An Open Letter to Ann Brashares

It's almost 2 AM here, but I sit in my recliner, listening to the crickets and a million frogs sing. The night is filled with them. This is the second night this week that Ann Brashares has kept me awake. I refer, of course, to the famous author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and sequels. It is the second book The Second Summer of the Sisterhood which kept me awake this night. I went looking for an email address, a web site--can you believe she doesn't HAVE one, except the publisher's site--to write a fan letter. Even my famous Google skillz came up short. I am reduced to writing this open letter, which I am assured she will never see, but feel compelled to write anyway. So I will begin it like I begin so many fan letters:

Dear Ms Brashares,

I'm one one of those odd fish, a grown woman who reads YA. Maybe this is because I write YA. Please don't stop reading. I don't want anything from you. I just want to say how much I have been enjoying your Traveling Pants series. I'm sure you hear that a lot. Or, perhaps you don't, as you don't have so much as an email form for fan mail, you don't. I suppose when one becomes a big and popular author, it becomes a burden.

I've stayed up two nights this week, reading the first and second Traveling Pants books. The end of the second book leaves me unable to sleep, mourning and angry over Lena and Kostos. Young girls heart heal quickly at a 4-top at the grill, but not so us older hearts who still remember that first insane love of our 15th year. Perhaps such a love lurks in your heart as it slumbers in mine--lulled through the years by a truer, deeper, more satisfying, less impossible love, not the love of a foolish girl's heart, but the abiding love of a sadder but wiser woman. And yet...

I don't know if Kostos was honorable or a coward, or both. I'm not sure that you know either. I think my anger might be yours... about how messy and impossible life can be. And how 15 year old girls fall in love and 16 year old girls get their hearts broken when the seemingly impossible becomes truly impossible. I have no regrets, but I still remember his kiss and the soft caress of his hands, and the yearning for... something I didn't begin to understand.

But what struck me as I read on, into the reader's group Q&A and the author's interview, was the impossible similarity between us. We write the same way, you and I: all at once, or nothing at all. It comforts me to know that someone else shares that agony and ecstasy. I'm in a dry spell right now, pondering the revisions for my sixth as-yet-unpublished novel. There was a time when I had such a long drought, I didn't think I would ever write again. I railed against it, cried, and finally accepted that I was a dead woman waiting to die. But like broken hearts mend at Dizzy's Grill, the muse returns (mine lives in Tahiti and visits in February--go figure)... eventually. Until she returns with that low slung Uzi and says "write," I wait.

We're also both tech book authors... strangely though, my tech books have sold better than yours. Nyah. Nyah! I suppose that's not the least distressing for you. Makes me chuckle out loud thinking about it though. Yes, it's a bitter, noir sort of chuckle. Anything brighter and more sprightly wouldn't be appropriate.

I finish the author's note and find "I knew better than to form any hopes for Lena and Kostos--not in this book anyway." That lands me square on the border between hope and cold rage. We both know there are some characters who are not meant to be happy. They are not meant to have their heart's desire. We torture them--and our readers who love them. We do it to make them grow, to make them real, to further the plot, to sell books. We do it because this is what we do. That's the last way in which we are alike.

I should go to bed. It's difficult to get the kids up and out to school when I've been up half the night. This is not really a fan letter. it's become an essay, I guess, and not a terribly coherent one. So perhaps I won't post the URL to your agent who I found on FaceBook. But maybe I will. I don't expect a response, particularly if it would be a burden. But my email is in the copyright notice at the bottom of my personal blog, linked to my name at the right.

Sincerely,
dej

If she answers, I'll let you know (at least by announcement). Now, I REALLY must go to bed.

You Are Worth the Time

Generally speaking, I don't think of myself as an artist. It was never my goal to create great artistic works of fiction. I always wanted to just tell my stories and have people enjoy them. I just want to produce damned good entertainment.

This isn't mutually exclusive from the desire for recognition. I hold a secret yearning for some kind of artistic affirmation from the powers that be: good reviews, a slot on the best seller list, or some respected award. But I don't expect it. I don't ever really expect to do anything but labor in obscurity, quietly doing my job of entertaining. Perhaps someday, I'll be discovered, like Bach or Dickens, years after my death, to have been a transcendent artist and to have written classic works of literature proven by the only test that matters: time.

Hey, we can all dream, right?

This morning, I was woken up too early by my husband's alarm clock. I lost an hour of sleep on a morning when I was already set to get up a full 45 minutes before I had to be getting the little girls up for their first day of school. The little girls, who often dawdle to the point of driving me to insanity, got ready with a good will and are now cuddled up next to me. We have time to sit.

When I put them on the bus, they will be gone for the whole day, arriving home at nearly supper time. And the hours will stretch out before me, hours during which I feel like doing exactly nothing. How odd to plan on wasting a day on this particular day when I am already sensitive to the fleeting, and lasting, nature of time.

There is laundry to do. Pots still to wash. The bathroom is dirty. Perhaps I will do some of those things.

Perhaps not.

