I am soaking rice noodles for a stir-fry lunch, and I thought, well, maybe I should blog a bit. Since it’s Tuesday, and already I got in and out of the post office before the lunch rush. I feel unjustifiably proud of that accomplishment.
You take it where you find it.
Anyway, one of the things in my post office box was a flier for a series of “free” lectures on Revelations, the Antichrist, and various other fun things from some weird guy. It was so quaint I brought it home and the Princess and I had a lot of fun going over its weird Photoshopped animals and wild claims. (Best take: “Chemical engineer drops out of college after making too much LSD, reads Revelations, and BINGO! Easy money!”) I am HIDEOUSLY amused, but the Princess looked a little troubled. “It’s all scaremongering,” she said. “And refreshments? They don’t offer those unless they want you to buy something.”
Wise words, from my darling child.
I’m sure the Little Prince’s analysis will be more along the lines of, “If lions had wings they’d look better than that. And is that the dinosaur from Jurassic Park?” Bad Photoshopping almost viscerally offends him. I’m not quite sure why, because this is the kid who plays Minecraft, and that pixellated cube-stuff drives me bonkers. If there’s a genetic component there, it’s doing some interesting bending and stretching.
Also hilarious: standing in the shampoo aisle with the Prince and saying, “Well, do you want the cool cucumber scent? Or the…Old Spice?”
GOOD MORNING, EVERYONE. Not going running until my phone charges–the weekend was a busy, busy cupcake.
Oh, who am I kidding? It was busy because, undaunted by the fact that I have three deadlines happening at once (and another round of edits for Desires, Known just landed this morning, whee!), my brain decided to hork up 5K on a book I’m not supposed to be working on. Oh, I’d planned on doing other things, sure, but the story took over. Stolen time to write is the most enjoyable, of course, and I could feel the pressure of the Slough of Despond bleeding away.
That’s one thing I didn’t plan for when I realized I had three projects going at once: hitting the Slough on all three of them at the same time. Fortunately the Veil Knights project is still mostly in the new-shiny phase, but I’ve been thinking about it for soooooo long that when I flip to the file and take a breath to re-insert myself, I find myself staring at it going, wait, I know I wrote more than this, where’s that chapter? Then I realize I didn’t write it, I just THOUGHT REALLY HARD about it, and the urge to weep and drink rises a notch. Afterwar, of course, is deep in the weeds, but at least the disembodied hand is in a jar now. That’s one thing.
As for Roadtrip Z, I’m cogitating on the current scene, which is Ginny’s insomnia and a few realizations about just how fucked the current situation is. She’s sort of the only one who fully grasps as much, what with everyone else being concerned with survival first and deep analysis later. And poor Juju, wracked with guilt and grief, is not having a good time of it. Maybe they can help each other.
Anyway, my day’s work is all mapped out for me, including going for a run to work off Miss B’s fidgets. Bad weather and depression put a dent in my training schedule, but there’s no way around it, I’ve got to get back. It’s a vicious cycle–the more the depression mounts, the less I want to exercise, but exercise is one thing that interrupts the depression and pushes it back. It’s really hard right now, with so many trash fires going on. I keep reminding myself to keep swinging, to just put one foot in front of the other, but…yeah. It’s difficult. If not for the meds, I’d probably still be in bed, curled into a small ball and staring.
As it is, well, it’s hard to pry myself out from under the covers. So far I’ve managed it only because the dogs and the kids need me upright. Giri: the net that keeps one from the abyss. Left to myself, I’d probably withdraw until I erased myself from existence, but I have others to care for, and that forces me outward.
*looks over last paragraph* WELL. AREN’T I A CHEERFUL MUFFIN. Time to check my phone’s charge and get out the damn door. I’ll feel better after a run, I always do.
This morning I dragged Odd Trundles out for walkies right after his brekkie. He was quite put out, not only because this represented a Change in Routine, but also because it cut into his morning “I’m bored, let’s do something!” bitching. So he hung back and tried to wrap the leash around my legs, which meant Miss B got her nose down and started heeeeerding him, which tangled her leash around my legs, and…yeah. Fortunately my agility stats are still going strong.
