Agwood

tumblr is banning a swathe of adult content on 17th December. The current state of the new rules states that “Written content such as erotica, nudity related to political or newsworthy speech, and nudity found in art, such as sculptures and illustrations, are also stuff that can be freely posted on Tumblr.“

I have every confidence that this exception will eventually be eroded as our societies continue their decline towards conservative, right-leaning, outrage-by-default state.

I don’t intend to stop reading or writing erotica, nor will I cease indirectly offending people by writing verse that discusses religion, sexuality, politics or any topic in a way someone doesn’t like.

I am officially being repped by Quressa Robinson at NLA. I have a book agent!!! It’s thrilling and nerve-wracking and amazing and terrifying. 

I can’t share the actual query letter yet, but I can share how it all came about.  It’s a long insane story that is so crazy it will seem like fiction, but as this post proves…it’s not!  (Stay tuned for a word of advice at the bottom of this post!

Link to Part 2 and Part 3

1. I wrote a book.  Obviously, right? I’ve been writing for years, but nothing prepared me for the journey that has been my manuscript. We’re talking two years of tears, late nights, early mornings, writing on the train, writing on the bus, printing out 400 pages at work, highlighting,  and note taking only to have beta readers dislike it and having to go back to the drawing board. But finally in July in the year of our lord 2017, over July. 4th week off from work, I finished my book. It still needed work, but I felt strongly that it was good as I could get it and I needed an agent and then an editor to push it to the finish line. 

2. I Researched Agents. I sent my book out to beta readers and used that awful time while I waited for opinions to research agents.  I had a spreadsheet of dozens of names, what they were looking for, their query requirements and why I wanted to query them. That’s very important. Once you query the chances are you will lose your choices. As in, if you only get one agent offer you’re probably going to take that agent.  Querying someone that you don’t really want to work with is a mistake. My book is my baby. I have not given more to anything in this world than what I have given to my book/ I wanted an agent who would love, fight and lobby for my book as hard as I am.

3. I Wrote An Amazing Query Letter OK. I know that it’s extremely egotistical to call my query letter amazing, but my query letter was amazing. How do I know this? Because I used the F-word in the opening line. :-)

 I wrote a letter. I thought it was good. My closest writing friend thought it was good. Then we sent it to an associate who is a published author and she said it was awful. I started again from complete scratch. And wrote in the third person. (I did NOT write from the POV of my character. It was in third person) BUT as if my main character was writing about herself. My main character would curse. She would have the attitude of “this is what I’m willing to tell you at this time and if it’s not enough…too damn bad.”

4. I Wrote An OK Synopsis From the beginning of my life, I have hated synopses. I hated having to tell my mom what happened in school. I hated having to sum up books in middle school, explain historical events in high school and write script coverage for internships in college. I hate summaries. I hate summarizing. So when I tell you I hate my synopsis and think it’s dry and uninteresting believe me. Luckily, I had Charlee, my close writing friend to chime in and say this is good, this makes no sense and that’s not even a word! 

5. I Read the First Fifty Pages of My Manuscript 100 Times Agents have different requirements. Some want a query and fifty pages. Others want a query, a summary, and fifty pages. Or they want the Query, the first 1-3 chapters, and a summary, or a query, the first 1-3 chapters and nothing else. Some agents have forms that ask questions like “If you could describe your character in three words what would those words be?” or “what are three comparable books to your manuscript?” Other agents just want an email with “QUERY: MANUSCRIPT TITLE” as the subject and a simple query. 

I did my best to check grammar, spelling, etc in the first fifty pages. But I went to NYC public school so my grammar SUCKS. Every time I sent the pages to a new agent I would find something else and cringe. Not just cringe but decide I would never get an agent simply because I don’t have the ability to properly check myself. Agents do not expect you to be an editor, but you should try your BEST to hand in pages that are as clean and as ready as possible.  Do not half-ass this process. 

Side Note: A Word of Advice about Querying. 

If you only listen to one tip from me let it be this…Make sure you get the agent and the agent requirements right. Let’s face it, you are probably not going to write an individualized email unless you actually have something specific. I knew that one agent was as big of a Game of Thrones fan as myself and I was querying as Thrones was coming back for its seventh season, so I mentioned her love of GOT as a reason I wanted to query her. 

But the truth of the matter is that I don’t go to writing conventions, I haven’t participated in pitch sessions so there was no reason that any of these agents would know me.It was mostly a form, run of the mill, same for everyone,  query. And many writing tip sites will tell you to add a personal note, etc. But it’s my opinion that it’s better to get to the point than to be insincere. Besides if your Query is good it won’t matter if you used a line of the email to kiss the agents ass.

Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, we’re proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality.

Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).  

Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.

So what is changing?

Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance.

Why are we doing this?

It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.

Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.

So what’s next?

Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time.

Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.

Most importantly, we’re going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions we’re making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content.

Like you, we love Tumblr and what it’s come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We won’t always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one.

1.) make 1 (one) friend

2.) hope that this friend has other friends

have you eaten today?

did you take any meds you need?

how about hydration?

maybe a nap if you need one

you are awesome