Sophianotloren

This American student who got stuck inside a giant vagina statue and had to be rescued by 22 men in rubber raincoats is a metaphor for something, I’m almost certain

Ok, so I’ve been at this self-publishing thing for about a year now, and I figured I’d share my wealth of knowledge. Here is everything I’ve learned, in no particular order:

NO ONE GIVES A FUCK!

Yep, that’s it, guys. Thanks for reading, see ya back here in two weeks.

But seriously, some of the things I have learned:

You should always put your click-able Table of Contents at the beginning of your book, of course. Duh!

And, you should never put your Table of Contents at the beginning of your book, because when readers hit “Look Inside,” they should be able to jump right into the story, getting hooked, so they buy. Besides, if anyone wants to use your Table of Contents, they can always just click on it on their device.

(But in reality, once they are done looking at your book, they don’t really give a fuck.)

You should always have reviews and an excerpt in your blurb. How else is anyone going to know how good you are at first glance?

And you should never have reviews or an excerpt in your blurb, cause that irritates the hell out of people.

(Really? The placement of reviews is going to determine my entire career? Umm, nope. No one really gives a fuck.)

You should always have a small summary at the beginning of your book, so people who downloaded you months ago can be reminded very quickly of what your story is about when they get around to actually reading it.

And you should never do that, cause again, it irritates the hell out of people.

(Say it with me guys, who gives a fuck?)

You should definitely put your book in Kindle Select, because that is where the money is. And you should never put your book in Kindle Select, because you are leaving money on the table by not having your book available at B&N, Kobo, etc.

(And again.)

You should totally write pseudo-incest, because that genre is swimming in cash. But you should never write pseudo-incest, because it creeps people out, and no one will carry your book.

(You know the drill.)

I’ll stop, although I could go on FOREVER. The whole thing reminds me of that guy who finally wrote the manual on understanding women- it was blank. Here’s the thing- everyone is different, and you can’t please everyone.

I frequent a writer’s forum that is a wonderful mix of authors, in many different genres, all helping, learning from and fighting with each other. It’s awesome 99% of the time, although people do get testy. But even that is fun to watch.

Anyway, the other day someone asked one of those, ‘how do you get out of a slump when nothing is going right, and you can’t even give your book away for free because life sucks?’ kind of questions. I tried to help, by giving her my way of looking at things, but I think it just made her day worse. She responded to everyone else’s answer except mine. Oops.

I knew it was a risk to answer her the way I did, and I struggled with hitting ‘post,’ cause I am a people-pleaser at heart. But I truly wanted to help.

So here it is: (the word fuck wasn’t in the original post, because of their censors, but this version is how I really felt)

“Just know you are in good company. Everyone gets that way. And, this is either going to be very freeing or very harsh, but NOBODY GIVES A FUCK.

Telling myself those words breaks me out of my slumps.

I mean it in the very freeing way, not the harsh way. I don’t do harsh, I am the least harsh person on the planet. So, if there are two ways to take anything I say, take it the well-meaning way. I learned this early, thank God. I’m trying to teach it to my teen as well. NOBODY GIVES A FUCK.

That huge zit you fixate on when you look in the mirror, not seeing how awesome the rest of you is? No one else cares. They are just grateful they don’t have one. They probably don’t even see it. They see you, not the zit. Or they think, wow, sucky zit, and then they move the fuck on. You are not the center of anyone’s universe.

When your hair does that weird thing? Pull it back, no one else gives a shit, honest.

My favorite author waited five years, FIVE YEARS, to release a new book. Guess what? I don’t care. I’ll read it.

If this is my last post ever, and ya’ll never hear from me again, guess what? You won’t even notice. Nope, not suicidal. Nothing scary here, I promise. Just odd  Just a ‘we are all ants on this tiny little planet’ observation.

What the writer next to you does, doesn’t effect you! Their 250,000th sale, doesn’t effect you. Wait, is that effect or affect? Guess what, beyond the 2.2 seconds someone thinks ‘it should be the other one,’ no one gives a fuck.

Everyone cares about themselves. And that can either hurt, or open the entire universe up to your fingertips. (I choose the second one)

My kiddo heads off to face her day, depressed that her face is redder than normal. I tell her, you guessed it, no one cares. They are your friends, or your enemies, but no one cares if your face is redder than normal. They love you or hate you as is, regardless. Your red face won’t change anyone’s opinion.

Write what you want, revel in the sadness when you need to, revel in the joy when you can. Some will love you, some won’t. The ups and downs are inevitable.