Perhaps, on this, the first day of school for so many of our children, we will remember who we are. We are artists--even me.

Wisdom of a Mother, Unwise Me

My friend "Sally" is going through an awful divorce. She didn't get custody of her kids, mainly through the perfidy of her ex, who is a lawyer. He gets the automatic benefit of the doubt and respect as a fellow "officer of the court." As a result, he lies like a Persian rug. He has done the one thing that I think is unforgivable in a divorce: he makes the kids choose. If they love their mother and want to see her, then they cannot see him, OR their brothers who make the opposite choice. The man is a monster.

Anyway, today she calls me. She thought for a while that she and her oldest son were reaching some kind of detente. He was being nice. He was nice on a visit to her parents' home. He was nice when she saw him at the court ordered visits. He called when he went to visit his other grand parents. Then his birthday came, and he got his gifts from her and her parents. He hasn't called since. And you could look at it one of two ways. Either he was being nice just so he could get his birthday gifts, or this could be another example of XH not playing fair.

Middle son won't talk to her at all. He blames her for the divorce and for the ugliness created by XH. It's really sad, because this is the same man who demands that the boys not see their mother.

Youngest son, only 8, wants to go live with his mother. But he's been told by XH that if he does, he will never see his father or his brother again. And poor Youngest fears that. The only way he can go be with his mother is if he stands up to his 6'2", 180 lb father and takes the chance that he'll never see his brothers again. What 8 year old could do that?

So today, all this pain has been hitting her very hard. Sally was in tears on the phone. She said that she had applied for a job in London and just wanted to run away, make a new life... forget. Her father, a retired lawyer, was against the idea. He said she can't throw away what hope she has. But she's lost hope, today at least.

It didn't seem like a great idea to me either. She can't walk out on Youngest, even if he's not old enough or brave enough to stand up to his father--what child that age would be? Maybe there is no hope with Middlest and Oldest, I don't know. Nothing about this crazy situation has gone the way it ought to. Nothing. I do know that hope has an odd way of keeping you going until the weirdest things happen. Maybe one day, her sons will wake up and realize what has actually happened. Weirder things have occurred!

What I told her is probably one of the wisest things I have ever said. I try to give good advice, and you don't have to know me very long to know that I like giving advice. But I'm not sure that I'm terribly wise. But this was. I said, "This is a Bad Day(tm). Don't make any major decisions on a bad day."

I try not to make decisions on Bad Days(tm). I've had bunches of them lately. I have arthritis and Fibromyalgia, two progressive pain disorders that are, well, progressing and becoming more and more painful. I have IBS which is no fun at all. I'm always exhausted. Fatigue comes with Fibro, but I've been more tired than usual. And life in the objective has been very difficult and worrisome. I discovered recently that one medicine I take for IBS causes both fatigue and irritability. Have I been irritable lately? Can you be irritable and not know it? Apparently, yes.

Bad Days seem to out number the good these days. I try to keep my spirits up, but I yearn for change--to just be healthy again, not to be sick and hurting all the time. Would it help if I lost weight? Could I get back to writing if I stopped spending all my time on email? Could I manage to live in a house that doesn't look like a hurricane hit it?

I made a big decision last bad day... I dropped out. I can't decide yet, if it was a good decision or not. If by dropping out, I open up my time and what energy I have to write and sew, do stuff that I claim to want to do, then maybe it wasn't a bad choice. But maybe it was, I guess we'll just have to see.

But I really ought to put it on a plaque, right up there with "Let the editor decide." It should say, "Don't make big decisions on Bad Days(tm)."

Now if I could only take my own advice...

Anbar Massacre Journalist Censored

In a recent post, I linked to a photographer's blog. The embedded photographer had taken pictures of the results of a suicide bombing in Anbar province, Iraq. He had posted graphic pictures of the wounded and dead, including dead but not identifiable US Marines.

Since posting those images, which were within the embed rules as far as timing and content. The photographer has, on the flimsy pretext that he showed the results of the "effectiveness" the bombing, has had his embed terminated. In addition, he has been banned from all Marine installations in the world. In this shocking article from the New York Times, the Times reveals that four out of five photographers who have published photos of the war dead have been disembedded.

Why is this so shocking?

Photographer Miller puts it like this, “The fact that the images I took of the suicide bombing — which are
just photographs of something that happens every day all across the
country — the fact that these photos have been so incredibly shocking
to people, says that whatever they are doing to limit this type of
photo getting out, it is working."

Is it shocking that a military might want to control horrifying images of violence and death? Of course not. It's no shock that it's happening. We would easily expect this kind of censorship from the old Soviets, Communist China or the Axis of Evil's Iran or North Korea. No, the shocking part is that this is the US military, protectors of our most sacredly held freedoms.

And of those freedoms, the VERY FIRST freedom is freedom of the press. Our very first freedom is for the government not to suppress news of what is actually happening. Yet this is exactly what the military is doing: suppressing real news, punishing those who dare to report it anyway. This is not supposed to happen in America! Damn-it! This is America!

