He asked me, after his first, "What's the significance to the Solstice Vigil? I mean, I'm kinda not getting the symbolism."
I had been expecting that, and offered my answer couched in the mythology of it all; "Solstice night is when the Lady labors to bring forth her Son -- the God, back into the world. We stay awake and keep the vigil as any family members do, and should, when their mother, or wife, or sister labors through the night to bring forth life. Not because we can shoulder any of the burden, or make it easier on Her, but out of respect to the work She is doing, and the life She has created, and is now working to give to us."
And on one level, that is so.
But it doesn't actually go far enough, of course. Because we live in an age of scientific prominence now (Climate Deniers and Creationists notwithstanding,) and, as another friend pointed out to me, "I can't take it too seriously when I KNOW there's no danger of the sun not coming up tomorrow, you know?"
And he's right, too. We know it's axial tilt that brings the winter as well as the summer; that an eclipse is a predictable, and temporary situation, and not a sign of the End Times; that comets don't bring the Black Death; and unicorns don't cure poison, nor do hedgehogs invade vinyards in order to roll in the fallen grapes and turn their spines into hateful wee cocktail skewers. (Oh, medieval zoology, you stay wacky!)
So why stay up all night long then? It's not a cakewalk, that. On the far side of three, it gets to be quite an uphill haul, especially when you don't strictly HAVE to do it. I mean, to pull an all-nighter when you're cramming for a test, or writing that last minute paper, within a chapter of finishing your novel, or trying to get a show's worth of artwork framed and matted because it has to be in the mail first thing in the morning (coughTimcough) those are tangible, concrete reasons for pushing through the night. As is staying out and partying all night when you're on the leaside of twenty, think your liver's ironclad and gold plated, and that sleeping when you're dead is a viable option.
But to do it at home, in comfort on a winter's night, with little more than caffeine and rowdy TV to keep you from dozing off when three thirty AM comes sniffing around... really?
Yes. Really. Because sometimes our faith needs to tangibly remind us that it's not all going to be easy. Yes, the lengthening night begins to scroll back from here on in, but that doesn't mean the winter's over, or even that the worst of it's past -- contrariwise, it actually means that the hard part's just begun. It's going to get colder. The winter will get harder and deeper, and the slightly longer days will be little comfort against the grey storm skies and iron black trees. There's hope, and that hope will grow as spring creeps nearer, but we will have to work in order to see it through -- in order to see ourselves through, so that Eostar finds us in a position where we want to be.
Just as there comes a time during every vigil when nearly every cell of you is arguing in favor of closed eyes and a warm bed; of rolling over, settling into the doze, and letting things just roll along on autopilot, we will be tempted when our own lives get hard, to just coast. To figure that the axial tilt will handle things even if we have a nap. To choose to leave the striving to someone else and just float rather than fighting the undercurrents to get to the beachhead landing we have in mind.
And that's a choice which any of us can make, truth be told, but if you sleep while others row, then you don't get a say in where the boat's going, do you? If you stop pushing when it gets too hard, then your limits are where you've set them until you get up and start pushing again. If you say you're done, then you're done, even if you might have gone further.
Solstice vigil reminds us how to be strong. How to walk uphill for as long as the ground rises, and our road leads that way. How to keep going when stopping would be more convenient; how to keep believing even when the conclusion seems foregone, and the whole thing little more than a pantomime. Mummers, of course, were a Yuletide tradition for longer than long, and what is a Mummer but one who shapes the world in dance and mime, song and story, teaching it to follow in his footsteps to a place where goodness is triumphant, and evil collects only its karmic due? What is any ritual, but us informing the Universe of our expectations and desires, in hopes some influential force might be paying attention? We are Mummers through the night, miming survival and patient endurance while we wait for the coming dawn.
We sit the vigil on Solstice night because it isn't easy. We sit the vigil on Solstice night because not everything about life, love, faith, or God is GOING to be easy, but we are strong enough to meet its eye, spit into our hands, and take it on anyway. And a little, but frankly, rather difficult thing like staying awake all night to 'make sure the Sun comes up' is a way of celebrating that fact, even if we know all along it'll come up just fine without us.
And if we happen to drink wassail, eat gingerbread, and watch Top Gear while we do? Well, Jeremy Clarkson's ego is involved; tell me THAT doesn't add a few stone to the burden when all's said and sifted?
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Young Man With a Juvenile Red Tail Hawk In Schuyler Park.
Young Man With a Juvenile Red Tail Hawk In Schuyler Park.
By Catt Kingsgrave
Strap your bells upon my heels to take my silent flight away,
From the jesses let me dangle till I let you have your say.
Keep me hungry, keep me focused, keep me near so I must come
Whene’er you call me from the sky to stoop and nibble at your crumbs.
Tell yourself you trapped me fairly; there’s no sin for to atone
That I am happier being yours than when entirely my own.
Call me emblem of the Royal, or the favorite sport of kings
Specimen or prize or profit, proof of how your manhood swings
But fancy not I’ll come to love the hand inside the leather glove
Don’t dream that I’ll have given up myself -- the arching sky above
Wide thermals rising from the ground, to stoop like lightning without sound
Of bells; my prey what might be found and carried off. You keep the ground.
Then lace your eyeless hood atop my head
And know that I would like you better dead.
Author's note: Yes, I've handled captive raptors and owls before -- all those birds were rescues who could never be released wild again, not young, healthy birds trapped and taken from the wild. Yes, I know that the training means are far more humane now than they used to be... but then the means of breaking the spirit of a wife used to be just as openly brutal, and the fact that one breaks that spirit more gently now does not make it less broken, Nor less of a shame in my mind. I've no idea if the young man had the right permits and licenses to have captured the bird, or to be training her that way. Not having the authority to intervene if he didn't, it did not seem worthwhile to ask. But I do know that hearing him talk about her training echoed eerily the pattern of domination and control that often begins when a domestic partner turns violent.
The poem above came to me as I drove home from the park.
Make of it what you will.
Friday, November 11, 2011
George and The War
Title: George and The War
by Catt Kingsgrave
Rating: Gen
Wordcount: 1700
Genre: Memorial poem... with dodgy scansion.
Author's notes: This is a votive offering for my Grandfather, who died earlier this year, and to whose funeral I could not make it. I wrote this on Halloween, before making an Obon lantern boat for him -- a tradition I've adopted as part of my Samhain rite in any year that someone I know has passed on. The sight was lovely, and I wish I'd a way of capturing that line of glowing jewels as they floated easily down the river toward the sea... but it was late, and we were all tired, and we just didn't think of it then. So I'm sharing this poem I wrote for/about him now, in honor of Veteran's Day, 2011. No apologies.
Feedback: This is pretty personal stuff here, so concrit might not go over well. Headpats would be welcome though.
Linking/reposting: Sure. Just ask first, and send me a link, so I can track where it goes please.
Tips: Not for this one.
George and The War
What follows is a story of a man I never knew,
But who somehow laid the pattern for what I would know as true
And strong and right, and to be wished for
And of what was worth the fight,
And whose spirit I sent sailing down the river Samhain night
With a candle lit to guide him, and a sail of ocean blue
And a story built of pieces I have gleaned from those who knew.
George was a good boy, and he was a good man
Branched up out of humble and hardworking clans.
He was a deft tinker, a good man with tools,
With a mind running higher than everyday rules.
But he wasn't a rebel. He tried to be good,
Clever, strong, and upstanding, to show where he stood
In a world that was hurtful, and reckless, and cold,
Where a soul could be bought, and a life could be sold,
And but could he cleave tight to the things he knew right,
Then he might just hold fast, and stand tall.
