Writing–Everything is Flat

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

English: Sprite cans from China. From left to ...

I go through periods in which I think everything is flat. Like Sprite that’s lost its fizz, my ideas, my stories, my everything has no life.

If I get an idea during this period (and that’s a pretty big if), it’s not very good. It’s just a little sliver of something that could be good, but I feel no buzz for it, no drive to put it down on paper. It’s something, but it’s more like nothing.

Any words I put down on paper are lackluster. The stories have no sparkle. It all just lays there on the page, flat as a day old flounder on newspaper. The entire act of writing is just going through the motions. Sure the story gets written, but it’s nothing more than a yawn on paper.

If I’m doing story revisions/rewrites, I can nail all of the grammar and spelling problems, but I can’t fix the story. I’m not “inspired” enough to see what changes I need to make to best serve the story.

It’s a funny feeling, going through a flat phase like that. It’s like I’ve got nothing, not even fumes in the tank. I look around at every project I’ve got going and I feel absolutely overwhelmed by the boredom of it all. Nothing is good, nothing is interesting, nothing is exciting.

The thing about this feeling is that it’s all inside and has nothing to do with the work. The work doesn’t change, but my perception of it does. And there’s no real reason for my perception to change, it just does.

I suppose it’s like sailors hitting the doldrums. One day, they’re just sailing along. The next day, they’re going nowhere, everything is so calm and so still and so STATIONARY.

I realize I’m whipping out a lot of metaphors and similes to explain this feeling, but that’s only because I’m having trouble capturing it in words. It’s a hard feeling to explain, but you know if you’ve had it. It’s an unmistakable feeling of flatness.

I just went through another stretch of flatness. For a couple of weeks I looked at my white board, at my writing projects to do list, and thought, “meh”. When I looked at the board then, I saw nothing worth mentioning, just the same old routine.

Then one day I woke up and proceeded to go through the motions of writing and found that the flatness wasn’t there anymore. The bubbles came back and with them came ideas worth writing down and going through with. The words I put on the paper had a little more spice. The problems that plagued my stories suddenly had solutions that had been there the whole time, I’m sure.

When the flatness leaves, when it fills out to become something round and whole again, it’s like a rush of air into a balloon. Suddenly I’m very full of everything I’d been lacking for the days or weeks before. And it makes me wonder how I ever survived being flat, how I could ever bear that happening.

I guess it’s because I don’t know it’s happening. Like a balloon, it slowly leaks out. Like a soda left to sit, the bubbles slowly leave until there’s nothing left but flatness.

Thankfully, it’s only temporary.

Having Illicit Fun

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

fun

This isn’t nearly as illegal as the blog title makes it sound, but I do feel like I’ve been breaking some rules.

You see Cubs fans don’t think their team should have any fun during a losing season. Seriously. No fun for you. They want their team to carry the weight of the misery of losing without so much as a smirk. Never mind the fact that they all predicted this team to lose 100 games, but by God, they’re not supposed to ENJOY any of it. You’re not supposed to have a good time if you’re losing.

So if you apply this logic to my life then I’ve been having illicit fun since about 1994 because that’s when my losing seasons really started in earnest.

That’s when I stopped having boyfriends. That’s when I started gaining weight. That’s when my social awkwardness really became exposed. That’s when my anxiety skyrocketed.

And it pretty much went downhill from there.

My parents separated and divorced and left me to my own devices. I chose not to go to college in part because I didn’t think I was good enough to get a scholarship and I knew I couldn’t afford to pay for it myself. I also didn’t go to college because I’d been busting my ass all through high school with no reward and I was tired. I wanted to take a semester off. I also put off going to college because I didn’t know what I wanted to go to college FOR.

From there I’ve worked several “crap” jobs, engaged in a relationship that was doomed to fail and put me off any sort of serious relationships for a very long time, dealt with depression, never moved out of my dad’s house, avoided many adult responsibilities, dug myself a hole of debt to chase a dream, and generally failed at every endeavor I’ve ever attempted. I’ve never been out of the country, never been farther west than Kansas City, never taken a cruise.

I am the poster child for losing seasons.

