Angels Unbound: Kerubiel (an a-to-z post)

Kerubiel
Kerubiel is "the Flames which Dance Around the Throne of God." He is the leader of the Cherubim, though he is not one himself, or, at least, he does not share their characteristics. Rather than the four faces of the cherubim, he has a body made of burning coals covered in 1000 eyes (see, what have I said about the eyes?). His head is a roaring flame which spews forth fire when he speaks. He is armed with the bow Shekinah, the physical manifestation of the female aspect of God.


Special bonus Angel, today (you can thank Alex):
Kasdaye
Tamiel, the name Kasdaye carried when he was called forth from the Void, was the "Perfection of God." Lucifer didn't like him, though Tamiel was always gracious to Lucifer, graciousness being an aspect of Father. Later, he formed a group known as The Hand, along with Gadreel and Asbeel among others, and took on the name Kasdaye, "the Hidden Power," in an effort to keep his involvement hidden. Once he was discovered and his perfection compromised, he lost the name Tamiel.


Already available:

CassaStorm (a book review post)

If you would like to see my review of CassaStar, go here.
If you would like to see my review of CassaFire, go here.

The first and most obvious thing to be said about CassaStorm is that it's an obvious effort by the author, Alex Cavanaugh, to expand the universe he established in the previous two books. We find out that Tgren does, indeed, have more than one city on it and even get a peek at the other races only hinted at previously. And the end provides an explanation for some of the things that haven't made the most sense in the series overall, like the significantly low populations of the races.

There are ways the explanation creates more questions, but that's okay. Leaving questions unanswered is not something I necessarily have a problem with.

'Storm also rounds out the relationship progression of the other two books. 'Star deals with friendship, 'Fire deals with romance, and 'Storm deals with parenthood. As with the other two books, Byron has to figure out how it's supposed to work. The only issue with this idea in 'Storm is how it contrasts to the other two books. Both of the other books deal with Byron and initial meetings (first with Bassa, then with Athee) and 'Storm, in many ways, follows that pattern. The problem is that his son, Bassan, is already 10, and there are parts where it's like Byron has no idea of how to interact with his son in the same way as with someone you are just meeting.

This is both a strength and a weakness in the book, because in actuality Byron doesn't have any idea who his son is. It's clear that he's one of those who father's from a distance, and he is, in fact, learning who his son is. The problem is that there don't seem to be any clearly established patterns in their relationship as is usually the case. Neither the son nor the father ever seem like they know what to expect from the other.

There are a few interesting wrinkles in this book, like the introduction of the Rogue, which I didn't see coming. That's a big positive for me, because most books fall into established patterns making it difficult for me to find books that aren't fairly predictable. Possibly, the biggest issue I had with 'Fire is that I knew what was going to happen throughout the book; nothing was surprising. However, with 'Storm, every time I thought I had what was going to happen figured out, there would be some new wrinkle. It made the book a worthwhile read just to figure out where he was going with the story.

Basically, if you read the previous two books and liked them, you should definitely read this one. I can't see how it could be a disappointment. It's even possible that this book could be read as a stand alone, because any background information needed is provided. Sure, the other two provide a bigger picture, but I don't think they're necessary.

Look, this isn't deep or philosophical. It's pretty straightforward space opera in a Star Trek kind of vein. It deals as much with relationships as it does with space battles, but that serves to strengthen the book in overall sense, not weaken it. Hmm... Still, if you want space battles, CassaStar is probably the book for you if you haven't already read it. Not that there aren't space battles in 'Storm, but it's, ultimately, a different kind of story.

It's Time For You To Grow Up (part 2)

Truth is the greatest enemy of the small minded. --me

Back in January, I wrote this post about... Well, you should probably just go read it, but the short of it is about being more offensive, in both connotations of the word:
1. tackling subjects that tend to upset people (hence my current series on racism)
2. not backing down from a fight or, in other words, going on the attack
I think this post will do both of those things.

I get that authors reviewing other authors is loaded topic. Honestly, I'm tired of talking about it. I believe what I believe about it, views which you can find scattered through numerous posts on here, and it's not likely that you're going to change my mind about it. I'm going to add one further thought, though, that I don't think I've stated before:
Authors reviewing authors is a longstanding practice. What do you think it is when a publisher solicits blurbs from authors for book covers? Those are encapsulated reviews meant to support, usually, a newer author and help sell books. And, sure, they pick the good ones, because they want people to buy the book. It doesn't change the fact that "negative" reviews are just as valid.

Go back and read part one of this (if you weren't here last week) if you want my full take on the subject.

All of that said (including the stuff in the older posts), and no matter what your opinion is on reviewing, here is a thing that is never okay: It is never okay to threaten someone with a negative rating/review in order to elicit a positive one in return.

So here's what happened:

I recently reviewed Lyon's Legacy by Sandra Almazan. Now, Sandra is someone I "worked with" on the mostly abandoned Indie Writers Monthly project. [I say "worked with" in that I never actually worked with her other than that we both contributed to the same blog. It's only "working with" in the very loosest of ways since we all contributed individually and never really worked on any joint projects other than the magazine, which Briane coordinated, so I only worked with Briane on that.] However, what I think of a book I read has nothing to do with whether I know the person or not. I'm reading a book then reviewing the book I read, and none of that part of the process has anything to do with whether I know you. [The only part where knowing you comes into the equation is that I am much more likely to read your indie book if I do know you. Once I've picked the book up, though, none of that continues to matter. It's all about the book at that point. (As it should be.)] I happened to not like this particular book (but you can go back and read the review).

As it happened, Pat Dilloway (also part of the IWM group) had posted a review of "Tiberius" (one of mine) about a week before I posted my review of Lyon's, or, at least, that's when I noticed it. It was a review he just slid in there without ever mentioning it to me. It was a short, respectable review with a 4-star rating.

However, as soon as my review for Lyon's posted, Pat attacked it and changed the rating he'd given "Tiberius" to 1 star. To be honest, that pissed me off. Especially when he told me that he would change it back if I would either pull down my review of Lyon's or change it to be favorable. In short, he tried to extort a positive review from me by preying on what he assumed would be my fear of having a negative review on one of my books. That pissed me off some more. That's playground bully behavior.

Needless to say, I didn't change the review.

Now, I understand that some of you feel that negative reviews are... inappropriate, but, again, I'm going to say to go back and read part one of this to get my full thoughts on that.

At this point, the thing that actually makes me mad is the hypocrisy of Pat Dilloway and his supposed belief that indie writers should only give other indie writers positive reviews because "selling books is fucking hard." And, you know, he's right; it is hard. But lying in book reviews/ratings for what can, at best, only be a short term gain (and usually isn't even that) hurts everyone in the long term. There's no better way to convince readers to stay away from indie books than for indie writers to lie in their reviews/ratings just to get the same favor back. Which is Pat's goal, as he fully admits:
"I do it because I'd want them to help me should I ask for it."
Just to say it, I don't help people for the goal of getting them to help me in return. That's not called "helping;" that's called "quid pro quo." If I'm going to help someone, I'm doing it either because it's the right thing to do or because I just want to help the person, not because I'm trying generate future favors. But I digress...

We're supposed to be talking about hypocrisy.
Dilloway's stance about only giving positive reviews to other indie authors goes back years. At least as far back as when I first declared my policy about honest reviews. Since then, however, he has been in at least one feud with an indie author he said he considered a friend and to whom he gave a 1-star review. I suppose it must be one of those things where it's okay for him to do it but it's not okay for anyone else.