Then the Harbor went up into flames,
And the shadow of Japanese planes
Scared the somnolent giant right up to its feet,
Sent a million Joes marching in ten thousand streets
To note their names down upon crisp paper sheets
They would offer in trade for their guns.
(And the God of his Fathers had told him not to kill.
That death is bought cheaply, and comes where it will,
But that life is a chalice which can't be refilled
Once it has been broken or spilled.)
George rose to his duty: no coward, no shirk,
Put brain, back, and belly full into the work.
He kept up the engines, the cars and the trucks,
Generators and loaders, and diggers, and luck
Brought his wheels to the beachhead -- the first in four days
With a tractor intact to dig all the men's graves
Who, in those three days prior, had charged through the tide,
Got their first tour of France in the moment they died,
Then bore blind, bloody witness wherever they fell,
To the living, who fought for that eight miles of Hell
Till the first landed backhoe that made it up whole
Scraped them out of the way and into a deep hole.
And George hoped, as the sand brushed their bodies from sight,
That they were resting better than he would that night.
(And the God of his Fathers had said how it would be.
That the righteous would survive, while the sinners could not flee,
But through dust, blood and gunsmoke, it grew hard for him to see
How the dead were less righteous than he.)
George's coil went un-shuffled, his bucket un-kicked.
He did his job well even when he felt sick
At the hell all around him in War's grisly tread.
At the nightmares that ranged very far from one's bed
To march over the hillsides in boots of both kinds,
Wreaking bloody amusements on any they'd find.
Still, the process, the pattern, the motors, the gears
Gave a part of him anchorage -- a wheel that could steer
By the schedules. Supply times, upkeep of the fleet
Kept him sane, or sane-seeming, and up on his feet.
And yes, there were times when he fought not to run,
And times when he held fast and fired his gun.
And yes, there were lives that he shattered this way,
But I don't know those tales, for he never would say.
But I know he picked Jerry cans up off the roads
Where the tank-jocks had thrown them to lighten their load.
And he convoyed the diesel for Patton's advance
Through the hill towns of Belgium, and Brussels, and France.
That he once, in a village that should have been cleared,
In a mid-convoy truck with a dodgy third gear,
Watched the lead truck (his own when he'd started that drive,)
Explode into flame leaving no man alive.
And three days door to door, street to cellar they fought,
Till the column came 'round and the catchers were caught.
And I don't know how many of Ours or of Theirs
Met their ends in that village's parlors or stairs,
But I know at that battle, like all those before,
Young George left a piece of his soul on the floor --
A shred of the good boy whom once he had been,
Back when rules were straightforward, and fair play could win,
And when honor was more than an Officer's word
Sent in letters back home as the dead were interred;
Or a thin bit of brass that was stamped with a time
When the sense that God gave you was screaming to hide,
But you didn't, and only in retrospect learned
That really, you probably ought to have died;
Or a word that they say at the foot of your bed
When your arm is half-gone or you can't move your head,
Or disease and dementia wear through to the bone,
Meaning "Sorry we broke you young man, now go home."
(And the God of his Fathers said despair was a sin.
That faith must go the distance when all hope had been kicked in,
Cause it's done when He says so, and not one heartbeat before.
So you'd better keep your knees upon the floor.)
For George, the War up-ended while he worked the Maginot Line:
Clearing out traps and tripwires, defusing lurking mines
Left by soldiers, that soldiers whom after would come
In their footsteps, must creep, never daring to run.
T'was a foot put down wrong; a pliers that slipped;
A red wire instead of a blue that got snipped,
And under George went in a welter of dust,
Pain, and deafening silence, with the taste of rust
And of copper, and ends flooding over his tongue.
He must have thought sure that his tour was all done,
But Talent and Competence are dearly bought,
And those who shape the nations considered, and thought
How useful and handy their young George had been,
And thought that a way might perhaps yet be seen
Whereby the downed soldier might useful be still:
A bit of down time, what he needed to heal,
But then higher rank, and more brass, and more pain,
More soul shards lost in gory rain,
More deaths, more killing, more despair,
More nightmares he could hardly bear,
More gas, more gears, more bombs, more bones,
More flowing fire, more flying stone.
(And the God of his Fathers had taught him to obey.
That the primal sin of humankind is looming till this day,
And the price of disobedience runs generations long,
So when you're told, you'd best just move along.)
But George lay, de profundis in his army medic cot,
And considered what he'd lost against what little he had bought.
Thought of facing his reflection every day that he might live,
What he'd see inside his mirror, and just what he could forgive.
Then he handed back the letter, and in respectful tones,
Said "I don't want a field promotion Sir. You've broke me. Send me home."
(And the God of his Fathers said he'd reap what he had sown.
That the plowshares, swords, and politics would always claim their own,
And there just is no escaping from the sins of one's own hands,
No matter how your ledger's balance stands.)
George did a lifetime's sowing in the fields he knew as home,
All the seeds he hoped would grow into the truths he once had known;
Honor, truth, responsibility, fair reward for working hands,
And obedience to what his Church or Country might demand.
And the harvests of his lifetime came in flowers, fruit and grain,
And in thistles and in brambles, and in blight and grief and pain,
And in love that built a family, (half would die before his time,)
And in work to build a name that would survive the winter's rime.
To do what it was he must to greet his mirror every day,
To keep the memories down, and keep the nightmares all at bay.
George was no marble hero, and his feet were flesh, not clay;
Judgmental and sarcastic when his temper had its way,
Fell to bigotry at times, rode to rescue other days,
And last spring, he laid his life aside, got up, and walked away.
For he could no more stand tall, and he could no more hold fast,
And so he chose his ending on his own terms at the last.
Now all that I have told you, I have heard from other tongues;
Not a whisper of his telling would he share when I was young,
Nor when I grew. But once I wrote to him, and tried to make it plain
That he was my only hero, and it was against his frame
That I would measure every man who ever caught my eye.
But I've no clue what he thought; he never wrote me a reply.
I don't know if it moved him, I don't know if he cared,
For he never gave me reason to think that respect was shared,
And I can't recall a moment when he said I'd made him proud
As an adult, but I suppose he wouldn't say such things aloud.
And now I'll never hear them, though there's those who hold him dear
Who'll offer that assurance, say the words I want to hear,
And will explain his way was silence, and in subtlety he proved
Just whom he thought was worthy, just whom he really loved.
And I'll nod like I believe them, but in truth I'll never know
If I was more to George than stories of a toddler long ago,
Or if the part of him that could have written answer back to me
Lay in pieces upon battlefields far off across the sea.
(And the God of his Fathers says a lot of stupid things.
And I gave up all the blame and shame and anguish that it brings
To live by a set of rules that always serve another's needs,
Leaving mine to starve and struggle, scratch a harvest through the weeds.
I will never have his blessing, but he still has my respect;
Not overly a hero, but a man I'll not forget.)
by Catt Kingsgrave
Rating: Gen
Wordcount: 1700
Genre: Memorial poem... with dodgy scansion.
Author's notes: This is a votive offering for my Grandfather, who died earlier this year, and to whose funeral I could not make it. I wrote this on Halloween, before making an Obon lantern boat for him -- a tradition I've adopted as part of my Samhain rite in any year that someone I know has passed on. The sight was lovely, and I wish I'd a way of capturing that line of glowing jewels as they floated easily down the river toward the sea... but it was late, and we were all tired, and we just didn't think of it then. So I'm sharing this poem I wrote for/about him now, in honor of Veteran's Day, 2011. No apologies.
Feedback: This is pretty personal stuff here, so concrit might not go over well. Headpats would be welcome though.
Linking/reposting: Sure. Just ask first, and send me a link, so I can track where it goes please.
Tips: Not for this one.
