning.  This change contradicts the point she's making.  

She references often her NDE (near death experience) but doesn't explain that until chapter ten. The first half of most chapters is list of words and definitions, specific to the author's belief system.  The timeline jumps around like a bunny rabbit on crack.  

****

Here's the story summary: We bought land to build a B&B on.  It is haunted by victims of the KKK and of witches. There is a demon infestation, including but not limited to Lillith herself.  At the end of the book, all is not well and a second book is promised.  Not even good fiction, frankly, and it claims to be true.

Meanwhile, she is moving her family into this place.  For more than a decade she moves family members in and out of the demon-infested B&B.  She is renting rooms to strangers.   She brings in priests to bless the place and there's even confusing mentions of an exorcism.  None of the sacraments have a permanent effect. 

Her son-in-law is possessed by one of the demons and/or his mom cursed the marriage because she's a witch. A nearby shop with a black-flamed candle on the sign is run by a coven which curses the author herself.   Any symbolism not specifically Christian is demonic.  

The area is racist and antipapist and antisemitic.  We're talking caricature levels of yeehaw rednecks. No one she asks for information on her property tell her anything, but one told her there was a mill there once.  She never contacts county offices for access to public records on the land.  Yet she somehow learns that this mill was operated by the KKK as a front for lynching people.  Whites on one tree and Blacks on another.

Swings Corner-Point Isabel road is not named for the two communities it once connected, but for a hanging tree and one of the B&B ghosts.  The word picnic is not derived from eighteenth century France, but from the lynching term "pick a nig".  

**** 

The writer in me is repelled.  This book is badly written by any definition.  

The Bethel Girl in me is enraged at her character assassination of the population. 

Oh, and the second book has not appeared.

Introspection

 He was born in the summer of his 27th year...  

It's a classic lyric, but it really isn't so far from my truth.  I was in my late twenties when finally prescribed fluoxetine.  

Oh, there were times as a child that I acted out.  What I learned from that was: I was unimportant, if not an outright burden. Everything was my fault.  I started writing stories as a coping method, even if I may not have realized it at the time.  And I always loved to learn.  Used to sit in the front hall reading encyclopedias.  

As an adult, I did explore specific issues, if they were pointed out in a kindly manner and if my inner seas were relatively calm. I took a few little vacations in the psych ward.  I even asked about medication because I saw how well the others in my group therapy did with it, but my request was dismissed.  I did not ask again.

As I said, I was past the quarter-century mark when yet another episode occurred.  This time the doctor suggested medication.  Prozac was fairly new at the time, and controversial, but it was a godsend for me. I tell people it saved my life.

Pop Culture has gotten better with its presentation of the mentally ill - we're no longer just comic relief or bad guys - but they still seem to get wrong the struggle.  Commercials for antidepressants make it look like you pop a pill and instantly everything is fixed.  A show's very special episode handles the situation in an hour or less.  That ain't how it works. 

Even if a pill could instantly repair chemical imbalances and emotional damage, there's the outer world to consider.  To make another reference, there's an exchange in one of the Harry Potter books that makes my point:  "You were the one who told me to stand up to people!"  "Yes, but not to us."  

Finally, I could consistently apply the coping methods I'd picked up over the years and learn more.  But the patterns remained.  My family still spoke to me as they always had.  I went to college for an associate's degree, but my previous work history was, shall we say, spotty.  The longest I had kept a job was a couple years and I'd been fired often.  So I was still washing dishes and ringing up groceries. 

But I was growing out of my despair.  I learned to separate what I felt from what I knew.  I went low (or no) contact with those who refused to respect my journey and the woman I was becoming.  I embraced myself.  

Now I'm on Disability, but I'm still writing and you can even buy two of my books on Amazon.  Nine out of ten of my personalities manage to keep that tenth one caged.  (Yes, I know that's inaccurate and maybe insensitive to people with actual multiples.  But I find humor opens communication.)  

But I wake up dreading the day ahead.  Once I get up and moving, that passes, but it's a rough way to start every day.   I have bad dreams. My feelings are easily hurt.  I'm not cured.  The commercials are fibbing.  The very special episodes are oversimplifying.  

Now that I'm gotten all this off my chest, maybe I can sleep.  It's almost dawn.  Thanks for reading. 

I'm Published!

 I finally did it.  Self-publishing in my day was expensive and, to my thinking, kind of a cheat.  I always wanted the validation of a publishing house telling me I was good enough.  But my terror of rejection keeps me from submitting and digital publishing is, to quote a friend, "how it's done now".  Oldest Sister has done it and she showed me how, so there I am on Amazon.

My first ever Beta Reader was Oldest Sister.  Her gentle critiques guided me, and for a long time she was the only person to read my stuff.  Eventually some of my other siblings read and told me what they thought - one time I had a red front porch light in a story and had to be told about Red Light Districts!  

When I got to high school, I eagerly signed up for Creative Writing.  The teacher hated me even before I walked into the classroom. (My family's reputation preceded me - Mother, for all her faults, went full Mama Bear if she though the school was wronging her offspring.  She once went to war with an English teacher for punishing use of "ain't" as improper.) She allowed Destructive Criticism and even engaged in it herself.  That class devastated me.  

I did meet a peer who wrote and we became fast friends.  We planned and wrote parts of an entire series.  We went through the "Diversity for diversity's sake" stage together.  We even got picked up by a local company, but the publishing branch folded before we hit print.  

