On Asking Questions

‎Wednesday, ‎August ‎17, ‎2011, ‏‎4:00:00 PM | Annie Neugebauer

Sometimes, we don’t know things. No one can know everything, and every person has to decide what information is worth learning about and storing in their brain and what subjects are irrelevant and/or uninteresting. It is the way of the world. What might be incredibly obvious common knowledge to me might be something you’ve never heard of. And you might speak about something with a casual attitude that leaves me confused and reeling. It happens to everyone.

Now, the question is: When you’re on the clueless side, do you speak up, or nod along?

Allow me to give you a scenario. Now, as a disclaimer for the sake of my pride, I do know the most famous bits of history at least in broad terms. If you say World War II, I know the general dates. If you say Lexington and Concord, I know which war to put that in. But if you start naming people, specific minor battles, ships, Generals, and dates… well, I’m out. I have quite honestly never been interested enough in history to learn it more than required to pass school.

I was in a group of people when one man mentioned a historical battle. He mentioned it in such casual passing that I could tell he expected everyone to be familiar with it. When I gave him a blank stare, he repeated himself – which in some cases actually does help as I’m a bit hard of hearing, but this time it didn’t. I had no freaking clue what he was talking about. There were other people in the conversation. None of them spoke up, but I got the feeling they might not know what he was talking about either.

So what did I do? I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

There are two ways people react to this type of honesty. 1) They calmly tell you what the word means, when the battle took place, who wrote that book, etc. Or 2) They laugh, scoff, act incredulous, and/or use the How could you be so stupid? tone as they fill you in.

This man chose to do the latter. He said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I just assumed that everyone here had a basic understanding of American history.”

I’ve always been an inquisitive person. I’ve always asked questions when I need to. I was raised in the belief that that’s the only way to learn. If you don’t ask, how will you know? Needless to say, not everyone feels that way. I thought his reaction was indescribably rude. Not only was it arrogant and unnecessarily hostile, it implied I was either stupid or uneducated – neither of which is true. I’d be willing to gamble a hundred smackaroons that I know plenty of things that would leave that man gaping like a dumbass bass. But of course, I would never rub it in (at least not in real life — I get great revenge in my head).

It seems to me that there are only three choices. 1) Pretend you understand and try to follow along. 2) Keep quiet and look it up later (if you can remember). Or 3) Ask questions, and risk coming off as a ditz or fool. Clearly, I chose and choose the last. Knowledge is more important to me than pride, and not everyone reacts as negatively as the man in my example.

But I can’t help but wonder if I’m one of the only ones left who feels that way. I rarely see other people speak up. What do you find yourself doing? And what do you think is the right choice? Should you always offer up your ignorance to learn more, or should you zip it and play along?

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How Long Does Grief Last?

Originally posted on Monday, ‎July ‎18, ‎2011, ‏‎1:45:00 PM

The short, over-simplified answer: 3 years.

The honest, complicated answer: forever.

Here’s the truth, as I’ve experienced it.

Grieving is incredibly painful. There are all sorts of advice columns aimed at teaching people how to deal with that loss, anger, and sorrow. Some of them are helpful; some of them are overly prescriptive; some of them are actually harmful. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you should feel a certain way, react in a certain way, or feel better by a certain time. No matter how well intended, some advice will just not work for you. That’s okay. But this is key: 3 years is not a guarantee. It is an average. It is a number to set in your mind’s eye as something to look forward to – the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

3 years might sound like a lot, especially if your loved one has recently died. All I know to tell you is that yes, it is a lot. And no, it is not impossible. You get through those 3 years in any way you can: wallowing when you need to wallow, denying when you need to deny, remembering when you need to remember, and celebrating when you need to feel joy. There is no shame in any of this. There is no right answer. Simply do what you must. I give you permission to grieve, heal, and survive in whatever way feels right for you.