Rant and commiserate. We do care. We feel your pain, not cause it’s happening to you, specifically. Hell, we don’t even know ‘you’. But cause we get it, we understand, cause it happens to us. No one looks closer at your successes or failures than you do. No one looks closer at my successes or failures than I do, cause guess what? Yep, you don’t care.

Run with that. Don’t write if you don’t want. Take a day off, take a year off. No one cares but you. Do what makes you happy. Write what and when you want to. Those that love you will find you. But not if you aren’t out there.

I write porn for God’s sake. No one cares if I ever put out another book. I will never be a bestseller, I will never change the world, I will never win an award, but I am happy, writing what makes me happy. If I stop being happy writing porn, you won’t care. If I go get a job at McDonald’s, you won’t notice. The world will rotate just fine, no matter what I do.

And guess what? Everything will be fine, no matter how it turns out!

Ten years from now you won’t remember what today felt like. You’ll either have ten years of work published, or you won’t.

That is so freeing to me. If I don’t hit ‘post’ you’ll never know I wrote this. If I do, some will take it the way I intended- as freeing and awesome, and some will think I’m an ass. But I can’t control that. So I carry on, making me happy.

So make you happy. People will buy your work, or they won’t. You can not control the sales numbers, you can only do what you can do. So let it go.

I know people hate the cliche, but it is what it is. You can not control the world, your sales, what others think about you, or damn near anything.

So be you. Write you. Be depressed when you feel depressed. Cry at weddings, laugh at funerals. Drink too much, be bitter when you must. What is that other cliche? You can only be you- every one else is taken.  But revel in it, cause there will never be another you, not ever.

So write what you want, what makes you happy, cause no one else can. This knowledge gets me out of the slumps. I hope I just made your day better, not worse. I promise, better was my intent.”

That is what I’ve learned about self-publishing. It is a lot like life- no one gives a fuck about you, but you. I mean that on the grander scale, of course. I love my child, I do. Very much. But do I give a shit if she grows up to become a doctor or a bar tender? Nope, don’t give a fuck. I’ll love her and be there for her either way. It’s her life, not mine.

I’ve found that there are two kinds of people that emerge once they realize that in the grand scheme of things, they don’t really matter- those who find that terrifying, and those who find it freeing.

I find it freeing. Cemeteries are full of people who lived, loved, cried, laughed, tried to make a mark on the world, lost children, lost jobs, were happy, were miserable, were human. But do we, now, really give a shit? Nope, we care about us, now.

One hundred, five hundred, a million years from now, no one will give a shit if I wrote a book. Or not. Or even know my name. And I love that! It gets rid of the self-imposed microscope we think we live under, allowing me to do whatever I want, knowing that whatever I choose- no one else gives a fuck, but me.

So live your life, for you, cause you guessed it- I don’t give a fuck.

Oh, and Shared 3- Our Anniversary is out now, if you care. And today only, Occupied! Is free!

The post Guess What? No One Gives A Fuck! appeared first on One Handed Writers.

The word career is a divisive word. It’s a word that divides the normal life from business or professional life.  -  Grace Paley

A couple of months ago I saw an article on a study which found that members of couples can probably tell when their partners are faking orgasm; it bore the provocative title “Your Partner Knows When You’re Faking”.  My immediate reaction?  “I’m a professional, Honey; maybe yours know, but mine don’t.”  But that little joke set off a train of thought:  isn’t it likely that one of the reasons so many women are anti-whore is that they’re intimidated by our superior sexual skills?  To be sure, not every whore is a virtuoso in the bedroom; some get by on looks alone, or cater to unusual fetishes, or have incredible charm, and some just excel at marketing.  But by and large, the average professional has both a greater range of skills and is better at each than the average amateur.  Part of the reason is that we get a lot more practice, and part is necessity:  except as noted above, we have to be better at it because our livelihoods depend on it.