No, wait, maybe it's not anymore.

Journalism Raw

(this was originally posted to The Writing Mother mailing list)

There's a lot of contention over these pictures: whether they should have been taken, whether they should have been published. They are NOT for the faint of heart. The worst of the pictures are on the second page.

Zoriah's Pictures of a Suicide Bombing in Anbar Province, Iraq

I'm on the fence about this. Is a picture of a dead marine with his brains hanging out (yes, the pics are graphic) disrespectful? Or it is an unsanitized view of exactly what we're asking of our young volunteer military (I'm a milspouse of some 14 years)? Are we demanding the sanitizing of war to the detriment of accepting responsibility for actions perpetrated in our name?

And key in this consideration is the fact that this particular event is not something the US did. This is the indiscriminate violence and hatred we're fighting against. These suicide bombers didn't just kill our Marines, they killed bunches of innocents, old men and children. yet the idea of using images like this to stir up support for what the US is doing in Iraq is unthinkable and awful.

What do you think? Whether you are for or against the war aside, do you think these pictures should have been published? Including or excluding the ones of the mangled Marines? Is this something the American people should be made to see? What are our responsibilities as journalists?

Hard questions.

Are there any good answers?

The breath of the divine...

I joke that my muse carries an Uzi.

It used to be, that I would get a tight feeling at the top of my spine (which has since turned into chronic back pain--why is everything about pain with me lately?) when I was really inspired. I imagined that it was a lovely mid-life lady with flowing, soft, blond hair that fell in ringlets, wearing a classic Grecian robe--you know the kind, with the crissy-crossy gold straps. She was lovely, beneficent, a being of light. But over that peaceful interior, she wore a bandoleer of ammunition and carried an Uzi. Suffice it to say, she is both a lady who knows what she wants and knows how to induce me to do it.

Then, one day after a six month writing jag, she stopped coming to work, abandoned her husband and sons, ran off to Tahiti and married one of my main characters. She still blames me over-working her for the failure of her marriage. ME over-working HER? Schah! Now in her 40's my muse has a new family. Go figure.

She sometimes comes to visit, usually in the winter between November and February. Why she'd trade a Tahiti winter for a Virginia winter is beyond me, but that's her preferred time for a jaunt. But most of the time, she just sends me postcards. Then, I can write. That's the kind of writing I love... when I get a postcard--or even better, a visit from my muse--and everything flows out of my fingers like God himself had breathed on them.

This week, I got a postcard from my muse. I turned out what I felt was an absolutely fabulous synopsis for my new novel The Barunian Incident for this synopsis seminar I'm taking. My three pre-readers loved it. One whose experience and opinion I trust said it was very, very good.

Both critiquers from the synopsis seminar hated it.

One attacked every single plot point, though we weren't supposed to comment on the other person's story. It seems he was looking for hard SF and thought mine was a "romance in space." You could tell that he looked down on romance... which should not have been a problem since my novel isn't a romance in the sense that the goal of the protagonist is not to find love. She has another goal, she happens to find love along the way. And you know what, IT'S NOT HARD SF!!! It's not MEANT to be hard SF! No wonder he didn't like it. It's soft SF, character driven, not plot driven. So because I didn't give this idiot the STORY he wanted, he was unable to give me any feedback on whether the synopsis mechanics actually worked for MY story--not the one he wanted it to be in his head. Perhaps this means that the mechanics are perfect, but I doubt it. It's the worst kind of "critique" one that ignores what he's supposed to be doing to harp on how the piece isn't the kind of story he wants it to be.

The other didn't understand the simplest thing. Like my query (sent with the critique) said that one main character will get beheaded if he doesn't become king because of "brotherly-lust for power." Now, if you're NOT a moron, you know that "brothers" = "someone else might become king." HOW CAN YOU NOT GET THAT? She didn't get anything. Nothing. Not one single plot point. Nada. I mean, NO ONE IS THAT STUPID. She wanted explanation, reasoning, description. And anyone who knows jack shit about writing a synopsis knows that a synopsis is not the place for those things. It's for getting the main parts of the plot down in the most attractive way possible.

The sad thing is that I was also assigned to crit her synopsis. I had read it yesterday afternoon--before I read her crit of mine, mind you--and was not all that impressed. And that made me sad, because I am a big fan of her writing. She's a great writer with a brilliant future. The synop was the kind of serviceable-but-not-great synopsis that just sucks the life out of a novel. I know. I've written poor synops before and I've read good ones.


She didn't much like my crit either, because her note of thanks basically refuted everything I said, said that she'd accomplished exactly what she set out to do. IN short, I was completely wrong. Well! You're WELCOME!

Her reasoning: "Every published author's synopsis I've ever read was kind of dry." Made me just want to scream. I knew it was useless to argue with her. She got one idea in her head, "synopses HAVE to be dry and suck the life out of your novel" because she'd read bad synopses by authors who happened to get published. She's never read a great synopsis, so she thinks that was how they SHOULD be and excused herself from writing having to write something that was more than pedestrian and run-of-the-mill. Gosh, that is SO much easier! Just write a yawner full of extraneous detail and wishy-washy characterization. Wish I'd thought of that. And she hated my synop because it was short on (extraneous, IMO) detail and long on style ("a synopsis is not the place to show off your writing.")

