Parent, queer, gardener, author, spouse, daughter, beer-maker, disabled, ex-goose-keeper, carer, procrastinator. Short tempered enby control freak.
This week, a very brief post to direct your attention to the LGBTQ Romance Giveaway going on over at Bookfunnel this month. There are more than two dozen of us authors who have put books and stories in to the pot. We have all kinds of romance about people across the rainbow spectrum of sexualities, genders and relationship dynamics.
Pop over and see whether there’s something new that takes your fancy!
As you may have noticed, I’m trying to be a bit more of a community animal recently. That has included blogging more frequently, more interacting, generally spending a bit more time interacting with both readers and writers. I’m enjoying it- I thought it might be awful, I’m a real recluse, generally speaking- but because it’s mostly online, if I get too overwhelmed I can run away and put a paper bag on my head and take deep breaths for a while if necessary.
Anyway. One of the things I’ve forced myself to do is to set up a Bookfunnel Promo. This is where a load of authors get together on Bookfunnel, sling a free e-book/story in to the pot and then when the time comes, promo the heck out of the thing as a whole, so all the participants get the benefit of each other’s followers. It’s worked very well for me before, but there aren’t that many for LGBTQ books and I thought… well, in that case, I’ll do my own. It’ll be open for readers to download free stories in September, although that’s not the point of this post.
The point is that I have only relatively realized that it would be helpful for readers to have content warnings for potentially triggering things in the blurb for each book. And then I went looking for an article about common trigger warnings and couldn’t really find anything both comprehensive and comprehensible for authors new to the concept to send out for my promo participants, because my Google Chi seemed to have collapsed that day.
Eventually though, I found this article from the University of Michigan, which although it’s about content warnings in academic teaching, is very clear, sensible and easily applicable to fiction and sent it out to participants. I’ve copied their list of common content warnings to the bottom of this post.
Then Missy Welsh took the time to email me with this useful blog post by Jami Gold, Content Warnings: How and What to Include? which is extremely on point and also links to a post by Suzanne at Love in Panels: Content Warnings, What and Why Are They? Suzanne points us to a crowd-sourced list of content warnings on a google-sheet. So it turns out that there is a load of stuff out there, it’s just I was rubbish at finding it. Thank you to all of them for writing such clear and accessible pieces.
I think it’s important to emphasize that it’s impossible to content warn for every reader’s triggers. It’s just not possible. Everything is a trigger for someone. However, that doesn’t mean that as writers we shouldn’t do our best to help readers navigate to stories that are right for them. Authors arguing that we don’t have that responsibility and setting up the ‘everything is a trigger for someone so why bother at all‘ defense as their straw man are being spurious.
As a writer, I don’t want to drive a reader in to the sort of fugue I sometimes end up in when I read about sexual violence or miscarriage. I don’t understand why authors wouldn’t want to help their readers avoid that. It’s just being a good human, isn’t it?
Having said that, some of my blurbs are not yet updated with appropriate CWs. But I’m getting there.
Next week: August’s reading roundup
I missed last week’s post because life got in the way, I’m sorry. Littlest has been in plaster casts on her lower legs and feet for a fortnight after a botox injection in to her ankles. This is to help prevent her feet from curling under any more than they are and hopefully enable her to do standing transfers for a little longer, rather than needing hoisting all the time. The casts have meant the moving and handling we do on a daily basis has been much more difficult because you can’t get them wet. They are very hot pink though, which has caused some glee.
In addition we have had to update something called the ‘Advanced Care Plan’ which is basically setting out our wishes should she become very ill. It’s good to have in place, but flipping heck it’s grim to fill in. And Talking Child has had all sorts of traumatic appointments as well. We’ve collectively been sat on the sofa in a heap with our respective pants* on our heads. No writing was done and we all felt awful.
Since Friday, I’ve been clawing myself back up the slope and have written a handful of words – a few hundred – every day. Plus we managed to fit in a family trip to Longleat, where we fed giraffes, held snakes, watched giant otters sleeping and generally had a brilliant time. We have more trips planned over the summer holiday, starting with a weekend at the Children’s Hospice this coming Friday. I can’t wait.
Finally, I’m signed up to the SFF Book Bonanza giveaway this week – there are more than a hundred free SFF books and stories available for download for your reading pleasure should you so desire.
Next week: An excerpt from my work in progress, The Flowers of Time, which is cracking along slowing but steadily now, thank goodness.
*British pants, for maximum comedy value
My review tour for Lost in Time ended today and I have just sent out the Amazon eVoucher to the winner of the Rafflecopter draw. Thank you so much to everyone who participated and Dear Winner, I hope you enjoy your spends!
This is the first time I’ve done anything like this (obviously, with it being a first novel and all) and it’s been a real learning curve, in a very positive way. Once I got over the sheer, blinding terror of realising that people were going to read my writing and have thoughts about it, I’ve enjoyed the roller-coaster ride.
There’s been a lot of talk on social media recently about the way that authors and reviewers interact. I have dealt with my innate fear of judgement by simply avoiding reading reviews at all. Mr AL has been deputised to do that for me and has summarised the things readers liked and the things they didn’t like. I do want to thank everyone who has left feedback in all the various different places, even though I’m too scared to read it! It means a great deal to writers that people feel strongly enough to do that, whether it’s positive or negative, because it means that the book connected with you in some way, and that is a good thing.
I think that once you release a book in to the wild, that’s it, really. It’s a bit like having children. You do your best and then you set them free to live their own life and they have to stand on their own two feet. Readers take their own meaning from your words and that either resonates in a positive or a neutral or a negative way. Writers have no control over that and we just have to try and be confident that the work will stand on it’s own.
Mr AL worked in theatre for a good long while and I think it’s a similar thing- you create the work and people invest it with their own meaning, whatever sort of emotional response that is.
Anyway. With all the launch shennanigins out of the way I can get back to actually doing some more writing. I am nearly half way through the sequel to Lost in Time and I hope that you will join me for more of Alec and Lew’s adventures and those of their friends. I do plan some short stories in the same world in the meantime. My writing time is a bit curtailed at the moment by Real Life ™, but I’m getting there, slowly and surely.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the Rafflecopter draw. And thank you for reading!