So how can grief last 3 years and forever? The easiest way I know to explain this is that “active” grieving lasts about 3 years. That feeling like you’re seeing the world through a shattered lens, or that you aren’t really absorbing any of the things that happen to you – the deepest part of depression and the most tearful nights all come and go for about 3 years.

So after the 3rd anniversary of your loved one’s death, do you magically feel better? Yes and no.

Yes: A good friend told me the 3-year thing, and I admit that about a week after that day passed I did feel indescribably better. Lighter, cleaner, almost tearfully relieved and joyous. Some of that might have been the power of suggestion, but I don’t see any problem with that. If you’re reading this post, you might experience that same phenomenon. And if you ask me, that’s a good thing. I welcomed it with open arms. 3 years is a long time to be sad.

No: Here’s a harder truth to hear. Grief never goes away. I truly believe that when someone very close to you dies (as in one of your “special” people), you never get over that. When a little chunk of our heart is hollowed out, it doesn’t fill back in. We simply learn to live around it. This sounds rather melancholy and morbid, but it’s not. It doesn’t mean we will never be happy again; it means that we will always carry a place that misses that person. Living with grief is our way of remembering – of honoring that person. It’s not something to dread. It’s something to embrace.

So how do you live with that subtle, post-3-year grief for a lifetime? Obviously, I haven’t lived a lifetime yet. But I can feel the stillness in my heart where my father used to be. It’s a soft, strangely peaceful place, and I’ve learned that the best way to live with it is to acknowledge it. Don’t hide it or ignore it or obsess over it. Just let it be.

Just let yourself, your grief, and your healing be what they are.

If you are in that first, overwhelming wave of grief, please don’t give up. I know it seems unbearable – and maybe it is – but you will learn to adjust. You will make it to year 3.

There is hope. You will feel better. Hang in there.

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Evolution of a Sonnet

Originally posted on April 22, 2011 at 12:26 PM

Maybe you’re a free-verse poet fighting the idea of testing out new forms. Intimidation, preconception, and lack of knowledge are all very real factors. Or maybe you’re not a poet at all. Maybe you see these poems and wonder how the hell anyone goes about creating them. Or maybe you’re a seasoned poet who wants to take a peek behind another poet’s bed-curtains.

Either way, you’re in the right place. In this blog, I will take you through the creation of a sonnet (the horror poem posted Wednesday: read it here first), from brainstorming, to writing, through critiques, to final product, and beyond.

Why listen to me? Not to toot my own horn, but I do know a thing or two about sonnets. I placed first in NFSPS’s Dorman John Grace Memorial Award – a national sonnet contest. Oh, and by the way – this blog post isn’t as long as it looks. Most of the text is the same thing being re-posted with slight alterations, so you can see the poem’s evolution. Let’s jump in.

Step 1- The Spark: Finding subject matter.

When I sit down to write a form poem – in this case, a Shakespearean sonnet – the first thing I need is a distinct idea. I would never sit down with a form and just start writing to see what comes out. I believe that far too many weak, meandering poems are born that way. For me, the spark must come first. Then the form.

In this particular example, the idea came in the form of a nightmare. Although I’m somewhat embarrassed by the hap-hazard scribble I’m about to post, I resisted the urge to edit it. The point is that all ideas start somewhere, and one must jot them down before they dissolve into the biosphere of Forgotten Schtuff. Bizarreness and all. This is only the end of a long and involved dream, in the effort to conserve space. Here are my jottings:

Dad gives me the car keys and tells me to go pull the car around. I look out to the parking lot and see the rows of gloomy, polished vehicles. There is a black-cloaked figure in the shadows of each one. I see ours: a dark blue van. I hold the remote car key in my right hand and a lighter in my left. I begin to walk to the car, and my dad waits by the storefront. As I near, I see a man trying to break into the driver’s side.

I call back over my shoulder, “Dad, is that a vampire?”

He hollers back, “No, it’s just a really nondescript car. Lots of people want to steal it.”