Anyway, I still get one more crit from this seminar. And I have to decide what to do with the synopsis. Clearly, there are some plot points that don't scan from the text. I have to figure out what those are and clarify them in as few words as possible. I need to figure out how to downplay the romantic aspect and up-play the fact that this happens on a planet other than Earth and is actually SF, which it is. And I need to figure out what is good from two really not helpful critiques and using them to make my synopsis better... all while tromping down on my raging ego, which is, to say the least, bruised.

And that last is the hard part. As difficult as writing the synop itself is, figuring out what's worth keeping from a crit where the writer doesn't understand what a good synopsis is and another where the critter has an ax to grind about the story (which is not supposed to be the focus of his crit) and doesn't say anything about what makes him NOT "believe it" is really hard. You have to not only read between the lines, you have to read minds! And I have to do it without the substantial ego--the confidence I've built from ten years of success (and failure)--to protect me. I hope my ego doesn't to to Tahiti too.

This is the part of writing I hate.

WAHM's and Low Pay

Being a mom is probably the lowest paying job of all, which puts an odd sort of perspective on the following... Recently, one of the major freelance writing job blogs sounded off about WAHM's taking low paying writing gigs. You can read her rant at Freelance Writing Jobs about how the tendency of WAHM's to take $3 writing jobs make people think of them as a source of cheap labor--and take advantage of them in the process. Her solution is the WAHM's should stop taking low paying writing jobs; that this will force article buyers to pay more.

Well, color me as respectfully disagreeing. WAHM's didn't start the race to the bottom and they aren't going to stop it even if they do quit taking low paying scut work. No, they won't be seen as a source of "cheap labor," but they will not turn back the tide any more than King Canute. The problem is twofold--and it's a problems lots of industries have, not just writing:

1. The Internet has created a frictionless marketplace. When sellers cannot find buyers and buyers cannot find sellers, a market has "friction." But when sellers and buyers can come together almost effortlessly, then a market is said to be frictionless.
   With the advent of the Internet, the market for writers has become increasingly frictionless. Snailmail is slow. Email is almost instantaneous. Sending payment cross country used to be slow and iffy. Paypal is fast and safe. And so on. With the advent of Elance and Craigslist, and the increasing acceptance of telecommuting, the market for writers is nearly frictionless. And it's only going to get more so. Not less.


2. The combination of the Internet and Elance (and the like) has made a small buyer's market into a BIG buyer's market by including millions of English-speaking/writing people from all over, most notably second and third world countries with much, MUCH lower wages and prices than in the US/Canada/Australia/UK. The willingness of thousands--if not millions--of people to work for what would be a starvation wage in the west is what has driven prices into the floor--not what a few hundred thousand WAHM's will or will not write for. This is happening all over. Work that my brother contract programmer used to get paid $75/hr for now only pays $35/hr... because international competition has driven the price down. Things are tough all over, but there are opportunities everywhere.

Now, before you accuse me of being racist or xenophobic, I think people from where ever--second and third world countries included--have a right to make a living regardless of their color, nationality or shoe size. But I won't pretend that a huge influx of people willing to write for peanuts didn't drive prices down from the already low $10 each to $2 and $3 each. Economics isn't politically correct. Low paying work isn't going away. There will always be someone desperate enough to do it.

So whether WAHM's take low paying work is not going to affect the market significantly. There are just too many people whose hours are worth $5.25--or worse, $0.50/day--who figure that they can write four an hour with their PJ's on and that's a heck of alot more than they can make on their feet cashiering at Wal-mart. There's nothing shameful about doing honest work when it suits your purpose.

Back in the dark ages, when I considered $50 a good fee, $250 seemed like the moon, and we were going bankrupt supporting a house we couldn't sell, I wrote a handful of articles for Write for Cash (aka WFC). At the time, there was a big stink on the writer's list I frequented because of the low fees: $10-$20 per article. But I was desperate and the couple hundred dollars I wrote for WFC (which are still on the web today) bought two weeks worth of groceries and put something in my kid's Christmas stocking. It suited my purpose. I never spent more than a half hour on the article. I never wrote more than the minimum number of words. As long as my hourly wage came through to $15 or $20/hr, I counted myself lucky... That was as much as I made per hour as a programmer and I didn't have to dress up and commute 70 miles one way to do it. And I used those clips to move on, move up, and get better gigs.

So, having been there, I'll share a few rules of thumb:

1. Figure if something is worth your time based on a target hourly rate, not based on what a particular piece pays. Set your hourly rate, at the very least, as twice what you could make at a part time job. In the beginning (or unless you have special skills), that means anywhere from $10-$16/hr. If you can do three small pieces and hour for $4 each and make $12, and that's better than you could do at the part time jobs you qualify for, it's worth your time. After ten clips (or a couple of months), raise your target rate by $10/hr. Keep raising it at least $10/hr every six months until you get to $50-$75/hr. That's a veteran wage and a decent living.