I've seen him give 1-star ratings to indie authors where he admitted to not reading the books. I think those were all "revenge ratings," though, so I suppose that makes it okay. Which would apply to what he did to me.

He gave a 1-star rating to a recent ABNA winner, an indie author, but I suppose the fact that the guy won a contest and got a pocket full of money from it then got an Amazon publishing deal made that one okay. Here's what he had to say about:

Just last week I gave 1-star to a book being published by Amazon.  And you know what, it won't fucking matter!  That book has hundreds of reviews already; mine is just crying out in the wilderness.  There's no harm to it.

Oh, and he also gave Alex Cavanaugh a 1-star rating on his book Cassastar for the sole purpose of not liking Alex.

All of that to say that Dilloway actually has no standards about whom and how he reviews and rates; he throws them out based upon his mood. You just better hope to never end up on the wrong side of him, because he may just go toss a bunch of 1-star ratings at you for not liking you. Kind of like this guy:

The best part, though, was that Dilloway presented what he did like this: "...I changed an overly generous 5-star review of his book to 1-star to let him have a taste of his own medicine." I love the phrase "his own medicine." If he paid attention at all to anything that I do or say, he would understand that my medicine is to read a book and offer a rating and review based upon my experience of the product. My medicine is never to go over and give someone a bad review because I'm mad at him. A more accurate way of putting that would be for Dilloway to just admit that he was giving me his medicine. Or, more accurately, his brand of poison.

On the other side of all of this is a post that Briane Pagel posted. I strongly recommend that you go read his post. Yes, it's long, but it has a very interesting take on the two sides of this controversy. Not the controversy between me and Dilloway but the controversy about reviews in general and whether we should just give out positive reviews to fellow indie authors. In that post, he excerpts from several reviews I've given his stuff. Um... He excerpts negative things I've said about his various books (and I like Briane's stuff!). More interestingly, he talks about how me pointing out the negatives in his writing helped him to grow as a writer. You should just go read the post.

I suppose the question, the real question, is "How do you deal with people like this?" The first way is what I'm doing here: You shine a light on the bad behavior. Of course, he has a belief that I behaved badly by giving Lyon's a negative review, and it's his right to say that he doesn't believe indie authors should be truthful in their reviews of other indie authors as long as it's "supporting" the author in question, but that's a far different thing than going around downgrading ratings of authors' works because you don't like them or because you're mad at them. Basically, you should let people know of whom they should be aware, so I'm letting you know.

The second way is to not let these kinds of people bully you. You don't adjust what you're doing to accommodate them, because, once you start doing that, you can never stop. It's like negotiating with terrorists. There's a reason we don't do that.

The third way is to show support for each other when someone is faced with dealing with a down-rating bully. So, you know, if you want to help out, go pick up one of my things (specifically "Tiberius" in this case), read it, and leave an honest review/rating. Seriously, I'd much rather have an honest 1-star rating than someone just giving me a 4 or 5 to be "nice" or to, hopefully, garner my favor for the future.

[Next week, I will actually have a review of one of Dilloway's works, something I read way back and never reviewed because I didn't, at the time, want to get into it with him, knowing how he is. But, then, I suppose that was a bit like trying to slide by the notice of the playground bully, and no one can do that indefinitely, because you can't ever tell what will set one of them off.]

It's Time For You To Grow Up (part 1) (an IWSG post)

Let's start with a story:

My wife is a data analyst. It's a job that requires some math skills. Not a lot. Not like calculus or trig or, even, all that much algebra, but it does require some maths. There's a lot of working with percentages and fractions. There are a few months each year when her job is really busy and requires lots of overtime. Last year, not long before the rush, one of the people in her department retired. Like any good company, to get through the busy time, they hired a temp. A temp with the potential to stay on. That was rather than hire someone permanent for the position at the point when they still had time to do that and provide adequate training, but that's another story entirely.

Now, the temp they hired seemed qualified for the job, which was not the full job, just some of the lower level routine stuff that required a lot of time. She looked qualified on paper, anyway, and got through all of the interviews and stuff. However, when it came time to do the job, she couldn't math. At all. It was almost immediately apparent that she wasn't going to work out, and there was still time to hire someone else. But, guess what, that's not what happened.

What happened is that they kept her on. The initial hope, I think, was that if they kept working with her that maybe she would "get it" and be able to do the job they hired her to do. But, no, that didn't happen. She never "got it" and, in fact, for a while, she made more work for everyone as she continued to not get it, because she would spend time doing a task (more time than it should have taken) and, then, someone else (usually my wife) would have to go back and re-do the task because it hadn't been done correctly. Eventually, after weeks of this, she became a kind of glorified filing clerk, because that's the only thing she could do.

I want to point out at this point that she was, as my wife put it, "a perfectly nice person, very sweet." She liked her. Everyone liked her. There was no one that thought she was a bad person or a dumb person or anything like that. But she couldn't do the job. And, yet, the people who should have told her that she couldn't do the job were unwilling to do their job of letting her know that she wasn't working out. Nothing positive came out of the situation.
1. It created more work for everyone involved.
2. It caused the marginalization of the temp as they looked for tasks to keep her busy because they couldn't give her any real work.
3. It created a false sense of hope in the temp as the message she received was, "you're doing fine," even though everyone knew that wasn't the case. But, you know, they kept her on, so she must have been doing something right, right? No...
4. It caused resentment toward the people who should have stepped in and said, "Hey, you're not ready for this work, yet. We need to let you go and find someone else." And, maybe, she never would be ready for it or, maybe, she just needed to get reacquainted with her math skills. No one will ever know, because no one ever told her that she wasn't doing the job. They just kept decreasing the level of the tasks given to her.
5. She was never told in what way she failed at the job. When the time was up on the job, they just didn't retain her. There was never any feedback on what she could have done to be kept on.

And, see, that's the real issue. No one ever told her what she was "failing" at, so she never knew what to get better at. Well, other than my wife explaining the same errors to her everyday, to which she would always reply, "Got it!" in a way that seemed the first few times that she really had gotten it. But that, having a coworker try to show you what you're doing incorrectly, is not quite the same as having your superior, the person who has the ability to tell you they need to let you go, sit you down and explain to you where you're not meeting expectations.

See, no one wanted to be the one to hurt her feelings.

Wow.

So I'm just going to say this:
Screw your feelings.
And, yes, that sounds more harsh than I really mean it, but, still, screw your feelings.

The problem is twofold:
1. Indie writers who hold their friendship for you hostage in order to get good reviews.

And, man, have I run into this one. I've lost count of the number of "friends" I've lost over negative reviews, but I'll just say this: If our "friendship" is conditional upon me saying that I like what you write, then we have no friendship. If I can't say to you, "You know, I don't like this one," without you yelling, "Well, you're not my friend," then we're already not friends. Or, likewise, if I can't say that about something some friend of yours wrote. It's the same thing. All I have for you is this:

It's time for you to grow up.

2. Indie authors who are unwilling to give honest reviews to their friends because they are scared of losing their friendships.