And yet, I’ve had more than one good time.

While I was boyfriend-less and rudder-less going into my senior year of high school, I had a blast sleeping in the hallway in the mornings before school, playing Spit in study hall, going to my first Monkees concert, and rocking a 60’s vibe all year.

While working at Wal-Mart instead of going back to college after a semester, I colored my hair a rainbow of colors, went to a lot of wrestling shows, raided Chicago with my Clique, and ran Wal-Mart with the rest of the lowlies.

Then I blew a lot of my money supporting an indy wrestling fed when I maybe shouldn’t have. But I had a great time doing those shows and spending most of my weekends in the Chicago suburbs watching guys wrestle before heading downtown to roam and not getting home until 5AM, meaning I was up for 24 hours.

During my last go round at Wal-Mart (which to most people is the equivalent of losing every day), I spent many days off and vacations going to Wizard World and DragonCon.

Even broke and unemployed, I managed to get to a Cubs game.

My point is that according to Cubs fans, I shouldn’t have been any of these good times. I didn’t deserve them. Because I was losing.

At first, I felt a little guilty about that. Here I’d had all of this fun that I didn’t deserve. I was supposed to be miserable, not alleviating the pressure of my mounting losses. I wasn’t happy with losing. Frankly, I’d rather be doing a lot more winning. It’s easier to have fun while you’re winning than while you’re using. I guess that’s because you’re not supposed to have fun while you’re losing.

And then I thought, “Fuck that shit. I’ll have fun whenever I can.”

Having fun in spite of losing doesn’t mean I don’t want to win. It doesn’t mean I’m happy with losing.

It means you’re not the boss of me.

And it means the fun I’m going to have when my losing seasons turn to winning ones is going to be a cause for jealousy.

I look forward to people going green.

Writing–I Write For No One

~ Kiki Writes ~ 2 Comments

Writing

This is a post of frustration. I want that known right up front. Because this might come off as whiny/bitchy/cranky/crabby/selfish and a whole lot of other not so nice words (that I’ve grown accustomed to being called).

But there’s a lot of frustration in writing. There’s frustration in trying to get the right tone, the right word choice, the right pacing, the right dialogue, the right word count.

And then there’s the frustration of getting your work published. Finding a publication that fits your story, following all of the guidelines (which an border on ridiculous, but that’s another post for another day), submitting, waiting, and then hoping that whoever is on the other end reading your work will like it and if they do like it, they can use it. And, of course, there’s the frustration of rejection that goes along with that. After so many times, you start wondering about the story in question.

Speaking of wondering, there’s also the frustration of being read. As in nobody seems to want to read your work. Friends, family, acquaintances, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, nobody is interested. No offense! But they just don’t like that kind of story.

It’s the last two frustrations that are currently topping my frustration cup.

I take submission guidelines seriously. I don’t want to waste their time or mine. As such, I scrutinize what publishers want very carefully. And it seems like what they want, I ain’t got. Finding a good fit for my stories seems to be getting harder and harder every time I look. I realize that part of the problem is my own limitations because there’s only one place that I submit to that doesn’t pay. Every other publication I look at has to give me some sort of coin for my work. And I limit myself even further because I try to approximate those token payments as closely I can to the work I’m submitting, i.e., how much would I lose on this story if this place published it.

I realize how snobby and entitled that sounds, but do you get paid for YOUR work? Yeah, I bet you do. Now considering I can put weeks/months into a 2,500 word story only to be offered five bucks for it (a penny a word is my baseline, so that story would net me 25 bucks), yeah, I’m going to shoot for a better payday.

This is a frustration I’ve mentioned before, but I’m mentioning it again because I feel it bears repeating. Call it a need for justification. It’s a head-banging-against-a-wall feeling that non-writers have trouble relating to.

The second frustration is really hitting me hard lately because I’m in need of some support and I don’t know where to go to get it. I write horror fiction for the most part. It’s not a genre that a lot of people I know care for. Of the ones that would read it, there seems to be a real lack of time on their part. Read that as they have lives and don’t have time to beta for me. And that’s fine. I understand it.