I don’t think I’m saying anything controversial here; the sexual proficiency of harlots is not really in dispute.  Male commenters on this blog have often  praised the abilities of their favorites, and our prowess underlies the myths depicting us as enchantresses, succubae and vampires.  Insecure men fear that we will control them thus, and insecure women fear that we will steal their husbands (presumably to add to our collections); the whole “pimp” and “sex slave” mythology derives from the need to deny the legendary sexual powers of whores by pretending that we’re the pathetic, powerless victims of men.  Nor are those women with enough sense to know that hookers really aren’t interested in their husbands wholly immune; many of them find the very idea that other women are better in bed than they are somewhat upsetting.  Remember, society defines a woman by her sexuality to a far greater degree than it does a man: she is assigned to either the “Madonna” or “whore” category based upon it; selling sex is called “selling herself”, as though sex constituted her entire being; and sexual violation is supposed to utterly destroy her soul and irremediably pollute her body.  Nor is it only traditional “patriarchal” thought which elevates female sexuality thus; neofeminists are simultaneously obsessed with it and defined by their rejection of it.  So it’s not surprising that many women would be intimidated by the knowledge that others are better in the sack than they are; on some level, they see whores as better women than they are, and must reject that painful concept by imagining us as the exact opposite.

Of course, this is all a load of nonsense.  Sexual ability is a skill, no more or less valuable than many others; it isn’t magical, earth-shaking or ego-defining.  Some people have a natural talent for it, and others don’t; some take the time to develop it, and others don’t; some earn their bread by it, and others don’t.  Yes, I’m better at sex than most women; I’m also an above-average cook and (so I’m told) an excellent writer.  My business skills, however, are below par; my housekeeping skills are mediocre at best and my musical ability is practically nonexistent.  The fact that I possess the talents necessary to succeed as a professional sexual partner does not make me a better woman than someone who lacks those talents, but neither does it make me a worse one; each of us has her role to play, and society would have a lot fewer problems if each of us concentrated on her own rather than attempting to perform, critique or manage everyone else’s.

Content note: this post discusses transmisogyny

Over the last few years, I’ve regularly attended London’s Dyke March. It’s important to me to be with my sisters who also love women, out in the streets showing our solidarity and strength. The march organisers are brilliant, ensuring maximum turnout by pursuing an inclusive policy: all dykes are welcome.

In the light of this inclusive policy, it was only a matter of time till bigots tried to disrupt this annual dyke demonstration. I’d heard rumours of some sort of presence from bigots online, who objected to the inclusive stance of the organisers and their proactive selection of diverse dykes outside of the traditional cis white lesbian speaker selection. At this point, some women, including my girlfriend, were put off from going on the march. I don’t blame these women at all: the last thing anyone wants at a day celebrating queer women’s identity is a confrontation with bigots. I imagine this is exactly why the bigots publicly threatened to show up, to put women off from coming. There’s a full summary of what they did before the march here, if you want to see their tactics.

On the day, my friends and I arrived late, running predictably on queer time. Luckily, the march, being run by queer women, was also running on queer time, so we hadn’t missed the speeches. We grabbed a spot near the stage. I looked around, unsure as to whether the bigots would have turned up.

As the speeches started, I realised with a sinking feeling that they had. A silver-haired woman handed me a leaflet. Through the block of text, I could see that it was transmisogynistic conspiracy theorising about Sarah Brown, one of the speakers. I ripped it in half. They held up placards, revealing their obsession with genitals. They yelled misogynistic and transmisogynistic slogans over a speaker, as the rest of the crowd shuffled away and told them to shut up. In all, I think there were five or six of them, and one of them was literally wearing a fedora.

I’d seen all this before. I have seen this sort of thing outside abortion clinics, where Catholics try to harass women seeking access to abortion. I have seen it at Pride, where every year bigots show up to picket queer people gathering together and being themselves.

A lot of TERfs claim to be political lesbians, but if that’s the case, why are they picketing London’s only lesbian pride parade? Why are they attempting to disrupt a gathering of queer women? Why did they try and stop dykes from joining with their sisters in solidarity?

It was clear that they were not here as fellow lesbians, which was evidenced by the fact that they did not participate in the march itself. They just showed up to try and wreck the event. I consider their intervention an act of lesbophobic violence.

I cannot say I’m surprised that this happened. In women’s circles, transmisogyny is too often treated as a kind of abstract intellectual difference. Let it be known that it is not: it is a belief system which directly leads to attempting to disrupt lesbian pride and solidarity.

A Milwaukee bar called Nomad World Pub wanted to create a special place for its customers to watch the World Cup, so it decided to set up a faux favela inspired by Rio de Janeiro’s poverty-stricken mountainside slums. The fact the space comes with a taco hut — a type of food not even served in Brazil — reveals the depth of ignorance out of which it was created. You have to wonder: is the menu in Spanish too? 