I know you "think" you're supporting your "friends" by giving them positive reviews of their not-better-than-average books, but, really, you're just making it harder on everyone, yourselves included. Every 5-star rating you throw out there that should have been a 3 or a 2 or, even, a 1 is destroying the credibility of the indie book market in general. You know how I know? Because I see it said repeatedly by book reviewers who refuse to review indie books and by readers who will not buy indie books (sure, they'll download free stuff because who cares if it's free). They see all the false positive reviews out there and have learned that you can't trust indie authors. I'm sorry, but the fact that you are out there lying (because you are lying) about the quality of your "friends'" books is making my job more difficult. And, you know, it's encouraging them to continue to write the same crappy stuff rather than working on getting better. What I have for you is this:

It's time for you to grow up.

 Here's the thing, people say it all the time, "If you want to be a writer, you better develop some thick skin," and that's true. Except it's not about having "thick skin." It's about learning separation. The things people say about your work are not things they are saying about you, and someone can very validly say, "I don't like this thing you made, but I like you." When you flip out about that and do the virtual equivalent of yelling, "Then, I'm not your friend," you're acting like a first grader. At best. And, well, if that's where you are developmentally, then you need to go find something else to do with your time, because, frankly, writing is not for you. Or, at least, writing for anyone other than yourself. You need to do what Dickinson did and store it all in a trunk and leave it for someone else to sort out after you're dead.

But here's the other thing about being a grown up, and maybe this comes from having spent so much of my life as a teacher, you have to be able to tell people when they haven't done a good job. If the only thing you can do is tell people "good job" because you're worried about hurting someone's feelings, you need to grow up, too. This is not a dinner party where you nod politely and tell the host that the substandard food is "wonderful" and "delicious." In fact, that behavior at a dinner party will lead people not to come back and leave the host wondering why. You know, since everyone said they loved the food the previous time. The problem here is that in this "dinner party," we're all responsible for the food and, when we go around telling each other "oh, I love that" when you actually want to spit it out then that's the food that gets served. But, see, we're not the guests. Readers are the guests and, when they keep coming to the indie writers' banquet only to find a bunch of crap food that the all the "cooks" are saying is wonderful, well, then, those readers will decide that ALL indie food is crap.

Basically, if you are unwilling to give a negative review, you shouldn't be giving any reviews at all. The whole thing where you opt out of reviewing the books you don't like and only giving reviews to books you do like would be like me only giving As and, maybe, Bs in my classroom and leaving all of the other kids gradeless. It doesn't help the situation.

So, no, when I read a book that I don't like, for whatever reason, I get to say I don't like it and, even better, I get to explain why I didn't like it. Other people can then come along and figure out if they want to try it. So, if I say, "This one is too sweet," someone who likes sweet things will go, "Oh! I like sweets! I'll try this one." Or, if I say, "This one was too salty for me," someone else has the option of saying, "Oh, yeah, I don't like lots of salt; I'll stay away from this one."

Honesty is important in reviews. Period. It's not about treating my "friends" like they're five and saying, "Oh, it's beautiful!" and hanging it on the refrigerator. So sorry if you think that's what this is all about. There comes a point when even parents quit hanging those things up. Usually right about the time the kid realizes the drawings are actually pretty crappy.

So, just to reiterate, if you're approaching this whole indie writing thing as if it's some weird support system of giving good reviews to your buddies so that they won't feel bad, well, just grow up. Actually, and excuse the language (or not, I don't really care), it's time for you to grow the fuck up.

[This post has been brought to you in part by Alex Cavanaugh and the IWSG.(But, mostly, this one is just me.)]

How I Miss You in 2014

Here we are at the 2014 edition of the

In truth, I don't really have a lot to add to what I said in 2012 and 2013. I don't have any new people/blogs to add to those lists, and I figure if you want to see who I talked about before, since they are still the same, you can click the links and go back and look.

However, I do want to highlight one blog in particular that I miss, because it's not coming back.

A few months ago, we lost Tina Downey of Life Is Good. She was having some health issues, but she didn't really let on as to how serious they were, so it came as quite a shock to pretty much everyone who knew her online, I think, when she died. We weren't expecting it, and we weren't prepared. Not that you can ever really be prepared for anyone's death other than your own. I listed Tina last year in my "blogs I would miss" section of this blogfest and, now that she's gone, I do miss her. I miss her joyous outlook that she held to despite her health problems. I miss her posts about what it was like to adjust to moving to the United States. I miss arguing with her about math. I miss her comments.

I think, considering her last post was within a week of her death, that she probably misses blogging. She had no intention to quit. It's too bad the world wide web is still only the world wide. I'm sure that once we figure out how to go beyond, we'll find that she's out there somewhere still blogging away, and we'll have tons of posts to catch up on.

This blogfest has been brought to you by Andrew Leon (that's me), Alex Cavanaugh, and Matthew MacNish. You can find the other participants on the list below:

"I spend my time thinking about you..."

How many years has it been? Three? Is this really the third year of the

I think it is.

Do you have bloggers you miss? People who have just faded away and quit posting? Or post so rarely, now, that it's hard to tell they're still here? Well, this is the time to let them know that you miss them. Officially, you should pick the top three whom you miss, but I'm not much of one for rules, even if I helped make them up. Just let us know the ones who are most important to you and, then, let them know.

Also, if there are any bloggers you would miss if the disappeared, let us know who they are, too.

Join your hosts, Andrew Leon (yeah, that's me), Alex Cavanaugh, and Matthew MacNish, and sign up today!

Revisiting the Abandoned

As some of you will know (maybe most of you?), back in April, I did Abandoned Places as my A-to-Z theme. Alex wanted to know more about what went into that whole thing: where the idea came from, how I found the places, what kind of research was involved; so he asked me a bunch of questions about it. Because I'm (mostly) a nice guy (depending upon what day of the week it is (or whether you're asking my kids)), I answered them. You can see the whole thing over at the Blogging from A to Z Challenge blog, so you should probably hop over there and read that.

* * *

A while back I announced that I have a new thing coming out... um... I want to say soon, but my kids and back-to-school have completely derailed my process these past few weeks and, although I have finished writing it, it is mostly still only written in pen. None of which is the important part. As I said back when I announced this, I'm looking for a backup short story to go along with it. While I've had a few people express interest, I've had no one give me a firm commitment, as in "Hey! I have something written, and I would love for it to appear with your story!" So... If you have something written and you'd like for it to appear at the back of my vague and undescribed story, let me know. [If you're interested, I will tell you what the project is, but, otherwise, it's a secret until it's ready to go.

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Speaking of new things, the new issue, the August issue, of Indie Writers Monthly is out!

There's tons of good stuff in each issue. Unless you're actually trying to weigh it, in which case, you'll find it's a bit hard to grasp being virtual and all that. My article in this issue is all about editing and softball. You should definitely check it out!

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Just a reminder: My two sons have started up their own blog. It's called Aim for the Cat! Yes, there is a reference involved; no, I'm not going to tell you what it is. I'm assuming one of them will get around to explaining it at some point, but, hey, they are teenagers, so who can tell? Also, who can tell what they're going to talk about? So far the posts have been movie reviews, reflections on the state of the universe (or something like that), and Spore. If you don't know what Spore is, I suppose you'll just have to go over and find out. Oh, and while you're there, leave them an encouraging word or three.

* * *

And the last thing...

Well, I don't even know where to begin with the last thing. Most of you, being the people of the Internet that you are, will have heard or seen that Robin Williams is dead. I'm not one to get gushy over celebrities, but a few of them have been part of things (usually movies) that have been significant in my life. If you click my "Of Significance..." tab at the top of the page, you'll see that Dead Poets Society 

is (and has been) listed as one of my pieces of significance. That movie had a profound impact on me, and I have a sense of loss with passing of Williams. It's also very saddening that he had no one around him that could reach out and help.