2. Spend the least time possible while doing a workmanlike job. Don't spend four days researching an article that's only going to pay $15. If your target hourly rate is $15/hr, then you have exactly one hour to research and write that article. Go over and you're reducing your take. This is not to say you should do shoddy work and cut corners. Do good work, but keep in mind that time is money.



3. Never, never, never, never, NEVER write an article for low pay that you could pitch and sell elsewhere for more money. Always start at the top with an article idea and work your way down. You won't know if you can sell an article for $25 (or $250 or wow, $2500) unless you first pitch it to one of those better paying markets. If you come down all rejections and you still want to write it, then go ahead and write it for peanuts (or GASP for free). But start at the top.



4. Do NOT fall into the trap of thinking that because you are busting your arse for peanuts that peanuts is all you deserve. Every freelance writer starts out at the bottom: querying new markets, taking spec assignments, forging relationships with editors. Low paying work is a stepping stone. You don't need more than 10 low-paying clips to move into the next tier ($25-$50/article)--not to say it will be easy, but you should definitely begin your move around your 10th clip. And here's the secret... the editors you're querying don't know how much you were paid. They don't know you got paid peanuts. They see a clip: "Hmm, well written. Got published. Probably met her deadline. Yeah, lets give her a try." A clip, even a low paying one, is a sample of your writing and a demonstration of your professionalism. Not a pro? Fake it 'til you make it, girl!

And so, that is my answer... spent far too much time on this for far too little money. Broke rule #1 and #2. But at least I wrote something.

Happy New Year!

A Question of Sanity...

I have been sitting on a bunch of guest posts for a while. A couple of weeks back, a friend posted this on a mailing list we're both on. I thought it was harried, but hopeful at the same time. I have taken the liberty of entitling it...

A Question of Sanity

Today I am questioning my sanity...it is nights and days where it seems like everything goes backward, that in reality it is going forward. I have been home just over a week after spending ten days in hospital due to threatened premature labor. This little one is now full-term and had me in hospital last weekend with major contractions and nothing happening. I turned full-term on Thursday which I am really grateful for and am now looking forward to actually having her.

Yesterday - what a mixed bag. No I didn't try to put the dog in the fridge as he would not fit - thank goodness. That is the state my brain was in - forgetting things, misplacing items, running late for daycare, not realizing we were out of gas for the car, it was a great start to the day.

So very soon, my family will increase from four males (five including the dog), to two females - myself and our little girl. There was no mistaking the ultrasound and this pregnancy has been nothing like any of the boys ) I would not have it any other way. This year has been a huge learning curve in family, relationships, learning about myself, who I am and what is important to me. Writing is more viable than ever as a way of life and I am developing this as I go along. I am still doing my magazine and web work, have a special book to contribute to and another series of ebooks in development on writing.

This year, I can see that dreams do come true, miracles happen and I am often surprised when one problem is solved without a huge amount of fuss or planning. Having to be humble and ask for help has been a huge thing for me to learn to do. I realise now I can be independant and still have help without having to do everything alone.

Life is a gift and something to treasure. There have been times when I have been in a depressed state, so angry I resembled a mean looking bull about to charge the poor person caught in the corner of the fence, or the teary momma who wants to just sit down, cry and bury her head in the sand. I haven't buried my head in the sand - I mean the sand in the eyes and nose would be the pits. I have managed to coral that mean bull and have to take him for walks every day to keep it calm, the depressed person is unable to stay sad as the eternal oprimist comes through and has to laugh and see the good in every situation. Plus with a lovable nut for a husband, three active young boys and being alive, there is so much to enjoy and appreciate.

Keep going with your writing, sit tight with our dreams - I am now daring to dream again and I have this nagging suspicion that I am on the right path to getting everything that I have always desired for my family. Love we have in abundance and everything else is a huge bonus.

Better go before the 5 and 2 year demolish their bedroom with the toy tools they found this morning. Mister 2 was up at 5 and wanted to play and I made him go back to bed as the crows hadn't flown past and the sun was still in bed. 6am saw the 5 and 2 year playing in their room making a ruckus and bouncing on the beds, so mom got out of bed, got them settled as the sun was still not up and then at 6:30am, they wandered into the office where I got them drawing. So children keep me very engaged and I am so tired at the moment that my eyes feel like they are about to fall out of my head. How my hubbie can be such a heavy sleeper is beyond me...yes I am a bit envious as I am a light sleeper so hear most things that go on.

Washing beckons, columns call ahead of schedule due to bub and I have a need to clean. So have a wonderful day and know you are not alone in "the land of the Momma".

--Susan Thompson is a full-time mom, copywriter, freelance writer based in Australia. Widely published, she is always looking for some new project to get the creative instinct happening.

Want to read some more from Susan?

