Alternative writings

Random Kippur is annoyed post.

This is in dealing with the LJ roleplay communities. If you tag your post "open to all" and people comment, you should reply back. Especially if it's not something rude or it's relevant to the original post. It may not go in the direction you want it to go, but it's rude and I think bad playing if you don't. After all you did say it was "open to all". If you want only certain kinds of pups to reply, then you should ask for those sorts, or go to a community where they're the only ones allowed. It's bad manners otherwise and can hurt the mun who sees you answering other people but not them.

Otherwise, please respond to the people who comment. Who knows? You may end up with a new rp-buddy or something unexpected and fun. Lord knows that's how I ended up with an AU Spike ending up friends with little Alec.

A rant. I haven't done one of these in a while.

A lot of times when you're out looking at writing advice they people give you a list of things to do. Like write everyday, send to everyone, or wear pink flowered shirts at three in the morning. All of these are tips to make you a better writer and/or to help you get published. At the bottom of these lists the final piece of advice is often times "Ignore everything I just said" with some other blather. This irks me to no end.

The reader has just been told that everything they have read was pointless, a lie, or useless. They've wasted their time and and more importantly their trust. They trusted the writer to give them some nugget of information they can use. They've thought about the information they've been given and how to apply it. If they can apply, if they think it's right or wrong or useful.

Then they're told they've been a fool to believe anything that they've just read. That the author of the list was just sharing gibberish.

Now, I know what the author of these lists is likely saying: "This is what worked for me. I don't know if it will work for you. There is no exact science to it". But saying "Ignore everything I just said" however is just being cutesy and condescending.

It feels like the author has just pulled one on the reader. They got their readers to read all the way through their aimless junk and all for naught. Which is not what the point of what they were writing is.

The point of non-fiction writing is to either to inform or to prove an argument. If it were fiction it would be to make it all up. Now while sometimes writing non-fiction it feels like you're bullshitting the idea is that you are imparting information to the reader. The reader should weigh and consider every word you've written.

The author is asking for trust. After all writing is a two person act. The writer and the reader. That is why readers often feel betrayed when their expectations of a book are laid to waste. Their trust has been broken.

Writers look up to published writers for guidance and help. They see these lists as a glimmer of hope to get them where they're going in a blizzard of rejection letters and slush piles. And then to be told to just ignore this bit of hope is like getting shoved back into the snow.

And so, after this, I say read what I've written and judge for yourself.

I got an email for an anthology looking for submissions. It's an erotic anthology with the theme being different cities. Not my usual gig, but I decided to look at it anyway, trying to figure out if I could write anything according to the rules.

All seemed well until I got to what the editor was looking for.

My preference is for the sex to be of a heterosexual nature, or at any rate principally feature it, although bisexuality is quite acceptable; exclusively gay or lesbian stories would truly have to surprise me by their originality and power to make the grade.

Bolding mine.


The editor, to me, is saying that I could send in some horribly cliche and dull heterosexual story and it would have a better chance of getting into the anthology than a well written but not exceptionally brilliant story featuring gay and lesbian characters. The G&L stories have to be surprisingly original. The heterosexual ones do not. Bisexuality is just another way of saying heterosexual even if the character has had sex with the same gender in the past.

This is exceptionally offensive. The editor is saying that s/he doesn't consider G&L fiction to be anywhere as good as the worst heterosexual fiction. Or even that it makes them squicky. It's implied at least. I feel like I could write a gay story and then just switch the genders around and (maybe) not even change the body parts and it would be acceptable to the editor.

Larry pushed into Simon, feeling the tightness all around his velvet sheath.

Larry pushed into Sarah, feeling the tightness all around his velvet sheath.

Both sentences are the same but because the first one has Larry and Simon it's automatically worse than Larry and Sarah.


What would even make my gay story original? I mean isn't that what you're supposed to be doing when you write in the first place. You want to write something that's powerful and catches the editor's eye in any thing you submit.