But it still frustrates the hell out of me.

It would be nice to have someone, anyone, take an actual interest in my work. Without me forcing them. Without me begging them to make some time to read a story. Without me feeling like I’m nagging people. Without me feeling like I’m guilting people into it.

But I haven’t reached that point in my career yet. I’m not in demand, even with people that actually know me. It’s understandable, but no less of a bummer.

And no less frustrating.

A Boobies Birthday Story

~ Kiki Writes ~ 8 Comments

An animated image of a birthday hat.

Today is the 10th anniversary of my breast reduction surgery and I’m going to celebrate by telling the one boobs story that my friends love best.

As detailed in a previous post (because I often talk about my breasts), my breast reduction surgery involved a free nipple graft. In short, this means my nipples were removed and at one point during that day, laying on the table next to me. They were then reattached.

Now, a couple of years prior to this surgery, I had my left nipple pierced. When your breasts were as big as mine were, you tend to get less shy about certain things. Flopping my tit out to have someone ram a needle and then some jewelry through my nipple seemed like a good idea. If I went back, I’d do it again. To me, there was nothing embarrassing about it, though I’m sure that piercing guy probably still tells the story of my massive boob. He was pretty impressed.

Anyway, as is a risk with piercings and despite my best care (and maybe because I have terrible luck with any piercing not in my ears), my nipple ring grew out. Basically, my body rejected it and forced it out. It got to the point where there was only a thin layer of skin keeping the jewelry in. So I took it out and the piercing healed, leaving a scar (as most things do on me). Nothing major, just two little indentions on either side of my nipple.

Which brings us back to my breast reduction and my nipples being taken off.

After the complication of having the skin on my left nipple die, slough off, and heal, I was able to really see the handiwork of my plastic surgeon.

And I realized, by the position of the old nipple piercing scar, that my nipple was on cockeyed. It’s in the right position, but the scar points more to 4 and 10, rather than 3 and 9, if you take my meaning.

It’s probably something that happens a lot with free nipple graft surgeries, but most people probably don’t have the means to recognize it.

So, what did I do when I discovered it? I burst out laughing and then told all of my friends that I’d been keeping up-to-date on my boobs.

The consensus? They thought it was the funniest thing ever. To the point, that if a related conversational topic comes up (you’d be surprised how many there are), they will call upon me to tell the tale. Because it’s funny and bizarre and unlike anything anyone else has ever experienced.

I don’t have many one-of-a-kind experiences in my life, but that one is definitely everyone’s favorite.

Rerun Junkie–Batman

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A couple of decades ago when I spent large chunks of my summer at my grandma’s house because I had my own room, could watch baseball from the hot tub on her deck, and got channels that I didn’t have at home, I was introduce to the wonder and marvel that is Batman.

na na na na na na na

Batman was obviously based off of the comic book of the same name and featured Bruce Wayne (Adam West) and his young ward Dick Grayson (Burt Ward) fighting crime as the Dynamic Duo Batman and Robin. Loyal butler Alfred (Alan Napier) dusted the Batcave and helped keep their secret from the world, including Dick’s Aunt Harriet (Madge Blake). They’re summoned via Batphone and Batsignal by Commissioner Gordon (Neil Hamilton) and Chief O’Hara (Stafford Repp) at the first sign of a super criminal as the Gotham City police force apparently only employed the cops that weren’t capable of fighting crime much worse than traffic violations.

The super criminals in question included of The Joker, The Riddler, Catwoman, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Egghead, The Puzzler, Clock King, King Tut, Bookworm, Olga Queen of the Cossaks, Black Widow, Zelda the Great, Shame, Ma Parker, Mad Hatter, Marsha Queen of Diamonds, The Archer, and Louie the Lilac. Some of these were villains in the Batman comics, others were villains from other comics, and still others were made up or re-imagined for the show.

The super villains typically came to Gotham with an unbelievable crime planned and once their presence was detected, Batman and Robin would try to thwart them. Inevitably, Batman and/or Robin would get caught in a trap which would lead to them nearly dispatched by some elaborate super hero killing machine the villain came up with. However, they’d always manage to escape at the last possible second and end up catching the bad guy in the end. This drama played out over two episodes shown on consecutive nights for the first two seasons, but was cut down to one during the third and final season.

