Feminism

Feminist: a person who supports feminism

Feminism: the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities

To not be a feminist is to not support feminism.

Kaley Cuoco came out as not being a feminist, stating that, “I was never that feminist girl demanding equality, but maybe that’s because I’ve never really faced inequality.”

Well, does this mean I could say, “I don’t need to be that girl demanding equality for LGBT/racial minority people, but maybe that’s because I’ve never really faced inequality for being LGBT/racial minority.”  She’s clearly been so focused on herself that she hasn’t observed the inequality women face for being women.  She is from a well-to-do family that could take her on frequent trips to Los Angeles for auditions.  It’s painfully obvious she has no idea what trials most women face at some point in our lives for nothing more than being women.  Further, she definitely doesn’t have the intelligence to realize that feminism doesn’t mean you can’t take care of your spouse.  Feminism is about having the choice.

Being a feminist doesn’t mean you can’t be a stay-at-home wife.  I’m a stay-at-home wife and mother who sews, cooks, cleans, writes, all the traditionally girly things, BY MY CHOICE.  Feminism is about more than that.  It’s about having the right to make medical decisions for ourselves without having to worry about employers vetoing what care we can get.  It’s about not being paid less for the same work as equally-qualified male co-workers because we’re women.  It’s about the same opportunities we’d get if we were men, and having equal respect.  She may not have to worry about access to birth control, or dealing with being paid a whopping 40% less than the men on her tech team (like I was!!!), but that doesn’t mean that inequality doesn’t exist.

It really irks me to have women dismiss the struggles of other women because they personally are wealthy enough to not have to deal with it.  Her little claim that, well, she’s never had to deal with it, so why bother being a feminist, is very sexist.  Sadly, this is happening more and more.  A growing number of women are no longer seeing the point.  So many women fail to see how companies having the right to dictate our bitch control choices, our underrepresentation in several fields, and politicians who don’t think rape really exists, are problems.  Many women don’t realize that the rape and sexual assault epidemic is a symptom of misogyny.  It’s the belief that our bodies should be public property, free for the taking if our skirts are too short.

We need feminism still, and women not caring since they’re financially privileged enough to be above it hurt the rest of us.  It’s heartless, and it shows a disconnect.  How many of her fans are women who are struggling to get basic care that is being called a privilege?  Or are being passed up for promotions since a manager thinks a lesser-qualified man should be bumped up since bossing is men’s work?  What she has said to all her female fans is she doesn’t care because she’s in a position high enough to not personally have to deal with it.

Kaley, open your eyes and realize you don’t have to personally go through something to care about those who do.  Do you not bother with advocating equal rights for LGBT people since you, as a straight woman, aren’t at any risk?  Would you have sat by idle in Alabama when blacks were fighting for rights since you, as a white woman, face no challenges for your race?  Realize that it’s about a lot more than you care to learn about.  Do you want any daughters you may one day have to have fewer opportunities than you’ve had?

My fellow women, that on earth is going on when so many among us are content to sit back and not care anymore?  Why is our rights being stripped becoming accessible?  Why is abuse romantic?  What the hell is going on that more and more women are accepting of these things?  Something is very wrong here, and it’s dangerous.

The Grinch is the perfect Christmas program

Methinks the Grinch is deviously pleased.

Every program, whether a television show or movie, that is for Christmas either tries to be secular, or else has an aim of being religious.  This makes sense.  Those who celebrate usually pick a side, and even those who celebrate religiously may still have a visit from Santa.  Most people can enjoy secular programs, but only some can enjoy religious ones.

Dr. Seuss managed to find that sliver of sweet spot, and it translated perfectly to a visual moving medium.  We don’t know why Grinchy doesn’t like the Whos, and are never led to believe they don’t like him.  We see someone who has no love in his heart, and the reason for that is for the viewer to ponder.

The magic in this starts when the Whos wake up on Christmas, and rather than be upset, still smile and sing.

My daughter asked why they weren’t upset all their presents were gone.  You can ask anyone that, and get valid answers that vary widely.  Perhaps they were able to find the joy in their loved ones being with them, and wanted to celebrate that.  If they held religious beliefs, then they could be happy because of the holiday held most holy in Christianity.  It continues with that ray of light rising, and the Grinch thinking things he hadn’t before.