I'm going to leave it at that.

Forget-Me-Not (an IWSG post)

Photo by  Sedum and used under the linked license.

When I was a kid, my best friend was from a rather large, blended family. He was the youngest of, like, seven or eight kids (I can't actually remember now). His oldest brother was about 20 years older than him, and he was my favorite of Cory's brothers. Billy, the older brother, would do things like play football with us in the backyard. It would be Cory and me against Billy. At some point during any game (multiple points, actually), we'd end up on each of Billy's legs trying to tackle him while he dragged us through the yard toward the goal line. He was a lot of fun.

Somewhere in there, Billy developed some mental instability. I don't remember or know everything about what happened -- I was only eight or so -- but I know there was an aneurysm involved and a subsequent stay in a mental ward. And an escape.

Yeah, one night, he escaped, and he came to my house. I'm really not sure why he came to my house other than that sometimes he and my dad would play guitar together or, maybe, we were just closer? Whatever the reason, we let him in, because, well, he didn't know he'd escaped; we just thought he was dropping by. Or something. Even if it was kind of late.

So we all sat around together, and he talked about what it was like to be in a mental institution and what it was like to be crazy. Because he could remember some of what it was like to be crazy. Sometimes, he only remembered the things he did but, other times, he remembered the emotions and urges driving him to do the things he did, and he talked about all of it. Some of which I'm sure was quite inappropriate for me to hear. The thing that stayed with me, though, is how he'd no control over himself during those episodes. Like he was outside watching his body do things that he couldn't keep it from doing.

Somewhere in that conversation, and he was there for hours, he started talking about how he'd escaped...

But the rest isn't really important. The important thing is that I developed a "fear" of mental breakdown, and that, I think, was the beginning of it. The actual is more inclusive of a failure of mental capacity, which includes forgetting things. I used to keep all kids of little notes to myself about things when I was in high school and college so that I wouldn't forget those things. I never, later, needed the notes, but that was probably because I made the notes in the first place.

And all of this is coming up now because, last month, I forgot my IWSG post. I mean, I completely forgot it. I forgot it so much that I didn't remember it until Alex said to me, "Is this [emphasis mine] your IWSG post?" about a post which was definitely not an IWSG post. Man, I HATE forgetting things.

Because of my fear of forgetting, I keep a lot of notes about stories and story ideas. I have a file for them and add to them as I think of things so that I can continue with whatever I'm working on. So far, it works pretty well. The file system I'm using now is important, though, in that before I was using it, back when I was writing "The Evil That Men Do," I made a lot of notes about the world that would be for Shadow Spinner and then... lost them. When I started on Spinner and couldn't find my notes, I panicked because I couldn't remember any of what I'd written down, so, well, I started over. Later, much later, when I was almost finished with Spinner, I found my original notes and, amazingly enough, what I'd done held to what I'd originally had down almost 100%. But, still, I don't trust that, especially when I do things like forget IWSG.

So I make notes.

However, I'm still not very good at making grocery lists. I can't even begin to tell you how many things I've forgotten just this week at the store. Maybe I need to make myself a note to make myself a list...

Anyway...
All of  that to say  that my greatest insecurity, both as a writer and as a person, is that I will become mentally deficient in some way, especially in a way that would mean I could just forget things. That I am smart has always been a defining characteristic for me and losing that as I age is a way worse thought than any physical deterioration. So it's about time someone develops that anti-aging serum. Or something.

This post has been brought to you in part by Alex Cavanaugh and the IWSG.

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Also, make sure you stop by Indie Writers Monthly today for information about the July issue and part six of my series "Lies Writers Tell... To Other Writers."

A to Z Flashback: 2013 -- How To Be...

All the background here is the same as it was in my last flashback post so, rather than go through all of that again, just click the link to check it out.

Which brings us to last year's theme: How To Be...
You can go back and read the intro post, or you can go off of this summation: With the Internet, we can be whatever we want to be. Or, at least, we can find out how to be whatever we want to be. Or, more specifically, as a writer, I can find out how any of my characters can be whatever I want them to be, and I never have to leave my house to find those things out. Pretty amazing, don't you think.
And, yeah, I'm pretty sure last year's theme was my wife's idea, too, although I didn't seem to mention that in the intro post. Oh, well, I'm sure it's there somewhere.

So here's the A to Z of "How To Be..."! Remember, you can still leave comments. The posts won't bite. Probably. Okay, well, one of them might smash you, but, other than that, you're probably safe.

How To Be...
an Archaeologist
a Brain Surgeon
a master Chef
a Demolition Expert
an Electrical Engineer
a Fighter Pilot
a Genetic Engineer
a Human Cannonball
an Incredible Hulk
a Juggler (this post contains a juggling lesson from our very own A-to-Z founder, Arlee Bird)
a Knight
a Lumberjack
a superModel
a Ninja (the favorite post of Alex Cavanaugh)
an Ornithologist
a Paleontologist
Q (you just have to read this one to understand)
a Race Car Driver
a Super Spy (this is the one that explains how the "How To Be" idea came about)
a Translator
an Umpire
a Ventriloquist
a Werewolf (my number one most viewed post of all time... by a lot)
an X-ray Technician
a Yodeler
a Zen Master

After the series was over, I summed it up with a post about what the series had really been about:
How To Be... a Writer

Based on the popularity of the werewolf piece, I followed it up about six months later with
How To Be... a Vampire
Surprisingly, that post has not really proven to be all that popular. The werewolf post continues to get dozens of views each week. Sometimes, the Internet is weird.

Independent Day

Those of you that have been around here for any length of time will know that I don't promote books I haven't actually read. Ever. I don't do cover reveals or blog tours or any of that stuff, because I'm not going to back a book that I wouldn't actually recommend to someone to read. It's just not the way I work.

However, I do want to support other independent authors as much as possible. That's why I do reviews, and that's why I'm including stories by other writers in my books. And that's why, today, in the Spirit of Christmas (or something like that), I'm going to highlight some indie work that's come out in the past year or so. Many of these books are on my list of things to read (but I've been really behind on reading, lately, so I haven't gotten to them) and will get reviewed at some point. Others are books I know of, but I haven't made the decision to actually read, yet. They are all, however, independently published by people whose blogs I follow.

So, while I'm not actually recommending them in the sense of, "Hey! I read this and it was great," I am saying, "Give some indies some love and check these out." And, really, they are in no particular order.

1. White Walls by Australian author Hayley M Clearihan

2. Butterman (Time) Travel, Inc. by Pk Hrezo

3. CassaStorm by Alex Cavanaugh

4. Green Eggs & Weezie by Cathy Olliffe-Webster

5. A Hero's Journey and other things by PT Dilloway (seriously, he has so many books out, I can't list them all, but the Scarlet Knight stuff is from this year)

6. The Faerie Guardian by Rachel Morgan

7. A Flock of Ill Omens (part 1 of her serialization of A Shot in the Light) by Hart Johnson

8. Moonless by Crystal Collier

And this one I have read and get to include because, well, it's my blog and it's good:
9. Shadow Spinner -- this link is for the physical book

• "Collection 1: Tiberius"
• "Collection 2: The Man with No Eyes"
• "Collection 3: The Garden"
• "Collection 4: The Undying" -- coming soon

So there you go. It's Christmas. Support an indie author! It's like shopping locally, which you all do, right?