She and Oldest Sister coaxed me into a local writer's group.  I was terrified, remembering that class in high school.  I was stunned by the encouragement and advice.  They helped me in ways I cannot articulate.  I learned there, from them, that writing can be a goal in and of itself.  I joined another group, this one online and largely focused on fan fiction.   When my world collapsed around me (for non-writing reasons), some of the members of both groups were there with me, helping me through.  They celebrated with me when my muse came back.  

The two books I've published through Amazon were written after that, but the characters have roots all the way back to that disastrous class in high school.  Bits and pieces of everyone who touched my writing life are scattered throughout the stories.  I'm not going to try to name anyone, because I avoid names in this blog to protect privacy of others and also because I know I'll forget someone!  

Oldest sister set me on this road, but there are a myriad of others who kept me on it.  Some of them cheered, some corrected my course, some just loved me and never read a word.  

Oh, yeah....  Amazon search P.J. Schmidt Stillwater Farm.  That's me!  (And Oldest Sister is R. Collins My Dubois.)  

The Watcher on Netflix

 I'm into the true crime thing and one case that's always fascinated me is John List.  How does that have any bearing on the Netflix show about an unrelated case, you ask?  I will explain, I promise.  Oh, yeah, and SPOILER ALERT for the movie in question. 

The Watcher is an unsolved case from 2014.  A family bought a nice new home and started getting letters from someone calling themselves "the watcher".  Knowing they were being watched even by a harmless person would be creepy enough, but these letters escalated into talking about "young blood" and "what's in the walls".  The letters also claimed that watching the house is a family tradition - the letter writer's forebears did the same thing.  DNA testing on the envelope flaps revealed the writer to be female, but nothing more is known.  They moved out of the house and that was the end of that (to the best of my knowledge).

The John List case happened in the 1970s but he wasn't caught for nearly twenty years.  John List was a devout Lutheran who lived with his mother, wife, and three children.  He lost his job as an accountant, but pretended to go to work rather than tell his family.  He funneled money from his mother's accounts to cover the bills.  Eventually, he made some phone calls to establish that the family was going out of town for an extended period of time.  Then shot his wife and mom.  He shot two of the kids when they got home from school, then went to the third kid's game and shot him when they got home after.  He put all the bodies in one room (except Mom, she was too heavy and on the third floor), put on gospel music, and vanished.  Oh, and he cut himself out of all the family photos.  Also bear in mind his wife was Helen and his daughter was Patricia.  After the murders were discovered, there were rumors of teenaged Patricia being in a relationship with a teacher.  Letters left behind with the bodies indicated that his motive was to save their souls -- they were falling into sinful ways.  

Both real-life cases happened in the same town, but decades apart and otherwise there is no connection.  

Now the movie:  It's a fictionalized account of the 2014 case.  It starts out sticking largely to the facts -  Dean and Nora buy the place and move in.  They plan to renovate the kitchen and basement.  They have two children and a ferret.  And the letters start arriving.  At first, they dismiss it as a prank, but then the kids start hearing music from an intercom and the ferret is found in the upstairs hall with a crushed skull.  

Suspects include two of the neighboring families, alienated by Dean's hostile response to misunderstandings, the realtor - a college friend of Nora's who keeps pushing her to sell the house she just bought, a local teacher who is into old houses, and John List  Graff.  

John Graff used to live in the house. He was a devout Lutheran who lived with his mother, wife, and two children.  He lost his job as an accountant, but pretended to go to work rather than tell his family.  He funneled money from his mother's accounts to cover the bills.  Eventually, he made some phone calls to establish that the family was going out of town for an extended period of time.  Then shot his wife and mom.  He shot daughter Patricia when they got home from school, then went to the son's game and shot him when they got home.  He put all the bodies in one room, put on classical music, and vanished.  He cut himself out of all the family photos. His wife was Helen.  At one point, it's implied that Patricia was in a relationship with a teacher.  (Said teacher is later found dead, shot by a different gun.)  I'm particularly taken with the name List becoming Graph with just a spelling change.  Both are ways of sorting information. 

When Dean discovered this news, I had to pause the show and text a friend.   From there, it just kept getting more ridiculous.  The show, not the weak attempt to hide that this dude was John List.  

Because Graff removed his face from the family photos, no one knows what he looks like.  The neighbor couple is murdered, but not really.  The Dumbwaiter guy was totally normal until the same year Graff killed his family.  There are tunnels between the houses, a remnant from the Prohibition Era.  Toss in a false confession and some family drama (teen daughter, ya know).  

Had this show been advertised as a satire or parody, it would have lived up to the hype.  But it's supposed to be a thriller.  They never solve the case and leave lots of loose ends, probably for future seasons of the show.  Honestly, I'll probably watch.  It's hilarious. 

Franchises Gone Wild

 Anyone who knows me, knows I am a fan of The Walking Dead.  What they may not realize is that I'm only a fan of the original show.  Not the spinoffs, not the movies they keep telling us are coming, just that one show.  Especially now that AMC has taken over and Robert Kirkman's vision is largely gone.  

The original showrunner was Frank Darabont, but Darabont wanted the zombies to be smarter and faster than Kirkman did.  As it was Kirkman's project, he won that battle.  You can see some "smart zombies" in Season One... using rocks to break windows, trying to turn doorknobs, and climbing fences.  The real-world explanation is Darabont, but I like to think those people were geniuses in life and a bit carried over into their undead state.  There's never been an in-universe explanation - until now, apparently. 