I also used 5calls and actually got through to a very nice staffer in my Congresscritter’s office. Said Congresscritter is a Republican I’ve voted against every. damn. time., but she’s working for me and I might as well make my voice heard. Please, if you’re calling, be kind to the staffers on the phone! They’re usually unpaid interns doing a shit job with grace and patience, so be polite. It helps to have a script, too. Even if you don’t use it, having a flowchart script of what to say can get you over the bump.
Now that the dogs are relatively calm (Miss B will need an afternoon ramble, just to be safe) I can focus on Afterwar. And Roadtrip Z. And bonus wordcount for a Sekrit Projekt I’m aaaaaaalmost ready to announce. ALMOST. Stay tuned for that.
Here’s your usual daily reminder to hydrate, make sure you get something to eat, and take a few deep breaths. It feels like the world is burning down, it’s okay to feel like screaming, none of what’s going on politically now is “normal” or “sane” except the resistance to der Turmper. You’ve got to take care of yourself and keep yourself human, you have a right to do that. I offer you a hug, and the knowledge that you’re not alone.
Also, schnorgles from Odd. Just look at that face. (And that seasonal alopecia!)
Using the phone generally makes me so anxious I shake. I’m now using 5Calls, though, because daily superhero work doesn’t have to fray me at the edges so badly. So, if you have phone anxiety, like me, and also want to make a difference–again, like me!–I recommend checking it out.
The weekend was all about proof pages for Cormorant Run, hauling compost to all the garden boxes (shovelgloving saved my back, I’ll just say that much) and washing Odd Trundles since it wasn’t cold enough outside to justify letting him marinate longer.
I am clinging to hope by finger-and toenails. We outnumber the fascists by an order or two of magnitude. History’s gaze is upon us, and I intend to give the bitch a good show. It’s kind of funny to realize that every book I’ve ever written has been training for fighting evil, training for radical empathy, training for putting my head down and doing the goddamn work to make things better, to create a world. Often, looking at the news, I feel helpless, but then someone writes to tell me I’ve given them hope and my heart turns into a flower. Or someone writes to tell me they’re never buying my books again because of my politics, and I think, well, if you have problems with me calling a fascist a fucking fascist, I’m glad your grubby little authoritarian fingers won’t sully pages I’ve slaved over and bled for, fuckyouverymuch and goodnight.
There’s a lot of the latter going on.
So this week it’s back to the grindstone, making my calls every day, and if I get a certain number of wordage in, hitting up a yarn store. I feel the need for a pussy hat. And knitting might help keep me from imploding in a black hole of despair, too.
Use what you have, I guess. Here’s your regular daily reminder that this shit is not normal, your feelings are valid, and together we are stronger than any tiny-handed dictator.
I was on a long ramble with B, and came across this a few miles from home. This little tree is just outside the front of an elementary school. I don’t know who decorated it, but it was dolled up in time for Yule, through New Year’s, and through the Snowpocalypse too.
I can’t explain the deep flash of hope and happiness that went through me when I saw it. Miss B, of course, was only interested in sniffing around the roots, but I stood there with my eyes full of tears for a few minutes, somehow certain things were going to be okay.
Funny what a few silly ornaments and childlike wonder will do, ennit.
I’m slowly getting back to myself after the Snowpocalypse and Concomitant Freezing. Everyone in the house is fighting off another flulike bug, probably spread from the Princess’s workplace or the Prince’s school and grown virulent in confinement. So far I’ve been able to stave it off with sleep and exercise, but who knows how long that will last? The news adds its own layer of depression, too, except for the marches and resistance. I can, when I have enough energy, feel some hope that decent people outnumber der Turmper and his brownshirts.
The trouble is, my energy is at not quite an all-time low, but close. I just…there is so much wrong. The list of lies der Turmper has inflicted on the public is seemingly endless, and he’s already signing executive orders that will kill people. Make no mistake, that’s what they’ll do–defunding Planned Parenthood and Medicare kills people. The right wing has installed a reality TV Muppet in our highest office, one they think will hand them and their corporate masters everything they want as long as they figure out how to stroke his ego. And as long as der Turmper’s narcissism is being fed, he doesn’t care that he’s being used. It’s a perfect marriage, really, except, like I said, it will kill people.
If you don’t care to hear what I have to say about this, stop reading now. That’s all the warning I’m going to give.
