1. LM Burchfiel says:

    Are there authors who aren’t readers? I suppose that’s theoretically possible, but I don’t see how they would be any good, unless they come from an oral tradition and literally don’t read.
    But in the vein recommended by this very article, I am going to spam you peeps with an item from “Children’s stories made horrific” from The Toast: http://the-toast.net/2015/09/22/the-six-swans/

    • Paul Lee says:

      But in the vein recommended by this very article, I am going to spam you peeps with an item from “Children’s stories made horrific” from The Toast: http://the-toast.net/2015/09/22/the-six-swans/

      I think that story is the first thing to give me a model to understand the specific ways that I can’t relate to a woman’s experience. For the most part, everything else I’ve heard about women feeling dirty and silenced and incapable of succeeding left me feeling ambiguously uncertain as to how I don’t or can’t experience the same—except that I can’t find motivation to care about not succeeding.

      The really bold thing about this story as a pro-feminist piece is that it almost validates MRAish thinking about women overthrowing men and removing the man’s place in society. After all, the king actually says that the reason the sons are to be killed is that the daughter “alone might inherit the kingdom.” I wonder if this might be a criticism of the worst kind of feminism, or at least the caricature of it. The result is powerful expression of empathy. The sons’ bitter suffering is validated, and the injustice done them by hierarchy is clear. The man’s displacement, loneliness, worthlessness is validated, but I sure as heck wouldn’t want to be the daughter in the story instead.

      For that matter, the story doesn’t even necessarily invalidate the hierarchy. Both kings are evil, but the end sees the restoration of the royal sons in a fairly traditional manner. The noble sons aren’t denied their grand moment of masculine bravado. I shouldn’t be so surprised that a presumably feminist work could show such a traditionally heroic rescue scene, but its so easy to think in stereotypes.

      The other thing to unpack from the story is its explicit abortion themes, but I think that’s too contentious for here.

      • LM Burchfiel says:

        It has a weird sort of douchebag logic, in that the king would have more control over picking his successor by means of picking his daughter’s husband rather than being dead as a doornail while the sons engage in horrible civil wars to determine succession. His sons’ masculine action effectively emasculating him or some Freudian shizz like that.

  2. Paul Lee says:

    Being both an avid reader and a writer allows me to see both sides of the situation. Call it a superpower if you want

    Are you the kind of writer who likes to read deeply analytical reviews of your own works? Reviewing has been my most significant hobby for a few years, even though I’m not prolific. I’m not interested in criticizing people or genres or labeling trends in my reviews. I’m mainly interested in finding meaning and connections. However, most of my reviews end up being in critical in some ways, and I’ve heard of authors who don’t want to read that kind of analysis. I think I’ve heard a piece of author wisdom that they should “Never Read The Reviews,” and that actually discouraged me a great deal. When I find something meaningful enough to review it, I want to think that someone in the world might appreciate my thoughts, and I usually assume that the author would be a prime candidate to find my analysis interesting, if nothing else.

    Vanity is a universal affliction, I guess.

    As far as applauding and promoting and fanmailing, it’s tricky and complicated. The scale between a popular who obviously always has something better to do than talking to you and between a small-time indie author who is hanging on the social media feed desperate for the Internet to acknowledge his or her existence is obvious but ambiguous.

  3. Alex Mellen says:

    For what it’s worth, I’d call writing for SpecFaith being “officially” published. Not a novel, sure, but it totally counts. 🙂

  4. Eric says:

    Okay, you’re a superhero. Give me my brownie points! 🙂

    So, what are some of the fan groups you’re part of?

What do you think?