For those who may not know, favela is the Portuguese word for slum. These shanty towns came to prominence in Rio de Janeiro in the mid-20th century, when millions escaping severe drought in Brazil’s north migrated to Rio and built homes in the only available land they could find: high up on the mountainsides, where risks of landslides are ever imminent. Today, Rio’s favelas are strongholds run by drug lords that make life exceedingly difficult for their fellow residents. 

You would think Nomad’s owner might think twice before replicating this environment for local Wisconsinites’ enjoyment, but such poverty has long been an inexplicable source of titillation for those not born into it. In the 19th century, wealthy Londoners enjoyed touring Brick Lane (then a slum), just as today Westerners pay money to visit the slums of Rio and Mumbai. In the mid-2000s, “homeless chic” — literally clothing inspired by homeless people’s make-do attire — took over the catwalks of designers like John Galliano and Vivienne Westwood (models wore “frostbitten” makeup).

Artists have also explored the aesthetics of urban poverty in works such as Thomas Hirschhorn’s “Eternal Flame,” Andres Serrano’s “Sign of the Times” and Tadashi Kawamata and Christophe Scheidegger’s “Favela Café.” And in the arena of favela-themed bars, Milwaukee’s Nomad isn’t even the first. In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, you can enjoy caipirinhas at Miss Favela while sitting at rickety, candelit tables that replicate the poor man’s bar (though not his budget: restaurant policy requires customers to spend $20 per person on food alone).

It’s difficult to imagine any intelligent human being today actually thinking a kitschy favela bar is a good idea. It’s even harder to think about people visiting that bar and coming away feeling they’ve experienced something exotic — that they’ve had a taste of life in a part of the world they’ll probably never see and certainly never understand. That one man’s suffering can be a novelty, thrill or source of creative inspiration for another is unbelievably twisted. And in our day and age, when we have so much knowledge at our fingertips, it points not just to thoughtlessness, carelessness or foolishness, but to a willful ignorance. 

h/t Death and Taxes

Correction, 6/24: An earlier version of this article mistakenly referred to severe flooding that helped shape the favelas in Rio de Janeiro. It should be drought, and has now been fixed.

Suzi LeVine became the first U.S. Ambassador sworn into office on a Kindle. She also took her oath of office not on the Bible, but on the U.S Constitution (open to the Nineteenth Amendment, the amendment granting women the right to vote). The New Yorker looks back at the history of oath taking and the texts office-holders rely on:

But the use of any text during a swearing-in ceremony is, if not exactly a gimmick, at least more style than substance. There is no constitutional requirement for any federal official—firefighter, ambassador, or President—to take the oath of office over a particular text or, in fact, over any text at all. This explains why LeVine was able to swear over the Constitution rather than the Bible, which is a much more common choice. Legally, if not diplomatically, “Moby-Dick” or “The Cat in the Hat” would have been just as acceptable.

Related Posts:

• E-Publishers’ Guides to Writing Books
• Wimpy Bookstore with Strong Ideas
• Harvey’s Heartache
• The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Kathleen Rooney
• The Strange Life of Dan Carter Beard

Sometimes it’s just so hard to decide whether or not science is a friend or foe of mankind.  For example, when science tells us that we are damaging our planet because we are greedy capitalists squandering resources like spoiled children? Totally Foe.  But if science or pseudoscience can be tortured into supporting our weakness for magical-thinking and political chicanery, well then!  better living through chemistry, yo!

So it is that when certain denizens of Arizona tired of puzzling over the mysteries of the Sedona Vortex, or searching the Superstition Mountains for the treasure of the Lost Dutchman Mine, they cast their eyes to the skies to scan for UFOs . . . and Chemtrails!

We are all used to seeing the condensation trails or “contrails” exhausted from jet airplane engines.  Then, one fine day, someone with a lot of imagination and not enough to do made the startling discovery that contrails don’t disappear as fast as they used to back in the day.  I suspect that, somewhere on theplanet, some specimen of Homo sapiens has dedicated him/herself to timing the vanishing point of contrails because . . . intellectual curiosity?

At any rate, it wasn’t long before some members of the Wingnut Illuminati construed the true meaning of the non-disappearing chemtrails as evidence that some sinister force, committed to world domination, [probably the United Nations] is constantly bombarding Earth’s atmosphere with chemicals disguised in the contrails of high-flying jets. 

To what end? one might ask.  Why, for any number of fanciful reasons—[ahem, we’re not scientists]—perhaps for solar radiation management, or psychological manipulation, or human population control, or, OMG! to create climate change.  Others believe these are testing for biological or chemical warfare, and that the trails are already causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems.