I grew up with conservative bigots, and I can tell you that plenty of them now are thinking that only people who disagree with them will die. It doesn’t work like that, of course, but they won’t admit as much. I used to think conservatives and bigots were just misled, but now, with a much wider experience of human beings, I don’t. Their innocence is a fiction I can no longer afford to believe. Conservative bigots do not argue in good faith; they know they are wrong, they know they are bigots. If they didn’t, facts would make an impression on their hatreds.
The right-wing authoritarian mindset is an exceedingly fragile one, requiring much violence and propping-up on a daily basis. Don’t believe me? Listen to a few hours of right-wing talk radio, and listen to the lies peddled and the fearmongering. The ego of an authoritarian is large but easily punctured, a paper balloon. (It’s no secret that a bully’s ego is just the same.) It requires constant applications of fear, faux righteousness, and adulation in order to stay upright.
If you’re interested, a good rundown of how this is often applied in evangelical circles is here. Really, the same playbook is used by gaslighting abusers, racist organizations, and right-wing authoritarians. It’s used because it works, and because so many people want to believe they are heroes without doing any damn work.
Is my analysis harsh? Yes. Do I think I’m being overly judgmental? No.
No, I do not.
I remember the ass-end of the Reagan years. I remember when conservative talk radio underwent its huge flowering, back when Rush Limbaugh was a hot rising star and fax machines lit up with his devoted followers’ circulars. I remember 9/11 and the march to war afterward, and how people knew the WMDs were a lie but wouldn’t hold Bush Jr and his cabal accountable. I remember every fucking conspiracy theory about the Clintons, I remember the daily–daily!–attempts to rob Obama of legitimacy. Time and again I have seen how the Republicans work.
Not only that, but I grew up with this. I know their dogwhistles. They beat me when I didn’t live up to some arbitrary rule for the day, or when my facial expression wasn’t the “right” one (at eight years old) or when they had a bad day somewhere and had to take it out on someone weaker because just fucking dealing with it like an adult was not their cuppa tea. I listened to them at family gatherings, I heard all the “jokes” designed to grind women, minorities, or a different religion into the mud. I was even once beaten with a Bible for daring to say war was bad, after having a list of casualties from Vietnam and Korea rubbed on my face so hard the skin broke and bled and I had to lie at school the next day about falling down.
Yes, I know these people. I know them intimately. I do not believe them innocent. Those who are not consciously evil are still dangerous, and I do not believe them innocent at all. I can feel empathy for a rattlesnake’s fear, but I don’t have to let it bite me.
The thing is, we are in a mass of these rattlesnakes, they have wormed their way into power as a culmination of decades of using the Abuser’s & Bully’s Playbook, and fighting them off is exhausting.
If there is one thing I want you, the reader, to take away from this (rather long) ramble, it is this: Stop thinking that der Turmper and the Republicans are arguing in good faith. They are not. They are after power and money, and will kill whoever is in their way because they have convinced themselves they are heroes of a 50s kitsch America-that-never-was. If there is a way out of this, it lies not on the path of trying to meet them in the middle. Rational people have been trying to “meet them in the middle” for DECADES, and I have never seen it work. What I’ve seen instead is the right wing screaming, sulking, and gaslighting until they get their way, then turning even more viciously on anyone who didn’t immediately cave in to their demands. Over and over and over again I’ve seen it. To paraphrase S. Jason Black, when I put my key in the ignition for the hundredth time and the car starts the hundredth time, it’s ridiculous to even think the two aren’t connected.
Just because rational people with a normal dose of empathy can be met halfway does not mean that right-wing authoritarians or conservative bigots can. There is no middle ground for them, only their boot stamping endlessly on a human face and their pockets full of useless gold while they crouch slavering and grinning on a mound of corpses, listening to a recorded crowd’s adulation.
I am not resigned to having my face stomped in. But I am so, so tired today.
FROM: All Romance Ebooks
TO: contact@lilithsaintcrow.com
DATE: 28 December 2016 at 10:57
SUBJECT: All Romance Closure
RE: All Romance Closure
ALL ROMANCE EBOOKS, LLC
6252 Commercial Way #145, Weeki Wachee, FL 34613
To Whom It May Concern:
It is with great sadness I announce that we are winding down the operations of All Romance eBooks, LLC. For the first year since opening in 2006, we will be posting a loss. The financial forecast for 2017 isn’t hopeful and we’ve accepted that there is not a viable path forward.