George and The War
What follows is a story of a man I never knew,
But who somehow laid the pattern for what I would know as true
And strong and right, and to be wished for
And of what was worth the fight,
And whose spirit I sent sailing down the river Samhain night
With a candle lit to guide him, and a sail of ocean blue
And a story built of pieces I have gleaned from those who knew.
George was a good boy, and he was a good man
Branched up out of humble and hardworking clans.
He was a deft tinker, a good man with tools,
With a mind running higher than everyday rules.
But he wasn't a rebel. He tried to be good,
Clever, strong, and upstanding, to show where he stood
In a world that was hurtful, and reckless, and cold,
Where a soul could be bought, and a life could be sold,
And but could he cleave tight to the things he knew right,
Then he might just hold fast, and stand tall.
Then the Harbor went up into flames,
And the shadow of Japanese planes
Scared the somnolent giant right up to its feet,
Sent a million Joes marching in ten thousand streets
To note their names down upon crisp paper sheets
They would offer in trade for their guns.
(And the God of his Fathers had told him not to kill.
That death is bought cheaply, and comes where it will,
But that life is a chalice which can't be refilled
Once it has been broken or spilled.)
George rose to his duty: no coward, no shirk,
Put brain, back, and belly full into the work.
He kept up the engines, the cars and the trucks,
Generators and loaders, and diggers, and luck
Brought his wheels to the beachhead -- the first in four days
With a tractor intact to dig all the men's graves
Who, in those three days prior, had charged through the tide,
Got their first tour of France in the moment they died,
Then bore blind, bloody witness wherever they fell,
To the living, who fought for that eight miles of Hell
Till the first landed backhoe that made it up whole
Scraped them out of the way and into a deep hole.
And George hoped, as the sand brushed their bodies from sight,
That they were resting better than he would that night.
(And the God of his Fathers had said how it would be.
That the righteous would survive, while the sinners could not flee,
But through dust, blood and gunsmoke, it grew hard for him to see
How the dead were less righteous than he.)
George's coil went un-shuffled, his bucket un-kicked.
He did his job well even when he felt sick
At the hell all around him in War's grisly tread.
At the nightmares that ranged very far from one's bed
To march over the hillsides in boots of both kinds,
Wreaking bloody amusements on any they'd find.
Still, the process, the pattern, the motors, the gears
Gave a part of him anchorage -- a wheel that could steer
By the schedules. Supply times, upkeep of the fleet
Kept him sane, or sane-seeming, and up on his feet.
And yes, there were times when he fought not to run,
And times when he held fast and fired his gun.
And yes, there were lives that he shattered this way,
But I don't know those tales, for he never would say.
But I know he picked Jerry cans up off the roads
Where the tank-jocks had thrown them to lighten their load.
And he convoyed the diesel for Patton's advance
Through the hill towns of Belgium, and Brussels, and France.
That he once, in a village that should have been cleared,
In a mid-convoy truck with a dodgy third gear,
Watched the lead truck (his own when he'd started that drive,)
Explode into flame leaving no man alive.
And three days door to door, street to cellar they fought,
Till the column came 'round and the catchers were caught.
And I don't know how many of Ours or of Theirs
Met their ends in that village's parlors or stairs,
But I know at that battle, like all those before,
Young George left a piece of his soul on the floor --
A shred of the good boy whom once he had been,
Back when rules were straightforward, and fair play could win,
And when honor was more than an Officer's word
Sent in letters back home as the dead were interred;
Or a thin bit of brass that was stamped with a time
When the sense that God gave you was screaming to hide,
But you didn't, and only in retrospect learned
That really, you probably ought to have died;
Or a word that they say at the foot of your bed
When your arm is half-gone or you can't move your head,
Or disease and dementia wear through to the bone,
Meaning "Sorry we broke you young man, now go home."
(And the God of his Fathers said despair was a sin.
That faith must go the distance when all hope had been kicked in,
Cause it's done when He says so, and not one heartbeat before.
So you'd better keep your knees upon the floor.)
For George, the War up-ended while he worked the Maginot Line:
Clearing out traps and tripwires, defusing lurking mines
Left by soldiers, that soldiers whom after would come
In their footsteps, must creep, never daring to run.
T'was a foot put down wrong; a pliers that slipped;
A red wire instead of a blue that got snipped,
And under George went in a welter of dust,
Pain, and deafening silence, with the taste of rust
And of copper, and ends flooding over his tongue.
He must have thought sure that his tour was all done,
But Talent and Competence are dearly bought,
And those who shape the nations considered, and thought
How useful and handy their young George had been,
And thought that a way might perhaps yet be seen
Whereby the downed soldier might useful be still:
A bit of down time, what he needed to heal,
But then higher rank, and more brass, and more pain,
More soul shards lost in gory rain,
More deaths, more killing, more despair,
More nightmares he could hardly bear,
More gas, more gears, more bombs, more bones,
More flowing fire, more flying stone.
(And the God of his Fathers had taught him to obey.
That the primal sin of humankind is looming till this day,
And the price of disobedience runs generations long,
So when you're told, you'd best just move along.)
But George lay, de profundis in his army medic cot,
And considered what he'd lost against what little he had bought.
Thought of facing his reflection every day that he might live,
What he'd see inside his mirror, and just what he could forgive.
Then he handed back the letter, and in respectful tones,
Said "I don't want a field promotion Sir. You've broke me. Send me home."
(And the God of his Fathers said he'd reap what he had sown.
That the plowshares, swords, and politics would always claim their own,
And there just is no escaping from the sins of one's own hands,
No matter how your ledger's balance stands.)
George did a lifetime's sowing in the fields he knew as home,
All the seeds he hoped would grow into the truths he once had known;
Honor, truth, responsibility, fair reward for working hands,
And obedience to what his Church or Country might demand.
And the harvests of his lifetime came in flowers, fruit and grain,
And in thistles and in brambles, and in blight and grief and pain,
And in love that built a family, (half would die before his time,)
And in work to build a name that would survive the winter's rime.
To do what it was he must to greet his mirror every day,
To keep the memories down, and keep the nightmares all at bay.
George was no marble hero, and his feet were flesh, not clay;
Judgmental and sarcastic when his temper had its way,
Fell to bigotry at times, rode to rescue other days,
And last spring, he laid his life aside, got up, and walked away.
For he could no more stand tall, and he could no more hold fast,
And so he chose his ending on his own terms at the last.
Now all that I have told you, I have heard from other tongues;
Not a whisper of his telling would he share when I was young,
Nor when I grew. But once I wrote to him, and tried to make it plain
That he was my only hero, and it was against his frame
That I would measure every man who ever caught my eye.
But I've no clue what he thought; he never wrote me a reply.
I don't know if it moved him, I don't know if he cared,
For he never gave me reason to think that respect was shared,
And I can't recall a moment when he said I'd made him proud
As an adult, but I suppose he wouldn't say such things aloud.
And now I'll never hear them, though there's those who hold him dear
Who'll offer that assurance, say the words I want to hear,
And will explain his way was silence, and in subtlety he proved
Just whom he thought was worthy, just whom he really loved.
And I'll nod like I believe them, but in truth I'll never know
If I was more to George than stories of a toddler long ago,
Or if the part of him that could have written answer back to me
Lay in pieces upon battlefields far off across the sea.
(And the God of his Fathers says a lot of stupid things.
And I gave up all the blame and shame and anguish that it brings
To live by a set of rules that always serve another's needs,
Leaving mine to starve and struggle, scratch a harvest through the weeds.
I will never have his blessing, but he still has my respect;
Not overly a hero, but a man I'll not forget.)