There are web sites dedicated to the Chemtrail Conspiracy theory. In some of the accounts, the chemicals are described as barium and aluminum salts, polymer fibers, thorium, or silicon carbide.  Other accounts allege that the skies are being seeded with electrically conductive materials as part of a massive electromagnetic superweapons program based around the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP).

Scientists and federal agencies have consistently denied that chemtrails exist.  Indeed, as the chemtrail conspiracy took flight, federal officials were flooded with angry calls and letters so a multi-agency response to dispel the rumors was published in a 2000 fact sheet by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which, of course, convinced true believers that the Chemtrail Conspiracy is a fact.

But good conspiracy theories never die so we now have the Arizona State Senate spending Arizonans tax dollars to help other Arizonans get past their conspiracy theories.

Sen. Kelli Ward, who happens to be a physician, has called for a public meeting, to be held at the Board of Supervisors Auditorium in Kingman, Arizona, because she had heard from “a lot” of constituents who feel that their concerns over the possible effects of chemtrails on the weather and on their blood chemistry are not being taken seriously.

One of those constituents, Jennifer Cramer, of Havasu, said she’s noticed chemtrails in town for about two years.

Every time they do chemtrailing there is some dramatic change in the weather. I noticed it this weekend and then it got very windy. I’m not a scientist and I don’t know what’s in the (chemtrails). I think we have a right to know instead of worry about it every day.

Something tells me that Jennifer probably wouldn’t really accept any other answer than “You got us, dead to rights, we’ve been dumping chemicals on you for donkey’s years and you are doomed.”  I certainly don’t think she’d be satisfied if she were told to get a life and try not to be so paranoid.

Sen. Ward, recently returned from a goodwill tour of the Bundy Ranch, evidently has a soft spot for nutters.

Ward said she is confident that the air and water in Mohave County are safe and pointed to naturally occurring minerals that could account for heightened levels of mercury and other minerals in blood tests.  Sen. Ward is apparently sane.

Nevertheless, they may be annoying wingnuts but they’re her wingnuts so, at a time when Republicans are stealing candy from babies and gutting public education, they are still happy to spend money indulging the fever dreams of their fringier base.

Meanwhile, it’s probably a good idea to keep a few bucks in the state coffers to lay in supplies for Electronic Armageddon Strikes [see Sen. Farnsworth (R-Mesa) SB 1476].

PHILADELPHIA, PA — A mother of seven children was sentenced to jail time because she couldn’t afford the government fines imposed on her after her children had skipped school multiple times.   She died halfway into her 2-day sentence.

Eileen DiNino, 55, was found dead in her cell on June 7th, 2014, in Berks County Jail.   Her children had a habit of skipping school and the government had imposed a number of truancy violations on her.  The violations followed with fines and court costs, which accumulated to over $2,000.00, the Star-Tribune reported.

DiNino was unable to pay the steep fines, so she was sentenced to 48 hours behind bars — tantamount to debtor’s prison.

She passed away one day into her sentence.

“The woman didn’t have any money,” said Diana L. Sealy, whose son married DiNino’s daughter. “Years ago, I tried helping her out. She had all these kids.”

An autopsy has been completed, WFMZ reported, and no foul play is suspected, but the coroner is awaiting toxicology results before determining a cause of death.

Even the judge who reluctantly sentenced her to jail questioned the laws that criminalized her.

“Did something happen? Was she scared to death?” said District Judge Dean R. Patton.  “This lady didn’t need to be there.  We don’t do debtors prisons anymore. That went out 100 years ago.”

Under Pennsylvania law, a parent can be jailed 5 days for every truancy.  More than 1,600 parents have been jailed in Berks County alone — two-thirds of them mothers — because of unpaid truancy fines since 2000, the Reading Eagle reported.

“I cannot understand how someone ends up going to jail. They did not murder someone, they did not steal, they did not commit a felony. How does jail time equate to resolving this particular problem?” said Pennsylvania Senator Judy Schwank.

Compulsory education laws have impacted society in a great number of ways.  Pitched as something being done for the best interests of children, in practice it is a method of control and allows the government to shape and mold the youth into being submissive citizens who accept the status quo.  In this case, the state’s social engineering efforts attributed to a woman’s death and another broken family.

“There has got to be a better way to deal with truancy than putting somebody in prison,” said Christian Leinbach, a Republican Berks County commissioner.  “That unfortunately is part of the law in Pennsylvania, and I think it is insanity.”

