Tide goes in, Tide goes out, and we little waves keep rolling

the dmv in silent hill

both big and small! like, major book publishers expect their authors to run their own PR campaigns for their books! which used to be almost doable in the age of a robust twitter ecosystem but becomes a full time job in a fractured post-twitter world.

they're honestly expecting authors, people who's primary skillset is writing, to appear in their own tiktoks as if they know how to do such extrovert skills as "appear genuine on camera" I really think this is why so many books suck ass right now, we're not letting quiet bookish nerds who's main skill is WRITE BOOK get published in favor of whoever can talk to the public in the most engaging way over social media.

That used to be a whole job (several jobs even!) and you didn't have to write your own books (or make your own art) to do it and get paid well for it.

like, it used to be generally understood that authors and creatives are usually shy people who need a lot of alone time to create ,and you can drag them out to conventions and make them talk about their OC's and answer bad questions in public, about once a year.

These days, you have to log on, and be in that mindset, 24/7/365 and if you ever slip up and either say something that isn't perfect, because some fool has misunderstood your story and your OC's so badly it irritated you, or you so much as dare to demand offline time to write without responding to inane questions, it all crumbles and you can't get published.

combine that with the other side of the delicate writer temperament which is that being sensitive makes you reactive and easy to bully, and here we are.

obviously my advice is to split your writer persona into two people (or more) make up a pen name, write your story together, and then send one of you out to talk to the public while the other stays home and writes.

twenty-five (!) years later I came out as a trans man.

now. the important thing to know about my ex-husband is that he loves nothing more than 1) horrible puns, preferably bilingual ones; 2) terrible dad jokes; and 3) committing to the bit until the end of time. he absolutely lives for Shenanigans and Japery. i do not know how his long-suffering wife puts up with him, but they've been married for more than 20 years so presumably she manages.

so, to break the news to my ex, i texted him. the exchange went something like this:

me: "great news, i'm a trans guy now"

him: "oh, congrats!"

me: "thank you. now for the better news: I insist you refer to me henceforth only as your ex-husband. do you accept this challenge?"

and my cis, straight-as-an-arrow, lives-in-the-midwest, married-to-a-minister ex-husband was like

and he paused for a second and then said, “when you’ve been taught from a young age that crying is weak and you should train yourself never to cry for any reason, you assume that everyone else has trained themselves too, so anyone who cries has to be doing it on purpose. it took me a long time to realize that wasn’t true.”

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.