AMC's The Walking Dead Universe has introduced "variant cohorts" and is exploring the cause/cure of the zombie phenomenon... both things Kirkman flat refused to do.  The zombies were never the point of his vision.  AMC has Ashley-Cartered The Walking Dead.  (Ashley-Carter is my own verb for retcons that harm the original creator's vision.  It comes from the third author of the Falconhurst series of books and was my first experience with it.)  

AMC is flooding the market with TWDU projects.  They're trying to do in a single decade what took Star Wars and Star Trek decades.  To me, that's overkill, but overkill seems to be the thing these days.  Star Wars, Star Trek, and Marvel are all also doing it.  Trek has currently, I believe, four shows and the Abrams movies.  Star Wars has, I believe, three shows.  Marvel has shows, but their focus seems to be movies.  

From what I understand, most of the Trek projects are meant to be taking place in the same reality, making those shows a master class in Ashley-Cartering.  So many contradictions.... The Marvel Universe has embraced the notion of a multiverse to avoid that issue.  Star Wars seems to be managing to stay within the established universe except for Obi-Wan's memory issues in later life.  But I digress.  The focus here is meant to be on the overkill aspect.  

It seems unwise to flood the market.  Short term, you make piles of money.  Long-term, you lose your audience.  They will get sick of Spock and Spiderman and Obi-Wan Kenobi.  They will get sick of Daryl Dixon, even if he remains just one version of himself.  Flooding the market is just shooting yourself in the foot. 

Muffling The Demon

I considered "Silencing The Demon" as a title for this blog, but let's be honest.  She's never silent, even when I'm at my happiest!  I just had a really lovely holiday season and all she wants to talk about is the things I didn't get.  Ingrate, that's what she is.

For anyone new to my blog, or my head space, I'll explain.  Feel free to skip ahead if you already know about Sybrie The Tenth, aka The Demon.  I suffer from a form of Clinical Depression, with a touch of anxiety and sprinkle of persecution complex.  I use humor as one of my coping methods - humor that some may find offensive - and joke about having ten personalities.  (A riff on the old toothpaste commercials "nine out of ten dentists".)  Sybrie The Tenth is a demon locked in a cage in the back room of my brain.  To use more professional terminology, I have personified my mental illness.

That said, I want to offer tips for anyone out there dealing with a demon of their own.  Your demon need not be Depression for these to (maybe) help you.  Feel free to modify my methods if they don't quite work for you - one size doesn't fit all in this case.

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1. Do what you enjoy.  I struggled for years with my "inappropriate" interests - dolls and story telling, specifically.  My doll play evolved into novels that will probably never see publication. (More on that in a bit.)  I went through phases of trying to be a serious collector of said dolls, and even of giving them away en masse.  What I didn't realize until I went to college in my late 20s is that Play Therapy is a very real thing, and not just for children.  In a nutshell, the very things I felt shame for are probably what's kept me reasonably sane!

Most of my family doesn't read my silly Barbie blog with its photo stories.  But that's okay.  They get that it means a lot to me.  They don't try to shame me... at least not seriously.  I make the photo stories, I play with my dolls, for me.  I've found a whole community on-line to play with!

I have a budget and my bills get paid.  I can adult when I must.  If I've taken food from any one's mouth to buy toys, it was my own.  The only time we should feel shame for what makes us happy is if it hurts others.  Don't let others dictate what you should and should not enjoy!  Be the weirdo!

2. Limit toxins when possible.  This includes, but is not limited to, humans.  You are not required to associate with anyone who consistently treats you badly.  People who love you can and will hurt you, but if all or most of your contact with any person is negative, remove them from your life as much as possible.

I have a phobia of crowds and therefore crowds count as a toxin here.  When I choose to be in a crowd, I always scope out a quiet corner to slip into if I can't deal.  This comes in very handy at things like family reunions.  If nothing else, I go hide in a restroom stall for a few minutes!

3. Own your weakness.  Despite what certain memes might tell you, mental illness is a weakness. Weakness is not something to be ashamed of!  We all have weaknesses and we should accept that.  Work with and around it.  Admit it.  "Why are you out on the deck in the cold?"  "It got too crowded in there.  I'll come back in a bit."

4. Talk to someone.  They don't even have to understand.  They just need to care - so don't do this with toxic people.  They don't have to be a therapist.  They don't have to be real, if all  you need to do is vent. 

5. Educate.   Yourself and others.  My top recommendation for this is Overcoming Depression by Demitri and Janice Papolos.  They do use a lot of medical terminology, which may be off-putting, so consider yourself warned.  Many of the tips in this blog are based on things from this book.  The book also explains symptoms many don't realize are connected to the mental illness.  I have what the book calls thought latency... basically, if the brain is a computer, mine lags. 

6. Retrain Your Brain.  AKA Cognitive Therapy.  Question your negative thoughts.  Suppose a woman calls me stupid. Is she joking?  Does she have a poor vocabulary and meant some other word?  How important is her opinion of me?  Often, I internalize messages others didn't intend.  I had to teach myself to look at the big picture. 

7. It is okay.  Like many, I wake up every morning depressed.  I've learned to accept that it takes me a few minutes to "wake up slow" and be ready to face the world. 

I put a lot into those previously mentioned novels.  Research, mostly.  There are badly researched books on the best seller lists that read like a third-grader wrote them.  Getting a rejection letter from those publishers....  I can't even.  People have advised me to self-publish, but I've caught a lot of flak during my research for writing about anyone who isn't a white heterosexual female!  I'm not sure if I could handle Amazon reviews of that nature.  I'm not a social creature (I probably have less than 100 Facebook friends, including extended family) and the self-promotion needed for self-publishing is not something I am comfortable with. So I've not done more than dabble with the idea. For the most part, I've accepted that those worlds I created will probably never see mass production.  I've learned to write for me. 