Just what he’s ultimately thinking, we don’t know.  And that’s the beauty of it.  Unlike A Charlie Brown Christmas, where Linus gives a recitation of Luke 2:8-14 (don’t get me wrong–atheist-ol’-me still loves that show, and I watch it several times every year), the meaning the Grinch gets is up to the viewer.  Could he had realized the Whos he detested were full of love, and that touched his heart?  If his anger was over perceived commercialism, maybe his idea was broken, and that dispelled his negative feelings.  The light could have been the light of Jesus reaching him in that cold place on the mountain.  Whatever touches you about the holiday on December 25th, that’s what he’s feeling.

It’s perfectly clear to each viewer, and yet abstract at the same time so that each person can put a part of themselves in it, and find some joy in the Grinch’s conversion from hateful to loving.

Whatever it is, we all feel it, those of us who participate in Christmas in some way.

And I think most, if not all of us, feel at least some small sense of elation when he triumphs over the challenge he made for himself, that he resolved through whatever newly-found belief he had.

Yes, this one hits that sweet spot.  And it’s clean enough of innuendo to watch with even the youngest of kids, and those of us who grew up with it will also have a sense of nostalgia, and maybe a tear or two on our own eyes.  If you’re like me, that may be on your cheeks, and you’ll try quickly wiping the away before anyone notices.  Some of my nostalgia is because my dad and I always watched this together, even after I was an adult, and he always had a look on his face that made me think of a small boy, and for the duration of this show, nothing bothersome or stressful could touch him.  And now he’s gone, but I can share The Grinch with my own child.  And I also get the same feeling of nothing in my own world can be anything less than goof for that twenty-minute stretch of time.  Thank you, Dr. Seuss and Karl Borloff.

See?  Nostalgia.

Readers: Please don’t complain about costs of books

Once again I have been reading Twitter-complaints about the cost of indie books….  “Why buy an independent book for $15 when Grisham is $8?” is the message.

When I first entered the field of writing, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, though I knew trying to find an agent would always be an uphill battle.  In that time, I’ve learned a thing or three.  Among them, it’s not unusual for agents to offer to represent if you’ll completely overhaul your book to be more like the very books it’s supposed to be nothing like (in my case, “Make Juliette more like Bella Swan!” to which I said NO, and so lost some agents).  After I decided to go indie so that I wouldn’t have to go against the very reasons I started writing, I learned many more things, and they all have the same message:

Even though the book industry couldn’t exist without authors, indie authors are seen as existing to make other people a lot of money and to be employers, and yet many readers think our prices aren’t worth it, even though most of us won’t break even.

Aside from the top of the top, it’s the rare author who will earn more money than those they have to pay.  Unless you have people who can help and will do so for free, you can expect to pay a few grand for editing alone.  It’s not uncommon for an indie author to spend upwards of $15,000 getting one title ready for publication, and promoting it.  To earn that money back…let’s do some figures.  I’m going to use my real figures.

A print copy of Sacred Blood costs $5.69, not including any of the shipping, which works out to another dollar per book.  So $6.69.  My book is listed at $16.99.  Right now, Amazon pockets 35% of that.  I get $11.04 per book sold.  Sounds sweet, right?  Profit!  Ah, take out the $6.69, and I’m down to $4.35.  I’m taxed on the entire $16.99, can write off the printing, shipping, and fee to Amazon, but still get back less than the taxes (as an indie, the list price is seen as income, and the cut Amazon takes is treated as me being the boss paying Amazon).  It’s about $4 in taxes, after all is said and done.  There’s my profit margin.  35 cents.  If I wasn’t lucky enough to have people who can edit for me, and help with any tech work, that would be gone too, and I’d be in the hole.  But since I do some promotional events, I’m in the hole anyway.

If you go to Amazon and by my book through them instead of through Vancouver Independent Publishing, I get even less.  Amazon undercut my list price, and I get a minuscule royalty for it, “after printing costs” that as inflated.  I don’t see any return on books shipped from Amazon, and I have no say in Amazon listing my books as sold by them.

If a big bookstore will carry your book, they get a discount off the list price, typically 65%.  I’d get $5.94, and since the shipping would be on them, this means I get 35 cents.  Again.  I’m rich!  Hundreds and hundreds of hours of writing and editing has paid off!  Oh, but I have to give it all back if they decide not to shelve the books, and to instead return them.  I could easily end up in the hole.

