the path Kat and I have traveled, and in many respects, still travel.
For a very long time we circled our wagons and kept
the outside world, there...outside.
I won't lie and say there weren't a few times we played our own version of
Groundhogs Day, lifting our heads from our warren, playing tag with the light of day and even a shadow or two, only to have those shadows remind us that
sinister things lurk in the darkness not belonging to our warrens.
Kat and I are close...perhaps closer than is typical between a mother and daughter, but we have
shared a bond from almost the moment I knew she was growing beneath the steady beat of my heart.
Today we are both authors...PUBLISHED authors, no less.
That's not how we started. Originally we both fashioned our stories to entertain each other with no thoughts of having our words find a home out there, beyond our warren.
I suppose if I am to give thanks for this quirk of fate, I must begin with
Bill Gates. Had he not created Microsoft we'd still be contentedly sitting in our
warren with only each other to tell our stories to.
The first PC we allowed within the warren I look back on with a fondness and of course I named him...
Rex, as in T-Rex. Today Rex would probably drive both Kat and me into a state of snail-paced frustration, but back then Rex was our window and conduit to the cyber city out there.
As with all cities, there are good and bad things it offers. Fortunately for us there was and still is more good than not-so-good.
Kat found
MIRC and ever since we have both spread our antennas to places we had only dreamed about before...so thank you Bill Gates for making it possible for the world to enter our warren and for us to hop on the
Microsoft Magic carpet where no place is beyond our reach.
My next thank you should go to the founder of
AOL...although at the time I thought the expense was staggering, and even wrote a short commentary about AOL and its founder
Steve Case.
Does it seem like I am
dragging this story out? I guess in a way I am, so let's
shift gears.Today we are active members of the
Muse Publishing House Family. For those who do not know what that means, think about the people in your lives that you are close to, love and would take on the world for even though they do not share your
DNA...that's us.
However in every family, there are those for one reason or another
do not get it...they choose methods...habits?...that they might not realize cause pain to members they never meant to hurt.
We live in a small sea vying for an ever smaller sea of readers. At the end of the day, the readers will become fans, but they
do not understand who we are, or why we are what we are. Other writers, our brothers and sisters of
quill dancing creativity understand...Family forges not in the
womb, but in the capriciousness of our writing drives.
As writers we are faced with enough challenges...too many to turn on each other.
I do not, nor will I ever understand authors, publishers,
charlatans that whether by design or by ignorance stab the writing family in their inner muse.
Starting next month I will begin doing author interviews on my many blogs. I will still do the Stationary Trailers that have grown in popularity so much I spend a lot of time shaking my head in wonder over them. BUT I am also going to embark into another new area...
Reviews.
I've thought about this a lot. What if I read a really
HORRIBLE book, and trust me I have read some real stinkers before...what will I do?
If I review a stinker and place that out here where the world will see, what have I accomplished?
I can dive into my previous manuscripts and pull up a whole lot of
stinkers...but I must have improved and God I sure HOPE I've improved...so what good would making the author of the stinker suffer publicly?
Wouldn't it be more humane to not do ANY review, send the book back to the author, explain in an e-mail why I feel it's a
stinker AND tell the author to please don't look at this as anything less than my desire to read their next work and have it be a four or five star epic?
What if they write about subjects that I find
uncomfortable? I'm going to disclose right off the bat...I am uncomfortable with
horror...lived it...don't want to try to fathom it is my entertainment...
BDSM...again lived it...don't want to open the door to flashback
nightmares.
Because I am uncomfortable with those two topics, if I tried to review anything in either genre wouldn't I be undermining
my integrity right off the bat? How can I give an impartial, based solely on the book, review of something that makes uncomfortable and relive things while reading it?
I'm sure there are other topics I would
cringe over, but those two I KNOW without any question I cannot review...so anyone who writes those genre's if you ever see me reviewing your stuff, feel free to yell
FOUL at the top of your cyber lungs at me...I'll deserve it!
To my entire writing community family, not JUST those at Muse, know this, I will
never actively set out to sabotage you or your work. I know how hard we all work, and no one deserves being
betrayed by those who walk the same path and fight the same battles.
WRITE ON ONE AND ALL!
Please mark your calendars and check out Penny Enhrenkranz's postings.
Yeah, I'll be back to remind everyone and post them everywhere when they actually go up, but get ready to be
excited, okay?
3 comments:
That's terrific, Lin. I'd be honored if you'd review Double the Trouble or any of my other books - Stranger on the Shore, A Second Chance, May I Have this Dance, or Connection of the Minds when it comes out in Sept. Just let me know which one or ones you'd like to review.
Leave it to Lin! A perfect creed for writing families to live by!
I love you Mom. You are my angel on Earth.
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