**********

So many aspects of my life are better since I learned to do these things. She's still in there, rattling her cage and telling me lies, but she's not the boss of me.  Not any more. 

Writers' Agendas

"I'm sick of this show pushing its liberal agenda on us."  "Why can't they just tell a story without cramming their conservative politics up our noses?"  "That book series is a lot of propaganda."

Anyone who has been in a High School or College literature class can tell you about having to psychoanalyze writers.  What is the significance of Harry Potter's glasses?  Why do they run through a series of rooms in The Mask of The Red Death?  How does Dracula illustrate the sexual repression of the Victorian era?   That analysis of the author's psyche is not a lot different from seeking out the agenda.

Everyone has an agenda.  Speaking for myself, as a fiction writer, I don't deliberately plant mine into my stories.  But it leaks in there.  My stories tend to focus on large, loving families.  I put together couples who fit, not really caring about their race or sex.  I don't set my stories in large cities.  I never thought much about those things - I was just enjoying my chosen role as story teller.

I've been guilty of diversity for diversity's sake - which led to the happy accident of Olivia Ross.  My white heterosexual male Owen became an Amerasian* lesbian and for some reason (buried deep in my psyche) this new incarnation blossomed into the rich character Owen never was.  Olivia also taught me not to force these things.  A diverse cast of characters is good, but only if they can bloom as Olivia did.  She isn't "the lesbian" or "the Asian".  She's Olivia.

But I digress.  My point is this - what so many today are calling the writer's agenda is nothing more than their subconscious mind leaking into the tale.  If two characters fit as a couple, it doesn't matter to me what color they are or what genitalia they're packing, so I write them together.  Is that pushing my liberal agenda on my readers?  If my characters go hunting, am I screaming in reader's faces about the Second Amendment?

There are writers out there actively pushing agendas.  It would be foolish to claim otherwise.  I've found that, in that case, the story telling suffers.  All the characters are stereotypes.  Couples that make no sense hook up.  Those writers lose viewers/readers.  I often think that George Orwell didn't sit down to make a comment on Big Government.  If he had, I doubt 1984 would be the classic it is.

A final bit of advice - if you don't like the way the story is going?  Put down the book or change the channel.



*Not sure what the current "correct" term would be.  Olivia has a white American father and a Korean-born mother.  I intend no offense to anyone by my use of this term.  This is the term I imagine Olivia herself using.

You Are Enough

This blog entry is for a contest:  You Are Enough, hosted by Positive Writer.

I write fiction.  I've got two completed novels under my belt, a work that's either a short story or a novella depending on your definition, and one work in progress that is likely to end up in the same nebulous category.  I also have a "Barbie Blog" in which I tell photo stories with dolls.  I've written a few fan fictions.  Those who have read my work tell me it's good, but almost none of it have been shared with the general public.  What's the point of writing if not to be published, to make a little money, to put it out there?

The purpose of this, my usual blog, is persuasive writing.  If I can't convince my readers to agree with me, I hope to bring them to an understanding of my position.  Today I intend to convince you that You Are Enough.

Storytelling is as old as mankind.  Most societies have had a special place for the spinners of tales.  I feel sorry for the ones who don't, to be perfectly frank.  Stories are how groups transmit values and history. If you are a storyteller, you are part of that tradition.

Has your writing touched another?  Writing fiction in any form is creating worlds.  (In the case of fan fiction, expanding upon a world created by another might be more accurate.)  You are populating these worlds with people.  Bringing these fictional people to life, making them real, is an accomplishment in and of itself.  Making your reader care means you succeeded, even if the reader is "just your sister". 

Have you held your own in a civil debate?  To present a position and defend it is a victory.  To convince others to join you, even more so.  Even realizing you have faulty logic is a win - you learned something.

If you have not yet touched or convinced a reader, don't despair.  Hone your craft and you will eventually do so.  For the time being, focus on why you are enough for yourself.  Some of my early writings, technically speaking, were garbage.  If you are at this stage, know that improvement is possible.  You have it in you to do so.

Writing is art.  Art is, at the core, about self-expression.  The desire to create, to persuade, to touch another, is enough.  You are that desire.  You are enough.  And so am I.

Representation

Lots of talk about minorities being represented in movies and television, on both sides of the issue.  I've never had to deal with my race being under-represented, but I fall into lots of other categories that are.  I'm female, poor, rural, mentally ill, and even left-handed. 

Besides stereotypes, which I don't really mind if they are meant in good humor, I saw very little of those groups in my mass media.  I still have trouble finding realistic models of some of them, but I blame that more on Hollywood Logic than anything else.  (We had ten people in a three bedroom, one bath house.  Can you imagine seeing that on TV as a realistic scenario?)  

Granted, the lefty thing isn't much of an issue.  The stigma was largely gone by the time I started school, but my older sister had teachers trying to make her use the "correct" hand, so it hadn't been gone long.  Imagine my delight when I realized (with the release of Twilight Princess on the Wii) that LINK is a lefty!  Most players are righties and the way the Wii is set up, his being a lefty was problematic for them.  There was a bit of a controversy.  

Until recently, the mentally ill were played for laughs if they weren't the bad guys.  Now even my limited consumption of mass media gives me a few "crazy but useful" characters.  Walter Bishop (Fringe) is a wonderful example.  I am nowhere near as crazy as he is, but I identify with the regrets he lives with and with forgetting his limitations until they slap him in the face. 