Oh... and, after you read, leave a review!

Existentially Cranky (an IWSG post)

Some time ago, my wife referred to me as "existenially cranky." I, um, well, I couldn't argue with her. In fact, I just kind of looked at her, shrugged, and said, "Yeah, I guess so." It's hard to argue with the truth.

I suppose most people would take that statement as an insult, but she didn't mean it that way, and I didn't take it that way. The truth is, that is kind of how I experience existence. Not that I'm cranky, not really; it's more that I approach almost everything from a standpoint of being dissatisfied. And not really being dissatisfied, just seeing the flaws in things, which is not really about seeing the flaws but about seeing how things could be made better.

Unfortunately, that extends to human behavior as well, a thing which is often the root of my crankiness. And, actually, when it's about human behavior, it may well be crankiness.

So here's a short example:
Many years ago, I worked as a youth pastor. At some event or other, one of the kids (one of the girls, actually) got in trouble for something (no, I don't remember). Her father got upset that she got in trouble and complained to the pastor and, thus, there had to be a meeting. You know, because how dare I discipline his daughter for something that was clearly unacceptable behavior. During the meeting, I explained how the behavioral expectations had been very plainly (multiple times) laid out and how she had been aware of the behavioral expectations. His response to that was to say to me something along the lines of, "Well, you can't expect teenagers to follow those kinds of rules."

I have to say, his attitude made me mad. And I expressed it. Very matter-of-factly, I said, "Yes, I can. I certainly can. Every other teenager there was able to follow the rules [which, really, were very simple], so I certainly can expect them to follow the rules."

His response? "Yes, but..." blah blah blah about how his kid was "special" and shouldn't have to follow the rules. Those rules were there for all of the other kids. I shouldn't have those same expectations of his daughter. At which point I had to explain that, yes, with that attitude, there is no way to expect better behavior from his daughter, because it is only through expecting better behavior that we get better behavior. He left unconvinced. I didn't apologize.

This attitude, the attitude of being "special," is one of the reasons that it annoys me so much when people disobey traffic laws. Did you know that studies show that that is the #1 reason people speed and break traffic laws? It's because they feel "special." No, seriously. Studies show that people who, say, speed believe that the speed limit was established for other people, people that don't drive as well as they do (and no one drives as well as they do). Therefore, they have a special exception to not have to follow the speed limit.

The problem is that being a good driver is like having a good sense of humor: Everyone believes they have one. Or being smart, because everyone thinks they're smart. It's all those other people that are just of average intelligence.

Yeah, this kind of stuff really does make me cranky, because so much of it is founded on the ways we lie to ourselves. I suppose that's how a lot of people are able to live with themselves, but I'm often struck by how much of the bad behavior that exists exists only because we don't expect better of ourselves.

Lately, I've been very struck by this same kind of attitude in relation to blogging. In this other forum that I'm involved with, there is the frequent question by people of "how do I get more traffic to my blog?" 1. Because, yes, someone can ask the question one day and two days later someone else will ask the same question (pay attention, maybe?). 2. It doesn't matter how many times you say "be involved and visit other blogs," etc, the response is inevitably "I don't have time for that." Well, you know, I don't have time for it, either, but I do it.

[And in this particular corner of the blog world, it also extends to "buy my book," "review my book," "support my book" frequently by people who never do the same for anyone else. Never.]

Basically, there's this attitude of "I should get to be the 'special' one and have everyone else do for me without doing anything back, and, man, that attitude does just make me cranky. I'm sorry, but, if you're not Neil Gaiman, you don't get to have thousands of followers of your blog without being involved. Or, maybe, John Scalzi, but Scalzi is involved. I don't know if he visits blogs, but he supports authors in a lot of ways he doesn't have to.

So what I'm saying is this: if you want people to support you, quit asking; go support some other people. I can guarantee you, if you do it sincerely and consistently, people will notice. I mean, I notice when someone has reviewed (or even rated) something of mine, and those people get more of my time when I'm doing something to support other bloggers/writers. If you put a new book out, I'll probably buy it (unless I just can't afford to at that moment); that doesn't take any time or much effort. If you've reviewed something of mine, your stuff gets higher on my list of things to do, not because of trading favors or anything like that, but, if you've supported me, I want to support you. [Which does not mean a "good" review, but it does mean an honest review.] If I had more time to read, I'd review more stuff, but I do always have something "indie" that I'm reading, and I review everything I read.

I'm not saying that visiting blogs and commenting and reading and reviewing are miracle cures to traffic woes, but it's where you start. I mean, I don't care how brilliant your blog is, if I stop by there consistently and comment and you never visit me back, I'm probably going to quit coming around. Unless you're just that brilliant. Or Neil Gaiman. Or John Scalzi. Because, and let's just face it, you're not that special. Neither am I. But, then, that's why you see me visiting and commenting.

Oh, I almost forgot. I'm insecure that my existential crankiness drives people away. Actually, my demand (because it is kind of a demand) that people do better, be better, think better (think at all) that stems from existential crankiness drives people away. It does drive people away, which makes me more cranky. But someone has to expect better behavior, right?

This post has been brought to you in part by Alex Cavanaugh and the IWSG.

Oh, How I Miss You Some More

Last year, I started a thing. If you want to read about how I started a thing, you can go here and, then, go here. You can also see the bloggers I chose last year (some of whom may be in this year's running, too) if you follow that second link.

At any rate, here's announcing the 2nd Annual "Oh, How I Miss You" blogfest.

Here's the spiel:

The bloggers we miss… and the ones we would miss!

Do you have a couple blogger buddies who aren’t posting as often? Those who’ve pulled back and seem absent from the blogging world? Do you have blogger buddies you are grateful they are still around and would miss if they vanished? Now is your chance to show your appreciation and spotlight them!

List one to three bloggers you really miss and one to three bloggers you would miss if they stopped blogging. Then go leave a comment on those blogs.

Our blogger friends are special – time to let them know!

And here are the sponsors:
Andrew Leon (oh, wait, you're here already, aren't you?)
Alex Cavanaugh
Matthew McNish

Blogging is kind of a weird thing when you think about it. Why people blog and why people read blogs. It's all a weird sort of dynamic. But, the truth is, we can get attached to people through it or, at least, to their blogs. And, sometimes, they quit doing it. The reasons why people quit are probably even more numerous than why they began in the first place. But, for some, maybe they quit because they just didn't feel appreciated. Or because they thought no one cared. Whatever the reason, though, if it's someone that you have really appreciated, someone who has had something(s) to say that have touched or helped you in some way, let them know. And, if you have people that are still blogging but you wouldn't know what to do if you didn't have their blogs to stop by a couple or few times a week, let them know, too. It's that thankful time of year, so go say, "Thanks!" and "Hey, I miss you!" or "Don't go anywhere, because I would miss you if you did!"

Sign up below!

Being Round Table (an IWSG post)

Pizza is a pretty miraculous thing. It comes in so many shapes, sizes and forms, but, yet, it is pretty much always recognizable as pizza. Even dessert pizza, which is in no way actual pizza, is recognizable as pizza and counted as such.

Possibly the best thing about pizza, though, is that kids are just as enthusiastic over cheap pizza as they are for expensive pizza. In fact, they often prefer the cheap pizza. Until just recently, my younger kids would generally choose Little Caesar's over anything else. Which, you know, is nice for the wallet. Not that we get pizza all that often, but, when we do, it is usually just for the kids (which has many causes but is frequently because there is something happening that will cause some kind of delay to dinner but they, my daughter especially, can't make it without something before the delayed dinner). Grabbing a couple of $5 pizzas is kind of a great thing.

