Want a real misery? Word autocorrect. No, Word, you do NOT know better than me. Honest. Stop changing CNA to CAN and all the rest of the stuff you know nothing at all about. No, no, no.
More and more I’m finding MS Word thinks it knows best, when it does not. And turning it off doesn’t seem to make it stop!!!!! Grrrr.
People—mostly other authors—ask me: Why clean? Why no sex or profanity? Nobody much asks me why no gore.
So, here’s why in a nutshell: Because readers, especially me, are tired of dodging the cringe factor, which, as time goes on in entertainment (be it books, movies, music performances …you name it, and in our culture in general), now strives to reach a higher level of ‘shock impact’, each iteration trying to outdo the previous. It all becomes a race to the bottom.
Honestly, sex, gore, and profanity aren’t necessary for good, solid story.
I used to pride myself on realism. And, yes, especially with the workarounds needed to remove any and all profanity, that can push the credibility off a cliff, because, also honestly, most cops …most people curse …unless they come from a very strict upbringing and stick with it. However, as an author, creating story without it is doable. It just takes figuring out another way to deliver the same meaning or effect without losing impact.
There’s your nut taken out of its shell for the morning.
—Dawn
It never fails. I have things all ordered, lined out, figured out, and …our internet goes down …for days. Right in the middle of a book launch, a promise to send free audio book codes to people who email, etc., etc., etc.. Okay. So I go to somebody else’s house or the library to do anything. …Okay. Except, oh, I can’t access email from there because …guess what? I put in protections that only allow me coming from my home computers to access. Right. Well, instead, I worked on ‘web stuff’, yes, I did. And manuscripts, of course. Anyway, we’re back online. It was the ISP’s problem, not an issue on our end …which, they always claim, don’t you know …until they finally figure out that, yep, they messed up, yes, they did! I’m downloading email as I type this.
I read a very good report by a professional journalist published on a known-to-be-liberal, even progressively liberal, website tonight. The journalist himself is known for his progressive perspective, but his effort was to cultivate dialogue between sides, and it was very well executed in both the real world and in print. Since I have a foot in canoes within both political streams (but not exTREMES), which makes me, in fact, part of the majority, I took the time and made the effort to acknowledge this journalist’s efforts.
Enter the intolerant mob.
Within minutes, my post of appreciation brought out demonstrations of the exact attitude of the intolerant, raving extremes, in this case (but hardly singular to their side) the rabid liberal fascists. (Had I posted said same on a right-slanted website, I can guarantee that the rabid reactionary fascists would have done likewise.) Those reactions gave me a chuckle, because, in their rabid, frenzied responses to my congratulatory post, the commentators demonstrated, not just their ignorance and stupidity, but their complete descent into totalitarian fascist attitudes toward those who they perceive aren’t firmly entrenched ‘on their team’. Most notable …and saddest, in my opinion, was their exhibition of their own bigotry. They demonstrated perfectly my point.
So two weeks ago, cell reception died here for both me and my flip phone (I don’t want a computer in my pocket, thanks) and for my husband’s fancy smartphone. Wound up having to spend hours on the landline with Verizon tech support which kept bumping me up to the next level, then the next one after that. And they wound up putting in a trouble ticket …which netted us lots of text messages until those stopped coming in, too. Now, Forrest’s smartphone does suddenly have reception, again, but me? Nope. Not unless I walk or drive down to the highway. Then it has all sorts of connection. So, that’s where we sit. You want to contact me? It’s all email now until somebody figures out the problem …which, knowing how things go here, probably means next century.