*pinches bridge of nose*

*exhales noisily*

Of course there’s a Star Wars Episode VII boycott. And there’s a hashtag to boot. Because of course there’s a hashtag. One-click buffet-style serving of shittiness, coming right up.

(Behold, the Mary Sue article about it.)

Apparently people are mad because blah blah black dude protagonist with a lightsaber, or girl protagonist, or Latino X-Wing pilot protagonist, and not enough straight white dudes. And folks are mad enough to join in on the hashtag and — nngh. Bleh. Meh. Gnarrgh. I mean, what version of Star Wars did you watch? The one where Luke Skywalker is a racist hick shitbird? The one where the Empire are the good guys because yay oppression and fascism and totalitarian chic?

Okay, first, let’s talk about the efficacy of such a hashtag, which is to say, it will have literally no effect at all. You’re throwing pebbles at mountains, bro. Boycotting Star Wars is like boycotting the sun. It will do nothing. The sun will keep on shining. Its heat will remain radiant and globally present. It will remain at the center of this space and we will continue to orbit it in an elliptical manner. Your efforts will have no meaningful result except to reveal yourself as a cruddy dingleberry dangling from fandom’s ass-hairs.

My greatest desire is to yell at you. To just rant and gesticulate and do the internet dance of anger all over you, because what special dumbness, this is.

But instead I’m going to try to talk to you, in the assumption that somewhere out there in the seething throng of crappy people exists some who are not yet all the way gone to the Dark Side.

There is good in you. No, not you. Not you either. YOU. Right there.

I’m talking to those who can be reached.

As one straight white dude to other straight white dudes, let’s talk.

You are clearly consumers of sci-fi and fantasy pop culture, which is at least a little bit suggestive that somewhere under that stormtrooper mask is a brain with an imagination.

I want you now to imagine along with me, Mister Rogers-style.

Let’s imagine that you are, as you are now, a straight white dude. Except, your world features one significant twist — the SFF pop culture you consume is almost never about you. The faces of the characters do not look like yours. The creators of this media look nothing like you, either. Your experiences are not represented. Your voice? Not there. There exist in these universes no straight white dudes. Okay, maybe one or two. Some thrown in to appease. Sidekicks and bad guys and walk-on parts. Token chips flipped to the center of the table just to make you feel like you get to play, too. Oh, all around you in the real world, you are well-represented. Your family, your friends, the city you live in, the job you work — it’s straight white dude faces up and down the block. But on screen? In books? Inside comic panels and as video game characters? Almost none. Too few. Never the main characters.

It feels isolating, and you say so.

And as a response you’re told, “Hey, take what you get.” They say, can’t you have empathy for someone who doesn’t look like you? Something something humanist, something something equalist. And of course you can have that empathy because you have to, because this is all you know, because the only faces and words and experiences on-screen are someone else’s so, really, what else are you going to do?

Then one day, things start to change. A little, not a lot, but shit, it’s a start — you start to see yourself up there on the screen. Sometimes as a main character. Sometimes behind the words on the page, sometimes behind the camera. A video game avatar here, a protagonist there. And it’s like, WOO HOO, hot hurtling hell, someone is actually thinking about you once in a while. And the moment that happens, wham. A backlash. People online start saying, ugh, this is social justice, ugh, this is diversity forced down our throats, yuck, this is just bullshit pandering quota garbage SJW — and you’re like, whoa, what? Sweet crap, everyone else has been represented on screen since the advent of film. They’ve been on the page since some jerk invented the printing press. But the moment you show up — the moment you get more than a postage stamp-sized bit of acreage in this world that has always been yours but never really been yours, people start throwing a shit-fit. They act like you’re unbalancing everything. Like you just moved into the neighborhood and took a dump in everybody’s marigolds just because you exist visibly.

You have 100 toys, and someone comes along and asks for a toy of their own, and you start screaming about DIVERSITY SJW GENOCIDE REVERSE RACISM SEXISM AAAAAAH.

That’s fucked up, right?

That’s what’s happening, except it’s not happening to you.