And Little Caesar's is great for birthday parties and play dates and stuff. I mean, basically, every kid will eat either a Little Caesar's cheese or pepperoni pizza, but, if I get something more expensive, there are always kids that respond with "I don't like that kind of pizza," even if it's cheese or pepperoni.

So, see, cheap is good. It's... mass level pizza (it's good for the masses, see?). Even adults, who may not prefer it, are generally willing to eat it. Well, except my wife. She has standards. She won't go for anything less than Round Table. But I'll get to that in a moment.

It's been interesting to watch my kids develop, to watch their tastes mature. Here's a basic rundown of how it went:

• At some point, all of the kids preferred Little Caesar's. (So we'll call that the "lowest common denominator pizza.)
• My oldest is at that age where he will eat almost anything (I think I could squirt some ketchup onto cardboard and sprinkle it with cheese, and he would eat it); however, he prefers this place called Mombo's, which I think is awful (I'm pretty sure they do use cardboard for their crust which is why I think I could get that past my son).
• My younger boy still loves Little Caesar's (because, hey, it's pizza), but, when he gets to choose, he picks Papa Murphy's. (I'd call Murphy's a good mid-range pizza place. Their most expensive pizza is still cheaper than Round Table's cheapest (at an equivalent size).)
• My daughter has moved all the way up to preferring Round Table (but, then, she is our child that is most invested in food). If not Round Table, though, she prefers Little Caesar's, while the boys would both pick Papa Murphy's (because Mombo's, although not as expensive as Round Table, approaches Round Table and, well, no one other than the oldest will eat it).
• My wife eschews it all if it isn't at least Round Table (I say "at least" because my wife prefers an even more expensive pizza from a place called La Vera, which is not a place the kids like at all (my younger son mostly refusing to eat any of their pizza) and, although I will eat it (it's good, just not that good), I prefer Round Table.)
• For a short while, the family liked, as a group (including my wife), Papa John's (my daughter, especially, loved it for the stuffed crust and dipping sauces), but the owner guy started spouting off at the mouth, and we no longer support them.

Here's the thing, though, everyone (in my family) pretty much agrees that Round Table is the "best" pizza even if it isn't the particular "favorite" pizza of that person. For instance, my younger son agrees that Round Table has better pizza than even his favorite pizza at Papa Murphy's; it's just that Papa Murphy's has a particular type of pizza that Round Table doesn't offer that my son really likes. My wife agrees that Round Table has better pizza because it doesn't cause moaning from the kids. My oldest agrees that Round Table is better because they have all kinds of extras that Mombo's doesn't have. And my daughter and I just like Round Table better anyway.

But, see, if we're going to the mass appeal thing, I can't do something like serve Round Table at a kid-oriented birthday party for one of my kids (as opposed to the family-oriented party), because 1. it's too expensive 2. not all the kid guests will eat it.

Which brings me to my point, some books are very "Little Caesar's." They appeal to a broad spectrum of people and, although many people may not think it's the best, they'll eat it. [Of course, you have people like my wife who just won't and people like me who sometimes might but, later, will wish they hadn't.] It's low quality but easy and cheap. And you have books that are "Mombo's" or "La Vera's," which appeal to a much thinner spectrum of people but people who really love it. And there are "Papa Murphy's" books which are bit higher quality than Little Caesar's but require more work (you do have to cook it yourself) and some people just aren't interested in that kind of time investment. And, then, you have the "Round Table"s which most people will agree qualify as "good" books but not all people are willing to read (because, we'll say, of the intellectual investment; those are more complex). And, of course, you get the "Papa John's" which people boycott because the author is a complete gashole (which is the hole you use to put the gas in a car, see) no matter how good the product is (like the controversy surrounding Ender's Game).

Authors have to decide where on that spectrum they want to be. Cheap and easy with mass appeal or higher quality which places them out of the intellectual price range of some people. Maybe most people. Or, even, some niche market where the author may develop very loyal fans but there won't be very many of them. Or be so high concept that most people just won't care (sort of like Moby Dick). I say it's a choice because it's very rare that a Rowling will come along and present something that is both high quality and have mass appeal. Her further endeavors have shown just how rare a thing like Harry Potter is. Of course, sometimes, the author doesn't get to decide, because the author just isn't capable of writing anything other than the kind of thing that the author already writes (like, I think it pretty unlikely we will ever have any high quality, literary work from E. L. James (so, yeah, that's a judgment, but I think it's a safe one)).

Personally, I'd like to be Round Table. It's quality pizza but affordable enough that people can, at least, splurge on it for special occasions. It's not going to turn most people away other than kids that are still stuck on the blandest of cheap pizzas (like Little Caesar's and, from what I remember (though it's been years since I had one), Domino's). I realize that means that I'm not aiming for some blockbuster, mass appeal novel, but you know what? I'm okay with that. I want to be the pizza that people remember and wish they had more of, not the pizza that people settle for.

Now, speaking of pizza...
I think I'm hungry...

This post has been brought to you in part by Alex and the IWSG.

The Religion of Writing: Part Six -- The Prosperity Doctrine (an IWSG post)

For thousands of years, we have had the belief that god, whatever god it happens to be, rewards the just and punishes the wicked. If something bad happens to you, you must have displeased god and are being punished. If something good happens to you, you are being rewarded, which shows that god favors you. Even more, if you are rich, through whatever means, god really, really likes you, so you must be one righteous dude and, therefore, you are justified in whatever behaviors you've been doing to get ahead even if they're wrong. God wouldn't be rewarding you unless you were doing what he wanted you to do, right?

There's something primal in that belief, no matter how ill-founded. It goes right along with that whole "beautiful angel"/"ugly demon" thing. We tend to forget that Lucifer, the head (and arguably worst) demon is also described as the most beautiful being in creation. [And we forget that whenever anyone in the Bible ever saw an Angel, the first response was always the wetting of the pants. Or loincloth. Or whatever. That was followed by the Angel saying, "Do not be afraid."] So it's very attractive to believe that rich people are somehow better than everyone else. If, that is, you are rich. European culture survived off of that belief for centuries. And, if you're not rich, you want to be rich so that you can finally be proven correct in your internal belief that you are, in fact, just as better than everyone else as the people that are already rich.

The prosperity doctrine started getting popular in the United States in the '50s, but it really took off with the charismatic movement and televangelists in the 1980s. The basic idea is that God wants you to have health, wealth, and happiness. The only problem is that, well, you have to pay for it. Now, there's all kinds of theological background and stuff I could go into here, but that would be a whole series of posts all by itself. So let's just put it like this: Just like with the whole Pentecostal thing of having to speak in tongues to get to go to heaven, the prosperity doctrine cherry picks just a few passages upon which to base the entire philosophy. [The central passage that's used is an Old Testament passage that they pull completely out of context.] What it boils down to is that people who are wealthy are "good" and everyone else is not. Which, of course, pushes the "nots" to try harder and give more, making the wealthy richer and "gooder" and everyone else "notter."

I'm pretty sure most of you out there would not say that having lots of money (success) makes a person somehow better than those that don't have lots of money, but that's not how we act. And, more importantly, that's not how they act. Rich people tend to act as if they are inherently better than other people. More valuable. More deserving. The money they have doesn't make them better; they have money because they are better. The cream, as they say, has risen to the top.

