Writer's Diary

Text of my eMail to RWA regarding Discrimination Against a Class of Members

February 3rd, 2012

I just sent this email to RWA.

Dear RWA Board:

I’m writing to request clarification of the situation with the amended rules for the Magic Writers Ink RWA chapter. By now, I’m sure you are all aware that they have amended their Contest rules to specifically exclude romances with same-sex couples as the romantic couple.

What I’m seeing on the web is that the RWI chapter believes it has the approval of RWA National for this rule change. I would like to know if that’s the case.

If it’s not, I would like a clarification for all chapters of what RWA intended when it (allegedly) gave RWI permission for this change.

If it is true, I wish to go on record as being in vehement opposition to such a ruling by the National organization. It is unfair. It is offensive. It is discriminatory. Authors who write same sex couples are not prohibited from joining RWA. Indeed, there is an official RWA chapter authors who write such works. To the best of my knowledge, they pay the same fee as every other member. I have certainly never seen anywhere that such authors pay a different membership fee. This being the case, what possible justification can there be for allowing an RWA chapter to introduce a rule that limits the ability of these authors to participate in RWA sponsored events?

There are two places in the P&P that I believe prohibit this discriminatory rule: I have highlighted the relevant text, and restate here: All members shall be eligible for rights, privileges and benefits…

14.1.5

Membership Benefits. All members of RWA (except Affiliate members) shall receive RWA’s official publications for which they are eligible, and may attend the Conference and enter the RITA or Golden Heart contest at the member rate. All members of RWA may join one or more RWA chapters, and shall be eligible for such other rights, privileges, and benefits provided from time to time by the Board.

Page 140 of the RWA Policies and Procedures states the following for chapters:

Section 4.7. Membership Benefits. All members of the chapter shall have the right to receive or access the chapter newsletter and to attend chapter meetings and shall be eligible for such other rights, privileges, and benefits [, all for such reasonable fees, if any,] as may be determined from time to time by the Board of Directors. Members may not transfer either membership or membership benefits to another person.

It is my belief that the clear intent of this language is that all members shall be treated equally.

The RWI rule amendment does NOT treat all members equally. Specifically, it excludes all chapters members who write same sex couples from entering their chapter contest. On the face of it, the rule also excludes most, if not all, members of the Rainbow chapter from entering. It also would exclude any other RWA member from entering if their entry fits the exclusion noted.

Can you please clarify RWA’s position on this matter as soon as possible?

I am, at the moment, having a very difficult time seeing how I could continue with membership in a professional organization that discriminates against certain of its members.

Carolyn Jewel
RWA # XXXXXXX

Tags: RWA
Posted in Publishing | 2 Comments »

More Newsy-News

February 2nd, 2012

Review News

Rakehell.com has a lovely review of Not Wicked Enough:

Much like Carla Kelly, Carolyn Jewel has a knack for writing unusual characters who seem to fit with one another. She also can get you into those characters’ heads and make an otherwise boring plot seem new and fresh – which is exactly what she’s done with Not Wicked Enough.
. . .
[T]rust me, this is a book you WANT TO READ. So pick it up and put it on the top of your TBR pile.

Did you get your copy yet?

I was going to mention some other news, but I think I’m going to sit tight while I wait to see about one additional official response. I do have a very amiable resolution to a situation that arose unexpectedly. Why should a writer have an agent? Because they do wonderful things for you like deal with foreign publishers and American foreign rights agents whose paperwork leaves something to be desired. But as said, that situation has been resolved to my satisfaction.

Tags: Not Wicked Enough
Posted in Books | No Comments »

Remember When?

January 28th, 2012

I’ve been thinking about a lot of publishing stuff lately, gathering thoughts, forming opinions etc. But of all the upheaval lately, I can’t help but be struck by something ironic.

Way back before Jeff Bezos named a website after a very large river, there were bookstores! Physical bookstores. Then along came chain bookstores. Really BIG bookstores that had the power to demand and get steep discounts and payola that got called co-op (where a publisher pays the bookstore pretty big bucks to get a title in the best part of the store, or to get a piece of paper tacked onto the shelf under the book, all to improve the chances of that book selling.) This put the independent bookstores at a disadvantage. There was an outcry. Shop Indie!! Don’t buy from the chains!!!