I was at NYCC this year and last, and a friend — the artist known as Joey Hi-Fi — pointed out quite correctly that the audience at NYCC is incredibly diverse. And they are at NYCC consuming media that is incredibly not-diverse. I saw it in my own signings. The people who came up and had me sign books at 47 North or for Star Wars? Not a bunch of straight white guys. A lot of women. A lot of faces that were not my own. And some self-identified LGBT folks, too. That’s awesome. Awesome in a lot of ways. Awesome because the audience is bigger than anybody expected. Awesome because it’s expressive of a world that is not singular, not simple, that is far-reaching and full of variety and tons of people who don’t look or act at all like each other but still find common ground in cool stuff like Star Wars. And it’s also sad because, y’know, the content is not equal to the audience. The stories have not yet caught up to reality. That’s true on the page, on the screen, and behind the scenes with the creators and the executives and everything.

Listen, I get it — this problem is not my problem. Inclusion isn’t for me. I’m covered. I am already included. Luke? Me. Han Solo? Me. Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Anakin, Wedge, me, me, me. And it’s not just Star Wars. John McClane, Harry Potter, Frodo, Iron-Man. All a bunch of white guys saving the day. Hell, Santa Claus. Or damn near every painting of Jesus, who was clearly not a white guy but is often depicted as a white guy. We do our level best to paint ourselves as the heroes of our own narrative. It’s white guys all the way down. I’m golden over here. I don’t need more representation. I have had my fill to the point where my pop culture belly is a-burstin.

In fact, I’m so glutton-fed I figure it’s time for a diet.

Which is why I’ve tried very hard to vary my reading. Which is why in Aftermath the protagonists are: a Mom, a gay dude, a lady bounty hunter. It’s why the Imperial antagonist is a powerful woman of color. (I’m no culture hero here, to be clear — I did the bare minimum in including different characters. It’s not like I have Sinjir engaging in sweaty man-love with Wedge Antilles. He is gay and he is present and he is visible and that has been enough to conjure  100+ negative reviews and an unholy host of comments, hate mails, and social media ‘interactions.’ Don’t believe me? Here’s four pages of reviews — 1, 2, 3, 4 — and that’s just me searching for the term “homosexual” across the one-star reviews. It’s just the tip of that septic shitberg.)

Point is, I don’t need to see me on the page as often as I have. And while I wouldn’t want to steal someone’s voice and make it my own, at the same time, in a sci-fi novel, I think we’re okay. And writers of any salt or stripe are expected to know how to write beyond the singular experience of being who you are. And readers should be able to read just as capably. What, you can get behind a protagonist who is a dragon, or a Wookiee, or an animated monster, but you can’t get behind another human being who looks different? You gotta have some empathy. No one can make you understand different people. You have to try. You gotta draw the bridge between you and other humans. It exists. But you have to see it. You have to believe in it. You have to be the one to reach out and look for the similarities of experience, not just the differences. (But differences matter, too. And it’s important to grok why that is and not erase those differences or those experiences.)

You gotta realize the world isn’t for you.

It’s for everyone.

And that needs to start happening in media, too.

Nice thing with Star Wars is, it is happening. Look at the protagonists of The Force Awakens. Look at Lucasfilm. They’re openly committing to finding a woman director for Star Wars. Kathleen Kennedy notes: “Fifty percent of our executive team are women. Six out of eight of the people in my Story Group are women. I think it’s making a huge difference in the kind of stories we’re trying to tell.” Some of the story group are also people of color. It’s a start. Especially when it’s starting in one of the biggest SFF franchises ever. Perfect? No. Nothing is. But it’s nice to see changes happening. It’s nice to see some equity there between the audience that consumes this stuff and the people who make it. Stories matter to people. Characters matter. Creation matters. Nobody should be excluded. Inclusion is awesome.

And if you oppose that — you know, hey, fuck you. Go on and throw pebbles at mountains. Go on and boycott the sun. Let me know how that works out for you.

Meanwhile, I’m gonna be over here enjoying what’s to come. I suggest trying it. Loving stuff instead of hating it. Accepting the world as it is, not the world as you mistakenly hope it will be.

To everyone else: may the Force be with you.

And hey — NEW TRAILER TONIGHT.