And we believe that in publishing, too, even when it's glaringly obvious that the cream does indeed not rise to the top. Unless we are now claiming that Twilight and its ugly step-sister Fifty Shades of Grey are the cream. If that's the case, well... actually, I'm not sure. If that's the cream, then there's no real hope for humanity.

The truth is, in most cases, the best books go completely unnoticed. There can be many reasons for this, none of which are important (and would take too long to list); the main thing is realizing that the statement, "the cream will always rise to the top" is a falsehood. Or, maybe, it's not, but, then, books aren't cream. The point is that the "best" things most often do not enjoy the most success.

Most of the people in the world that are the most "successful" are not people we would say are the best people. Sure, there are a few good ones, but most of them got there by taking advantage of other people or stepping on other people or cheating or lying or maybe even just dumb luck. And, no matter what people say, cheaters do not always lose. The most successful hamburger in the world is not one that I think anyone other than, maybe, Briane Pagel would say is the best. And it got there by just being the same anywhere you buy it. Which is no small feat, but it's hard to not find a "better" burger (although some might argue that its sameness does make it the best). And the best books... Well, the best books get run over by the ones that appeal to the masses. Like those hamburgers. They succeed not by being good but by being the same. Simple language. Simple, straight forward story. Plain.

Which is not to say that exceptions don't come along. Things like Harry Potter and Middle Earth succeed despite their "goodness" by being something new and different. Novel. (heh pun intended) But Rowling has proved to us that "good" does not equal success with her experiment in publishing under a pseudonym. The cream does not always rise to the top.

All of that to say that a lack of sales does not mean that your book is not good. And massive sales does not mean that it is. Books sell well for one of two reasons: 1. The author has put a lot of work into writing books and become known through being a steady and dependable writer. 2. Luck. The book just happened to be at the right place at the right time. So to speak.

But, still, we like to worship success here in the United States, so I'm sure we will continue to use such statements as "the cream will always rise to the top" and, even worse, continue to believe those statements.

What I want to say about it is that you shouldn't rate your "creaminess" on whether you're on top or not.

Today's post has been brought to you in part by Alex Cavanaugh and the IWSG. The rest was all me.

The Importance of Liking Your Own Work -- Part One (an IWSG post)

Back when I first moved out to California, I worked at Toys R Us. At the time, TRU was one of the worst possible places to work at. They had incredible turnover amongst their employees, and, the funny thing is, they couldn't figure out why. After all, they paid minimum wage, right? Anyone should be happy with that. A job where they hire no full-time employees so that they don't have to provide benefits. A job with no employee discounts. A job with absolutely no flexibility to your schedule and, even worse, no routine to it. Really, they did their best to own you by making you be available to them whenever they wanted you to be.

But you should be thankful for the job.

I've heard that it's better there, now. Well, at least, now, they have an employee discount program. I'm not sure about the rest.

And, yes, I'm sure I just described quite a bit of corporate minimum wage retail jobs, but I only have experience with the one. [And when I say that it was one of the worst places to work, I'm not saying that from my experience. During the time I worked there, it was ranked in the top 10 worst retail places to work and, I'm pretty sure, had the highest turnover rate of any retail chain store.]

But all of that is beside the point. Background, if you will. I suppose it's important to note that no one worked there because s/he wanted to work there. No one aspired to working at the local Toys R Us. [On the other hand, I did actually know people when I was growing up (and, remember, this was the South) who did aspire to work at Wal-Mart. Their goal was to one day get to be a manager!]
[I'm totally serious about that.]
[Completely, totally serious.]

To cut through what could be a long story, it wasn't long before I was put in charge of other people. Actually, for someone that started at the complete bottom of the TRU food chain (maintenance (a fancy word for janitor)), it was incredibly quick (as quick as they could make it without violating any of their weird policies). It was unhappy-making for some people that had been working there for years, but, see, I was self-motivated (meaning I didn't wait to be told what to do (because most people, upon finishing a task, would just float around the store until someone found them and gave them a new task (which meant a lot of people spent a lot of time just avoiding being found))), decisive, and more than competent (meaning I didn't need to be told more than once how to do any particular thing).

Which brings us to the interesting part of all of this: I was put in charge of other people because of those traits. I was good at figuring out what needed to be done and making sure it got accomplished. [Actually, my biggest issue was with delegating, because I feel much more comfortable just doing tasks myself rather than depending upon someone else to do them.] These were things the managers liked seeing in their employees. They were not traits, however, that the other employees liked so much. Specifically, they were not traits that employees working under me particularly liked.

Every morning, all of the department heads had meetings with the people that worked under them to hand out tasks. Mostly, this was a pretty uncomplicated interaction that went kind of like this:
"Okay, Employee 1, you need to do Task A, today. It's not a rush job; you just need to be finished with it before you leave for the day." [That's eight hours to do a job that shouldn't take more than two or so to do, but you had to leave in time to help customers. Still, those kinds of tasks shouldn't have taken all day, although they usually did.]
"Employee 2, you need to do Task B. This is a rush job, and you need to focus on getting it finished as quickly as possible. If a customer has a question that you can't answer on the spot, call someone else to help her."
"Employee 3..." [I'm sure you get the idea.]
Seems straightforward, right? Except this one morning, a young lady interrupted me by saying, "Why do you always act like you know everything?"

I think I stared at her for a moment, because, really, I had no idea what she was talking about, then said, "Excuse me?"

"Why do you always act like you know everything?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You never say 'I think' or 'I believe,' you just tell us what to do like you know everything."

Point #1: If you think something or believe something, it's redundant to say "I think" or "I believe," because, obviously, if you're saying it, you must think or believe it.

But that's not what we've been taught in our current society. In a world where everything is subjective, we're supposed to always preface anything we say with a phrase that casts doubt upon what we're saying. Personally, I think that's bullshit. [Yes, I prefaced that with "I think" on purpose.] I don't go around saying "I think 2+2=4." Why? Because I know 2+2=4. Sure, I could be wrong (I'm not), but I believe that I'm correct, so I just say it: "2+2=4." People, though, get all bent out of shape with when you act confident about anything more complicated than that, because, you know, we're all entitled to our own beliefs.

And, see, I believe that. We are all entitled to our own beliefs. But that doesn't mean I have to be wishy-washy about what I believe. And you shouldn't either. If you believe it, if it's really what you think, drop the preface. Just own it and say it. Don't make it sound like you don't know, yourself, if you're sure about what you say you believe.

My response was something along those lines, "If I'm saying it, I must think it, so why should I bother to tell you that's what I think."

"Well, other people say it that way. They tell us what they think we should do. They also ask us if that's what we want to do. Why don't you ask us?"

"Do you mean I should say, 'Hey, would you like to re-do the endcap on aisle 7, today?'"

"Yeah, why don't you ask?"

"Because it's not an option. If I'm giving you the endcap to do, you don't have the option of saying 'no,' so why should I ask you if you want to do it? That would be misleading."

By this point, the other 5 or 6 people under my charge were all staring open-mouthed at us.

"Well, why don't you see which things we want to do and let us pick or something? I don't want to do [the task I was giving her for the day]."

"That's why I didn't ask. It's my job to assign the tasks to the people I feel best equipped to handle them, and you get to do [whatever the task was she didn't want to do]."