E-books aren’t much better.  A price of $2.99 gets me $1.04 since I won’t agree to letting Amazon be the ONLY place people can get books.  Since I’ll send them myself, I don’t qualify for their slightly higher exclusive-distribution rate.  Factor out taxes, and I’m making a couple quarters.  Worse, though, is that Amazon allows people to buy and return e-books without question.  This has resulted in many people treating Amazon like a library.  Every author I know of has had people buy and return books.  On the tax end, we have to pay taxes since it’s still seen as a sale.  A return is a loss, but with the way it all works, we don’t get all the taxes back.  Every returned e-book means money we have to pay, on top of having to give back our scant royalty.

Now I had accepted this as the way things are.  I know authors with sales in the tens of thousands of units who are still struggling to get by with other full-time jobs because of how much it costs to be an author.  But then I learned another way we are seen as a source of income for others, rather than as a vital component of the industry.

I was turned on to the idea of audiobooks.  I looked into the main company that distributes audiobooks.  You’ve probably heard of it (hint: It starts with “Aud” and ends in “ible”), and I guarantee you’ve heard of its parent company (hint: I’ve mentioned it in this post).  There are two ways an author can pay for an audiobook, and so it sounds sweet.  One is to pay per finished hour, which is quite expensive.  Some narrators want as much as $1,000 per hour, meaning a 10hr-audiobook will cost the author $10,000.  Ouch,  I can’t afford that!  Most want $250-$500 per.  $2,500-$5,000 is still more than I can afford.  So on to the other way.  Royalty-share!  If you share royalties with a narrator instead, you each get 20% of the list price of the audiobook.  Right off the bat, this is a better deal for the narrator.  For doing much less work, they get as much as the author.  But at least it’s an option for the author.

Better still, royalty-sharing means a partnership.  Both author and narrator have a stake in helping promote since neither get paid if they can’t drum up interest.  I am a fan of teamwork.  So this idea greatly appealed to me.

I started looking into narrators on the royalty program.  I approached several.  Even though the service says per hour OR royalties, what I found was narrator after narrator wanting both.  On the low end, $2,500 plus royalties.  On the upper end, some wanted $10,000 plus royalties.  The service doesn’t even list this as an option when making an offer to a narrator (and the offers have to come from the author side).  This turned me off.  What incentive does the narrator have to help with any promotion?  They’ll have received tons of money, and no it’s all passive on their end since I’ll be doing all the promotion and giving them half of what I get.  This puts the author in a position of giving a lot of money up front, then giving the labor of promotion, then giving half of all earnings that result of that labor without anything further on the part of the narrator to earn it.  This is the author literally working for the narrator.

I sent an email to the service about this, and the reply I received claimed first that this is all just a part of narrator and author negotiating.  I fired back that not only would this actually require payment outside the service with no protection for the authors, but that authors don’t have the ability to adjust the share of royalty to compensate for someone also wanting thousands of dollars on the side.  The reply I received was that they have no way of knowing which narrators require payment outside the service, which actually is against the rules.

At this point, I wanted to bang my head against my keyboard.  It’s all right there in the messages.  They can read them.  They can see who is requiring payment in a way that is against the rules, but they won’t.  The service is protecting the narrators at the expense of great risk to authors.  This also means that narrators have the right to higher earnings the authors who spend hundreds of hours, or more, on each book.  Authors are a source of revenue to the narrators.  Our own books aren’t revenue to us.  We write to profit other people more than we can hope to profit ourselves, or to even break even.

At the end of the day, writing is an act of love.  Most of us will never break even.  We write because we both love writing, and believe that it’ll somehow pay off one day, even if the pay-off is nothing more than breaking even.  My books have changes a few lives in great ways (two women identified abuse in their relationships, found self-worth, and got away, and a man understood why victims don’t just leave), which has tremendous value to me.  However, when I can’t break financially even, it means putting out the next book is harder.  If I don’t have the money to get things done, get books printed, then that means no more books.  I’m in the fortunate position of having a spouse who earns enough to support us, and who supports the money going into this financial black hole that is writing, but it’s still not easy, and can be hard to justify.