Friday, September 16, 2011
Memories are dear this year, and passions bare this spring
Awhile ago, during Hurricane Irene, I had an unexpected and wonderful guest in my house. Author Jo Walton, whom I had not met previous to us giving her a ride to Troy from Pi Con, wound up being stuck staying with us during the post-storm floods, when the trains and busses in New York were all playing Silly-Buggers.
She was a fantastic guest to have, and despite her frustration with being stranded so close to home, and being stuck in a house with creatures that triggered her asthma, she kept us in fascinating chat and anecdotes the whole time she was here.
She also drew my attention to something I hadn't really properly realized before; something that really makes a lot of sense when I look at my life, and the relatively meagre level of success my work has brought me, and helps to mitigate the self-blame I've often struggled with for not being a better agent for myself, for not already having two or three novels out by now, and so on. She pointed out that it makes sense that my career would grow slowly, because I'm not just building one career. Because I'm not just a writer.
I paint too, and not just hobbyist painting, I paint like someone who once made her living with a brush and paper -- because I did. Right up until Dubya the Gubna flushed the Texas economy down the shitter and put Underhill Arts out of business (luxuries like art are always the first to go when the layoffs start and people have to tighten the strings.) I spent much of my twenties painting-and. (-and all the business chores that came along with painting, and selling one's paintings, which are frankly too numerous and tedious to re-list here.) Just like I've spent most of my thirties and early fourties writing-and.
I sing, play the guitar, and write and arrange songs too. Again, not like a hobbyist, but like someone who once played for pay. Because I did. This was another -and that took up a lot of my twenties. (If I add the jobs of booking agent-and, treasurer-and, manager-and, and arranger-and into it, it was a lot more than just the one -and, really.) Acting, directing, and costuming for street theatre were still another set of -ands. So that makes five categories of -ands that were happening in my twenties and early thirties. No, my math's not off, because during that time I was also the primary homemaker for not just myself and my husband, but for most of my friends as well. Wait... my math's not off, but my count is. I forgot to add Priestess and Tarot counselor into those jobs. Now none of those jobs were full time, but I did them all more or less together. And I wrote on top of it all, when I could fit time in, and dredge up the inspiration. And I somehow managed to get a novel done in that environment, too. When I look at that, it's kind of a miracle, really.
And it cost me a lot of spoons as well. Which is why when I moved out to New York, I stopped with a whole lot of the -ands, and just wrote. Now that's a bit of an oversimplification, I'll admit, and there were a lot of reactionary justifications to why I put away my art supplies, and let my guitar languish in its case for so long after I moved. And to be fair, I was still processing my grief at losing Ravens, and I was still radically averse to the hoop jumping carny-barking, dignity-shrivelling ballyhoo that came along with trying to sell art for a living, and perforce the Priestess job went away when there was no more coven at hand in need of me. But really the first thing that New York did for me was give me space to let the -ands drop, and just write for awhile.
Which is what I did. I wrote like a fiend, and though I couldn't legally sell a page of it, to this day I can't regret any of the work. I pulled out my art supplies only as it pleased myself to do so, just like I took out my guitar when the rare impulse to play it came on, and at no other time. But overall, I just focused my attention and will on putting the words onto the page, and the 'career' I built thereby was a pretty damned good one by any measure.
But things like that don't last for me. The fandom spark began to nag me into less fannish directions, and as though invoked by the spring rains, the -ands began to spring up like weeds. And like weeds that have wintered the snow in thick earth, they've come back hardier than before. My poetry is better now, my songwriting too. My art turned a definite corner while I was drawing primarily for fannish entertainment, and it's better now than it ever was when I was painting in Tim's shadow. My playing is maturing as well, now I don't have a web of voices to hide it under -- not quickly, as I've never been more than an adequate guitarist, who only learned to play in order to accompany her own voice, but still. And all just in time to interfere with the actual Writing-For-Pay career that I'm trying to get off the ground.
I read things online about how selling your own work is just part of the job, paying your dues, just the proving ground, and if you can't do that then you don't deserve to be published. How if you're not 'willing' to sleuth out which editor buys what kind of work from which agent, who represents which kind of writers, who reads for which editor at which house, who's moved jobs, houses, or careers lately, and what are their readerly tastes, and do they ever take manuscripts over the transom at all, then you're really just a hobbyist who should keep the day job. And that's all incredibly demoralizing. Because that's another -and added into the mix, and it's an ugly -and as well. It's a lot like the aforementioned hoop jumping carny-barking, dignity-shrivelling ballyhoo that made the profession of artist ache like a bad tooth sometimes. Because damn it, I want to WRITE, not dance the hoochycooch so some editor might come along and give me thirty seconds to pitch my work while ze's sticking a dollar in my G-string.
And so, people also say, there's also the wonderful, blossoming world of E-Pub. Which makes me just cringe. Because if shilling myself to editors is another -and, publishing my own work is about sixteen -ands all in one place. Marketing exec-and; layout specialist-and; edtor-and; art editor-and; typesetter-and; cover artist-and; accountant-and; donation bell-ringer-and; shop clerk-and; writer-and; press agent-and. I'm sure the list goes on for much longer, but I've exhausted myself just rattling off those few. Those aren't small -ands. They don't leave a lot of room for the bigger, more deeply rooted -ands I already have going; the -ands that aren't going away anytime soon, because they are so very much a part of me that I would not know myself without them.
Jack of all Trades, goes the saying, Master of none. And I call your attention to the word "TRADES" here. Not Jack of all Arts, but Jack of all Trades. Because it's the trade that grinds you down, and takes your focus and fire and energy. It's the trade you have to fight for, and if you're fighting for trades in too many fields, there's only so much success you'll have the energy to win. I can think of another person who does essentially all the things I do, and who's achieved, in the last five years or so, some pretty wild reaches of success. I've met her agent. She's wonderful. I am, in dark moments, more jealous of that woman's having a talented agent to manage her business -ands than I've ever been of any of my husband's girlfriends. Because if you have the right support, you CAN master more than one trade. Alone? You can't master them for long. You run out of spoons, you collect too many asshat scars, you stumble at the wrong moment, and you drop everything. Balancing acts that go on too long usually do end that way.
So this balancing act stays close to the ground for now. That said, I am asking the universe for an agent like hers -- an ally like hers to take care of busking the crowd while I'm keeping all of MY -ands in the air and trying to fall off neither the tightrope nor the unicycle.
So no; I am not a particularly good agent on my own behalf. I'm not gifted in business. I'm not all that good at the shill and the ballyhoo. But I'm a damn good writer. And a damn good painter. And a damn good singer. And a damn good songwriter. And a damn good actress. And a damned good costume designer. And a damned good cook. And a damned good Tarologist. And a damned good dancer. And I'm even a fair carpenter on top of everything else, so I refuse to be shamed by writers who tell me that if I'm not a good agent then I don't deserve to be published.
Let them line up their -ands next to mine and we'll SEE who's bloody slacking!
She was a fantastic guest to have, and despite her frustration with being stranded so close to home, and being stuck in a house with creatures that triggered her asthma, she kept us in fascinating chat and anecdotes the whole time she was here.
She also drew my attention to something I hadn't really properly realized before; something that really makes a lot of sense when I look at my life, and the relatively meagre level of success my work has brought me, and helps to mitigate the self-blame I've often struggled with for not being a better agent for myself, for not already having two or three novels out by now, and so on. She pointed out that it makes sense that my career would grow slowly, because I'm not just building one career. Because I'm not just a writer.
I paint too, and not just hobbyist painting, I paint like someone who once made her living with a brush and paper -- because I did. Right up until Dubya the Gubna flushed the Texas economy down the shitter and put Underhill Arts out of business (luxuries like art are always the first to go when the layoffs start and people have to tighten the strings.) I spent much of my twenties painting-and. (-and all the business chores that came along with painting, and selling one's paintings, which are frankly too numerous and tedious to re-list here.) Just like I've spent most of my thirties and early fourties writing-and.