I see our maid across the parking lot, still in her ridiculous uniform, wearing a backpack, walking with my brother to the nearby highway. I can see a large, dark stain in the middle of my brother’s back. I think it might be blood. She looks back over her shoulder at me and winks. My brother never looks back.

As I approach, the man gets in behind the wheel and closes the door. I walk right up to the car, and he turns to look at me. His eyes are red: vampire. Horror pounds through me as he smiles. I know that I cannot outrun a vampire. I use my clicker-key to lock the door. He unlocks it with his long, thin fingers. I lock it. He unlocks it. I lock it again and begin backing away. This is a game to him. He thinks it’s fun. He knows he’ll win. I keep locking it and retreating as he continues to leer at me and unlock it. I jamb “lock” again with my thumb and realize I’m too far away now. The battery doesn’t reach that far.

He gets out and speeds toward me at a preternatural pace. I try to thumb on my lighter, but it’s in my left hand, and I’m right handed. He is a few feet away from me. I frantically try to light it. I can feel the skin on my thumb tearing from the effort. He has almost reached me.

Step 2- Seeing the Poem: Realizing that this idea will take the shape of poetry.

This sloppily written dream remained in my “Needs Work” folder for several years. One day, I realized that it would never be any sort of logical short story or even flash fiction in its current state. It was too strange. Too obviously a dream. And the one part of it that I really liked – the concept of the battery in the car remote running out of distance and the creepy guy being able to get out – was too short to be its own story. *light bulb* This was a poem.

As soon as I saw the poem within the idea, I wanted to act on it. The sonnet form called to me. Getting to know which forms suit which poems takes practice. Some forms are heavy on repetition, for example, and thus might not be suited to a narrative with a surprise ending, such as this. The more you work with various forms, the clearer it will become to you which ones “sing” to you, and which are suited to which types of ideas.

So I knew I wanted a sonnet. I decided that some elements of the dream didn’t bolster the core idea I so loved. My dad, brother, and the maid were minor characters and could be cut for space. The fact that the creepy guy was a vampire was irrelevant, as he never actually drinks blood, shows fangs, or uses powers. The lighter was a nice touch, but I knew it was too much to squeeze into a 14-line form. (One lesson I’ve learned in my four years or so of writing and critiquing: never be afraid to change your original ideas.) So I cut it all down to this:

I don’t realize there’s a man in my car until I’m almost to the door. He is shadowy and sitting in the driver’s seat. I stare at him in shock from only a few feet away and he smiles. Panicked, I use my car remote to lock the door. The mechanical click rings through the dark, empty parking lot. He reaches up with long thin fingers and unlocks it—the sound is muted. I begin to back away as I thumb the “lock” button again. He unlocks it again from inside the car. I am speeding backwards now, stumbling on my feet. He is laughing through the silence of the car window. This is a game to him. I lock the door. He unlocks it. I lock it. He unlocks it. I lock it—but this time there is no mechanized click. I realize that I am too far away now; the battery can’t reach anymore. I glance around me. The parking lot is empty and the store is closed. I have nowhere to go, nowhere to run. With that sickening grin, he pulls up the manual lock from the inside and opens the car door.

Step 3- Building the Bones: Setting up your template and getting rhyme ideas.

At this point, I search my paragraph for potentially rhyme-able words that carry enough significance to be used in the poem. I bold and highlight them for easy reference. As you’ll see, I don’t end up using all of these, and I use several that I didn’t find at first.