“I think there are better ways to deal with nonviolent crimes,” Leinbach said. “I am not even sure, quite frankly, that things like truancy and parking should be criminal offenses, and frankly support legislation that would decriminalize those offenses.”

Citizens should urge lawmakers to remove the penalties and mandates associated with compulsory education and demand justice for Eileen DiNino.

{ Support Police State USA }

---

Read this story and others at Police State USA.

pmon3y69:

drdawg:

my friend Pete literally makes me cry with his snap stories

this is me, i am pete, love me 

Retail | UK

(I work in a very popular chocolate shop that also sells ice cream in the summer. It is a particularly busy, hot Saturday. I am serving ice cream. There was a huge line of customers. Suddenly, a customer strolls into the store, leaving her bicycle outside. Eventually, it is her turn.)

Customer: “Finally. I’ll have a hazelnut.”

Me: “Sure, a double or a single?”

Customer: “Double.”

Me: “Would you like it in a cone or a tub?”

Customer: “A bag.”

Me: “…Pardon?”

Customer: “A bag.”

(I look at her for a moment)

Me: “I’m sorry, Miss, but the ice cream only comes in a cone or a tub.”

Customer: “Well, I need it in a bag. Do you have a bag?”

(We put chocolate in small transparent bags, but they would definitely not fit an ice cream tub, also there are no lids on the tubs to cover the ice cream.)

Me: “It won’t fit in one of our bags, miss.”

Customer: “Yes, it will. Get one.”

(I protest again, but fetch her bag anyway. I present it to her and show her the size, to prove it won’t fit.)

Me: “See, Miss? It’s too small. The tub won’t fit in there.”

Customer: “Oh, honestly, how do you even have a job? Do you even have a brain?”

(I’m hurt by this comment, and am getting quite angry.)

Me: “Look, it won’t fit; I don’t know what you’d like me to do.”

Customer: “Let me do it, girl.”

(She proceeds to take the full-to-the-brim ice cream tub and squeeze it into the bag sideways, smearing her ice cream all down the sides. I stare at her in disbelief. Ice cream is dripping everywhere.)

Customer: “Was that so hard?”

Me: *still staring* “Would… you like a spoon?”

(She held out the open bag and I dropped in a small plastic spoon with the already nearly melted ice cream. She paid and left. I watched her outside the window as she put her bag of squished ice cream into the child-seat of her bicycle, STRAPPED UP THE SEAT BELT, and cycled away down the road. I stared in disbelief for the rest of the day.)

heichaoba:

Ubisoft animators

thegirlwhocriedfoxface:

hostagesituation:

My friend had a guy sitting way too close to her on the bus and he was trying to read her text messages, so we damn well gave him something to read.

incredible.

This is not a post about chastity. (Sorry, chastity enthusiasts. Perhaps another time.)

Before I knew I was dominant, I still knew what I liked. I liked to be in control during sex. I liked collars. And I liked locks.

I make jewelry. I have been making it for very nearly my whole life; without a pair of pliers in them, my hands feel empty, and they itch for the tools with which they can create. And, of course, when I started dating, I would make jewelry for my my sweethearts–handmade chains that they would put on reverently, wear religiously, and rarely remove. (One of those things that, looking back on, makes you say fucking duh.)

In my early twenties, I was in a monogamous vanilla relationship. I became restless. Something was missing from my life. I wanted something, yearned for it, but wasn’t quite sure what. During that time, I developed a fascination with lock charms. I began to collect them. I could not get enough of them. Every time I bought one, I became dissatisfied with it, and would soon find another that I would have to have. And yet, I did not make anything with my lock charms, nor did I want to wear them myself. I just kept them.

Heart-shaped locks with filigree details, locks with the key attached, small locks, delicate locks, chunky locks. The prize of my collection was a sterling silver clasp that was cleverly shaped like a padlock. It didn’t actually lock, of course, but it worked like a padlock, and I thought, like one does when one is twenty, that it was the coolest thing I had ever seen, ever, oh my god, I have to have it. I attached it to a rubber cord and wore it around my neck, once. That felt odd–wrong, somehow. Uncomfortable. I took it off, put it in my jewelry box, and left it there for years.

And then I met Peroxide.

Peroxide and I both love the symbolic aspects of D/s, and from very soon after we started dating, I knew I wanted to make him something with that clasp.