Rural...  well, in my day that was limited to The Beverly Hillbillies.  The rural folk I see now are well rounded characters.  Television is rather limited to the urban and suburban settings because there are simply more stories, more drama, in those place. 

The poor, though...  well, see my previous comment about Hollywood Logic. 

Hobbies Are Selfish?

Imagine you're in a thrift store and you overhear the following exchange by the baby clothes:

Lady: How old is your little one?

Second Lady: I don't have a little one.  I use this fabric for a hobby.

Lady: You take from impoverished babies for your hobby?!  That's very selfish!  You should be ashamed of yourself!  

(BTW - this did not happen to me.  It happened to a member of the on-line doll community.)

Who made anyone the boss of what we can and can't do for hobbies?  Even if you think the hobby in question is dumb, or selfish in this case, why attack a total stranger?  Hobbies only appear selfish until you look at the bigger picture.

Hobbyists contribute.  Second Lady's money goes to supporting whatever charity runs the thrift store, or simply to a local business.  My father quilted and often his work sold at his church's fund raisers.  That money went on to help others.  He gave them to family, which both saved money and spread a little joy.

Hobbyists are less likely to act out harmfully.  Why do I write novels I'm too scared to submit to publishers?  Why play with dolls at 52?  Why have a flowerbed?  Why collect anything?  So I don't lose the few marbles I have left and hurt someone. 

Flower gardeners (both the chaotic sort and the neat grouping sort) spread joy and help pollinators keep the planet functional.  Vegetable gardeners do both and feed people.  Collectors just might have something that can put Junior through college.  Art of any sort fills proven psychological needs.

Hobbies are not selfish. 






 

Laura Ingalls Wilder = Racist?

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award is now named the Children’s Literature Legacy Award.   Why?  "Racial insensitivity" in a fictionalized memoir written in the 1930s by a woman who grew up in the pioneer west.  The name change, in and of itself, is not the real issue.

The real issue is the implication that Laura was a racist.    

In the course of the novels, and of her life, Laura lived in actual danger from the Osage.  This is a matter of historical record.  Her family settled on Osage land when she was a child.  She heard the ceremonial dancing - which may have been the "war whoops" she mentions.  She also defended their right to be angry (a child speaking to her mother) and felt bad for them when they relocated under duress.  

I believe it's in a later book that her father is quoted as saying "That's a good Indian" and no, he was not referring to a dead one.  That oft-quoted line was not spoken by an Ingalls.

Her life, and those of her family, was saved by a black man.  In retelling that story, his race is barely mentioned.  Again, a matter of historical record. 

There is the matter of the minstrel show.  At the time of the event, if not of the writing, minstrel shows were the norm.  They were seen as harmless fun.  Even by the population being mocked.  

All of these facts add up to one thing: By the standards of the time and place in which she lived, Laura was no racist.  It is unfair to label her thus, even by implication.  

Erasing the past is less of a threat.  Laura is a beloved author, after all, and thinking parents know how to read these stories to the little ones and discuss the issues involved.  I've been doing just that since the 1980s.  Even "people thought it was a big deal back then" is sometimes sufficient.   

It's the right of the award committee to change the name.  I don't agree with their reasoning but I'll defend them.  I will not, however, allow out-of-context quotes to demean a good woman.  I will not pretend the bad parts of history never happened.  

Tarred With The Same Brush

My mother warred with the school, usually for justifiable reasons,  But there were times... like when my sister didn't want to take a required class or the English teacher who punished my brother for saying "ain't".  A few of my siblings were trouble-makers and the ones who weren't, Mother made up for.

I was the seventh Schmidt to go through that school.  Very few of the faculty saw me as the quiet, scholarly thing I was.  I was a trouble maker from the moment they saw my name on the roll.  One teacher even confronted me the first day of class to tell me as much.  That would have been bad enough, but the class in question was something I was looking forward to.  Eagerly.  Like Christmas. 

Creative Writing.  A subject already near and dear to my heart.  On one assignment, my character was meant to be brutally honest but came across - in the words of a classmate - like "an asshole."  I asked for advice on how to write the character better and the boy responded with something along the lines of "stop being stupid".  She ignored the vulgarity and the verbal abuse.  She had a student, near tears, in her class room and did nothing. 

The "Asshole" incident was only the most egregious example - in that class and in others.  Because I was a Schmidt, I deserved it.  It's on a much smaller scale, I admit, than racism or homophobia or religious prejudice. But the principle is the same. 

I've also been on and off Welfare all my life and been on the receiving end of "Get a job" (usually when I was already employed).  I've had people make snide comments to me because there's no way that lady using Food Stamps is not the mother of those kids that are with her. (I'm The Aunt.) 

I don't get offended at jokes about stereotypes.  I see them as a useful tool against ignorance. I will, however, give you the sharp side of my tongue if you believe those stereotypes.  Most of any given group are good people.  If I defend whites against being tarred by the same brush as the KKK, it is not because I'm white.  I'm just as likely to defend Muslims against the ISIS brush. 

Because no matter who you hit with it, no matter how small it is, that brush bruises souls.

You can't write that!

Over the years, I've gotten grief for writing about characters that are different from me.  The main one has been racial - I have no right to use Cherokee characters because I am not Cherokee.  Never mind my deep respect for all native cultures, the things all humans have in common, and mere fact that I love these fictional people.