I sing, play the guitar, and write and arrange songs too. Again, not like a hobbyist, but like someone who once played for pay. Because I did. This was another -and that took up a lot of my twenties. (If I add the jobs of booking agent-and, treasurer-and, manager-and, and arranger-and into it, it was a lot more than just the one -and, really.) Acting, directing, and costuming for street theatre were still another set of -ands. So that makes five categories of -ands that were happening in my twenties and early thirties. No, my math's not off, because during that time I was also the primary homemaker for not just myself and my husband, but for most of my friends as well. Wait... my math's not off, but my count is. I forgot to add Priestess and Tarot counselor into those jobs. Now none of those jobs were full time, but I did them all more or less together. And I wrote on top of it all, when I could fit time in, and dredge up the inspiration. And I somehow managed to get a novel done in that environment, too. When I look at that, it's kind of a miracle, really.
And it cost me a lot of spoons as well. Which is why when I moved out to New York, I stopped with a whole lot of the -ands, and just wrote. Now that's a bit of an oversimplification, I'll admit, and there were a lot of reactionary justifications to why I put away my art supplies, and let my guitar languish in its case for so long after I moved. And to be fair, I was still processing my grief at losing Ravens, and I was still radically averse to the hoop jumping carny-barking, dignity-shrivelling ballyhoo that came along with trying to sell art for a living, and perforce the Priestess job went away when there was no more coven at hand in need of me. But really the first thing that New York did for me was give me space to let the -ands drop, and just write for awhile.
Which is what I did. I wrote like a fiend, and though I couldn't legally sell a page of it, to this day I can't regret any of the work. I pulled out my art supplies only as it pleased myself to do so, just like I took out my guitar when the rare impulse to play it came on, and at no other time. But overall, I just focused my attention and will on putting the words onto the page, and the 'career' I built thereby was a pretty damned good one by any measure.
But things like that don't last for me. The fandom spark began to nag me into less fannish directions, and as though invoked by the spring rains, the -ands began to spring up like weeds. And like weeds that have wintered the snow in thick earth, they've come back hardier than before. My poetry is better now, my songwriting too. My art turned a definite corner while I was drawing primarily for fannish entertainment, and it's better now than it ever was when I was painting in Tim's shadow. My playing is maturing as well, now I don't have a web of voices to hide it under -- not quickly, as I've never been more than an adequate guitarist, who only learned to play in order to accompany her own voice, but still. And all just in time to interfere with the actual Writing-For-Pay career that I'm trying to get off the ground.
I read things online about how selling your own work is just part of the job, paying your dues, just the proving ground, and if you can't do that then you don't deserve to be published. How if you're not 'willing' to sleuth out which editor buys what kind of work from which agent, who represents which kind of writers, who reads for which editor at which house, who's moved jobs, houses, or careers lately, and what are their readerly tastes, and do they ever take manuscripts over the transom at all, then you're really just a hobbyist who should keep the day job. And that's all incredibly demoralizing. Because that's another -and added into the mix, and it's an ugly -and as well. It's a lot like the aforementioned hoop jumping carny-barking, dignity-shrivelling ballyhoo that made the profession of artist ache like a bad tooth sometimes. Because damn it, I want to WRITE, not dance the hoochycooch so some editor might come along and give me thirty seconds to pitch my work while ze's sticking a dollar in my G-string.
And so, people also say, there's also the wonderful, blossoming world of E-Pub. Which makes me just cringe. Because if shilling myself to editors is another -and, publishing my own work is about sixteen -ands all in one place. Marketing exec-and; layout specialist-and; edtor-and; art editor-and; typesetter-and; cover artist-and; accountant-and; donation bell-ringer-and; shop clerk-and; writer-and; press agent-and. I'm sure the list goes on for much longer, but I've exhausted myself just rattling off those few. Those aren't small -ands. They don't leave a lot of room for the bigger, more deeply rooted -ands I already have going; the -ands that aren't going away anytime soon, because they are so very much a part of me that I would not know myself without them.
Jack of all Trades, goes the saying, Master of none. And I call your attention to the word "TRADES" here. Not Jack of all Arts, but Jack of all Trades. Because it's the trade that grinds you down, and takes your focus and fire and energy. It's the trade you have to fight for, and if you're fighting for trades in too many fields, there's only so much success you'll have the energy to win. I can think of another person who does essentially all the things I do, and who's achieved, in the last five years or so, some pretty wild reaches of success. I've met her agent. She's wonderful. I am, in dark moments, more jealous of that woman's having a talented agent to manage her business -ands than I've ever been of any of my husband's girlfriends. Because if you have the right support, you CAN master more than one trade. Alone? You can't master them for long. You run out of spoons, you collect too many asshat scars, you stumble at the wrong moment, and you drop everything. Balancing acts that go on too long usually do end that way.
So this balancing act stays close to the ground for now. That said, I am asking the universe for an agent like hers -- an ally like hers to take care of busking the crowd while I'm keeping all of MY -ands in the air and trying to fall off neither the tightrope nor the unicycle.
So no; I am not a particularly good agent on my own behalf. I'm not gifted in business. I'm not all that good at the shill and the ballyhoo. But I'm a damn good writer. And a damn good painter. And a damn good singer. And a damn good songwriter. And a damn good actress. And a damned good costume designer. And a damned good cook. And a damned good Tarologist. And a damned good dancer. And I'm even a fair carpenter on top of everything else, so I refuse to be shamed by writers who tell me that if I'm not a good agent then I don't deserve to be published.
Let them line up their -ands next to mine and we'll SEE who's bloody slacking!
Friday, September 2, 2011
"Bollocks, sir," she answered, all eyebrow.
I've been thinking a lot about 'purple prose' versus 'literary modernism' and 'efficient prose', and I find I'm with Mr. Fry on this topic.
The current literary style that calls for writers to go through their final draft and remove words like : that, really, great, just, a lot, interesting, wonderful, very, sure, often, usually, many, and most, because they 'are slimy and slippery and lack value,' just make me seethe. A lot.
It's true, if you can cut a word from a sentence and not change the meaning, then yes the word is superfluous, and you ought to consider whether to cut it... or not. But the error there lies in the author's execution, not in the inherent worthiness of the words themselves. Truth is that each and every word on that list has meaning, use, solidity, emphasis, and yes, dammit, VALUE, if it is used with joy, with heart, and with a love of the language in which it flows. And when it is used just where it belongs, by someone who has a love for, and a skill with the component parts of his language.
I will never be a fashionable writer, I think, and that's because I just love words too much. I won't cut them out and throw them away just because they're adverbs. I will wander by the orphaned adjectives that other writers hack off, pick them up, dust them off, and give them homes in my work, and offer apology to no editor over it. I'm willing to use synonyms of said where I feel they fit. I'm not scared of long sentences that don't conjugate out in a straight line. I find I rather like them, in fact.
Is my work descriptive? Is my work rich with emotional sensation, and sensory information? Is my work florid, purple, and overly wordy? Fuck if I know. Fuck, in fact, if I care overly, because it all depends on whom you ask -- ask my target audience, and they're happy to have someone who writes prose that doesn't feel like a cage on a hard concrete floor, populated with brittle people and sharp ideas. Ask MY readers, and they're happy to have phrases and passages stick with them like song lyrics long after they've finished the work. Ask MY readers, and some of them will even quote the stories they loved.