Point #2: If you're in charge of something, if it's your thing, it doesn't matter what other people think or feel about it. You have to make the decisions. Trying to figure out how everyone else feels about a particular thing and making it work for everyone will result in some things never happening. Like, you know, when someone smeared poop on the bathroom walls (and, yes, that would happen in the boys' restroom every couple of months), someone had to go clean that up. It wasn't something that was really up for debate, because that's one of those things that no one ever wanted to do, so saying, "Hey, who wants to go clean the bathroom?" wasn't going to get you any responses. You had to pick someone and tell them to do it and ignore any "Why do I have to do that?" and "I don't want to"s.

You may be wondering, at this point, what any of this has to do with, as a writer, liking your own work, but both points are very relevant. And I'm not saying that feedback can't be useful, but too much feedback, or trying to accommodate too much feedback, is debilitating. It's yours, your work. Believe in it. And I'll talk more about all of this in part 2.

Just to wrap up the story, as it turned out, that particular employee had been passed to me through about three other people who couldn't get her to do her assigned tasks. They had not been firm enough and had given assignments out as if they were options: "How would you like to do..." or "Why don't you take..." or "It would be great if..." She had taken all of those assignments as if they were optional and opted out of doing them. So they gave her to me, and she did what I assigned her even though she didn't like it.

However, about two weeks later, on a day when I was not at work, she had tried on a manager what she had tried on me, and she was fired on the spot. Actually, she was told she could "go home for the day," because they (TRU) never actually used the term "fired" (except that one time the one guy was caught stealing a buttload of video games, but that's another story). Then, she was never re-scheduled and when she came in for her paycheck, she was told "things aren't working out" and let go. Don't you just love all the euphemisms? I think they're great.

This post has been brought to you by Alex Cavanaugh and the IWSG.

What Your Blog Says About You: Part Four -- Presentation

This post is coming out of the original idea (almost two years ago) that spawned this series in the first place: presentation. Now, when I say presentation, I do not mean of the actual blog itself; I mean the posts. The look of the blog, the decoration, is a completely separate issue and one that I don't feel qualified to speak about as I barely pay attention to what a blog looks like. Maybe some people do, but that's not me. In the same way, I try, at this point in my life, to pay as little attention to the cover of a book as I can (but that's a post for another day (and something I've talked about before (somewhere))).

For most people, the number one thing that will affect whether someone will give your blog the time of day is post length. And, if you've been around my blog for longer than, oh, a couple of seconds, you'll see that this is something I completely disregard, but, in that, I'm in the minority. Most people want short posts. Short posts with, maybe, a list involved and, even better, pictures. And, if you really want to grab people's attention, it should be a picture of a cat being weird or spazzing out. But the real thing is length. People want to glance at your blog and think, "Oh, I have time to read that." If there is anything to make them think that they will have to come back later, most of them won't bother. So, yes, if you're really trying to bring in followers, I think it's good advice to keep your posts between 400 and 600 words.

Personally, I prefer longer posts with more substance, and I will keep a post open all day in order to finish it if I need to (as I sometimes do with some of Briane's longer posts). As such, I also prefer to write posts with actual substance rather than talking about talking about that substance as most people do. I'm more of the essay test rather than the multiple choice option. As such, I'm okay with the fact that some people skip over my posts as being too long. But it's something to be aware of in the way that you approach the way you post and has everything to do with the personality of your blog.

The next thing is a big one for me, something I hate and mentioned in part three, and that thing is constantly apologizing for not having posted recently. Seriously, just don't do that. So many people have what amounts to a running blog of apologizing for not having posted and promisings to do better. Especially those people with posted schedules. That's the worst. First, I'd say, just don't post a schedule. Do what you do and let that be it (sort of like letting your yes be yes and no be no without making promises you may break). But, really, I think most of the people that post schedules for what and when they're going to blog do it for themselves--to try and impose it on themselves--rather than to inform the reader of what's going on. At any rate, people with posted schedules seem to be the worst about actually following those schedules or posting in any consistent manner, and, then, every time they post, it's an apology for being behind or having not posted in three weeks or three months or whatever. Honestly, I don't care why you haven't posted. Whatever it was that caused you not to post was something that was more important to you than posting on your blog, and, actually, that's okay. You don't actually owe anyone anything. No one is paying you (probably) to be posting, so don't apologize for not doing it. Because, honestly, I don't care about your apology. And, especially, I don't care about reading an apology from you every few weeks. Tell me something interesting. So, unless there is some really interesting reason as to why you didn't post (other than that "life has just been SO busy!"), just get to the interesting and skip the apologizing. Really, people understand that there is a life outside of blogging (except, maybe, Alex, who I think may actually be a computer program that goes around commenting on blogs).

And, then, here's the thing that started this whole idea: If you are going to have a blog, especially a blog about writing or if you're writer with a blog about something else but as a representation of you're writing, LEARN HOW TO WRITE!

Having said that, I will say this:
If you're not a writer and have no aspirations to being a writer, it's not such a big deal. Which is not to say that you can be all slapdash with it, but I know I'm not very critical about the writing of people that just have a blog for fun-ish type reasons. I mean, most people don't read and write at that high a level (last I checked, it was 4th grade, but it's been a while since I've checked), which takes us back to the math thing: If you're not in a math field, I don't expect that you should be able to do advanced algebra or anything like that. Basic arithmetic, yes, but not the more complicated stuff. English is the same way. So, if you're not a writer and not trying to be a writer, I don't expect more than the basics and am not going to be... distressed... when that's all I see.

However, if you are a writer, learn to do it. Learn how to use proper grammar and punctuation. And practice it on your blog. Your blog should be a reflection of your style, and, if your style is not knowing the difference between "than" and "then" or "accept" and "except" or "site" and "cite," words that have distinct definitions and should not be so easily confused, then I'm not going to have much interest in reading any books that you write. And, well, probably, will not have much interest in following your blog for very long.

Just to be clear: I'm not talking about typos here; I'm talking about consistently using the wrong words. And, maybe, it's elitist, but, if it is, I can't help it. Learn your words. Especially "than" and "then." I hate reading through posts that use "than" every time "then" should be used. It makes me want to pull out my red grading pen, but, well, that doesn't work out so well with my monitor, so I have learned restraint.

And, really, if you're writer and most of your posts have to do with writing, I will have no respect for you if you can't manage to do it correctly while telling everyone else how to do it. The writing, that is.
[As an example, during a-to-z, someone had a post about the proper usage of semi-colons and, then, had a handful of incorrect usages in the post. Yes, I pointed it out only to have my comment deleted. The only thing that upset me about that is that blogger had at the end of the post something about letting her know if she'd gotten anything wrong. All I can say about that is "don't ask if you don't mean it."]

Having said all of that, yes, I do know that I probably have an unfair advantage in the whole grammar department, but I also view it as a writer's job to know, well, how to do the whole grammar thing. Especially the things that have hard and fast rules, like the definitions of words. I'm not necessarily going to get all picky on the commas. Not all of them, anyway, because, sometimes, comma usage is subjective and is dependent upon what the author wants the sentence to say. Sometimes.

So there's my rant. But, seriously, if you're writer, even if it is just a blog, you ought to have your best face on it. Sure, some people can't tell the difference, but is it worth the risk? [I have quit following more blogs because of the bad writing on the blog than for any other reason.]

All of that to say: how you present yourself is important. There are probably other things I could mention here, but I think these are the top three. Which wraps up what your blog says about you... at least for the moment.