Using the same logic...  Stephen King shouldn't write about all manner of supernatural creatures, rabid dogs, or gunslingers.  The Hillerman Navajo Tribal Police books should not exist.  JK Rowling should have never written the Harry Potter series.  Entire genres of fiction should not be - in fact, fiction itself should not be.

A wise man once said a writer should take "write what you know" with the widest possible interpretation.  He also said that every character you create is partly you.  I don't remember if it was from the same wise man, but another good rule is "write what you are passionate about".

My Cherokee character started out in a tertiary role.  I made him Cherokee simply to add some diversity to the setting.  Once he grew on me, I learned as much as I could.  And that was when the grief-givers appeared.  I'm willing to bet those are the same people who complain about all white folks thinking the Cherokee live in teepees.

I've gotten praise from lesbians for my portrayal of a lesbian relationship - and I all I do is write them like any couple. Olivia is surprised when they get invited to Ann's ex-husbands wedding.  Ann thinks Olivia is too frugal.  They don't bicker over the teenager's curfew, but only because it never comes up.  My characters "of color" have never drawn criticism for being inaccurate.  Granted, I'm writing in a modern setting, but still...

I write what I know, what I'm passionate about.  Olivia, despite having a Korean mother and a wife, is probably the most like me.  A large part of Megan is based on my brother-in-law.  I will not apologize for having characters that are not small-town straight white girls.  I will ignore you if my attempts to accurately portray a world in which I never lived are met by contempt.  I will embrace you (maybe even literally) if you help me do it!

Nothing New

I don't remember how the conversation started, as it is with conversations, but my nephew and I were talking about how people like to label something a rip-off.  The example he used was within the sci-fi genre, specifically Star Trek's phasers and Star Wars' blasters, but then he moved on to another genre - the romance novel.  They all seem to start with the main characters hating each other but then they fall in love.  My response: "The Walking Dead totally ripped that off."

That was about the entire exchange, but it got me thinking.  Don't most iconic relationships, in any genre, follow that pattern?  Not just romances - buddy films come to mind.  The relationship in which you meet, are compatible, and remain friends just isn't compelling storytelling.  Even Han Solo and Chewbacca are more entertaining when bickering.

People who do what Josh and I were talking about don't understand a few things.  "Ray guns" are a staple of science fiction.  Sharing a staple with something else in the same genre is not ripping it off.  Using a tried-and-true storytelling technique is not a rip-off of anything that's used it before.  

If I were to write the story of an ordinary young man who finds himself swept into an epic adventure, I would not be ripping off Star Wars.  Or The Legend of Zelda.   It's a classic story called The Hero's Journey.  

There is nothing new under the sun, as the saying goes.  Everything is derivative of something that's gone before.  So what makes a rip-off?  That's a difficult thing to explain - ask any judge asked to decide a plagiarism case. As another saying (sort of) goes, I may not know what a rip-off is, but I know what it ain't.

Protesting vs Rioting

Well, this election has brought us to a new low in American behavior.  I didn't vote for the man, I've never liked the man, but guess what?  He is the choice, apparently, of The People.  Some civilized folks are talking of petitions and abolishing the Electoral College, which I can get behind.  Work within the system to change it - that was the intent of our Founding Fathers.

However, these civilized folks seem to be a minority.  My social media is full of decidedly uncivilized stories.  "Not my President" says the same people who scorned folks for saying it four years go.  Those who did support the President-Elect are dancing around like four-year-olds singing "nanner nanner boo boo".

I"m not going to repeat my speech about checks and balances.  I'm not going to bother to tell you he can't kick down the Oval Office door like Bill Cosby's dad and repeal standing laws on a whim.  I'm just exhausted from saying it.  What I am going to do is define a couple words for the media.

A protest is peaceful.  A riot is not.  The moment a "protester" hurts another person physically or damages property, they become a "rioter".  The two words are not synonyms, and they certainly do not change definition because the reporter agrees or disagrees with their position.  If I go stand in public with a big sign, I am not a rioter just because you don't like what my sign says.  If I beat up people and break windows, I am not a protester just because you think I have a point.

Protesters do not physically attack folks that disagree with them.  Protesters do not bust things up and set things on fire.  Protesters might yell insults, they might jump to conclusions about you based on your appearance (Who doesn't?), but when they cross that line and do physical harm, they stop being protesters.  They become rioters.

About rioting...  what do these people hope to accomplish?  Has anyone even had their mind changed by getting beat up or having their house burned down?  Oh, they might seem to, but they don't.  They get mad.  KKK visits in the 1860s led to race riots in the 1960s.  And the Civil Rights Movement - which, since it was civilized, did bring change.

OK, I'm putting away my soap box now.

Meg Mysteries by Holly Beth Walker

The Meg books are a series of young female detective stories, along the lines of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden.  I couldn't identify with the rich, almost grown Nancy.  Trixie and the Dana Sisters were better, but I absolutely LOVED Meg Duncan.  I'm now fifty years old and still own and read these books - my other teen detectives are long gone.  

The main character in these is younger than in the others, probably not technically a teen.  I think the books were written for the slightly younger set, as they're thinner and less complex.  I could read the entire series of six in a sitting, if I were so inclined.

Meg is an only child, who lives with her widowed father and a pair of elderly (or middle-aged, depending on the book) not-quite-servants.  The wife is the housekeeper and the husband caretaker of the property.  Meg's dad seems to be a workaholic.  She also has a Siamese cat, which might explain my own preference for the breed.  She has a backstory that includes an early childhood in Japan and a wealthy bachelor uncle.