Ask the readers who are decidedly not in my target audience, and they're disgusted at having to read more words than they like to in order to get the story's plot. They're scornful of my descriptors, bored with knowing the details I've given, amused by my adjectives, annoyed by my compound sentences, and dismissive of my shameless love affair with words. And frankly, I'd RATHER that they didn't read my work. Because there are other writers out there who are entirely set up to make their modernist tastes happy, and there's no need for someone who prefers Bauhaus to endure Baroque. But neither is there any need to force an Art Nouveau writer to practice Cubist Abstraction prose in order to grant her work any merit.
I am not a modernist writer. I write to the audible, if you will. I write with half an ear turned toward saying the words out loud, to reading them out and shaping them on my tongue to a room full of ears. Maybe this is born of my innate talent for performing, or maybe this is just the way I experience the act of writing, but to me, if it sounds empty, constipated and sparse, I cannot find it to my liking. Give me a story with comfortable curves, so that the sharp angles and narrow turns will be the more harrowing in contrast. Give me rich colours to offset the bleak shadows that will creep across it. Give me depth of feeling, and the words that know their way around it -- I'm not scared of them.
Even if they are 'slimy and slippery and lack value', I can and will put them to good work.
The current literary style that calls for writers to go through their final draft and remove words like : that, really, great, just, a lot, interesting, wonderful, very, sure, often, usually, many, and most, because they 'are slimy and slippery and lack value,' just make me seethe. A lot.
It's true, if you can cut a word from a sentence and not change the meaning, then yes the word is superfluous, and you ought to consider whether to cut it... or not. But the error there lies in the author's execution, not in the inherent worthiness of the words themselves. Truth is that each and every word on that list has meaning, use, solidity, emphasis, and yes, dammit, VALUE, if it is used with joy, with heart, and with a love of the language in which it flows. And when it is used just where it belongs, by someone who has a love for, and a skill with the component parts of his language.
I will never be a fashionable writer, I think, and that's because I just love words too much. I won't cut them out and throw them away just because they're adverbs. I will wander by the orphaned adjectives that other writers hack off, pick them up, dust them off, and give them homes in my work, and offer apology to no editor over it. I'm willing to use synonyms of said where I feel they fit. I'm not scared of long sentences that don't conjugate out in a straight line. I find I rather like them, in fact.
Is my work descriptive? Is my work rich with emotional sensation, and sensory information? Is my work florid, purple, and overly wordy? Fuck if I know. Fuck, in fact, if I care overly, because it all depends on whom you ask -- ask my target audience, and they're happy to have someone who writes prose that doesn't feel like a cage on a hard concrete floor, populated with brittle people and sharp ideas. Ask MY readers, and they're happy to have phrases and passages stick with them like song lyrics long after they've finished the work. Ask MY readers, and some of them will even quote the stories they loved.
Ask the readers who are decidedly not in my target audience, and they're disgusted at having to read more words than they like to in order to get the story's plot. They're scornful of my descriptors, bored with knowing the details I've given, amused by my adjectives, annoyed by my compound sentences, and dismissive of my shameless love affair with words. And frankly, I'd RATHER that they didn't read my work. Because there are other writers out there who are entirely set up to make their modernist tastes happy, and there's no need for someone who prefers Bauhaus to endure Baroque. But neither is there any need to force an Art Nouveau writer to practice Cubist Abstraction prose in order to grant her work any merit.
I am not a modernist writer. I write to the audible, if you will. I write with half an ear turned toward saying the words out loud, to reading them out and shaping them on my tongue to a room full of ears. Maybe this is born of my innate talent for performing, or maybe this is just the way I experience the act of writing, but to me, if it sounds empty, constipated and sparse, I cannot find it to my liking. Give me a story with comfortable curves, so that the sharp angles and narrow turns will be the more harrowing in contrast. Give me rich colours to offset the bleak shadows that will creep across it. Give me depth of feeling, and the words that know their way around it -- I'm not scared of them.
Even if they are 'slimy and slippery and lack value', I can and will put them to good work.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Cyberhate, Stalking, Trolling, and Women Bloggers.
I'm seeing a lot of posts on this problem lately.
From Seanan McGuire, whose troll wants her to believe he can and will kill her cats.
From Jon Scalzi, who does not experience such attacks, but sees them around him, and calls them for the cowardly bullshite they are.
He points the way to a woman with recipe site trolls,
From IttyBiz, whose crime seems to be that she dared offer advice to small businessmen online whilst being female
And these are not even beginning to approach the bloggers at Tiger Beatdown, and Shakesville, who receive rape- and death-threats by the sackful with nearly every blog entry they write, purely on the basis of subject matter.
As the owner of an unbroken set of X chromosomes, and a basic level of internet capacity, I consider myself inherently involved by default. As a blogger, and an artist, and a writer of stories wherein sex is had and enjoyed, and a singer, and a congoer, I am very well aware that it's only a matter of time before I attract the notice of trolls. (Thusfar, knock wood, the only significant ones have been either anonymous and short lived when called on their cowardice, or my brother, who was only out to push buttons and get a reaction, so he totally counts on the trolling scale.)
But even taken out of this personal context, I have to take this seriously. Because of the advocacy work I do, I see the consequences of NOT taking this kind of thing seriously, and the evidence of that consequence tends to turn up in the Emergency Room, with the Sexual Assault Nurse conducting the exams on the victim. Assuming the exam doesn't take place in the morgue, that is; the coroner's the one gathering the evidence then.
So -- yeah. I don't ever take it as a joke, or conflate threats against someone's safety with the rights to 'free speech and expression'. The trolls who threaten injury are not just being assholes to some chick, they are committing a crime -- yes, a real, actual crime. And if nobody stops them, they'll go on to commit other, and probably worse crimes. But that opinion is not a surprise, nor a stretch of the imagination for anyone who knows me.
And it's not why I'm writing this blog entry either.
I'm writing this blog entry so that when it happens to you, you'll know what to do about it.
Rule one; Document, document, document.
I know for many who have been the target of hate mail campaigns, the urge is to just delete them all and pretend they never happened, but this will only help you if the stalker in question is of a very lightweight sort of malice. Think of ignoring bullies on the playground; did it ever really make them get bored and walk away? No. It made them push harder, and harder, and harder, looking for the reaction they were after all along. Generally, if a blogger is threatening you, they're after a perceptible fear reaction. A reaction of silence might give them time to come down off the meth and reconsider, but it might not. And if the next step the stalker takes is escalation, then YOU WILL NEED A TRAIL OF PROOF. I mean it. All the proof you possibly can find. Printed out and put into a file folder, with ISP addresses wherever possible, and e mail addresses as well.
Rule two; get the police involved.
Sanity check here; I don't mean for every mean comment you get on your blog. Nor even for any threat to, say 'fuck the stupid out of you'. But for commenters who are repeat offenders, and who escalation in their tactics, you MUST get the officials on your side if you're to have any hope at all of making it stop. Unless you are an alpha-geek and know the net well enough to track the trolls back through their protections to get THEIR home addresses, you will most likely need your state's Cybercrime unit.
When you make the decision that the threats are escalating, and/or the threats are beginning to sound like you really ARE in danger, (and please do err on the side of caution, Ladies,) you will need to contact your police department, and ask to speak to someone who can help you with a stalker. This department's name will change from station to station, so I can't just say 'ask for the DV and Stalking unit,' but given the enormity of some of the stalking cases in the last decade, even the poorest-funded police departments will have at least one officer who can talk with you about the steps he'll need you to take next.
*Disclaimer: this point of advice is pertinent to US residents. It might possibly be pertinent to stalking victims outside the US, but I don't know the laws of those countries, and so I cannot give advice about how to do this there. But I do still advise seeing what legal resources are available to you in this situation no matter where you live.
Rule three; let your personal support network know what is happening.