*teeth vibrate with sonic joy*

*fingers become lightsabers*

*wampa roar*

HEY LOOK AT THAT.

Official description:

It’s Atlanta’s senior year of high school, and she is officially infamous. Not only has she saved herself from a predator, brought down an untouchable dogfighting ring, and battled a pack of high-school bullies, but she’s also proclaimed to the Internet her willingness to fight for anyone who needs help. And Atlanta can’t believe what’s coming out of the woodwork. From an old friend to a troop of troubled girls with connections to a local fracking company, there’s definitely fire in the water. As always, the girl with the unforgettable name is not afraid to burn it all down if it means making things right. But as high school races toward its inevitable end and the hornets begin to swarm from all directions, Atlanta must decide how much of herself and her growing group of friends she is willing to risk…before it’s too late.

Book comes out February, 2016.

You can pre-order it right now.

Cover Contortions

Read for Pixels is a campaign to raise funds to help stop violence against women globally.

This year, Jim C. Hines has come out of retirement and entered the arena with a promise that, should the campaign get $10,000 in funding, he will once more do a cover pose — where he apes the pose made by a contorted woman on a SFF book cover in the tradition of gender-flipping.

Well, this year I have been challenged.

I HAVE BEEN CHALLENGED.

And in a fit of abject foolishness, I have accepted this challenge.

Which means Jim and I will do a cover pose battle, and you can help choose the cover.

But all that only happens if the campaign makes $15,000 in funding by its date.

And it only has a couple weeks left.

So, get on over there and make it happen. Donate here.

The Mockingbird Killer Has Returned

Last month, Blackbirds returned to print.

And this month, Mockingbird is back.

(The Cormorant returns in February if you wanna pre-order.)

So, so, so excited to have these so they can get in people’s hands.

You can find the paperback at most bookstores. I think the hardcover has a much shorter print run for both books, and my understanding is you can only get those through Amazon or BN online. And believe you me, the hardcover editions are sexy-sexy.

Go make grabby-grabby.

And don’t let Miriam Black touch you.

(Miriam Black book trailer here, if you haven’t seen it.)

Thunderbird Delayed?

Is Thunderbird’s publishing date changing? Maybe. I’ll let you know when I have more info, but the goal would be to do something a bit more innovative with the publishing schedule for the final three books — something that gets them out in more rapid succession so that there’s not a year between books (which was the original goal). I actually just finished edits on that book and they were the weirdest set of edits — like, they were heavy edits, but nothing fundamentally changed about the book. Not a rewrite, just a great deal of massaging — a stronger edit to lift the book toward theme, toward better language, toward apt character.

Meanwhile, some don’t realize that there’s a novella set between Cormorant and Thunderbird called “Interlude: Swallow.” It’s part of a trio of tales by me, Kevin Hearne, and Delilah S. Dawson! It’s called THREE SLICES and you should go shove it in your brain-mouth.

Event in Charlotte, NC

I’m going to be doing an event at Queens University in Charlotte, NC on November 19th. 8pm, open to the public. Come say hi! Or throw things at my head. Nice things. Like wads of money and rare birds and various gems of various sizes. Event deets here.

The Oklahoman Reviews Zer0es

A great review right here if you care to read it.

(Note, the review is a bit spoilery.)

“What follows is a white-knuckle race to discover the truth about Typhon and stop it before it’s too late. “Zeroes” is one of the most satisfying hacker novels to come down the fiber optic pipeline in a long time.”

Check out Zer0es at Indiebound, Amazon, or B&N.

And Finally, The Shield!

The Shield #1 is coming out THIS WEEK.

*breathes into a bag*

My first real comic! Me and Adam Christopher, holding hands and leaping into the FOUR-COLOR MAELSTROM, BABY. Woo! Nothing can stop us now.

A round up of some Shield-related media:

Entertainment Weekly!

Bleeding Cool!

Adventures in Poor Taste!

And a cool review from Graphic Policy:

“The story by Adam Christopher and Chuck Wendig, unfolds a spy thriller, hurling the reader the reader into a world of high stakes politics and secret identities. The art by Drew Johnson is luminescent and drawn with realistic tones, which serves this action packed narrative. Overall, probably the best comic to come out of the Dark Circle imprint and one that is long overdue.”