And then people complain about the cost of books, especially how much indie authors charges since surely we can’t have the same expenses as authors who are represented by agents with books printed by the big hitters!  The truth is we don’t have the same expenses.  We have more.  We have the expenses the big publishing houses pay instead of the authors.  That’s all on us.  And, unlike us indies, agented authors whose books are handled by big publishing are only taxed on their royalties since they’re seen as being paid by the publisher.  I get taxed on $16.99, while they, if a book lists at that, sells at that, and they get 10%, are taxed on $1.69.  Re-read above to see how I don’t actually see anywhere near $16.99, and see less profit per book, if I break even.

Readers, PLEASE, for the love if the written word, don’t expect us to compete with the prices of books by big names.  Those big names have it easy.  They don’t have the expenses we do.  Someone else pays for the editing, the covers, the formatting, printing, distribution, everything, and even though their own royalty may be 20%, since 100% of the list price isn’t treated as income, they come out ahead, book for book, even when you buy a book for 40% off at Barnes & Noble.  All that stuff that’s handled on their behalf if what we indies must pay for, and is more work we must do.  We have to do it on our own, and competing, price-wise, would put us in the hole more than we already are.

Please understand that we all know we’re going to be lucky to keep our necks above water, but we all take the financial risk because we want to share our stories with the world.  We do this as a labor of love for you, the very group most likely to complain about what we charge.  I’m begging you, on behalf of all the indie authors out there, to think about what you’re getting for what we’re giving.  We are like the rock artists who haven’t sold out.  Many of us are indie because we refuse to sell out (like the agents wanting me to revamp my anti-Bella into a Bella-clone), because we want to give you something different.  Our work may not always be the shiniest of the shiny, but we also can’t afford the $10,000-editors and the $5,000-cover artists.  We do the best with what we have, and we do it for you.  You can say we write for ourselves, and that’s true but only to an extent.  At the end of the day, we have stories we want to share–with you.  Those of us who write anything for ourselves keep that writing in a folder on our computer, or in a notebook somewhere (I’ve got more words written for myself that the world will never see).  Those of us who publish publish for you.  If you think our prices are too high, please spare us the ache we feel when you tell us, and just head on out to Barnes & Noble and get your discounted books.

I know some of you reading this are probably taking away the message that I’m complaining about there being any costs associated with being a writer, that I’m saying people who work for us deserve nothing.  You’re actually touched on a point.  These people do deserve some pay, whether it’s a fee up front or a share of royalties.  Unless we’re dealing with royalties, where does the money come from to pay people?  That’s right.  From the pockets of the authors.  Complaining that our prices are too high is saying we should get less, which means less to pay those people.  If we’re lucky to break even as it is (and again most of us are far from it), how can we pay anyone on even less?  I personally couldn’t do it at all without the people I know who are willing to gift their time to me in support of my writing.  Most writers aren’t so lucky.

If you value the craft of writing, please give some thought to what we put into each and every book, from the time writing to the costs out of pocket to our accepting that we are the bottom-feeders in an industry that depends on us for its existence.  What you get for the price really is much more than you pay.  You’re getting a piece of our hearts that we give knowing we likely will never get out of the hole, and we do it out of love for telling you our stories.

The authors

Left to right: K.L. Bone, author of Black Rose,  Greg Wilkey, author of the Mortimer Drake vampire series, Sarah M. Cradit, author of the House of Crimson and Clover series, and Brandy L. Rivers, of the Other of Edenton.  

Convenient that I could just copy and paste that again.  The order is correct.  And then there’s me on the right.

In the coming weeks, each will be featured here with a short interview!

Home after signing!

Upon arriving, I felt like running away.  I am terrified in social situations.  I can do public speaking well, but when it comes to reading my own work, that’s like putting my heart out there for people to judge.

For the first while, I tried to hide in a corner, and basically blend in with the wall.  Exciting.

When it came time for the five of us to go to the front to start reading, I wished so hard that one of my editors had been there so I could have her drive me home so I could have some wine.  I had to be stone-cold sober.  When my time came, I just told myself to hell with it, and read, trying to suppress my urge to act out the scene.  I think I picked a good piece since it did leave people wanting more.