Mid-North Monthly Website Administrator/Writer
Web Wombat Lifestyle Contributor
Fatherhood - Me A Dad (written under her male alias Aidden Williams)
Creativity is Not Extinct
Step-Parenting A Foreign Word

Is the Spin Cycle Sexy?

Last year, I was fortunate to stumble on one of the most spectacular talents to have sloshed out of small publishing since... well, since! You see, Natalie R. Collins is a good buddy of mine. I tell people, "I knew her when she was nobody." She writes books about Mormons in Utah and as a result, she gets lots of requests from Utah authors for blurbs.

Now, when you're a Big Name Author from a Big NY Publisher, like Natalie is, you get a lot of requests to blurb absolutely awful books, mostly small published, self-published, and POD vanity published. And you don't have a whole lot of time to comply—especially for the bad ones, which you must read to find out they are bad and then deal with the fallout from the disappointed author when you refuse to blurb the book. Said fallout is often quite nasty. It's enough to make many BNYP-ed authors turn down all indie books sight unseen.

But Natalie is a nice lady; she was quite anguished. We talked it over. And we wandered through JulieAnn's web site—which was, at the time, a fright. I stumbled on JulieAnn's blog, though, and it convinced me. It was funny. It was crazy. It was quite well written with an incredible voice. I said, "Nat, give this chick a chance." But Natalie, on the horns of a pressing deadline just couldn't commit to it. But I was so sure, I offered to screen the book first. Deal was, if I loved the book, she had to read it.

Well, I got JulieAnn's book in the mail and started reading it before bed. And then I stayed up til 4 AM finishing it. I don't do that with too darn many books! I wrote to Natalie, saying that she absolutely HAD to read and blurb the book. And I wrote to JulieAnn about how much I loved her novel. And we became friends. The rest is history. Someday, I will be proud to say that I knew JulieAnn Henneman when she was nobody.

On today's blog, JulieAnn Henneman is our guest blogger sharing the travails of writing erotica while parenting a small boy...

Is the Spin Cycle Sexy?

She reached for him, and felt his hands cover her breasts before their mouths collided in a fiery...

"Mommy, I want lunch!" My four year old smiles at me with his little gap-toothed grin and I smile back at him, feeling as though I was just caught by a cop in the back seat of a Chevy.

"In just a second, mommy just needs to finish this one little bit of work, okay?"

"Well, can I watch tv in your room? I wanna watch Blue's Clues."

"Okay, there. Now shush, so mommy can work." I begin again by reading and catching up.

... a fiery melding of tongues and hot breath...

"A clue! Mommy there's a clue!"

"What? Oh, that's great sweetheart, be quiet now, okay?"

I suddenly here a loud beeeeeeeep followed by loud, rhythmic pounding. The washer is off balance again. I make my way down to the basement trying to come up with a phrase that is the equivalent to "quivering" or "swollen member". I adjust the load for the thirteenth time. I ascend back up the stairs.

My son is standing at the top of the stairs in his Spiderman underwear and wearing my red, Italian leather pumps.

"Mommy, do I look pretty?"

My son has two older sisters. They ask him this question before they leave for school every day. He invariably tells them they look 'booger'.

I tell him that yes, he looks very pretty, and to go finish watching his tv show.

Back to work.

"Where should we go?" She asked, panting into his ear.

"Here." He lifted her from behind so her legs straddled him, and moaned as she felt his—

"I want peanut butter and honey but not too much peanut butter on the bread mom."

"Uh-huh, okay..."

—desire for her straining through his—

"Mooooom, I went poo-poo and pee-pee in the big potty. Come wipe my bottom!"

My son kneels on the bathroom floor with his derriere perched up in the air like the All-Seeing Eye.

"Okay, son, I really need to finish some work, so you need to be really quiet for a while. Alright?"

"Okay, but what happens if apples get warm?"

"I don't know, son. Just play with your toys for a few more minutes."

—trousers. She could feel his need and she ground her hips into his laundry—

The laundry buzzed its final buzz and I continued. But little did I know the laundry wasn't quite finished.

Her breathing was haggard as his hands wandered over her body.

"I love you Dora"—

"Dora? Her name's not Dora!" I yell.

"Yes it is! Can I? Can I please watch Dora instead of Blue's Clues?"

"Son, finish the show. I'll be done in a minute."

But that's it. My sexual libido and creative fire have been whittled down to a memory and a piece of cold coal and I know I'm done for the afternoon. I fix my son lunch and watch as he happily plays with stickers while eating quietly. The laundry begins to pound again and I'm fed up.

The washer practically jumped off of the floor as it shook and I vow to never wash rugs with towels again. I had adjusted this load too many damn times today and it's almost done, so I hop on the washer, my weight bearing down on it so it made merely a jittery tremor.

Bump, bump, bump, bump.

I begin to like my washer as it hums mercifully below me. I find myself giggling with... with what? Glee? Happiness? With... oh...oh my!

I make my way up the stairs lazily, a half smile on my face. I trip a bit on the upper stair and break into laughter.

"Look mommy, I'm being good so you can work!" He says proudly. He has now donned a black cape.