The Mega-Store Model Is Anti-Avid-Reader

I remember when Mom and Pop bookstores started disappearing from my town because they could not compete with Crown, Borders, Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks and the like. Several cute little bookstores just up and closed shop. The hue and cry was still Shop Indie! Don’t Buy from the Chains! Chains are evil!!

As smaller indie bookstores went away, the selection of books at chains and even some of the large independents started to shrink. I remember how hard it started getting to find what I wanted to read. For years and years, my local independent, which I LOVED and still do, did not carry romance. And the dozen or so smaller stores that did were gone. Drugstores, who used to carry racks and racks of genre fiction, got rid of the racks of books because the jobbers who filled those racks were all fired. Suddenly, the only books in drugstores were the same damn books in the chains. One less place to find and buy books.

Then Amazon came along and I remember booksellers and publishers scoffed. Who would buy books on-line and wait for delivery when you could go to a bookstore and walk out with the book right then? Why, you couldn’t even browse!

Amazon’s Model is Pro-Avid Reader

As I reader, I discovered that at Amazon, I could now find the books I wanted to read. I knew who my favorite authors were, I knew what titles were getting word of mouth and I could get those books from Amazon. I could jump on Amazon, search Romance or Fantasy or Barbara Hambly and browse for the books I wanted. I also started hearing that editors, though they scoffed at Amazon, were using Amazon as a way to find out what was unexpectedly selling and as a book-finding system. Amazon kicked ass at that.

I remember when the chains started gobbling each other up. B.Dalton? Acquired. Waldonbooks? Acquired. More bookstores disappeared, gobbled up by other chains. Fewer bookstores, but much bigger stores. Too big?

The pressure from Amazon built and some of the bigger independents started having trouble, because more and more avid readers, annoyed with the dwindling selection of books and the relentless push of the same-old same-old, turned to Amazon. And then Amazon solved the wait-for-it problem. I could order a book and have it the next day. And it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg.

Some really big independents closed. Here in the Bay Area, the two shockers were Cody’s Books in Berkeley (not romance friendly) and Staceys (also not a Romance friendly story, I’m sorry to say).

Avid readers complained about the Borders selection and its inability to shelve or reshelve their stores with books that were getting buzz. Impatient avid readers didn’t wait for the book to finally show up. Why should they when they could order from Amazon and have it the next day? Border’s problems with inventory control were an open secret among readers. They really did support Romance, though, and I suspect that kept their doors open longer that might otherwise have been the case. Several years before the Borders bankruptcy the Borders/Walden Express nearest me closed not because of sales (they were quite profitable per square foot, which I think was in large part due to their awesome romance and genre sections) but because the landlord (a Mall) tripled their rent. If I’m recalling correctly, to $30,000 a month. A MONTH.

Then Border’s failed and suddenly, everyone seemed to forget that Chains were supposedly responsible for the demise of the independent book store. No, it was Amazon who killed them. And Amazon killed Borders too! Except if you read past the first paragraphs of articles analyzing the failure, eventually, you’d get to the description of the inventory problem. That, combined with a corporate cookie cutter mentality about what books would be stocked — so that a Borders anywhere would, supposedly, be the same experience, was a far bigger problem because it was baked in. This cookie cutter/chain store mentality infects Barnes & Noble, stores too.

The Avid (Romance) Reader’s Dream Comes True

Then Amazon came out with the Kindle. It was a success, and anyone paying attention to the Romance community could have predicted it — because eBooks had already been a success in Romance for 10 years. At long last, we’re seeing mainstream acknowledgment that Romance readers are the leading edge. Ignore us at the peril of your book delivery business. Then came 70% royalties for self-publishers and Amazon started eating a lot of lunches.

Now we’re all supposed to cheer for the survival of the last remaining chain store and it’s all Amazon’s fault.