From there, I loosened up and was actually able to talk to people without counting down the minutes until eight.  We had a Q&A afterward, and my answer to what inspired me went over well and got some cheers.  This post and this post more or less cover it.  If you don’t care to click and read, I’ll sum it up as I was very concerned that the relationship between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan was treated as so utterly romantic when it was controlling and abusive.  So many teenagers lost the ability to identify abusive relationships!  I’ve also, very obviously to readers of this blog, am upset at how the next “great” thing is Edward the Second, known as Christian Grey (is there anyone who doesn’t know that Fifty Shades is Twilight fanfic?), and I want to put something out into the world that will empower young women instead of treating abuse as normal and even desirable.

And I just now realized that the young 20-somethings of today who looooooove Fifty Shades were the teenagers of yesterday who adored Twilight.  Do you know what the means?  It’s a progression in teaching young women that abuse is normal.  Most older women who weren’t into Twilight never enjoyed Fifty Shades because they identified the abuse.  Those who loved Twilight tend to be the fans of Fifty Shades.  Are there many Fifty Shades-fans who didn’t start with Twilight?

Back to the signing.  I ended up pushing the free ebooks for Sacred Blood more since I realized, when trying to pick a passage, that I can make the book better.  I have a bit more experience, and identified several spots that need an overhaul.  I’m going to work on a second edition to release in the next few weeks while continuing on the draft of Sacred Heart (I will be renaming this book from its working title to something else later).  I will send free ebooks of the second edition to everyone I know who has a first edition, and anyone who contacts me about having a first edition they’d like to update.  I did sell my hard copies though.

Better than that, I met some great people. Let me copy this list from this morning’s post: K.L. Bone, author of Black Rose,  Greg Wilkey, author of the Mortimer Drake vampire series, Sarah M. Cradit, author of the House of Crimson and Clover series, and Brandy L. Rivers, of the Other of Edenton.  

Such awesome people.  Greg joined us from Tennessee, and Kristin flew in from Ireland.  Brandy is from further up in Washington, and Sarah is more local.  Kristin’s family was with us (Sam, if you’re reading this, just know you’re awesome and have a great way of putting people at ease, and so you always need to be as these signings), and they’re sweet people.  A literature professor, Kate, was in our audience, and she and I had a good conversation on the downward trend in literature and education (education and a love of learning are of extreme importance to me, and this is something that, as the mother of an almost-kindergartener, is of the utmost importance to me).

I’m also feeling reinvigorated in the writing-department.  I needed that.

Thank you so much to Kristin for organizing tonight’s event, and to her mother (I feel so awful for forgetting her name!) for manning the sales table for us, to Sam for emceeing, and everyone who flew in, drive in, and otherwise had a part in tonight’s event.  Though I was terrified, you were all wonderful, and you have me actually looking forward to doing this again!

Now to go add some new books to my iPad.  I wish I’d thought to bring Kristin’s Heir to Kale to have her sign.  Next time, and I do hope there will be one!

Oh, and, as promised, have some shiraz in my new Oregon Ballet Theatre tumbler, and a late dinner of steak and arugula with olives and balsamic.

First signing!

Here it is, the night before.  To be technical, very, very early, the morning of.

The night before my first signing.  I will be sharing the event with K.L. Bone, author of Black Rose,  Greg Wilkey, author of the Mortimer Drake vampire series, Sarah M. Cradit, author of the House of Crimson and Clover series, and Brandy L. Rivers, of the Other of Edenton.  Anne Rice even shared the event on Facebook!

And to say I’m nervous is a gross understatement.  I’m pretty much terrified out of my wits!  Already I’ve had one major mishap.  The printer screwed up, so couldn’t get me my books on time.  That’s right!  A signing with no books.  I have five left in stock that I’ll take.  I had a bunch of postcard-type cards printed up, cover one on the front, back cover (minus bar code, plus contact info) on the back, that I’ll be signing and giving away for free with a certificate to get Sacred Blood for free, at least as an ebook.

I’ll either come home squealing, or in desperate need of the OBT tumbler I got while volunteering last night during dress rehearsal of The Nutcracker.  Actually, I’ll have wine either way, to either wash away my sorrows, or to celebrate.

Nervous.  Nervous.  OMG.

The passage I’ve settled on for the reading part of the night is one that I hope gets across ho cruel Nathaniel and Daniel are, that Juliette feels trapped, and that there’s something more with the panther.  Since all the jewelry in these books are either based on vintage pieces I found, or had made, the ring at the end exists, and I’ll be wearing it during the event.

Well, wish me luck!  I’ll be the first to admit I could use all I can get!