I don’t realize there’s a man in my car until I’m almost to the door. He is shadowy and sitting in the driver’s seat. I stare at him in shock from only a few feet away and he smiles. Panicked, I use my car remote to lock the door. The mechanical click rings through the dark, empty parking lot. He reaches up with long thin fingers and unlocks it—the sound is muted. I begin to back away as I thumb the “lock” button again. He unlocks it again from inside the car. I am speeding backwards now, stumbling on my feet. He is laughing through the silence of the car window. This is a game to him. I lock the door. He unlocks it. I lock it. He unlocks it. I unlock it—but this time there is no mechanized click. I realize that I am too far away now; the battery can’t reach anymore. I glance around me. The parking lot is empty and the store is closed. I have nowhere to go, nowhere to run. With that sickening grin, he pulls up the manual lock from the inside and opens the car door.

Next I make my template. I usually take a couple of lines from another poem (preferably one of mine) to get my mind into the meter of the form. I put these at the top for reference. It just helps my rhythm.

Then I lay out the rhyme scheme. In poetry, rhyme scheme is traditionally signified by letters. Thus “A” lines would all rhyme with each other, “B” lines would rhyme, etc. (The G’s are indented because couplets on Shakespearean sonnets often are.)

Finally, I fill in the highlighted words from above where I think they might be useful. Here’s what it looks like:

My brother had a frog with four webbed feet—

a gift. My mother wouldn’t touch the thing,

Title

A door
B dark
A store
B park
C
D smile
C
D while
E
F
E
F
G car
G far

Step 4- Filling in Flesh: writing the words.

Writing the rough draft is a crucial stage. The most important thing, for me, is to write it quickly. Just like with prose: you are not allowed to edit as you write. Editing is what you do after you write. You’ll see below that I put “wond’ring” in because I couldn’t think of a full word that could fit there. If I had stopped and thought about it, or God forbid gone to a thesaurus, it might have put a hex on the whole poem. Power through. No excuses. Here’s my very first draft:

My mind is dreaming now about my date
ahead and wond’ring where I might have parked,
and grateful that the store was open late
I walk without a thought into the dark.
It isn’t till my car is feet away
that I look up and see the man inside.
His shadowed face, to me, seems to convey
evil intent; I’m frozen in mid-stride.
Just sitting in the driver’s seat, he grins;
I, fumbling for my car remote, press lock,
but long thin fingers gently pull it up again,
and while I thumb it down I start to walk
backwards from the stranger in my car
but I know the battery won’t reach that far.

Step 5- Becoming Presentable: fixing up the rough stuff.

Now I get to fix those parts that I knew were crap even as I wrote them. In truth, this step might become steps 5, 6, & 7, too – depending on how many drafts you go through. That’s fine. You’ll see that between step 4 and step 5 (we’ll call it 4.5) I tried yet again to smooth that last couplet. This is also usually about the time I give my poem a title. (I have to save it under something, even if the title changes later.)

Cat and Mouse

My mind is dreaming now about my date
ahead and puzzling where I might have parked,
and grateful that the store was open late,
I walk without a thought into the dark.
It isn’t till my car is feet away
that I look up and see the man inside.
His shadowed face, to me, seems to convey
evil intent; I’m frozen in mid-stride.
Just sitting in the driver’s seat, he grins;
I, fumbling for my car remote, press lock,
but long thin fingers pull it up again,
so while I thumb it down I start to walk
backwards from the stranger in my car…
the battery can only reach so far.

Step 5.5- Putting on Makeup: arguing with yourself.

Cat and Mouse

My mind is dreaming now about my date
ahead and puzzling where I might have parked,
and grateful that the store was open late,
I walk without a thought into the dark.
It isn’t till my car is feet away
that I look up and see the man inside.
His shadowed face, to me, seems to convey
evil intent; I’m frozen in mid-stride.
Just sitting in the driver’s seat, he grins;
I, fumbling for my car remote, press lock,
but long thin fingers pull it up again,
so while I thumb it down I start to walk
backwards as he mouths from within my car…
“The battery can only reach so far.”

Step 6- Getting Critique: the feedback of others is invaluable.