Maybe. From what I hear, Amazon is ruthless. I don’t doubt for a moment that there’s a reason publishers and booksellers actively despise (not just fear) Amazon.

But I’m a reader, and darn it, Amazon makes my reader life better. Print publishers have not made my reader life better. They make it worse, and that’s true despite the fact that they’re publishing books by authors I want to read. As a place to buy print books, Barnes & Nobel is irrelevant to me. The nearest one requires a drive of 13 miles that typically takes 45 minutes. No. No. No. NEVER.

If there’s a book I want to read, or even just a certain type of book, I can have that book 30 seconds after my click and I can do it lying in bed. If it’s backlist that has been self-published by one of my favorite authors, I have that book at a better price.

Since this post is already too long, I’ll save the rest of my thoughts for another post.

What are your thoughts?

Tags: Avid Readers, Chain Stores, eBooks, Rambling Thoughts
Posted in Books, Publishing, Reading | 5 Comments »

News Flash!! DX is Free for Kindle (Limited Time!)

January 26th, 2012

Until 1/31/12 (or thereabouts, might be a couple days longer) my Crimson City novella DX is free for Kindle.

Get DX for Kindle for $0.00

I can’t guarantee the date it goes back to the usual price because I’m dependent on Amazon price matching, however, on February 1, I’ll be setting the price back to $1.99 at the other vendors.

Cover for Crimson City Novella "DX"

Demons. Werewolves. An Internal-Operations agent who just wants her job back . . .
DX is a NOVELLA, and is about 25,000 words. It originally appeared in the anthology Shards of Crimson.

Tags: Crimson City, DX, Free Novella for Your Kindle
Posted in Books, Good News | 2 Comments »

Oh, it’s the CUTEST Trainwreck EVER

January 24th, 2012

Go take a look at what Mr. Cale McCaskey has to tell us about Romance: The Problem with Romance

Women are, of course, quite familiar with arguments like his. They’ve been used for centuries to denigrate anything associated with women that would, if left unremarked, disprove the bias.

Basically, he’s saying that all Romance novels are inferior because if a book that might otherwise be called a romance is actually good, it’s necessarily anything but a romance. This is EXACTLY like the Victorian era physicians who performed an autopsy on a respected colleague only to discover that their colleague was a woman. When faced with the presence of female genitalia, they pronounced her a hermaphrodite. Because it just wasn’t possible for a WOMAN to have been successfully masquerading as a physician and to have been good at it, too.

Right. When the evidence contradicts you, redefine the world rather than adjust your assumptions.

I’m told he’s busy deleting comments he doesn’t like, so feel free to read his post and come comment here if you worry he’ll disagree with you and have to delete your comment in an attempt to keep his narrow world view safe from anything like truth or an open mind.

Tags: aren't those silly guys just so cute, Good grief
Posted in Writing | 13 Comments »

Why My Affair with Scrivener Didn’t Work Out (So Far)

January 21st, 2012

A bit of background first. Way back when I switched to Mac from PC, also bought and used Parallels for Mac so I could continue to write in Word Perfect. Word, as a professional writing tool is horrible. I hate it. None of the default Word settings are correct for what’s required for a novel and trying to fix a formatting issue in Word tends to create a bigger mess.

With Word Perfect, however, I can do everything I need to do and fix problems easily. My WP novels automatically number my pages and chapters and allow me to have the title page and headers I want.

I’d heard wonderful things about Scrivener but it was a while before I wasn’t in the middle of a project with a deadline. I decided my current project was perfect for testing a switch to Scrivener. It’s a novella, so I’d have an answer quickly and if it didn’t work, switching back to WP wouldn’t be all that onerous.

Here’s the Number One Important Thing for Me, the requirement that has to be in place No. 1:

I need to not waste time figuring out what/how to do things. I need to spend my time writing.

I don’t mind spending some time learning. But it needs to be quality learning, not frustrating learning.