     A large black panther stalked the Hills property. Sapphire blue eyes stared out of the dark furred face, body hidden by the broad leaves of a low-lying palm tree. Several men with the athletic bodies lounged in swim trunks, others lining up to cannon-ball into the pool. A dozen women frolicked around in the water, far from the splashing. A few more lay on lawn chairs near the water’s edge. Juliette stood next to Nathaniel, her hair in a tight bun, a white pool robe concealing whatever she wore underneath.
“Take that stupid thing off,” Nathaniel ordered her, in a low tone unheard by any of their friends.
She glanced up with a pleading expression on her face. “I’m already cold. Please let me go inside.” A warm breeze made the bottom of the pink fabric flutter, though she shivered slightly.
“Quit making excuses. Off. Now.”
Juliette slowly nodded and cast her eyes down, ordering herself to not cry. She untied the belt, and Nathaniel yanked the robe off. She wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to hide. The tiny gold string bikini she wore was better suited for a Playboy party, not for a shy young woman who didn’t want to uncover. She’d grown thinner in the month since her last class with Tristan. Already slender, her fingers now stroked over her visible ribs and hip bones.
Nathaniel draped a possessive arm across her shoulders and squeezed her to his side. Juliette tensed up, vaguely aware she was physically near him while mentally drifting above the wispy clouds. Nathaniel shoved her toward one of his friends.
“Please stop, Daniel,” Juliette whispered, brushing his hands away from her chest and backside. She blinked rapidly at Nathaniel, confused that he allowed this.
“Make me.” Daniel lifted her up and carried her to the pool, yanking on the strings holding her bathing suit top.
Juliette grasped at the scraps of fabrics and tried to clutch them to herself. “No! Daniel, no! NO!”
With a laugh, he tossed her, maintaining a hold on a string. The air seemed to turn colder right before Juliette’s bare back slapped against the water.
While the women ignored her except for quick glances and giggles, the men roared with laughter at her embarrassment. Hands over her chest, Juliette climbed out and snatched up her robe. Her jaw was clenched and her nostrils flared. With her back to the party, she shoved her fists through the sleeves and knotted the belt. Tears burned her eyes.
Juliette took long strides toward the far side of the landscaped yard. She noticed the large cat crouching beneath a broad frond and she stepped back.
“You’ll do me a favor if you kill me and eat me.” Her voice cracked. She walked a little farther and lay on the sun-warmed grass, stomach down, her temple resting on her arms. She watched the creature with a hand stretched to him.
The cat cocked its head at her and bared his teeth at the party-goers. He slowly inched toward her. His sandpapery tongue brushed over her palm, depositing something hard with his saliva. Slower than before, he crawled closer until his cool nose rubbed against her forehead.
Without thinking, Juliette closed her finger over the object and raised her hand to caress the cat’s cheek. “Oh, kitty,” she whispered, “why can’t you be Tristan? I miss him so-”
“A panther!” someone cried. “Oh my god, over with Julie!”
Several women shrieked and ran into the house. A few men rushed toward Juliette. The cat flicked his tail as he leapt up and over the stone wall. Juliette hurried to her feet.
“Go inside, girl!”
“Call animal control. Think they can kill that thing?”
“Julie, it could have eaten you.”
“Well, he didn’t, and stop calling me Julie!”
“Get your ass inside!” Nathaniel twisted her arm and shoved her.
Juliette stormed back across the yard and through the door, rubbing the stinging his fingers left.
“Daniel tossing you in the pool was so funny!” a woman laughed while opening a soda can onto the kitchen island.
“Shut up, April! You wouldn’t agree if it happened to you!” Juliette slapped the drink to the floor.
A redhead grabbed her wrist. “You’re lucky you got both Dan and Nate into you.”
“You can take them.” Juliette glared at her.
“Oh, hey, what’s your diet secret?” another asked.
“All of you, just shut up and leave me alone!” Juliette pushed through them and ran upstairs. She closed her bedroom door and wished the lock worked.
Juliette tossed her pillow across the room and picked up her cell phone. For a minute she thought about calling Tristan and asking to stay with him a while. The end of spring term had meant a summer without seeing him at all, and the depression was hard for her to take. But if she called, and Nathaniel found out, Nathaniel might carry through on his promise to kill Tristan. Her chest grew heavy. She couldn’t endanger Tristan.
Her fingers ached. She flexed them open and glanced at the object. Her brow knit together as she studied the fleurs de lys. The sapphires appeared to glow from within. “What on earth?” she whispered.