We are grateful for the opportunity to have worked with you. On midnight, December 31, our sites will go dark and your content will cease to be available for sale through our platforms. This includes any content you are having us distribute to Apple. If you wish to inactivate your content sooner, you can do so by logging into your publisher portal.
We will be unable to remit Q4 2016 commissions in full and are proposing a settlement of 10 cents on the dollar (USD) for payments received through 27 December 2016. We also request the following conditions:
1. That you consider this negotiated settlement to be “paid in full”.
2. That no further legal action be taken with regards to the above referenced commissions owed.
If you are willing to accept the offered amount and the terms proposed, please hit the reply on this email keeping the history intact. Change the subject to “Publisher Settlement Acceptance” and copy/paste the acceptance statement below into your email, filling in the fields.
Upon receipt of the signed agreement, I will authorize payment of the settlement amount in full by 28 February 2016 via the method stipulated in your publisher account.
It is my sincere hope that we will be able to settle this account and avoid filing for bankruptcy, which would undoubtedly be a prolonged and costl y process.
I appreciate that you may have questions. Unfortunately, we will be operating with limited staff as we prepare for closure. We will do our best to respond to the extent possible and will do so in the order received. Our priority over the next few weeks will be processing settlement requests. At this time, there is no additional information to share.
I thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.
Sincerely,
Lori James
All Romance Ebooks, LLC
Acceptance of Agreement:
I accept the terms of the attached proposed settlement on this date.
Signature:
Electronic Signature
The author’s sub mission of the information entered by selection of the submit button below shall constitute author’s signature signifying acceptance of this Agreement with the intent that it be valid for all purposes and in compliance with the U.S. Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act of 2000 and the laws of any other applicable jurisdiction.
Please note: This message is intended for use by the person or entity to which it is addressed. Please do not disseminate, distribute or copy. If you have received this message by error, please notify us immediately and destroy the related message. Re-disclosure without appropriate consent is prohibited.
Interesting. This is the same company that, as recently as last week, was putting together ads for Boxing Day sales, and contacted me for permission to sell my self-published ebooks at a discount during the sale. It’s also really interesting because half of it’s a scare tactic. Ten cents on the dollar for royalties? No, I don’t think so. That’s not how business is done. Additionally, “Re-disclosure without appropriate consent is prohibited” in what universe? You can bet your bippy I’m disclosing this, because you’re attempting to take advantage of numerous writers.
ARe used to be a good distribution channel. Now I’m wondering if the royalty statements I’ve received from them for the last year of sales are accurate, and I’m wondering what other chicanery is afoot. I am a little steamed at the moment, so I won’t unpack this further. Their website is crashing now, no doubt as publishers yank their books and customers attempt to use their credits and gift certificates (that they pushed before Christmas, not to mention the 2017 advertising they took money for) and in short, it’s a fucking mess.
Here’s my response to their ungenerous offer:
FROM: Lilith Saintcrow
TO: All Romance Ebooks
DATE: 28 December 2016 at 18:21
SUBJECT: Re: All Romance Closure
Dear Ms James,
I do NOT accept this “deal.” You will pay me the royalties you are legally obligated to. You will provide me with a reasonable schedule within which the whole of said royalties will be paid. And you will not, under any circumstances, threaten me again as the “re-disclosure is prohibited” rider is an obvious attempt to do so.
Sincerely,
Lilith Saintcrow
I doubt I’ll ever see any of those royalties, but I am not resigned.
ETA: AS OF 6:37PM Pacific time, I managed to get in and inactivate the three self-pubbed books I had at ARe for distribution. They haven’t been deleted so customers can go and make sure they’ve downloaded! Keep trying to get through, it took me about an hour to do so.
I am soaking rice noodles for a stir-fry lunch, and I thought, well, maybe I should blog a bit. Since it’s Tuesday, and already I got in and out of the post office before the lunch rush. I feel unjustifiably proud of that accomplishment.
I’m slowly getting back to myself after the Snowpocalypse and Concomitant Freezing. Everyone in the house is fighting off another flulike bug, probably spread from the Princess’s workplace or the Prince’s school and grown virulent in confinement. So far I’ve been able to stave it off with sleep and exercise, but who knows how long that will last? The news adds its own layer of depression, too, except for the marches and resistance. I can, when I have enough energy, feel some hope that decent people outnumber der Turmper and his brownshirts.