This collar is delicate–its lightness belies its impermanent nature. It was not meant to be a forever collar–training, consideration, what-have-you, I call it a preliminary collar. Still, it is, if I do say so myself, quite pretty. It still has the original rubber from when I first put it together, but now I’ve added onto it with a bit of silver chain, a ropelike weave of which I am particularly fond. I was worried it would be too feminine, but Peroxide, bless him, cherishes it and wears it almost constantly.

Peroxide and I recently discussed ownership. This means that it is time for a new project for my plier-itchy hands, a new collar, a symbol for “forever.”

Gold and steel. Function and decoration. As strong as my love for him, as precious as he is to me.

We would like to use a real lock with which to close it. Unfortunately, as he discovered in his last relationship, he is sensitive to nickel, which makes most locks inutile. I have not yet figured out how to work around this problem, but I welcome suggestions. For now, the collar is one continuous chain, as unending and infinite as I hope our love will be.

As for my lock charms, they lay languishing in amongst my other beads. Their number remains steady, as my drive to collect them has vanished. I no longer feel as if something is missing; I’ve found someone who fits.

Despite our best efforts to play by Amazon’s rules (their rather unhelpful “about what you’d expect” rule that is) our publishing account was suspended this week. We watched in horror as our whole livelihood — my full time job — was threatened before our very eyes, leaving us powerless to do anything about it.

Just a month ago Amazon had given us the option to change and tweak our books covers/titles to meet their acceptability standards. Then this week they decided without warning that if they deem something out of their standards, there’s no second chances at all.

So that’s Amazon, their store, their “rules”. If you can truly call a statement so vague as “no offensive material” a rule.

We can publish our material again with them, but only after a written promise not to repeat our actions. Oh, and extra review processes for all our books.

So what does that mean for us and our readers going forward?

It means we can never have a set book launch date, even for our romance novels. The extra review period will take an unknowable amount of time after all. It may mean fewer book promotions, as this review process has been known to kick in whenever you try to update a book price even.

More than that though, it means self-censorship. We think — and I stress THINK — we know that they were upset about some psuedo-incestual themes. But they’ve also been cracking down on so-called “dubious consent” erotica.

We can’t chance ticking them off again; Amazon is over 80% of our income. So that means we will have to stand so far back from Amazon’s ever changing line in the sand that we don’t risk running afoul of them again. The next time we might not be able to provide a written promise and apology to get our account back.

So while our erotic-romance novels will likely remain the same content-wise, (albeit now without an ability for us to time promotions with book launches) our erotic shorts — the big seller that makes up so much of our income — will likely die off.

There’s nowhere else to go. As we said, Amazon makes up too much of our income to compensate elsewhere, and the other ebook vendors aren’t much better anyhow, if at all.

However, that does not mean we’re done.

Writing is a passion for us, and long before we started selling our stuff, we just provided it freely to our fans on our own website. In fact, we still give out our books freely to our fans when they ask. We’d still give it out freely on our website or through torrents even, except if we did Amazon would punish us.

Since we can no longer write and sell the erotic-shorts we enjoy, however, we’re looking at new options.

We’ve set up a Patreon account, and through it if you wish to support us, we’ll produce a regular flow of dirty, kinky shorts that we’ll provide directly to you. Will it ever make up for the loss of Amazon sales? Nearly impossible. Might it be enough to justify us taking the time from our paid work to follow our passion? That’s the hope!

We wanna write the stuff our fans love. And hey, maybe this could even be a blessing. If we can give our writing directly to our readers thanks to their funding, we can go back to doing the hardcore incest and dark consent-lacking content we always did before.

If it doesn’t work out? Well, the downside to making a living off your passion, is that you have to make compromises. Self-censoring to such a degree is one we really hope to avoid.

We’re truly hopeful, though, that we can continue selling our erotic-romance novels on the big stores, but get back in closer touch with our readers and fans to provide them with the stuff that really gets us going when it comes to erotica.

Even if it doesn’t work out, don’t be surprised if you see the occasional freebie popping up on our site that’s too kinky to sell, however. We love our readers, we love the dark themes. And we’ve never been great at committing ourselves to what makes the most financial sense. This is a passion of ours still, after all.

The post Censorship, the End of Erotica, A Hope? appeared first on One Handed Writers.

"It’s always the shy ones that get lucky!"

pretty-guardians:

Sailor Moon fan casts where everyone is white

This also goes for “realistic” style Sailor Moon fan art where everyone is white.

This could kill you. o_o

Especially if you watched multiple episodes in a row.

serenity-moon:

Haruka & Michiru: A Lesson in Innuendos

That’s not innuendo, that’s outnuendo.