"Yes you are baby, thank you. Mommy's done working for a minute, so why don't you get some stories and we'll read and take a little nap."

I'll get back to my story after our nap—when I put in the white load.

JulieAnn Henneman lives precariously in suburban Utah, USA. She is the mother of three children, a poet, creative writing instructor and coffee freak. She is the author of Always Listen to the Ravings of a Mad Woman (Draumr Publishing, 2006), and four other completed but unpublished books which she is marketing to agents and editors. JulieAnn also writes award-winning erotica under the pen name Trinity Wolf, with her debut short story available at Forbidden Publications.

"I'll be Post-Feminist in a Post-Patriarchy"

Salon has a point. "I'll be Post-Feminist in a Post-Patriarchy" makes a good bumper sticker. Salon's Broadsheet and this post from Feministe, like many Second Wave Feminists don't like the term "post-feminist" because it can mean everything from "we think feminism has achieved its goals and is old hat" to "we do not like the militant nature of Second Wave Feminism and want to be barefoot and pregnant and go shopping." Which is it? Broadsheet asks, "how do people who call themselves post-feminist define post-feminism?" And as I call myself "post-feminist," I thought I would answer--not just answer, tell my story. Because I think it is a story that will resonate with other Gen X women.

I came from a socially and fiscally conservative rural family. My mother was educated (had her MA) and my father had a HS diploma. Mom had a career, but the truth was, my brother and I were troubled, we needed her home. My father was an alcoholic, emotionally distant. Being from a rural area, I had no real experience with many things: people of other races, door to door proselytizers, feminists. They simply did not exist in any concentration in the rural area where I lived.

I went to an urban college, Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA in 1988. At the time, the ration of males to females was 3 to 1 in the university and closer to 7 to 1 in the engineering school where I took my degree. In my major, there were 6 males for every female, which was the lowest ration in the college of engineering. Suffice it to say, I was surrounded by men. And yes, I experienced a small amount of discrimination because I was female in a "man's world."

There was a very vocal group of Second Wave Feminists on campus. Back then, in the last 80's the just called themselves Feminists. You can look up second wave on Wikipedia, but here's the gist as I get it. First Wave Feminists got us the vote in the 20's. Second Wave is what we most commonly associate with feminism: the militant bra-burning 70's. And I have to say, I didn't much like these feminists.

For the most part, they dressed like guys, not just in jeans and t-shirts (everyone wore those), but in plaid flannel and work boots. They had rough manners and frowned a lot. They disapproved of wearing make up, nylons and heels--UGH, shopping--going to parties, flirting... and it really seemed they disapproved of men in general and sex--particularly sex with men--in specific. They were militant and annoying, arousing ire and ridicule even among people who might have agreed with their principles. Now, perhaps this is not what Feminism is supposed to be about, but for the self-described feminists I met in college, it darn sure seemed so.

(Update: To clarify, this is NOT to imply any bias against lesbians, whether or not they may present a "butch" image. I, personally, strongly support gay rights as human rights.)

I was just not like that.

I LIKE men. Most feminists say they do, but sometimes it's really hard to think they do because of what they say afterwards. "I like men, but..." If we're in a patriarchy, then men ARE the enemy. I don't think men are the enemy. I like men. The guys in my "office" are good people, if a bit juvenile and geeky.

I like having sex with men--not every moment or on command--but for mutual attraction and enjoyment. Great sex? Big dicks? EHLL YES! It seems like a lot of Second Wave Feminists thought that the way to gain respect was to not have sex. To the feminists I went to college with, a woman couldn't have sex because she wanted to, because she was attracted to someone, or just for her own pleasure. That would be demeaning and a sign low self-esteem. And to me, this buys into the patriarchy like nothing else. If I am empowered NOT to have sex, then I am also empowered TO have sex (thus modern "hook up" culture). If I choose to have sex, it's not because I'm being forced, goaded or cajoled, it's because I want to. My body. My reasons. My choice. The feminists I knew in college did not approve any more than the right wing barefoot and pregnant types did. Strange bedfellows! Again, perhaps this is not what Feminism is supposed to be, but it sure as heck was the type of feminism practiced by the people who called themselves Feminists.

I liked great clothes and I enjoyed shopping for them, though I did not have much money to do so. Why not be proud of getting a $125 cashmere cardigan for $15 because it had a hole? What a steal! What's wrong with finding pumps that make my legs look long and slender? What's so wrong with shopping? I have never figured that out, though I guess that if you don't think you should care about your clothing or your appearance, shopping can seem so frivolous. It is frivolous. So what.

The feminists I knew seemed to hate the trappings of womanhood: dresses, make up, jewelry, heels. I don't hold with the idea that you had to BE a guy to get respect like a guy. I had a nice figure. I liked to show it off. I liked to dress up, wear make up, put on my heels and go dancing. I liked standing up straight and being admired because I was pretty as well as smart. I LIKED--and LIKE--being sexy. And I thought to myself, "Why can't I be competent, smart, assertive, self-confident AND sexy?"