At this point, the poem is as good as I can get it without going insane. I take it to my trusted poetry critique group. This is what they told me:

Cat and Mouse 1

My mind is dreaming now about my date
ahead and puzzling where I might have parked,
and grateful that the store was open late,
I walk without a thought into the dark.
It isn’t till my car is feet away
that I look up and see the man inside.
His shadowed face, to me, seems to convey 2
evil intent; I’m frozen in mid-stride. 3
Just sitting in the driver’s seat, he grins;
I, fumbling for my car remote, press lock, 4
but long thin fingers pull it up again,
so while I thumb it down I start to walk
backwards as he mouths from within my car… 5 6
“The battery can only reach so far.” 7

1- The title helps the understanding of what happens in the poem, but is perhaps too playful. Cat and mouse could easily be a poem about something silly. This poem is more sinister.

2- Slight variation of meter in the emphasis of “to” instead of “seems (wrenched meter)

3- “Evil” is trochaic.

4- “I” is the beginning of a trochee as well, to some readers. Or, with the comma as a beat, this line could be read to have 6 feet instead of 5.

5-6- “Backwards” is trochaic, and “from within” is a bunch of nothing.

7- “Battery” might be momentarily confusing. Car battery? No, remote battery.

*For help with terminology, refer to Poetry 101: A Crash Course on Poetic Devices.

Step 5- Evaluating & Implementing Critique: deciding what goes and what stays.

There’s no reason to be afraid of critique. It is just someone else’s opinion. You are still the writer. If they say “this sounds bad,” and you disagree, you don’t have to change it. It’s your creative project, remember? Consider, decide, and act. Here’s what I changed and didn’t change.

Cat and Mouse 1

My mind is dreaming now about my date
ahead and puzzling where I might have parked,
and grateful that the store was open late,
I walk without a thought into the dark.
It isn’t till my car is feet away
that I look up and see the man inside.
His shadowed face, to me, seems to convey 2
evil intent; I’m frozen in mid-stride. 3
Just sitting in the driver’s seat, he grins;
I, fumbling for my car remote, press lock, 4
but long thin fingers pull it up again,
so while I thumb it down I start to walk
backwards as he mouths from within my car… 5 6
“The battery can only reach so far.” 7

1- I agreed completely, and in fact went into it saying, “I’m still not sure about this title.” Full disclosure is always best. They agreed, confirming my instinct, and I changed it.

2- I decided that I’m okay with this one. I’m not a purist. This poem might be disqualified form a strictly-judged sonnet contest, but I’m okay with that. Even Milton and Frost didn’t live and die by the regularity of their meter. Who am I to quibble?

3- Same as above. In fact, I like that “evil” throws off the beat. It has meaning to the poem that this word should disrupt the simplicity of the verse above it.

4- I actually like this confusion, as it occurs around “fumbling,” which is representative of the meter there. In cases such as these, form informs meaning.

5-6- This line is a mess. I felt that instinctively, as you can see in my several attempts at rewriting it. I knew I wanted it to end on “car,” but the meter was too irregular to be intentional. I allowed myself to let go of and change words, and it became much easier.

7- I agreed that “battery” might be misleading, but I had to keep the meter, and I didn’t want to repeat the word “car” since the last line ended with it. One of my critique partners suggested “fob remote,” but a quick survey on Facebook showed that about 50% of every-men don’t instantly know what that is (including me). The last thing I want is to leave my readers puzzling on the last line with a vague image/word they have to look up. So I went with “key remote.”

Step 6- Show Worthy: sit back and admire your work.

You can see the changes/not changes I implemented below. This is also where I decided that the indention of the couplet didn’t serve my poem.

Scarcely Caged

My mind is dreaming now about my date
ahead and puzzling where I might have parked,
and grateful that the store was open late,
I walk without a thought into the dark.
It isn’t till my car is feet away
that I look up and see the man inside.
His shadowed face, to me, seems to convey
evil intent; I’m frozen in mid-stride.
Just sitting in the driver’s seat, he grins;
I, fumbling for my car remote, press lock,
but long thin fingers pull it up again,
so while I thumb it down I start to walk
away. He’s caught, but mouths from in my car:
“The key remote can only reach so far.”