“Déjà Vu” writing contest

On a different note, one relating to writing, last week I entered a little contest.  I’m a fan and collector of Robert Tonner dolls, and Tonner was holding a short story contest for his line of dolls called Déjà Vu.  Entrants were given a limit of 500 words, not counting the assigned lead-in.  My entry didn’t win.  If you’re interested in reading the ones that did, click here, but be forewarned that they contain an unexpected amount of death and potentially triggering gun violence, which, going by comments I’ve read on various forums and from within fellow collectors I know personally, I don’t think many people expected.  I got through three of them, and felt sick.  We’re too close to the anniversary of Sandy Hook, and my daughter is the age of some of the shooting victims, which made it something not very enjoyable to me.  But by all means, read the winning entries and enjoy, if they’re your cup of tea.  I’m just giving a heads up that there’s unexpected content in a contest relating to dolls that are otherwise wholesome and that have mild assigned stories as their descriptions.

I shared my entry on a few pages and forums, and have had a positive response, despite this being something I wrote, checked for spelling and punctuation once, and sent off.  Among the feedback has been a few requests for more of this story.  It was a fun little non-serious writing project, like dancing like a nutcase after weeks of structured ballet classes.  Here’s my entry, and I think I’ll add more just as a fun little side activity to my usual writing, which will resume now that the party I’ve been planning and working on for weeks has happened.

The assigned lead-in is bolded.

As she stood backstage, Judy could hear the stomp of the other models trotting down the runway. Oh! To be a fashion model in Paris! Judy was thrilled to be a part of such a glamorous world – especially since she was really just a shy, small town farm girl. Just then, Judy received her cue from the show director, and she began to march toward the bright lights and the dignified applause, when Stéphane, fine in his suit of silk-wool, grabbed her hand, and lifted her fingers to his lips. Confused, Judy stood to the side of the stage, trying to understand his gesture.
“Go!” her chaperone hissed, then pursed her lips.

Long, darkened lashes fluttered onto Judy’s cheeks. She shook her head, then took a step forward, remaining herself to lead with her hips. Her sequined gown shimmered like a blue sun, and the fabric somehow flowed like silk. All eyes were on her, and she struggled to keep a grin off her face. The job was made more difficult by Stéphane’s action.

Had he finally started to feel for her in return? Was her moment of indiscretion the month prior forgotten? No, it couldn’t be. Every day, Judy regretted daring herself to try making a pass at him. But how could she know the gentlemen at the club with him were there on business with him, with the show’s investor? Every moment, she wished with all her might to take it back, to restore their fledgling relationship to where it was before she ruined it.

At the end of the runway, Judy stopped walking spun in a circle, and posed. The flash of a camera created a rainbow through her tears, a rainbow only she could see. Her head turned, and another flash illuminated his face, just in the wings. Even from her distance, his sadness was clear, and she realized he had missed her too. Judy bit her bottom lip to keep her wavering mouth from smiling at him. A beat late, she finished her brief turn, and started back toward the stage.

Monique, tall and raven-haired, passed the young blonde model, and out of the corner of her eye, shot Judy a look of loathing. And then Judyunderstood. He wasn’t making secret of his feelings, the way she had until that wrong moment. She swallowed, and searched for him out of her peripheral vision, but it was in vain. Her feet led her to stage left, the opposite of where she had left him.

One of the stylists murmured something, and shoved her toward a chair to touch up her makeup. Judy’s heard pounded from a mix of adrenaline for the stage, and cold, hard hope that she wasn’t reading Stéphane wrong. Her lipstick reapplied, the stylist hissed to her, “Be careful, Girl! You must look perfect. No more smudging!”

“All right.” The words had become a mass of nonsense to her. She picked her way back across the back of the stage, to make her final walk when the others had gone. From between a couple backdrops, someone reached out for her, and pulled her into seclusion. Judy turned, and gasped at the brilliant blue eyes staring into her own. “Stéphane! What are you—”

He silenced her with a thumb stroking her bottom lip, and he cupped her face gently. “We need to talk.”

Tears sprang to her eyes again, and she nodded. “I know.”