The costumes, the bright colors, the clever camera angles (the villain scenes were all filmed at a slant because they’re crooked, you now), the BAM! ZAP! BIFF! during the fight scenes, the breathless narrator (Same Bat-Time! Same Bat-Channel!), and sometimes (okay, lots of times) corny dialogue made it quite comic book-like and of course, ramped up the camp factor. And if there’s one thing pop culture loves, it’s camp.

Batman’s utility belt, his penchant for labeling everything at bat-whatevers, and Robin’s holy exclamations had staying power when it comes to clever pop culture witticisms.

Holy WTF, Batman!

As silly as this show is, it was the show to be on back in the day. The guest stars weren’t doing this gig because they didn’t have anything else going for them; they did it because they were clamoring to be on the show. Hard to believe, I know, but think of it as the precursor to the people that show up in SyFy movies that you don’t think should be there (William Katt? Why are you here and why are you wearing your mother’s glasses?).

Guest stars included Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin, Julie Newman, John Astin, Eartha Kitt, Art Carney, Ethel Merman, Joan Collins, Shelley Winters, Milton Berle, Victor Buono, Cliff Robertson, Carolyn Jones, Vincent Price, Eli Wallach, Tallulah Bankhead, Jill St. John, Anne Baxter, Doodles Weaver, Rudy Vallee, Glynis Johns, Ethel Merman, Lesley Gore, Liberace, and Roddy McDowell.

Demand to be on the show was so great, that “window cameos” were created. As the Dynamic Duo climbed up the side of a building (walked along the floor holding onto a rope with strings holding their capes out while the camera filmed sideways), a celebrity would pop out of a window. Those cameos included Sammy Davis Jr, Jerry Lewis, Don Ho, Colonel Klink (Werner Klemperer), Lurch (Ted Cassidy), Edward G. Robinson, Dick Clark and Art Linkletter.

Batman and Robin were joined in Gotham City by the Green Hornet and Kato (Van Williams and Bruce Lee) for an episode (they also appeared once in a window) which led me to nearly explode with glee. In the third season, Barbara Gordon, commissioners daughter and Batgirl (Yvonne Craig), was added to the regulars. Her lace trimmed Batgirl Cycle is truly a sight to behold.

While I love most of the villains, if I’m hard pressed to choose a favorite, I have to go with King Tut. Joker, Riddler (Frank Gorshin version), Penguin, and Catwoman are all fabulous, but Victor Buono brings that added oomph to the camp that I just adore.

This show is so much fun and it never seems to get old, no matter how many times I watch it.

I admit that when I say I’m busy on Saturday nights, what I mean is I’m watching Batman.

Batusi, baby.

 

Where I Watch It

Writing–Rewarding Efforts

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment
Swimming medals
Swimming medals (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve read in more than one place that writers should reward themselves for the little accomplishments they have along the way of bigger successes. They should do that because writing is a long slog from first draft to publication and while you’re doing it, it feels like you’re doing it for nothing. You put in all of this work and in the end, you might not see a dime for it. Rewarding yourself during the process helps alleviate that hopeless feeling that tends to creep up when you’re not looking.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea. Eating some ice cream at the end of a first draft, drinking some wine after slogging through revisions, playing a video game after meeting the day’s word count, or going out with some friends after submitting that short story is great. It’s a nice motivator to get through the hard parts and it’s a nice release once you do. Whatever reward you come up with, good on ya. Whatever flips your skirt and rocks your boat.

I’ll just be over here wishing I could do the same thing.

I don’t reward myself. At all. Ever. Even on the rare occasion that a short story gets accepted somewhere, the most I do is pause for a fist pump and then get back to work.

Why?

I guess it’s because of the way I was raised. Yes, of all the things to blame on my parents, I blame not eating pizza after finishing a first draft of a novel. But it’s true. My parents didn’t believe in rewarding us kids for things we were supposed to do. I didn’t get an allowance for cleaning my room. I was supposed to do that. I didn’t get a trip to Dairy Queen for making good grades. I was supposed to do that. I remember when I was a kid finding out that my friends got paid a dollar amount for A’s and B’s. I asked my parents why I didn’t get paid like that.