And I didn't see why I couldn't be all of the above.

This is, BTW, the origin of my nickname. In Freshman year of college, I chose the nickname Dejah from Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. Heinlein's Dejah Thoris (unlike Burrough's Dejah Thoris) was the supreme post-feminist heroine. She was graceful, beautiful, brilliant and KICKED ASS. She could carry off a ball gown and heels, waltz divinely, clean a fish, shoot a blaster, slaughter aliens, and fix the space ship. She didn't NEED a man to take care of her. But she was also sexy, and able to attract and satisfy the kind of man who deserved her: a man of principle, courage, and intelligence. I thought, THIS is what feminism is missing. Women can be sexy and competent, we don't and shouldn't have to choose.

It was a solid fifteen years before I discovered that there was a word for how I felt. How I felt that Second Wave Feminism didn't represent the whole of what a woman is, only a part of it, how it wanted to restrict me to a narrow view of womanhood, not set me free to make my own choices and define myself.

That word is "post-feminist."

Dejah: Extra! Extra! Mothers WORK!

This deserves a Fark headline, it really does. "Not News: Working at Home is Durned Tough. Distractions legion. News: It's just woman's work, big deal. Fark: Written by a man."

The NY Times delves into the home life of a work-at-home-father, incidentally a writer. The poooor guy isn't getting anything done, and when his wife comes home from her late-night, high-powered, corporate job asking if he accomplished anything, not only can't he remember, but he can't remember WHY he didn't get anything done. So he begins to make a list of all the things he does instead of working. And it's a mighty long and time consuming list.

And THIS is somehow BIG NEWS?

I mean, work-at-home-mothers handle this stuff in their sleep and still get their work done, don't we? We're not sitting around all day eating bon-bons. Why is this news?

Oh, yeah, right, because it's a MAN doing it. If it was a woman writing this, it would sound whiny--and rightly so. We all know that handling the stupid sh*t is just part of the mother's job. We do what needs to be done, and still do everything else that is expected of us. And we wonder why we cannot keep our houses clean.

(Okay, so DH went away on a business trip 5 minutes after the well ran dry and it took me TWO DAYS fixing the pump to restore water to the house. Yes, I am grumpy! I will officially be grumpy until he is pinned Chief and this hellish indoctrination is over and he can take over his half of the sky.)

Dejah: Late night plumbing

Have you ever noticed that as the mommy (and as the one without the "regular job") you get to be the official slack-picker-upper? My dear husband (aka DH) just made Chief in the Navy. This is the big promotion for enlisted people and there's a 6 week indoctrination . To give you an idea how stressful this is, DH had been smoke free for 5 years. He started smoking again on DAY FIVE. So, of COURSE he makes Chief while we are trying to get our former residence (the "city house") on the market. And of COURSE, who gets to pick up all the slack with the renovations? And of COURSE, what goes wrong on the night when he and the rest of the Chief Selectees decide to pull an all-nighter to catch up?

That's right. Something I can't fix.

Because the fix involves large quantities of dripping water, I MUST get it fixed before I leave the city tonight. I was so exhausted around 7 PM that I was nearly in tears when I thought I had no teflon tape. It's now nearly 10 PM. I am waiting for this copper glue to cure (it says 7 minutes) the last time I tried waiting ONLY 7 minutes, the bond broke as soon as I twisted on the valve. Now the kids are bugging me because they want to leave and they don't understand why we can't leave and moreover why I am sitting on my butt in front of the computer instead of fixing the darned plumbing!

And as resentment towards the all powerful Navy rolls through my mind, I also wonder why it is that I'm expected to drop everything and pick up the slack, when everything goes to heck in a handbasket when I need to spend all MY time on work. No one picks up all MY duties when writing bellows. So exactly why am I doing this?

Oh yes, because it has to be done.

Remember when I said that I never whine? I lied. I'm tired of being the mommy. I'm tired of having the "flexible" job.

I want my plumber!

Dejah: I made it, finally!

It took me DAYS, but I finally made it! Somehow my invitation went astray, but thank goodness I save everything somewhere--not that I can always find it. Anyway, here is the introduction I wrote yesterday:

I'm the loud one. I'm not your average mom/writer. I don't write about parenting if I can help it. I'm no better a parent than anyone else and the only thing I am qualified to do is whine--and I don't whine. I write on high tech topics: Macs, Linux and Open Source, motorcycles. I write (non-selling) novels and (best-selling) technical books. I've always been more comfortable with guys than girls... but these girls are some of the best you could ever hope to know.

I'm a military spouse and a (hobby) farm wife, restoring a 180 year old farm house and raising three girls, six cats, 31 chickens (some meat, some eggs, some for show), and two turkeys (Tom Thanksgiving and Christina Christmas). Soon, we'll have goats. I'm post-feminist, sex-positive, left-of-center, tough as nails with a heart of marshmallow fluff. Our dear leader Heather and I argue politics every now and again, but I will attempt not to be political (except with women's issues when there is really no other choice).

I am writer, hear me pontificate!