The editor would have been better off saying no gay and lesbian stories than only if they're really original. It takes away the illusion of a chance. A chance I don't think really exists if the editor has already expressed a bias towards heterosexuality and puts the extra condition on the less desirable stories.

At this point it feels like I could send in a Mary Sue story and it would have a better chance of being accepted than one of my well written stories with Alec and Jono.

What makes the bottoms of your feet dirtier than the bottoms of your shoes?

I'm wondering this because I went up to the cafeteria today at work to ask them to make me a turkey avocado wrap with no avocado. The guys there are very nice and they'll make me one especially if I come up and ask before lunch time. There's this one woman there who I don't like because she has a tendency to be a rules stickler when everyone else isn't. She's also very patronizing and condescending. Anyway, when I went up to ask for them to make the wrap for me I didn't have my shoes on. I don't tend to wear them when I'm at work. I do wear them normally when I go to the cafeteria, but on this particular instance they were off. I stopped at the cafeteria on my way back from the mailroom.

The woman saw that I wasn't wearing shoes and immediately started to berate me. I'd made sure I didn't go into the kitchen part of the dinning hall, but apparently this wasn't good enough. I thought it was. She then cited that I was in a place where there was food.

Which made me start to wonder, as stated at the beginning, how are the bottoms of my feet any dirtier than the bottoms of my shoes? They both touch the same thing if you think about it; the ground. So what difference does it make?

Kippur is in pain. Her arm has decided to act up again. It does so about once a year. With lots of shooting pains and other fun stuff. Shlomo has reappeared. Fortunately Kippur is going to the doctor for her stomach today.


I was also highly insulted yesterday. I went to an AGUA meeting (a social group for high functioning autistic people/aspies) yesterday and not feeling up to snuff I brought my sketch book to work on a gray scale drawing of a picture I wanted to paint. To get the shading right. At one point I got up and left my sketch book where I had been sitting, to talk to some people. One of the Parents came up to me and said that she had skimmed through my book and wanted to know if she could get a better look at it.

Yes. They went through my private things without my permission. Now the sketch book had pretty innocent drawings and sketches in it, but that's not the point. The point is that the sketch book is MINE. I did not put it in a public place. I had actually left it kinda hidden. So she had to seek it out to look at it. And she did it without my permission. Why?

Because for some reason a lot of parents haven't gotten it through their heads that autistic people have a right to privacy. And that we wouldn't mind, because we don't show emotion in the same ways they do. Also they tend to think that we're all five and so we wouldn't have anything private anyway. After all five year olds don't have any sort of secrets, now do they?

It makes me want to show them some of my more... adult works. XD

Then, later on, a pair of parents come up to me, having seen me working on the drawing and ask if they could look at the book. Seeing as how they asked, I let them.

They did the "Oh Let's Give the Autistic Person Self Esteem Strokes" bit. That's when they ooh and aww over ... whatever it is, without even really looking at it. I know they didn't look at it because they couldn't tell the difference between marker and pencil. Also they used that voice. The patronizing voice that says "We're so amazed that you can do this. Aren't you the talented little puppy."

I hate that.

Please. I'm twenty nine. I have a Master's Degree. Don't treat me like I'm five. I would like to be treated like an adult.

Gee, you're not able to tell the difference between markers and pencil. Maybe you need some educational therapy. Then you'll be able to learn how to tell the difference. Oh! You identified that this is a person. Very good! And yes, this isn't a finished drawing. Excellent!

Gee you're going into people's private property. Did you know that was wrong? I think we need to work on not going into people's things. Sometimes people don't like to share what they have. It's personal. That means it's very important to them and they may not want other people to see it. If you would like to see it you need to ask for permission. Do you think you could do that?

That's what I should have said to them.

And finally on a slightly nuttier note, the true immaculate conception.

"Mary?"

"Yes, Joseph."

"We have a problem."

"What is that dear?"

"I'm pregnant."

(After all, how else could Jesus be descended from David? You get your tribe from your father and your religion from your mother according to Judaism)