I was supposed to do that.

So here I am, 32 years old, been writing most of my life, and while I approve of the idea of getting a treat for finishing a first draft or revisions or submitting or accomplishing anything, big or small, related to a writing career, I can’t bring myself to participate because…I’m supposed to do that.

I’m supposed to finish that first draft and finish those revisions and submit that story and do that research and this, that, and the other. It’s part of my job. I don’t get rewarded for supposed to’s.

I would imagine that my attitude won’t change much when (not if!) I get my first novel published.

Because as a writer, that’s what I’m supposed to do. And as I writer, I’m supposed to write another.

So, I’d better get on it.

There’s no time for me to celebrate supposed to’s.

Fat Acceptance

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

A link to this tumblr post came across my Twitter timeline last night. I’m still not sure what tumblr is or how it works, but thankfully I have friends that have mastered it so they can pass along things like this. And thankfully I’m literate so I can read what they pass along.

If you’re too lazy to click the link and read, I’ll sum it up for you. Researchers have discovered evidence that fat acceptance blogs and sites actually can actually have a positive affect on some people’s health.

Go ahead and read the link. I’ll wait.

I didn’t lie, now did I?

The misconception of fat acceptance is true. Accepting fat is a bad thing because nobody wants to be fat and you’re not supposed to be fat. Being fat is bad. No one wants to be bad. By accepting fat, you’re accepting bad.

Except that’s not what’s happening.

Fat acceptance means that you accept that your fat and that the number on the scale is not an indicator of your worth as a human being.

Being fat doesn’t mean that you’re not caring, intelligent, funny, generous, sympathetic, passionate, beautiful, and/or supportive. Being fat doesn’t mean that you can’t be active, sexy, fashionable, confident, desirable, healthy, successful, and/or loved. Being fat doesn’t mean you can’t have a life. And it definitely doesn’t mean that your life is worth less than someone who weighs less than you.

Fat acceptance promotes a healthy self-esteem. And that in turn promotes a healthier view on life, which leads to healthier choices.

Shocking! Who knew that making someone feel good about themselves instead of running them down and making them feel like a worthless piece of shit could have a positive effect?

I’m sure to the guys that like to moo at women in the mall and the girls that give fat girls a dirty look while they eat their Cold Stone, this is of no consequence and won’t change their minds in the least. We’re still all disgusting fat pigs that don’t deserve anything good in life and certainly shouldn’t waddle our fat selves out in public where we inflict our gross body mass on society.

But to the people who need the support, it’s a life-saver. It means not being shamed into not doing things that you want to do just because you’re fat. It means not being afraid to live just because you’re fat.

It means knowing that you have value no matter what the number on the scale says.

You know the old saying, “worth their weight in gold”?

It applies to fat people, too.

Writing–August Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Flower of Gazaia rigens

My focus in August is going to be finishing the revisions/rewrites on The World (Saving) Series. I’ve got less than ten chapters to go and while the rewriting is going to be heavy, it shouldn’t take me the whole month to finish.

I started two short stories at the end of last month, “Just Visiting” and “Lady on the Stairs” which I’ll be finishing as well.

And then…?

I need to get back to working on the Ivy novel. Things got derailed when I did my writing protest for a week last month. I’m not sure how much I like the outline/write/revise method. I think that’s where part of my writing frustration came from. I may just finish the outline and then write the rest of the novel so I can call it done. As it stands, I’ve written/revised over half of it so I wouldn’t be in horrible shape if I did it that way.

I’ve got half a mind to start outlining another big project. It’d be a freebie for the blog. However, I make no guarantees that anything will ever come of it. It’s just something I’m thinking of doing.

And of course, I continue on with the 50 Rejections saga. It’s been rather disappointing lately. I don’t want to talk about it now.

I’ll wait until I can go on and on at length in a post of its own.