A few things I’d like to note here, for those who are interested. This poem is (primarily) iambic pentameter. Lines 1, 7, and 12 employ enjambment. The rest of the lines are end-stopped. If read (in my opinion) incorrectly, line 7 could become wrenched meter; if read correctly (in my opinion) it breaks the iambic pattern. Want to know what all of this means? Refer to my post about poetic devices.

Step 7- Share: give it to your friends, read it at the open mic, and/or seek publication.

Not everyone shares my goals of publication. That’s perfectly fine. But I will admit that if you’ve spent so much effort on a poem… I can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to share it with someone.

The fate of this particular poem is up for grabs, as most places consider posting on blogs “publication.” Contests almost always do, so I can’t enter any of those, which, honestly, isn’t that big of a loss. Most sonnet contests are biased against horror subject matter, and most horror contests are biased against traditional forms. So if I find a venue that accepts previously published horror sonnets (lol) I might get it published as a stand-alone. Otherwise it will have to wait until my horror collection Around Dark Corners gets published. You see what I sacrifice for you guys?!

If you decide to give my method a try, I’d love to hear how it turns out! Happy poem-building!

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The Difference between Grammar and Linguistics

Originally posted on Thursday, ‎June ‎09, ‎2011, ‏‎8:42:00 PM

“Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.” –Winston Churchill

Let’s talk about how we talk.

In college, I majored in English. I am a proud and self-professed grammar guru. My idea of a nightmare is an uncaught typo coming back to gobble me up. Every time I see someone confuse homophones or misplace apostrophes, a little piece of my soul shrivels up and dies. I’m not going to lie. Unless I make a conscious effort, if your grammar in a published work is poor, I judge you.

The only thing that saved me from becoming a high-ranking official in the dreaded Grammar Nazi Party was this: at the same time that I was majoring in English, I was minoring in Linguistics. *readers heave a huge sigh of relief, then look confused*

Most people don’t really know what linguistics is. Language… they know it has something to do with language and… and rules? Well, I was no different. In fact, I originally got accepted to UT as a Linguistics major. I thought linguists were just people who knew how to speak a lot of different languages. In high school I had taken one year of German, one year of French, two years of Spanish, and had started teaching myself American Sign Language. I loved languages. I thought linguists spoke languages. It seemed like a good match to me.

It wasn’t until after my intro class my freshman semester that I realized I didn’t even know what my major meant. Luckily for me, it turned out that I loved what linguistics actually is even more than what I thought it was. (And I still got to take a lot of Spanish, at least. I ended up with a double minor.)

Grammar as I’m using it, commonly called English or Language Arts in grade school, is the study and pursuit of mastering “proper” or “textbook” English (known in linguistics as a prestige dialect – meaning that this is the form of the language spoken by people in positions of power – the form deemed “correct” by the powers that be). Grammar as most people experience it is prescriptive; it aims to teach. E.g., This is the correct way to say that. This is what’s drilled into our heads in school, and what we are expected to use in our formal essays, etc.

Linguistics as I’ve experienced it is descriptive; it aims simply to show, study, and dissect what is there in natural speech. Linguistics doesn’t say, This is the way you should have said that. It says, This is why you said what you did the way you did.

Very few people, if any, use Book English as their natural dialect. No one goes around refusing to use contractions and twisting sentences into silly nothingness to avoid ending them in prepositions (see quote above). Sure, we might speak more formally in a job interview than when we’re telling old family stories to our cousins at Christmas, but that’s affected. It’s not how we normally talk. There are thousands of different English dialects. And honestly, since no two people have exactly the same one, there are technically millions. And yet, according to so many of our ruler-wielding English teachers, there is only one correct way to speak on the phone. Go figure.