To Candy and Joe Palmer, parents of abuse-victim Janay Rice:

What the hell is wrong with you?  Your daughter, Janay, said she thinks God used her and Ray Rice to bring domestic violence to the forefront, and you sit there agreeing with this?  Your daughter was brutally beaten in public, and you sit there agreeing with her, accepting her explanation of religion, and defending her abuser.  Your daughter is lucky she wasn’t killed in what was definitely not a first assault, regardless of what they say (beating in public over a fight that included spit is scarily brazen, and Ray was cool as a cucumber), and you’re okay with this because she said it was just a mistake?  A friend of mine was pushed and pushed and pushed by an ex (I’m not getting into the details of the emotional abuse), and she slapped his shoulder.  Her response wasn’t to shrug it off and chalk it up to a mistake.  Even though most people privy to the details would see her shoulder-slap as self-defense, she was horrified, and berated herself for a long time.  Your son-in-law knocked your daughter out, and shrugged it off, and you are apparently fine with this!

Your daughter is exhibiting all the signs of battered woman syndrome, and can’t see clearly.  YOU, and her mother and father, shouldn’t be accepting this.  YOU, as a mother and father in general, should be trying to get her away, not sitting there defending him!!

What went on in your household when Janay was growing up that you can accept your daughter being beaten as a mistake, and evidently be okay with her marrying her abuser?   If genuinely nothing happened, then is Ray supporting you, and you’re willing to sacrifice your daughter for money?  What is going through your heads?

Candy, you are evil for saying, in response to Ray not attending to Janay, “I was very upset by that part, and I told him so. I basically told him that I didn’t care who was out there at the elevator, you should have never left her there like that. I did tell him that.”  That is the part that made you very upset?!  Seriously?  Seriously, lady?!  Not the part where he beat her into unconsciousness?!  And you also call the negative press reaction to Janay’s apology to Ray, given at the Baltimore Ravens’ urging, “overblown.”  If you, you wicked, evil woman, won’t get upset over your daughter being hurt, then someone needs to!  How horrid that strangers should be more concerned for her while you sit there defending your daughter’s abuser, and call the negative reactions to him, and to her being called to apologize, overblown!  While you defend your son-in-law, your own child is out there having to deal with it all herself.

Your claim that you didn’t raise “a young woman to be an abused woman” is dangerous conceit.  You’d rather throw your daughter to wolf to maintain your delusion that you hold the magic secret to making sure a child isn’t abused, even though yours was abused!  My parents didn’t raise me to be abused either, but you know what?  I was anyway.  Millions of women are, and we weren’t raised to be abused!  Thankfully, many of us have parents who are just a little more concerned with our safety than in trying to make themselves look good.

You also said, “I feel bad for their parents, their mothers, that they can’t get their kids out of this … ”  Open your eyes!!  Your daughter, with your blessing, married her abuser afterward!  She is the mother of his toddler!  She’s stuck in it, yet you refuse to believe it!  You so obviously think that only other people’s kids can be abused, and only other people’s kids can get stuck.  Talk about cognitive dissonance born of conceit!

Joe, you strike me as the sort who’d value a man being a traditional man taking care of his woman.  How can you watch a video of Ray knocking your daughter upside the head, then listen to her blame herself because “I got arrested, too. So I did something wrong, too” (not everyone who’s arrested did wrong, but for some reason, your daughter doesn’t know how to question this), and accept him into your family?  What kind of man are you?  I don’t think you are one.  You should expect better form another of your sex and gender, not be okay, in the end, with that other treating your own child the way he did.  Granted, you haven’t appeared entirely comfortable in interviews, but that doesn’t chance the fact that you aren’t speaking up and out against Ray.  Your silence is your support.

Why are you sending the message to your precious daughter and granddaughter that it’s okay to be abused?  Why do you want them to believe that a man who punches ever deserves another chance?  Do you really not care that being knocked unconscious is the result of a brain injury?  Janay could have died.  How can either of you look at yourselves in the mirror, or sleep at night?

I’m appalled that abuse isn’t only romanticized, a lá Fifty Shades, et. al, but is defended by parents of victims who need to stand up and protect their children, not to pat their children on the head, and send them back to their abusers.  Neither of you are parents.  You’re just rotten people who willingly stand by and clear the path for your daughter and granddaughter to live in danger, and then defend the abuser instead of the abused, and the at-risk-of-being-abused.  Shame on you both.