Also, Adam and I will be doing a couple events together! He’ll be touring the US for his new Tor novel, Made to Kill (which is rad and you want it), and he and I will be doing an event at KGB Bar / Red Room in NYC with WORD bookstores on November 3rd. Then, a week later, we’ll do a thing at Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, PA. That’s on November 13th (FRIDAY MWA HA HA HA) and you can find out more here. Hope to see you at one of the events!

It’s that time again for the challenge I love so much —

You take two pre-existing pop culture properties, randomly mash them up, and then write a piece of fiction inspired by and utilizing that mash-up. You’re not writing fan-fiction in those worlds — you’re capturing the essence of them for a new story. (So it’s like, when you pitch an original novel to an editor and you say, IT’S LIKE DANCES WITH WOLVES MEETS BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. And they’re like, what? And then you both laugh uncomfortably.)

Here, we’re gonna do a horror-flavored edition

One table is PURE HORROR.

The second table is not at all horror.

You will mix these up for maximum awesome.

Roll a d20 or use a random number generator once on each table.

Then, write a story — we’ll say up to 3000 – 5000 words in length — and post it at your blog and give us a link back here so we can all read it and go ooh and ahh.

(I know, technically not a flash fiction challenge. DON’T SASS ME.)

Given that this challenge is a bit longer, we’ll make it two weeks for your timeframe, which will finish this out right on October 30th, the day before HALLOWEEN.

*crash of thunder*

*cackling ravens*

*Jack-o-Lantern smokes a cigarette and leers at you*

Go forth and write.

The Horror Table

1. The Exorcist
2. The Walking Dead
3. Interview With A Vampire
4. Frankenstein
5. The Babadook
6. Poltergeist
7. Gremlins
8. It
9. Rosemary’s Baby
10. It Follows
11. Hellraiser
12. Psycho
13. Evil Dead
14. The Shining
15. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
16. The Descent
17. The Thing
18. Nightmare On Elm Street
19. The Ring
20. Carrie

The Not Horror Table

1. Harry Potter
2. House of Cards
3. Back to the Future
4. The Marvel Universe
5. Mad Men
6. Scooby Doo
7. Scandal
8. Planet of the Apes
9. Transformers
10. Sex and the City
11. The Muppets
12. Die Hard
13. Star Trek
14. Pitch Perfect
15. 50 Shades of Grey
16. Fast and the Furious
17. The Shawshank Redemption
18. Casablanca
19. Doctor Who
20. The Martian

What would you do if you discovered everyone in your house, on your street, and in your town dead? Then discovered you weren’t alone and what was out there was hunting you? Melissa Allen knows exactly how it feels. With only a voice on the phone for help, she must stop what is happening before the monsters find her.

1: Twitter is Great for Research

It all started when I asked twitter this question: “How long do you think it would take the world to notice if everyone in a state went to sleep at 2am and died?” The answers brought up things I had not considered in my personal answer: Is it a border state? Does it have a military base? A nuclear power plant? An international airport? Is it a flyover state where distribution centers live? After taking in these options, along with population density, we came up with an answer that gave me the basis for NEVER LET ME SLEEP.

As a bonus, one of my medically-minded twitter followers contacted me with a plausible reason that would cause people to go to sleep, then die. It never comes up in the book, but I know the answer if asked.

2: Primary Sources are Even Better for Research

The internet is great for research but it will never replace the value of going to a primary source. I contacted my local FEMA PR person to ask what FEMA would do in the case of the world losing contact with a state. The answer was enlightening. I spent time talking to a medical professional about the medical aspects of the second Melissa Allen book and she saved me from making a complete fool of myself. My protagonist is a teenager with mental illness. I spent time talking with several people who lived the kind of life Melissa lived and got the inside, real answers of what the life of a functioning young adult with a medicated mental illness is like. My book would not have had those realistic details without going to a primary source.  No matter what your book is about, it will always benefit with primary source based research.