A something in a summer’s noon –
A depth — an Azure — a perfume –
Transcending ecstasy.  -  Emily Dickinson

You may have noticed that this essay posted fifty minutes late today; that was fully intentional, because I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have the moment of posting coincide with the moment the apparent path of the sun reached its northernmost point at 10:51 UTC (5:51 AM where I live).  I say “where I live” rather than “where I am” because as you already know I’m not at home right now, and the moment of solstice occurred well before sunrise here in Denver.  Those of you who have followed this blog for a long time know that I’m not really upset about missing the summer’s heat at home; though it’s not as sweltering there as it is in New Orleans it’s bad enough (though as my body ages I find it easier to endure the heat and harder to endure the cold).  And though I won’t be home to pick many blackberries myself, I hope to get at least a few while I’m home for Independence Day.  Then it’s off again to the eastern half of the country, and by the time I’m home again summer will be dying and my beloved autumn will be on the way.  I hope to be able to enjoy it the better for having had (I hope and pray) a successful book tour, and if you’d like to help that to happen please donate to my fundraising campaign on GoFundMe.  I wish each and every one of you equal success in whatever summer projects you undertake.

Blessed Be!

Related Posts:

• THE BINS: Sausage
• THE BINS: Redwood
• Ice Statue
• The Problem of Perception
• THE BINS:
  Nutty

"Mako-chan, I appreciate how much you want to protect me from TERFs, but could we lure them out of Rei’s house first?"

All my recent Sailor Moon borging reminds me that as a kid, at one point YTV showed Night Hood and Sailor Moon back to back at night:

2 of the best cartoon television intros of my childhood (and possibly ever)

Makoto and Minako thinking about their respective girlfriends.

summer-of-supervillainy:

Finally done!

I assume you can fit at least one baby on this without any problems.

The piecing is really simple, just squares and tiny friendship stars, and I quilted it in a spiral.

I just used a jam jar for a template to keep the lines consistent, then followed it up with my walking foot. The colors are a little brighter than that in real life.

Didn’t crinkle up as much as I feared.

The back is hand-dyed by my dad. Same fabric as the stars.

I think it turned out pretty good. And the baby’s not even born yet!

What did I just say. :D

The best stuff. :3

Today, as I was closing the site when the last of the tourists left, I met a gentleman in our parking lot. Being a loquacious sort, I engaged the fellow in conversation. I like to point out features on the site and to talk up the local tourist attractions (the better we do, the greater my job security- plus, I like to steer visitors towards my favorite places to guarantee their continuing success). This gentleman was extremely knowledgeable about the area, and he spoke with authority about the storied career of journalist and adventurer Caspar Whitney, who established the Belvedere estate in Tarrytown, NY (the best information on Belvedere can be found at the website of Hudson Valley history expert and all-around good guy Rob Yasinsac). We then spoke about Dr. Philip Gillette Cole, the former owner of Tarrytown's Zeeview estate, who amassed a huge collection of Western art which now resides at Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum. We passed a good while talking about art history- he mentioned that Monet's La Japonaise is one of his favorites, and that his wife was from Osaka.

Noting his eclectic background, I asked him about his travels, and he mentioned that he had had a typical upbringing in Cincinnati, but had traveled extensively as a member of the Unification Church. I play a big, bad, bald bastard on the internet, and "the bastard" is a slight exaggeration of the real me. My meatspace public persona is characterized by a studied imperturbability- you tell me you're going to kick my ass, I reply asking calmly if you have decent medical coverage, you tell me that someone on the property has passed out, I call 911 and make sure that the way is clear for the EMTs. If I actually cared to study the rules, I'd probably make a good poker player, because I have a good face for it. When I heard that this nice gentleman was a moonie, my reaction was pretty much "oh, that's nice" and I asked him if he had been married in the mass wedding at Madison Square Garden (he hadn't).

I'm on record not being a fan of Reverend Moon, largely for his right-wing political activism in the U.S. and his regressive views on sexuality, but I didn't make an issue of this to my new moonie acquaintance. We had had a nice conversation, and I actually learned a lot about the history of the Belvedere Estate, which is next to the beautiful neo-gothic Lyndhurst, now a museum. No need to be mean to the moonie- he was a genuinely nice guy and he told a tale of being an introverted kid with a poor sense of self-worth. He found his peace with an organization that I find unfathomable and slightly sinister in a somewhat ridiculous fashion- basically the Skeletor of religions. He ended up a decent guy.