You really do need for the people who are important in your life to know what is happening. For one, it's important that they know WHY you're twitchy and scared if you get a bad e mail on date night, for instance. For two, they can help you with the things like rule one, and further down, rule five. And for three, if your stalker escalates to threatening them, it's only fair that they KNOW ABOUT IT, so they can take appropriate steps to protect themselves. You might be tempted to think things like 'oh, I don't want to drag them into this mess', but if they love you, then they are already in it, and it isn't you who's dragged them there, it's your stalker. You're not shielding them by not telling them, you're making it impossible for them to see the danger coming, and to dodge. They will also probably not appreciate being denied the chance to support you through the matter, because, d'uh, THEY LOVE YOU! Let them do it.
Rule three point five: Make sure your support network understands that they can't fix it FOR you.
This is really quite important when telling S.O.'s and parents about it. People feel protective when their beloved folk are being threatened. They often want to just charge off and lay waste to the threat by any means at their disposal, and unfortunately allowing them to do so is usually somewhat disastrous. Direct confrontation by secondary people often (as in usually,) makes the stalker escalate drastically, and in unpredictable ways. Let your people know that you're trusting them to give you the help you ASK THEM FOR, and the support you NEED, but otherwise to let you do what needs doing. Let them know that their taking the matter on could be more dangerous to everyone, but that you need to know that they're watching out for you, and that you can go to them for comfort when you need it.
Rule four; don't be afraid to file restraining orders.
Whenever you have enough in hand to get one, do not be shy about going to court and getting orders of protection, and/or restraining orders against the person. These can include orders never to contact you under any guise or alias, as well as orders never to come within a certain distance of you, and so on. It might seem at first to be useless to do this when he'll just change his ISP and do it anyway, but it isn't. Because bullies make mistakes. And when they do make mistakes, if there is an injunction filed against them, then THEY ARE GOING TO JAIL FOR IT. If you do not have the injunction, then it is not as easy for the authorities to take him away, should his next escalation include, per se, hanging around outside your house,and taking and posting pictures of your front door, car, husband, pets, and toddler on the internet with gun targets painted on. Sure, that's shitty, and everybody knows what he means by it, but it's legally shaky ground UNLESS he's got a court order telling him he can't be anywhere near you.
Rule five: notice things.
This might seem like I'm telling you that you must be paranoid. I wish I could say I'm not, but when you have a stalker, hypervigilance is actually a sound and valid coping mechanism, and one which might very well keep you safe. So yes. Notice when you find things not as you'd left them -- both online, (signs of hacking) and in your real life. Pay attention to when you get hangup calls, and how many you get. Pay attention to unfamiliar vehicles. Use tracking software on your blog if you can find some with which you are comfortable. Notice all the little forms of harrassment that your stalker uses to let you know he's still there, waiting for you to show him how scared you are. Add these to your documentation folder. Give them to the police as they happen. Do not let them slip under the radar.
Rule six: do not underestimate the effects this fear will be having upon you.
PTSD is nothing to laugh at, nor is it something that can be just shrugged off and bootstrapped through. It's real, and it's caused by shock, terror, and anxiety states EXACTLY LIKE THE ONE YOUR STALKER IS TRYING TO PUT YOU INTO. Having a psychiatric professional (not a drug-doc, necessarily, but definitely a therapist who has treated PTSD and abuse victims before,) to whom you can talk, and with whom you can process YOUR reactions to what's happening is really critical. Telling yourself you mustn't be afraid, or you can't give him the satisfaction is all very well, but the tension and anxiety still will need talking out, and a pro can watch for danger signs that your husband or BFFs won't know even if they spot them. If you can't afford it, see if your local rape crisis center offers counseling support for Domestic Violence/Stalking victims, and if not, can they direct you to a worthy therapist who will work on a sliding scale. Chances are, if they can't help you, they'll have built up a links list of doctors who can, and who will.
Rule seven: do what you feel you must do in order to be safe.
If that means you delete your online presence, move house, and never write again -- well, I will grieve for you, and rage at the bastard who did it, but I will not blame you. I CANNOT blame you, as I have not that right; not my shoes, not my mile, as I like to say. If you choose to buy a gun, and get really proficient with it; if you choose to install security systems in your home; if you choose to take karate classes; if you choose to give your threatened pets to someone who does not have an internet life, and is therefore not a target; if you choose to get your friends in Anonymous to hit the asscracker with a DDoS attack until his server pleads for mercy; if you choose to hire a bodyguard; if you choose to sleep with a machete; if you choose to hire a private investigator to track your stalker down and provide you with HIS home address -- these are your choices to make, and the consequences thereof are yours to account for.
But please do not just ignore it and hope it will go away. Generally it doesn't, because a troll that will turn stalker only escalates from there. Asshats don't go to that kind of trouble unless they have a taste for fear, and eventually verbal terrorism won't be enough. He'll need to actually SEE the terror in some girl's eyes as he proves his might on her -- it might not be you. But it will be someone, sooner or later.
Common Sense Disclaimer: If you know someone who needs this information, I have no objection to your either reposting it, or linking them here.
Also, I am well aware that male bloggers can get female stalkers, who can turn quite abusive. My advice is actually not very different for them. However the escalation path of a female stalker is markedly different to a male stalker of a female victim, and too, the phenomenon of a female fan persistently threatening a male blogger is quite a small demographic, whereas the reverse of those gender roles happens with depressing regularity these days. Thus I chose to directly address the attacks of male stalkers on female bloggers. If you feel you need to address the reverse in your own blogs, you have my blessing.
Discussion of the topic of stalking, cyberterrorism, and violence-trolling is appropriate in the comments, however trolls, apologists, and poo-throwing monkeys will be rolled in their own dung, lit on fire, and roasted on a spit,(metaphorically,) before being thoroughly banned, and all trace of their assmilinery expunged from the record with neither apology nor the merest trace of shame. If you wouldn't say it to your mom, don't say it here. That is all.
From Seanan McGuire, whose troll wants her to believe he can and will kill her cats.
From Jon Scalzi, who does not experience such attacks, but sees them around him, and calls them for the cowardly bullshite they are.
He points the way to a woman with recipe site trolls,
From IttyBiz, whose crime seems to be that she dared offer advice to small businessmen online whilst being female
And these are not even beginning to approach the bloggers at Tiger Beatdown, and Shakesville, who receive rape- and death-threats by the sackful with nearly every blog entry they write, purely on the basis of subject matter.
As the owner of an unbroken set of X chromosomes, and a basic level of internet capacity, I consider myself inherently involved by default. As a blogger, and an artist, and a writer of stories wherein sex is had and enjoyed, and a singer, and a congoer, I am very well aware that it's only a matter of time before I attract the notice of trolls. (Thusfar, knock wood, the only significant ones have been either anonymous and short lived when called on their cowardice, or my brother, who was only out to push buttons and get a reaction, so he totally counts on the trolling scale.)
But even taken out of this personal context, I have to take this seriously. Because of the advocacy work I do, I see the consequences of NOT taking this kind of thing seriously, and the evidence of that consequence tends to turn up in the Emergency Room, with the Sexual Assault Nurse conducting the exams on the victim. Assuming the exam doesn't take place in the morgue, that is; the coroner's the one gathering the evidence then.
So -- yeah. I don't ever take it as a joke, or conflate threats against someone's safety with the rights to 'free speech and expression'. The trolls who threaten injury are not just being assholes to some chick, they are committing a crime -- yes, a real, actual crime. And if nobody stops them, they'll go on to commit other, and probably worse crimes. But that opinion is not a surprise, nor a stretch of the imagination for anyone who knows me.
And it's not why I'm writing this blog entry either.
I'm writing this blog entry so that when it happens to you, you'll know what to do about it.
Rule one; Document, document, document.