3: “Wouldn’t it suck if…” is the Author’s Best Tool

Multiple times while I was writing NEVER LET ME SLEEP, I thought “Wouldn’t it suck if X happened right now?” Stuff I hadn’t planned. Stuff that would make Melissa’s life that much more difficult. Stuff that I immediately wrote and updated my outline because, sometimes, the complication really complicated Melissa’s life and my story. But, because of all those “Wouldn’t it suck” moments, the story is better for them and moves at a much more active pace.

4: Google Street View is Awesome

I have never been to Onida, South Dakota. But I know the town’s layout. I know how the streets line up with each other. I know what the houses and businesses look like. Google Street View allowed me to walk the town over and over for months while I was writing NEVER LET ME SLEEP. To stop and look at the sign in the yard of a small house that turned out to be a walk-in medical clinic. To find exactly the right place for Melissa to glimpse the monsters for the first time. To see which houses were two story and which weren’t so I could put Melissa’s house in the correct part of town. Google Street View is a wonderful tool to visit places you’ve never been and get a feel of the landscape around you.

5: Sometimes the Protagonist Dictates the Novel’s Ending

NEVER LET ME SLEEP was supposed to be a one-off novel. I’d left Melissa in an ambiguous place, wondering if everything had happened was real or if it was all in her not inconsiderable imagination. Melissa wouldn’t let me do that. After I’d written “The End” I kept thinking about her and she kept railing at me about how this wasn’t going to be the way her story ended, dammit. I’d never had a story or a protagonist flat out tell me, “This is not it. There’s more to the story,” before. It was a strange and interesting place to be. So, I wrote a new ending. One that would allow me to get some rest and to stop thinking about Melissa Allen for a little while.

***

Jennifer Brozek is a Hugo Award-nominated editor and an award-winning author. She has worked in the publishing industry since 2004. With the number of different projects she juggles at one time, Jennifer is often considered a Renaissance woman, but prefers to be known as a wordslinger and optimist.

Jennifer Brozek: Twitter | Blog | Facebook

Never Let Me Sleep: Amazon | B&N

Turning someone you don’t know into a vampire probably violates the Hippocratic oath. But Alex wasn’t really thinking about that when he found a girl bleeding out in his shower.

Being turned into a vampire isn’t as cool as it sounds. Especially when all Hannah wanted to be was dead. She thought she had finally escaped her brother. Until she woke up. Alive? Undead? Whatever. And now Hannah is stuck with the uncoolest vampire in existence. 

As Alex and Hannah feel each other out — breaking some bones along the way — Alex’s oldest friend comes looking for help, and Hannah’s brother comes looking for her. What none of them see are the forces pushing them all on a collision course.

Failure Is Always An Option

I spent over seven years working on an epic fantasy series only to realize in a moment of clarity I wasn’t a good enough writer to write it yet. Moments of personal clarity suck. It’s pretty rare to have one that makes you realize that you’re doing everything right. No, you have moments of clarity when you’re able to give yourself enough distance from the bricks you’re bloodying your knuckles on to realize it’s part of a wall with a gate in it — a gate that isn’t even locked. I could see where I was, and I could see that if I kept writing I would steadily get to the place where I needed to be in about five years. What made the most sense was to set aside seven years of work and work on projects I knew I could finish as the writer I already was.

Love What You Do

At the same time I was deciding to set aside what I’d been working on, a writer friend of mine started working on a really funny Urban Fantasy story and I found myself extremely envious of their getting to work on humor. Envy is a tool. Envy tells you what you really want, not what you think you want. When I found myself envious of my friend’s story, it had less to do with them and everything to do with what I needed to be doing to love my own writing. For whatever reason I immediately thought of vampire characters I’d created back in the ’90s and wrote a fluff piece with them conversing them in present day, referencing the events of 1986 when they’d originally met. Alex is going on about how he still didn’t remember how Hannah ended up bleeding to death in his shower when she admits he doesn’t remember because she drugged him… and suddenly I wanted to know a whole lot more. I had these great characters with all of these tantalizing clues about the people they used to be, and instinctively knew all the things that had to change to get them to the present. Intrigued, I basically wrote one of the last scenes in what became the third book of The Shattered Ones. I knew the end. I knew how the characters changed. I knew where the events started. So, I just… started writing. Pretty soon I had a story I figured I could never do anything with, but I loved writing again