30 Things About Me

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Go 30

This is one of those Twitter trending topics, like 50 things about me and 100 things about me, that clogs up my Twitter stream like an unfortunate accident on the log flume ride at Six Flags. And while I’m egotistical enough to want to share 30 things about myself, I’m conscientious enough not to cram it all on my Twitter timeline.

Besides, someone might miss one.

30 Things About Me

1. I still have my tonsils. Despite repeated bouts of strep throat and tonsillitis, I never had them out.

2. I can touch my tongue to my nose. It’s a family trait. My mom and my cousin can do it, too.

3. I broke my dad’s index finger pitching to him when I was a kid. I played little league fast pitch and Dad insisted that I pitch three or four times a week. When your kid can hit 60 on the gun and you don’t have a proper catchers mitt, you sometimes get your finger broken.

4. I also broke a window and put a few dents in the siding while pitching. Mom was surprisingly okay with the broken window, considering she was standing right next to it, doing the dishes, when I broke it.

5. I taught myself to write left-handed. I practice by writing things on my day planner with my left hand. Pretty soon, my writing will be just as legible left-handed as right-handed (in other words, not very).

6. I prefer things in three’s or multiples of three. I don’t know where or why this fascination started. I wear three rings, prefer to wear three bracelets, wear three earrings in each ear. I had three eyebrow rings at one point. I eat little things in multiples of three (example: I’ll eat nine crackers, three cookies, fifteen chips, etc.). It’s not a have-to, but it’s definitely a preference.

7. I wrote my first story at the age of six. I made it look like a book. I folded the paper in half, drew a picture on the cover, and wrote the story inside. The story didn’t get finished and the spelling wasn’t that great, though I’m pretty pleased at the number of big words I used. I still have it.

8. I gave serious consideration to being a meteorologist and a marine biologist when I was in junior high. I’m still fascinated by tornadoes and sharks (the two things I wanted to focus on in those careers). In high school, I also gave some consideration to pursuing acting.

9. I “majored” in English, sociology, and psychology the three times I went to community college.

10. I’m a natural shot. I was eleven the first time I ever shot a gun and I was scared to death. Once I realized that I hit eight out ten at seven yards, I wasn’t scared anymore. I’ve shot several different kinds of guns including an AR-15. My favorite gun to shoot is my dad’s Argentine Colt .45.

11. I fractured my ankle when I was seventeen. Despite having insurance, I refused to go to the hospital because I didn’t want to listen to my dad bitch about how much fixing it would cost. I wrapped it up and gimped around on it for the rest of the summer, including working at my cousin’s daycare.

12. I’m terrible at remembering anniversaries. Not just romantic ones (one boyfriend had to remind me of our anniversary date because I could never remember it), but all of them. When I started a job, when I quit smoking, when I joined Twitter, when I joined Livejournal, how long I’ve known someone, the date of my first Cubs game at Wrigley, none of it sticks well in my head.

13. My scream is broken. I seem to only be capable of screaming if I’m really terrified, and even then it doesn’t always work.

14. The first movie I saw in the theater was E.T. The first movie I remember seeing in the theater was Return of the Jedi.

15. I’ve been thanked in the liner notes of a CD and in the dedications of a book. I’ve also had my picture in the liner notes of a different CD.

16. I don’t like hot dogs. Despite repeated attempts to like hot dogs, they make me gag (mind out of the gutter, kids). The last time I was successfully ate a hot dog that wasn’t a corndog (for some reason, that’s the exception), I was a senior in high school and the hot dog in question had been burned over a campfire and dropped in the ashes. Not kidding.

17. The first horror movie I can remember watching was Poltergeist. I was probably about four or five at the time.

18. We didn’t get a CD player until I was in 7th or 8th grade. The first four CDs my sister and I owned were Janet Jackson, Salt n Peppa, The Cranberries, and Warrant.

19. When I was a kid I could do a pretty good impression of Ursula from The Little Mermaid, particularly while singing “Poor Unfortunate Souls”.

20. I started a correspondence course in creative writing the summer before my senior year in high school. I finished it not long after I graduated.

