In non-daily writing news, I just have to say that all the ‘authors behaving badly’ stuff in the last week or so is really a letdown. I won’t name names or put links because the Great Internet Dogpile is doing just fine on its own, but there are three authors in the last couple of days who’ve reacted completely inappropriately to reviews (none of which, incidentally, were in the least inflammatory, whereas if Lev Grossman wanted to cut me a new one for my review of THE MAGICIANS I really couldn’t blame him). This is becoming a trend, and it makes me sad. Didn’t we learn from the last one a few months back? Guess not.

It also makes me wonder — did authors always react so ridiculously to negative reviews and we just didn’t get to see it without a super-fast, easily-regrettable publishing medium like the Internet? Or is it that authors today have just lost their minds?

I’ve seen everything from explosions and f-bombs to well-meaning (but condescending) ‘advice’ posts to bloggers about leaving good reviews, and I really just want to take all of it and rub the authors’ noses in it, like all those books say you should do with dogs and feces (which I’ve never done, because that just seems weird, but y’all know what I mean). All I have to say is this: no. No author, for any reason, has any right to demand anything from reviewers as long as the author’s personal life is not dragged into the review. If the reviewer is not calling the author a puppy-kicker in real life, then the author sucks it up. That’s the way it works. There’s a ridiculous sense of entitlement working in the author community these days that I really don’t understand, especially when the consensus of what constitutes a ‘negative review’ seems to be ‘anything less than 4/5′.

Ah well.

Casualties from tonight's session (not all mine!) The sole grande is mine, though *shame*

Today in writing was fun; I got 948 words on the 15-minute train commute to work again, wahey! Scraped out another thousand or so at work between meetings, and then some more at Starbucks before my evening job. I’m having fun with this.

Well. I say ‘having fun’, but that’s not exactly the right term to use in this particular case. The story I’m working on right now — jokingly dubbed ‘traumatised foster kids’ as speaking light of it is the only way to deal with the fact that it is really freaking depressing — is, well, freaking depressing. So while I’m happy at the output for the day, during the actual writing I sat at my computer making the D: face the whole time.

Also, once, while attempting to make a brittle smile in order to write what it feels like (what muscles are tensed, etc. vs. during a real smile), I’m pretty sure I scared the guy in front of me. He kept looking over, then packed up his stuff and left. Uh. Whoops?

This whole thing does make me a little nervous, though, because at the moment my PTSD twelve-year-old is in therapy. I am not a child trauma therapist; I have no child trauma therapy training (but I did look up stuff on the Internet). I have no idea how to fix four years of deep-rooted self-loathing and guilt, so I therefore have no idea how to write a therapist who does. Uh. Help? This isn’t something where the right word and a hug will make the walls come crumbling down (hello, sitcoms, I’m looking at you!).

Ah, believable emotional arcs, why do you have to be so difficult? It would be so easy to slap on a fast solution to this, fix the character and make it all better, but I can’t do that. Not because the characters won’t let me or whatever, but because that wouldn’t be fair to anybody — to the story, to me, to invisible hypothetical readers. Whenever I see it happen (usually in television, since they only have 20 or 40 minutes to wrap things up, but occasionally in books) I just get annoyed and feel cheated, so I’d never want to do that myself. Even if it means a lot of frustration in the meantime. Yay for artistic integrity, or something.

Once I get this figured out, though, I get to reward myself by writing about the three-legged dog, aka Princess Serena Bambina Tudor, Jedi & Pokemon Master, Esquire. (I love Drake and I love his naming conventions.) Also, kittens. So, there’s that.

Today’s Stats:

Words Written: 3,374

Hours: 2 (ish)

Most Productive Universe: Drake & Edward kids sidestory

No-context snippet: Ma used to say that a good therapist will make you feel like shit, which is why only rich people go to therapists because poor people know they’re shit all the time and don’t need to pay lots of money for some bitch on a couch to do it for them. Rog tries to do tongue twisters when he hears Ma’s inner voice.