Finish What You Start

I got serious about writing. I canceled my World of Warcraft account (between all of my characters I was putting in full-time-job hours on the game), and dedicated that time toward writing. I started submitting stories. I published a few short stories and a couple of novellas. I stopped taking myself so goddamn seriously and just focused on finishing things. I found the best way for me to finish things was to have a deadline. (Seriously? Who would have thought? Oh… everyone who actually gets paid, that’s who. If I had a time machine I would totally squander it going back in time to shake my past self. Also, getting extra sleep. I would totally use it to get extra sleep. Why doesn’t anyone ever do that?)

Make Your Own Luck

It bothered me that I had this not-quite finished vampire story I couldn’t do anything with. What I needed was a deadline and editorial assistance in getting it finished. I decided I would pay to get it professionally edited and self-publish it as three serialized short novels. Splitting the story into three shorter bits makes a lot of sense for my particular writing style. Also, I’m not a well-known author. Pretty much… no one has ever heard of me. It’s in my best interest to lower the time and money commitment someone has to put out to discover me and then to keep feeding new installments at a rapid rate to keep their interest as well as increase my discoverability.

I contacted Brian White, who is the publisher of Fireside Magazine, to see if it was the kind of thing he’d be interested in doing as a freelance editing project. Tragically comedic vampires aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and I wasn’t really interested in working with someone who hated my writing. (There aren’t a lot of writing rules I think work universally, but I’d wager “Don’t partner with someone who hates your work” holds true for most people.)

Duck and Roll

Not only did he agree to look at it, but he asked for the option to choose to offer on it for Fireside after reading it. This was a huge shock because I had no idea that Fireside was even thinking about publishing books, much less already had one in the pipeline. Wait… I accidentally sold a vampire series? That isn’t a very helpful story for anyone hoping to use my experiences as a guide for their own publishing journey. On the other hand, every single publishing story I ever heard wasn’t helpful to me either other than to illustrate that isn’t the part of the business you can control. I made the decision to set aside my project. I got serious about writing. I wrote the series. I submitted stories. I decided I needed an editor. Publishing is freaking WEIRD at every level and it is impossible to plan for. So, don’t plan for it. Write what you want to write that makes you happy. If you keep learning and watching you will know where a story belongs when that opportunity comes along.

* * *

Minerva Zimmerman is a statistically chaotic neutral writer of tragically funny fiction. She lives in rural Oregon and works as a museum professional. She occasionally blogs at minervazimmerman.com and spends too much time on Twitter.

Minerva Zimmerman: Twitter

Take On Me: Amazon | Kobo | iTunes | Nook

When you write a book, you will receive criticism and edits and then you will have to perform surgery upon it, and sometimes this surgery is light — like, a stitch here, a biopsy there — and sometimes it’s the kind of surgery chirurgeons did during the Civil War where they’re just like FUCK IT, CLEM, YOUR WHOLE HEAD HAS TO COME OFF, HAND ME THE BONE SAW. In rare cases the surgery is murdersurgery where you just start indiscriminately killing darlings left and right with an ice pick and leave a gore-slick tile floor in your wake.

But it’s a thing you do because you have to do it. Real writers edit. Real writers rewrite. And it gets easy once you commit — you move piece here, you nudge a piece there, and then it feels more comfortable. But until that point arrives, until you are actually willing to move through the edits, I find that I go through five stages.

And so, I give you, the Kubler-Ross Model of Grief Associated With Editing And Rewriting.

Denial

Edits? What edits?

*ignores email*

*pushes any and all print-outs under the refrigerator*

The book is fine. It’s fine. I never got edits. It’s perfect. Bulletproof even.

*hums a tune loudly, too loudly*

*stares*

*twitches*

Anger

THESE EDITS ARE BULLSHIT.

