LYNDA J. COX, WESTERN HISTORICAL ROMANCE AUTHOR
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  • Home
  • About
  • My Books
  • Blog
  • More
    • Favorite Recipes >
      • strawberry/jalapeno jam
      • Pineapple Shake
      • Lemon Blueberry Cake
      • Beef Barley Soup
      • creamy potato soup
      • Chinese Spaghetti
    • Upcoming Events
    • My Collies

Random Thoughts

Not always PC or SFW

Picture

Too soon?

Blogging is dead or dying. That's the current wisdom. Okay...so I guess I have to find some other way to keep this page ever green. 

Keeping It Evergreen

1/30/2020

 
Keep your web page evergreen. Keep updating, keep changing stuff, keep blogging to keep the page higher in SEOs. Yeah, okay...

To keep blogging (and writing) means I have to force myself through the wall of self-imposed silence due to self-censorship. I apparently do a lot of damage to myself by constantly second-guessing and doubting myself. You know, the more that I think about it, the more I realize this writing gig isn't for the faint of heart.

Self-censorship...thanks to the utter implosion of the RWA and a group on Twitter that I refer to as the "torches and pitchforks crowd" I've found I've been self-censoring more and more and second-guessing every single word I write. The latest target of the woke, virtue-signaling T & P crowd is Georgette Heyer (the woman has been dead since 1974) because she was allegedly anti-Semitic. Honey, by just about any definition, I'm Jewish. My grandfather took me to synagogue every Saturday morning and I'm not offended by a single word Heyer wrote. I'd deeply appreciate it if y'all would stop being offended for me. In the meantime, my own second-guessing and self-censorship has become a full-on, impenetrable force-field. Right now, I haven't found a scruffy-looking Nerf herder to help me destroy that force-field. 

Instead, I'm trying to blog about the massive destruction the "scorched earth" policy of the T & P crowd seems to create. It is truly, from my view point, a take no prisoners, silence the voices of those authors who the T & P crowd believe to be racist, homophobic, xenophobic (pick a phobic), and destroy the voices of those who don't agree with them. Even as I write those words, I realize I may be making myself a target for them because I don't agree with the mob--on just about everything.  

Early on in this debacle with the RWA I realized this was political. This wasn't about creating a more inclusive place for ALL authors at RWA, which--for the record--still needs to happen. This was about destroying and silencing the voices of all those who don't think like the TP crowd, will not virtue signal like the TP crowd. The greatest sin of one of those the TP crowd seeks to destroy and silence--she's alleged to be conservative. And, in the worldview of the TP crowd, that automatically makes her racist, homophobic, xenophobic (again, pick your phobic). In the worldview of the TP crowd, any woman who writes romance for a culture of which she isn't a member and isn't an author of color must be racist. Isn't that assumption racist in itself?

A writer friend of mine who is also a person of color had this to say about the latest tempest over a new book and it is so fitting for this whole debacle: When someone tears another down, it’s speaks volumes about that person’s character, but it also usually shows their woundedness. My friend says the book world has become ugly and she is struggling with the decision to continue writing--and we write in the same genre: romance. We write romance--a genre that is about inclusion, acceptance, happily ever after, finding that one person who makes life complete. 

My son has a meme posted as his profile picture that says "Until you heal what's wounded you, you'll continue to bleed onto those around you." I have a suggestion to the members of the TP crowd. Figure out what has wounded you and heal that. In the meantime, tell the rest of us--calmly and rationally and logically--what we can do to help you heal. Because your scorched earth policy really doesn't do much of anything other than starve us all. 



Linda Joyce link
1/30/2020 05:06:39 pm

Linda, I enjoyed your post. Regardung what’s happening at REA, I now only what the RWA has broadcasted in emails to membership. I don’t read anything else, just like I’m not watching the other controversy and strife rocking our country. Including trials) I do what I’m able in my very tiny pocket of the world. And send love to all those suffering from righteous anger.

You make an excellent point: people need to discover their woundedness and work to heal it.

I did not know you were Jewish. I’m told my great grandfather was Jewish... and I am working hard to create my family tree —my Cajun grandmother was adopted... so it’s a curious journey.

I hope you always speak your truth.

Love you my friend.

Linda Joyce

Lynda
1/31/2020 03:28:47 pm

Linda,
When my grandfather passed away, I stopped going to synagogue. I stopped going to Saturday night Mass when my dad's mom passed. I stopped going to any house of worship about the time I was 17 because I had a rabbi, a Catholic priest, and a Pentacostal minister all telling me people I loved deeply were in hell because those people didn't believe/worship as they did. (Well, to be fair, the rabbi never said those words, because hell isn't a construct of Judaism. He just said those non-Jewish people weren't spending eternity in the presence of Yaweh.) All three of them couldn't be right, and it was possible all three of them were wrong. I decided my relationship with the Creator/Creatrix was my business and no one else's and I left all formal religious beliefs behind me.

Tina link
1/30/2020 08:39:04 pm

Very well said.

Lori L. Robinett link
1/31/2020 12:23:26 pm

Well said. You're so right about the TP crowd - and it is pervasive in our society in general (the recent push to "cancel" Stephen King, for instance). I didn't follow the RWA situation closely, but have read some of the American Dirt controversy. My problem with this situation is that we're talking about FICTION. I learn so much through research, as I know a lot of writers do. If someone has a story in them, I have no problem with them writing it, regardless of their specific descriptors - as long as it is clear that it's fiction. The reader can make the choice of whether or not to read. That said, I support and encourage the efforts to increase diversity in publishing - just as I do in other fields. I think we can do so without destroying each other in the process.

Lynda
1/31/2020 03:30:38 pm

Lori,

Thank you! I think that is the thing that makes me the craziest about all of this--we're arguing about who has the right to tell a FICTIONAL STORY!


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