I know for many who have been the target of hate mail campaigns, the urge is to just delete them all and pretend they never happened, but this will only help you if the stalker in question is of a very lightweight sort of malice. Think of ignoring bullies on the playground; did it ever really make them get bored and walk away? No. It made them push harder, and harder, and harder, looking for the reaction they were after all along. Generally, if a blogger is threatening you, they're after a perceptible fear reaction. A reaction of silence might give them time to come down off the meth and reconsider, but it might not. And if the next step the stalker takes is escalation, then YOU WILL NEED A TRAIL OF PROOF. I mean it. All the proof you possibly can find. Printed out and put into a file folder, with ISP addresses wherever possible, and e mail addresses as well.
Rule two; get the police involved.
Sanity check here; I don't mean for every mean comment you get on your blog. Nor even for any threat to, say 'fuck the stupid out of you'. But for commenters who are repeat offenders, and who escalation in their tactics, you MUST get the officials on your side if you're to have any hope at all of making it stop. Unless you are an alpha-geek and know the net well enough to track the trolls back through their protections to get THEIR home addresses, you will most likely need your state's Cybercrime unit.
When you make the decision that the threats are escalating, and/or the threats are beginning to sound like you really ARE in danger, (and please do err on the side of caution, Ladies,) you will need to contact your police department, and ask to speak to someone who can help you with a stalker. This department's name will change from station to station, so I can't just say 'ask for the DV and Stalking unit,' but given the enormity of some of the stalking cases in the last decade, even the poorest-funded police departments will have at least one officer who can talk with you about the steps he'll need you to take next.
*Disclaimer: this point of advice is pertinent to US residents. It might possibly be pertinent to stalking victims outside the US, but I don't know the laws of those countries, and so I cannot give advice about how to do this there. But I do still advise seeing what legal resources are available to you in this situation no matter where you live.
Rule three; let your personal support network know what is happening.
You really do need for the people who are important in your life to know what is happening. For one, it's important that they know WHY you're twitchy and scared if you get a bad e mail on date night, for instance. For two, they can help you with the things like rule one, and further down, rule five. And for three, if your stalker escalates to threatening them, it's only fair that they KNOW ABOUT IT, so they can take appropriate steps to protect themselves. You might be tempted to think things like 'oh, I don't want to drag them into this mess', but if they love you, then they are already in it, and it isn't you who's dragged them there, it's your stalker. You're not shielding them by not telling them, you're making it impossible for them to see the danger coming, and to dodge. They will also probably not appreciate being denied the chance to support you through the matter, because, d'uh, THEY LOVE YOU! Let them do it.
Rule three point five: Make sure your support network understands that they can't fix it FOR you.
This is really quite important when telling S.O.'s and parents about it. People feel protective when their beloved folk are being threatened. They often want to just charge off and lay waste to the threat by any means at their disposal, and unfortunately allowing them to do so is usually somewhat disastrous. Direct confrontation by secondary people often (as in usually,) makes the stalker escalate drastically, and in unpredictable ways. Let your people know that you're trusting them to give you the help you ASK THEM FOR, and the support you NEED, but otherwise to let you do what needs doing. Let them know that their taking the matter on could be more dangerous to everyone, but that you need to know that they're watching out for you, and that you can go to them for comfort when you need it.
Rule four; don't be afraid to file restraining orders.
Whenever you have enough in hand to get one, do not be shy about going to court and getting orders of protection, and/or restraining orders against the person. These can include orders never to contact you under any guise or alias, as well as orders never to come within a certain distance of you, and so on. It might seem at first to be useless to do this when he'll just change his ISP and do it anyway, but it isn't. Because bullies make mistakes. And when they do make mistakes, if there is an injunction filed against them, then THEY ARE GOING TO JAIL FOR IT. If you do not have the injunction, then it is not as easy for the authorities to take him away, should his next escalation include, per se, hanging around outside your house,and taking and posting pictures of your front door, car, husband, pets, and toddler on the internet with gun targets painted on. Sure, that's shitty, and everybody knows what he means by it, but it's legally shaky ground UNLESS he's got a court order telling him he can't be anywhere near you.
Rule five: notice things.
This might seem like I'm telling you that you must be paranoid. I wish I could say I'm not, but when you have a stalker, hypervigilance is actually a sound and valid coping mechanism, and one which might very well keep you safe. So yes. Notice when you find things not as you'd left them -- both online, (signs of hacking) and in your real life. Pay attention to when you get hangup calls, and how many you get. Pay attention to unfamiliar vehicles. Use tracking software on your blog if you can find some with which you are comfortable. Notice all the little forms of harrassment that your stalker uses to let you know he's still there, waiting for you to show him how scared you are. Add these to your documentation folder. Give them to the police as they happen. Do not let them slip under the radar.
Rule six: do not underestimate the effects this fear will be having upon you.
PTSD is nothing to laugh at, nor is it something that can be just shrugged off and bootstrapped through. It's real, and it's caused by shock, terror, and anxiety states EXACTLY LIKE THE ONE YOUR STALKER IS TRYING TO PUT YOU INTO. Having a psychiatric professional (not a drug-doc, necessarily, but definitely a therapist who has treated PTSD and abuse victims before,) to whom you can talk, and with whom you can process YOUR reactions to what's happening is really critical. Telling yourself you mustn't be afraid, or you can't give him the satisfaction is all very well, but the tension and anxiety still will need talking out, and a pro can watch for danger signs that your husband or BFFs won't know even if they spot them. If you can't afford it, see if your local rape crisis center offers counseling support for Domestic Violence/Stalking victims, and if not, can they direct you to a worthy therapist who will work on a sliding scale. Chances are, if they can't help you, they'll have built up a links list of doctors who can, and who will.
Rule seven: do what you feel you must do in order to be safe.
If that means you delete your online presence, move house, and never write again -- well, I will grieve for you, and rage at the bastard who did it, but I will not blame you. I CANNOT blame you, as I have not that right; not my shoes, not my mile, as I like to say. If you choose to buy a gun, and get really proficient with it; if you choose to install security systems in your home; if you choose to take karate classes; if you choose to give your threatened pets to someone who does not have an internet life, and is therefore not a target; if you choose to get your friends in Anonymous to hit the asscracker with a DDoS attack until his server pleads for mercy; if you choose to hire a bodyguard; if you choose to sleep with a machete; if you choose to hire a private investigator to track your stalker down and provide you with HIS home address -- these are your choices to make, and the consequences thereof are yours to account for.
But please do not just ignore it and hope it will go away. Generally it doesn't, because a troll that will turn stalker only escalates from there. Asshats don't go to that kind of trouble unless they have a taste for fear, and eventually verbal terrorism won't be enough. He'll need to actually SEE the terror in some girl's eyes as he proves his might on her -- it might not be you. But it will be someone, sooner or later.
Common Sense Disclaimer: If you know someone who needs this information, I have no objection to your either reposting it, or linking them here.
Also, I am well aware that male bloggers can get female stalkers, who can turn quite abusive. My advice is actually not very different for them. However the escalation path of a female stalker is markedly different to a male stalker of a female victim, and too, the phenomenon of a female fan persistently threatening a male blogger is quite a small demographic, whereas the reverse of those gender roles happens with depressing regularity these days. Thus I chose to directly address the attacks of male stalkers on female bloggers. If you feel you need to address the reverse in your own blogs, you have my blessing.
Discussion of the topic of stalking, cyberterrorism, and violence-trolling is appropriate in the comments, however trolls, apologists, and poo-throwing monkeys will be rolled in their own dung, lit on fire, and roasted on a spit,(metaphorically,) before being thoroughly banned, and all trace of their assmilinery expunged from the record with neither apology nor the merest trace of shame. If you wouldn't say it to your mom, don't say it here. That is all.
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