I CALL SHENANIGANS. THEY’RE JUST WRONG IS WHAT THEY ARE. YOU CAN’T JUST… YOU CAN’T JUST CHANGE STUFF. THESE ARE MY CHOICES. THESE ARE MY CONTROLS! Y-YOU DON’T KNOW. YOU’RE DUMB, EDITOR PERSON. SUPER-DUPER-DUMB. LIKE A… A ‘HOOFED ANIMAL KICKED YOU IN THE HEAD’ DUMB. YOU CAN’T JUST EDIT ME. I’LL EDIT YOUR FACE. I’LL CRITIQUE YOUR DUMB DUMB FACE WITH YOUR BUTTHOLE EYES AND YOUR NASTY DOODOO MOUTH. I LOVE THESE CHARACTERS. I LOVE MY WORDS. EVERYTHING IS FINE. YOU’RE NOT FINE. THIS BOOK IS AMAZING. THE REASON I’M THE AUTHOR AND YOU’RE THE EDITOR IS BECAUSE YOU’RE WEAK. THOSE WHO CAN’T WRITE, EDIT, AM I RIGHT? YOU’RE PROBABLY A MONSTER. A HUMAN MONSTER WHO LIKES TO PULL THE WINGS OFF PIGEONS WITH PLIERS AND OHHHH SURE I’M JUST YOUR LATEST PIGEON. I HATE YOU SO BAD. ALSO YOUR SHOES ARE TOTES UGLY.

FUCK IT, FUCK THIS SHIT, FUCK ALL OF EVERYTHING FOREVER.

YOU’RE NOT MY DAD.

*kicks over lamp*

*hugs manuscript tight, lip quivering*

Bargaining

Okay, ha ha ha, sorry about that thing about calling you a monster. I am. That was uncalled for. It was uncouth. I get that now. And the lamp, too. That was a nice lamp. And your shoes are lovely!

So — *clears throat* — let’s talk about these edits. Like, did you really mean them all? Sure, sure, no, no, I know you did, or you think you did. But let’s drill down. Nitty-gritty time. Get our hands dirty. I’m willing to concede, ha ha ha, that the book isn’t perfect. I know that. Of course it’s not! But maaaaaybe it’s not all that bad, right? Like, okay, perhaps we don’t need to get rid of that character entirely. Oh, sure, sure, he can get pulled from chapter three and still remain in the rest of the book, right? And maybe some of these metaphors are a bit loosey-goosey but I think with minimal tweaking — what’s that? No, yeah, sure, I know the ending doesn’t work, but what you’re suggesting is a bit drastic. I don’t want to rewrite the whole ending. Maybe fixing one paragraph will do it. Just one little paragraph. You know how it’s like, “Oh, that shirt doesn’t look good on you,” but then all you have to do is unbutton the top button or like, pop the collar and it’s like, bam. New shirt. New look. Hot look. You go from looking dumpy and sad to just… just snazzy with one little change.

I think we can do that here. Yeah, no, I’ll do your edits, totally. Totally. Just to a lesser degree than you expected. I mean, they say “kill your darlings,” but that sounds so dramatic. Nobody wants to kill anything. We don’t want to murder parts of the book. The book is precious. It’s nice. It didn’t hurt anyone. Let’s not kill our darlings so much as massage them gently into shape.

That’ll fix it. That’ll fix everything.

Probably.

Right?

*chin up*

*blink blink*

Right?!

Depression

everything is a lightless black void

i am terrible at this

all the edits are true

the edits were probably being nice and you were just pulling your punches and the book is terrible and i am terrible and all hope is a screaming dolphin caught in a tuna net

i am a sham. i am an imposter. i am a dung beetle juggling a shit ball uphill.

jesus god what am i doing with my life

i think maybe i’m just going to leave these edits here for a while and i’m gonna walk away from this heinous bus crash of a book i wrote but first i’m gonna quietly place it in this lead-lined trunk and then bury the trunk in the backyard and then build a prison for wayward youths on top of it

i am gonna go now and be a janitor or an accountant or at the very least i am going to sit on the toilet and contemplate my choices all of which have clearly been very poor okay thank you bye

*eats a cookie*

*fails to chew, crumbs tumble from lips onto shirt*

Acceptance

*wakes up after three-day slumber*

*blankets in a tangle, sun through the curtains*

I can do this.

So now I’m going to go do it.

*does it*

yay