Does everyone understand the difference between your natural grammar (your dialect) and your learned grammar (Book English)? To boil it down as much as possible: the first is how you talk when you don’t filter at all. The second is how your professors graded your English essays. The first is studied in Linguistics, the second in Grammar. Get it?

Both are useful. Both are relevant. Both have a time and a place. Generally what I find is a level of education. The lowest level of education tends to be those who speak whatever their natural vernacular is, and there are, like I said, thousands of versions of this – covering everything from my charming Texas twang (it’s cute, y’all) to heavy Brooklyn accents to the drawl of African American English (AAVE). These are all vernaculars.

If a speaker of English never learns anything beyond their natural dialect, they will likely face discrimination at some point in their life – lots of it if they leave their geographical area or strive for a career in a position of cultural power. Defending the many, many English vernaculars would take a whole blog in and of itself, so I won’t. But I will say this: such people might be uneducated in Book English, but that does not make them stupid. Intelligence and education are two very different things.

The next level of education tends to be middle-class America. They know Book English enough to squeak through essay-grading, but that’s about it. After that comes the English class snob or college graduate: they know Book English religiously and unfortunately, often judge those who don’t. The extremists become grammar Nazis. They are the assholes that correct you in everyday speech, edit your characters’ dialogue for grammar (writers, y’all know what’s up, don’t you?), and think bloggers and the interwebs in whole are generally scum. Bless them, they are just as ignorant as the people they judge.

The level of education that I would like for us all to strive for, if someone died and made me in charge of English for Americans, is a good understanding of grammar (Book English) AND linguistics (read: tolerance). You know what I really admire? Someone who speaks their natural vernacular with pride, knows Book English so they can advance in any and all cultures they wish to advance in, and doesn’t judge those who don’t know these things. Because how is anyone going to learn if no one tells them? (Notice how I didn’t turn that “them” into a “him/her.” This is a BLOG. It’s CASUAL.)

Which is what prompted me to write this post. (“Don’t hate; educate!”) Is there an interest in me delving into the teachings of linguistics as applicable to cultural tolerance? Or did my y’alls throw y’all off? 😉

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“My vampires are nothing like Edward Cullen” And Other Unnecessary Disclaimers

Originally posted on Monday, ‎May ‎30, ‎2011, ‏‎2:10:00 PM

Okay, writers, readers, and media-mongers, listen up. I’m only going to say this once, because I’m tired of hearing it. I’m tired of thinking it. I’m tired of hearing other people say they’re tired of thinking it. So this is once and for all, a general, blanket-statement for all authors who would like to be included:

I write _____ (fill in the blank: horror, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, YA… ), but my _________ (vampires, werewolves, love story, characters… ) are nothing like _________ (Stephanie Meyer’s, JK Rowling’s, Carrie Ryan’s, Stephen King’s, Charlain Harris’s… ).

I am a horror writer. I used to answer the question “So what do you write?” with some degree of discomfort, knowing certain books and stereotypes I would instantly be associated with. But the truth is, I think any commercial genre faces this, and we all have to screw up our courage and own what we write. We love it, other people do too, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

I think all of this instant disclaimer business is unnecessary embarrassment. It’s not about one genre or another; it’s about self-esteem and taking pride in what you write. Write about people being hacked apart by a circular saw? Own it. Write about sexy vampires seducing virgins? Own it. Write highfalutin lit-fic about seemingly mundane things? Own it. That’s my vote, anyway. We should all take pride in what we do, and we should try to find ways to respect what other people do as well.

So all together now, for one last time:

I write horror, but my vampires are nothing like Edward Cullen (or, for that matter, like any of these).

I write fantasy, but my wizards are nothing like Dumbledor.

I write romance, but my heroines are nothing like Elizabeth Lowell’s.

Get it?

Good.

Now we can move on, right? Write.

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Posted in Advice for Writers | Tagged , | 2 Comments