Her sidekick is Kerry - who lives next door with her six siblings, many pets, and parents.  Much is made of her tomboy ways as compared to Meg's preference for painting and ballet.  Horses are a big part of Kerry's life, a wise choice on the author's part, given the audience.  It also solves the problem of having non-driver lead characters.

Anyway.  I'm not sure why I love these books so much.  I sometimes think I'd like to pick up where Holly Beth Walker left off.  Lots of people have never even heard of them, but they keep calling me back like Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden never did.

Bullying, Again

I pontificated before about the bullying problem and what I think should be done about it.  This one is for the kids.  Not the victims, not the bullies.  The other kids.  The ones who aren't sure what to do or how to do it.  The ones who will say "I didn't do anything to him."

I'm speaking from my own experience as a bullied junior high schooler.  Strange as it may seem, one of the kindest things a classmate ever did for me was a note.  It said "Please don't tell anyone because I don't want to be picked on, too.  I like you.  I think you are nice." With her signature.  I've never forgotten that.  That girl reached out to me the only way she felt she could.

A couple of other girls reached out, too, They gave me a makeover during Study Hall.  Maybe it was just that I was the only one who would let them, I really don't know.  When they finished and held up the mirror, I expected to look ridiculous.  I thought the whole thing was a set up, a means to humiliate me, but it wasn't.  They even offered to give me some of their make-up that they didn't want anymore. (I suspect knowledge of my family's poverty had more to do with it, but they wanted to protect my pride.)  One girl offered me clothes she didn't wear any more.  I declined the offers - I just knew it was a trap.  When I wore the offered cosmetics and clothing, they would make sure they entire school knew I was a rag picker.

Why did I feel that way?  When the teacher left the music classroom and the bullies pushed me into a corner, going through my purse and making fun of the contents, or just making fun of the purse itself...  No one spoke up.  A couple dozen kids let them do it.  To me, that said I deserved it.  That said we hate you just as much as those guys do.  That said I was loathed by the entire student body.

My period as the victim was only a year or two, but at the time it was forever.  All those kids who I know now did not hate me...  I just want to apologize to every one of them.  I want to tell them I understand why they didn't act.  But at the time, their loathing of me was a fact.  

So, boys and girls, the next time you see a classmate being pushed around, realize how your silence is perceived.  Realize that, in their eyes, you are either cheering the bullies on or - maybe worse - you don't care either way.  Even if you don't have the courage to confront the bully on their behalf (the best course), the least you can do is a kind word when no one is looking.

Why didn't I stand up for myself?  No one else stood up for me, at a time in my life when the opinions of your peers is crucial, so maybe I thought I deserved it.  (Well, I did eventually stand up for myself.  I like to think the small kindnesses mentioned above helped me to do so.)  Why didn't I just stop being *insert adjective*?  It's easy to blame the victim, maybe even part of human nature, so don't beat yourself up too much if you've done it.  A lot of the things kids get bullied over are beyond their control.  I couldn't make my mother get off Welfare, I wasn't allowed to do "normal" things, and I sure couldn't stop doing things I didn't know were "wrong".

So, you other kids, I give you life from the perspective of at least one bullying victim.  It's not enough to not bully.  It's not enough to feel sorry for them.  You have to act, even if all you do is plead with them not to blab the fact that they don't hate you.

Shipping

For those among my hordes of readers who are unfamiliar with the terminology:  Fandom = the group of people who are fans of something (IE Trekkies/Trekkers are the Star Trek fandom)  Shipping = wanting/hoping/wishing a couple are or will be a couple.  (IE Some folks ship Spock and Kirk)

Now to my rant.  I shipped Hermione and Viktor.  I really didn't want her to end up with Ron or Harry.  I liked the platonic three-way they had going on.  Rowling, however, had other plans (obviously).  She arranged for them to end up family.  I'm bummed, but I get it, both as a fan (the canon relationships suit them) and as a writer (sometimes them characters just do what they want).  I can imagine an alternate Harry Potter universe wherein my vision came to pass, but I should also accept that in the "real" world, Hermione married Ron.

I saw a comment tonight on Facebook that - well, I'll paraphrase and use my own example.  "I loathe Ron with Hermione.  They make no sense as a couple.  Hermione belongs with Viktor."  Except this person didn't even name a canon character - "Hermione belongs with" a character...  from the comment writer's fan fiction...  

This goes way beyond playing "what if" and completely leaves the fandom in my opinion.  I did not ship Mulder and Scully.  I did not ship Xena and Gabrielle.  I did not ship Kaylee and Simon.  But guess what?  The creators of the universes in which those characters live put a lot of thought and work into making those relationships real to fans.

I imagine, if my own stories were ever part of pop culture, how I would feel in this situation. Did I fail to make it real to my readers?  Of course, I'd have to laugh at the idea of my using someone else's fan fiction character - not even sure how that's supposed to happen. How can you even call yourself a fan of mine if you hate what I've done?  

Inclusion Moving into Ridiculous

I recently postulated on a Facebook post that if Hollywood were to make a movie of Damnation Alley (not the bastardization they made in the 70s) they could ignore race and sex of the characters and cast Michelle Rodriguez as Hell Tanner.  Nothing in the book requires that he be a white male, after all.

I'm all for diversity.  Unless a character's sex, race, or religion is vital to the story, there is no reason for insisting that they have to be any particular one.  Recently, there was a lot of fuss because Hermione Granger isn't a white woman in the latest "Harry Potter" thing.  The books - and their author - never specify Hermione's race.  I saw her as a white gal because I saw the first movie before reading the books.