21. I won second place in a state in a poetry contest my sophomore year of high school. I’m still bitter that my teacher made me change one line of that poem so it would have more “devices” in it. The poem that won state and ended up winning 2nd in national? Written by the girl’s mother. I’m still a little bit bitter about that, too.

22. I drive left-handed. It just feels more comfortable to me. When I smoked, I did it left-handed as well. Smoking while driving got interesting.

23. I’ve got a scar on my right shoulder that I have no clue how I got.

24. I share a birthday with a great aunt on my dad’s side and a second cousin on my mom’s side. I also share it with Kirstie Alley, Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Rob Zombie, Oliver Platt, and Marian Hossa. Yes, January 12th is a questionable date.

25. My high school graduation present was a 1974 American General mail Jeep. It was flat black, had sliding doors that locked open, no heat or A/C, and was right-hand drive. It cost my dad 200 bucks.

26. I’ve worn the same winter coat for over 15 years.

27. I once burned macaroni and cheese. Despite the vast improvements of my culinary skills, my sister (to whom cooking comes naturally) won’t let me forget it.

28. Kansas City, Missouri is the farthest west I’ve ever been.

29. I have a lot of trouble pronouncing some words. I can read them and can pronounce them in my head, but when I actually say them, they come out completely different and completely wrong.

30. I’m a fatalist. It’ll either kill me or it won’t and I don’t have much say in it no matter what I do.

It took a couple of hours to come up with 30 things. Thank goodness I didn’t pick 50.

Writing–Negative Reviews

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

LMB stars

It’s kind of blown up lately in the writing community concerning writers attacking readers because they leave less than favorable reviews on their books. If you Google “Goodreads negative reviews” you find all sorts of information and opinions on this business.

Now I’ve only had a few short stories published. I self-published a book of my short stories. I’ve posted some freebie short stories on my blog. Even with ALL of this material out there (I’m being facetious), I’ve never received a negative review.

I’ve never even been told that I suck, at least not in relation to my writing.

However, I have a feeling that I’ll be able to handle negative reviews. Why? Because I worked in retail.

Here are a few examples of how working in retail and receiving negative reviews are similar:

I can’t find anything in this store/Why did you move everything around = I didn’t care for the pacing/theme/characters/story.  This is a constructive complaint. When people would complain about not being able to find things and moving things around, it didn’t bother me much. First of all, I heard it so much it no longer held any meaning. Secondly, I agreed with them. No one hated moving things around more than the employees because then we had to move it, had to remember where it was, and had to deal with the complaints.

Likewise, people that don’t like a character, pace, or theme of a story provide an alternative perspective from all of the people slobbering all over my work. “Like” is a subjective thing and I can’t please everyone. There might be something I can learn from the people I’m not pleasing, providing they can present their point intelligently. If they can’t, well then, it’s going to hold no meaning for me.

I’ll shop somewhere else = I don’t like anything you write. If you want to shop somewhere else, somewhere that pleases you, then by all means, go and do just that. Likewise, if you don’t like anything I write, then please stop wasting your time with me and go read something by an author that you’ll enjoy. I appreciate you giving me a try, but if things aren’t working out, then we need to go our separate ways.

The one big difference between these two scenarios is that if you don’t like anything I write, I admit I’m a little bummed that my writing to jive with you; if you want to shop somewhere else, please do, and take your attitude with you (though I know you and your attitude will be back next week).

You suck = You suck. Yeah, “you suck” and really any sort of name calling, trolling, or self-entitled whining are pretty much the same no matter what the circumstance. These negative reviews are as prevalent as the people that insulted me while I worked retail and for very similar reasons. On the Internet, a person can hid behind the mask of anonymity and be a raging jack ass without fear of consequences or punishment. Working retail, people think they can treat you like garbage because you work a crap job and the customer is always right.

Well, the customer isn’t always right (and no retail gig I’ve ever had has paid me enough to put up with personal abuse and I didn’t and when I didn’t, I was accused by said asshole customer of being rude, go figure) and neither is a reviewer.

Thankfully, through the virtue of slogging in retail for several years, that when my first negative review comes, I’ll be prepared and I’ll know exactly how to handle it.

I’ve got the coping skills already in place.