Your Top 5 Writing Peeves 2024
A Literal Literary Loser Hits a Nerve
I find it a little bit ironic that my most popular posts of 2024 were ones that made people angry. But, alas, that is the internet today, in all its glory. Please relive the times I made your blood boil - or at least annoyed you somewhat - via the top 5 pieces which irritated you over this past year:
I Expose Book Marketer & Author’s Illicit Love Affair!
Excerpt: It all started out so innocently. All I did was send “book marketing expert” Siani Stuart a link to last week’s post, where I exposed them as being a scammer with no idea what they were talking about. And then matters took a surreal turn….
Book Marketing Scammer Puts Voodoo Curse on Author!
Excerpt: I worship oraclen too. I do make sacrifice. oracle will judge between you and dave and the lier will kick the the basket within 2 days. I'm already in the power ground. I have tell gods your name and dave. You will die within 2 days if you lie to me. Tell me the truth so i will talk to the gods not to kill you.
Let the Cultural Appropriation Begin!
Excerpt: Let’s unpack all the cultures I’ll be appropriating: According to some, one may only write in the voice of the gender/race/ethnicity/sexuality/religion, etc… to which one belongs. For a historical fiction author, this is already a problem. I live in one time period. I write about others. Is that cultural appropriation?
My Husband, the Coat Rack: It’s a Gender, Not a Race Issue
Excerpt: One of the instructions was to avoid writing characters who “live to serve and nurture their White counterparts with little or no aspirations of their own.” There was a follow up graphic about them not being “pushed around by outside forces to each plot point… because it strips a BIPOC character of (their) agency.” So here is my problem: In my upcoming book, Go On Pretending, my heroine, Rose, is a Jewish woman writer of 1950s radio soap operas, who falls in love with, Jonas, her show’s African-American leading man. When the program transitions to television, both of their jobs - not to mention their relationship - is in jeopardy. Hitting brick walls everywhere they turn, Rose spontaneously accepts an invitation to direct Jonas in a production of Othello (rewritten by her as a Marxist parable) at the 1957 World Youth Festival in Moscow, USSR. Years later, their daughter, Emma, accuses Rose of doing… pretty much what the above meme says you should never do with a BIPOC character.
Show Me the Money: Self-Publishing v. Micro-Publishing
Excerpt: In May 2023, I wrote a post called “Show Me the Money: Large Publisher v. Small Publisher v. Self-Publishing.” A year ago, I promised to come back and share with you my earnings from my latest historical fiction, “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region,” published by the micro-press, History Through Fiction. Here I am, and here we go….
So, in total, we have two cases of book marketers either trying to con me out of money or threaten me with death, two cases of going against popular wisdom about cultural appropriation and writing characters of color, and one post about how much money I’ve made as an author.
Yup. Sounds about right for 2024.
What have you seen as your biggest rage-inducing issues this past year? Let me know in the comments!
Happy holidays!