I can think of twice I saw a movie in which a character got race-swapped from the book.  In neither case was the race important to the story.  And one of them was James Earl Jones. If they made a movie of my "Ghosts" and James Earl Jones wanted to play Merlin...  OK, that's hyperbole, but JAMES EARL JONES!

Before Robotech.com killed the message boards, there were a lot of lively debates about the possible live-action movie.  One of the issues was, of course, casting.  Lynn Minmei is a Japanese/Chinese girl and her heritage is a part of her characterization - so she needs to remain that ethnicity.  A certain couple has to remain male/female for story line purposes.  Otherwise, I see no problem with James Earl Jones playing that white lady over there.

BUT... and you knew this was coming...  To cast an actor in a role that's historically inaccurate is wrong.  Yes, there were black slave owners in the antebellum Georgia, but if we remade Gone With The Wind, Scarlett's story is entirely different if we make her anything but a white female.  If you did toss a black slave owner in there, certainly take into account how society would interact with him.  Or her.

New Ghostbusters movie, in which they are all female and the eye-candy receptionist is male?  I certainly hope they're making fun of themselves with this, because anything seriously feminist about it is way off base.

When casting agents compromise characters and settings in order to be "inclusive", they're actually defeating the purpose.  Hell Tanner doesn't do anything a woman can't do.  Zelazny's physical description is vague - Tanner could be any ethnicity.  Making him a Hispanic female would be a good example of being inclusive.

But if the story calls for a certain race, a certain sex, and you ignore those realities, you have become the very thing you're working against.  Will Smith as Hamlet is as badly miscast as Orson Welles was when he played Othello.

Star Wars, Racism, and Sexism.

The Empire Triumphant: Race, Religion, and Rebellion in the Star Wars Films  by Kevin J. Wetmore Junior. 

Let me begin by saying this: I am not a huge fan of George Lucas.  Largely because of the almost incestuous Luke and Leia story line and because he wanted Marion Ravenwood to be too young to drive when Indiana Jones seduced her, I suspect he may be a pervert.  Even so, I feel the need to defend him from baseless accusations.  

The author starts out by saying he isn't calling George Lucas a racist, and then proceeds to list all the reasons the Star Wars Universe (created by George Lucas, remember) is as racist as a Klan rally.  His logic is not consistent, he relies on revisionist history, and worst of all - he criticizes another author for doing the same thing he is.  The other author "ignores evidence that contradicts his interpretation".  

The author claims filming in Tunisia for the backwards world of Tatooine means  Lucas believes Tunisia to be backwards.  Yet it doesn't occur to him that the primitives of Endor were filmed in California, which would mean Lucas thinks of Californians (including himself) as primitive. 

Aspects inspired by Asian culture are "appropriation" if used on a good guy and "stereotyping" if used on a bad guy.  Lucas has never made a secret that he was heavily influenced by Japanese movies.  The Jedi are analogous to Samurais.  What this guy is calling Appropriation is actually Imitation - the highest form of flattery.    

He claims that there is no sex in the Star Wars Universe and then tells us Vader sexually threatened Leia on the Death Star (Interrogation Scene), that Lando was a horny stereotype, and even compares Luke to Oedipus.  

At one point, he says the characters never go to "a performance", yet we see Palpatine at what seems to be an opera.  There are "no aliens" in the capital city - except for those interacting with the White Males the author keeps ranting about.  He even goes so far to take literally Luke's petulant comment to C-3PO about being farthest from the bright spot in the center of the universe!

Now that I've poked all kinds of holes in his logic, shall we move on to his claim of racism?  First is the lack of color - everyone is white.  Mace Windu and Lando?  Tokens.  Even Padme's right-hand-man, a black man named Panaka, is dismissed as tokenism.  My favorite one, though, is the claim that Vader is black.  Never mind he has white skin under the armor, and white offspring, Darth Vader is clearly an Evil Black Man.  One who sexually threatens the virginal white Princess.  

Jar Jar Binks is a "Gungun" according to this book.  "Gunguns" are black stereotypes who were not allowed a voice in the Senate.  In truth, Gungans (note the spelling) were isolationists.  They  didn't want to be in the Senate.  They were also Quasi-Jamaican, and not all Jamaicans are black.  

The Neimoidians were inscrutable and had almond-shaped eyes, so they must be Asian, thus making Asians evil.  Watto was greedy and had a big nose, so he must be Jewish.  The Jawa, by merit of the words sounding similar, were Jews - even though their behavior more fits the stereotype of a Gypsy. And the Tusken Raiders are Arabs, Bedouins to be precise, because they are nomadic and dress for protection from the desert in which they live.  

Ewoks and Wookies are American Indians, which makes Chewbacca Tonto.   Or maybe Friday, since he was a South American "savage" tamed by the White Man.  Any tribal society, in harmony with nature, MUST be American Indians.  

Then there's the mean way Lucas portrays women.  All they can do is have babies (Shmi and Padme) or get saved!  Did you know Leia was rescued from Jabba The Hut?  Never mind it looked like she was participating in a plan to rescue a White Male...  All those bad guys either of the leading ladies shot?  They don't count.  The female Jedis we saw? Tokenism.  

I will grant that the Star Wars universe could use more color and that females are under-represented. What this book does goes beyond that.  Star Wars is a tale meant for children.  As such, things are simplified and a resemblance to established stereotypes is going to happen.  And of course George Lucas tells a story from a Eurocentric viewpoint - he is descended from Europeans and raised in Western society.