What Went Wrong

1. The novel formatting template would not allow me to change fonts. As soon as I started typing text using that template with the default font set to my preference, the font reverted back to the original default font. WHICH I HATED. I have a font I like to use that’s easy on my eyes. I read up on changing preferences, googled etc and nothing solved my problem. I could not get the damn template to accept my preferred font. For that reason, I abandoned the novel template and started from scratch.

2. Things went pretty well for a while. Until I decided I needed to start generating some compiled versions. Suffice it to say, I could not make it create a title page that wasn’t recognized as a chapter and incorrectly numbered. I Googled some more, read some more, consulted the knowledgebase and help and there was no set of enumerated steps that worked as advertised. When I tried to search for the words that appeared to be relevant, I got ZERO results.

When I finally, after HOURS of trying, found a way to make a title page that didn’t get counted as a chapter (and that still didn’t work in a way that was at all logical to me) all my chapters ended up with TWO lines for the chapter heading. (Chapter X was repeated twice for each chapter.) Not only that, but page numbering moved, for some reason, to the bottom of the page. WHY? THAT’S NOT WHERE THEY GO FOR A Novel. At that point, I gave up.

3. The Scrivener help file is awful. The Knowledgbase and forum searching are likewise difficult to search and did not return relevant or helpful results. None of the books I consulted were helpful. They were, sadly, based on working assumptions that do not in any way match the way I need to write.

A Few Other Issues

1. Not all writers need or want structure
2. I no longer write chapter scenes. I haven’t for years. But I STILL had to create chapter folders in order to get chapter numbering. WHY? And once I did that, there was no way to create a title page that didn’t screw up all the numbering.
3. The problem with templates is that most people need/want to customize them. Therefore, customizing a template needs to be easy and it wasn’t. The instructions for changing defaults DID NOT WORK.

I can’t waste any more time on this.

I’m totally bummed because there’s a lot other features I would love to use.

If anyone knows how to make any of this work, I’m all ears.

Tags: Frustration, technology
Posted in Computers and Technology, Writing | 17 Comments »

Tucson Bans More Than Books – Your Right to Knowledge is Under Attack

January 16th, 2012

Here’s the article: Read it.

But they’re not just banning books, which is heinous enough. It gets worse. They banned the teaching of an entire subject: Mexican-American studies.

Administrators told Mexican-American studies teachers to stay away from any class units where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes.”

From the reporters blog: Censored News

So, they banned The Tempest, too.

The decision comes from this Administrative Law Judge Opinion,:

Based on the above, the Administrative Law Judge concludes that the Department has sustained its burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that as of January 1, 2011, and as of the hearing dates, the District’s MAS program had at least one or more classes or courses that were in violation of A.R.S. §§ 15-112(A)(2) (promoting racial resentment), (A)(3) (being designed primarily for one ethnic group), and (A)(4) (advocating ethnic solidarity instead of treating pupils as individuals).

ORDER
Superintendent Huppenthal’s June 15, 2011 determination is affirmed, and on the effective date of the Order entered in this matter, the Department shall withhold 10% of the monthly apportionment of state aid until the District comes into compliance with A.R.S.§ 15-112.

EMPHASIS ADDED
PDF of the decision

So, here’s what they’re saying: teaching students about racial discrimination, promotes racial resentment and makes the white kids feel bad:

The examples from the MAS program cited in the above Findings of Fact, as well as the weight of the testimony presented, establish that the MAS program has classes or courses designed for Latinos as a group that promotes racial resentment against “Whites,” and advocates ethnic solidarity of Latinos. (Administrative law Judge Opinion, page 34, paragraph 7)

This document (pdf) signed January 6, 2012, affirms the budget for the program should be reduced by 10%.

From that, the Tucson Unified School district did this:

All MAS courses and teaching activities, regardless of the budget line from which they are funded, shall be suspended immediately. PDF

The governing board of the Tucson Unified School District consists of these people, as identified on the district website:

GOVERNING BOARD: Dr. Mark Stegeman, President; Michael Hicks, Clerk; Miguel Cuevas; Adelita Grijalva; Alexandre Borges Sugiyama, Ph.D.
SUPERINTENDENT: John J. Pedicone, Ph.D.

This is WRONG. It’s heinous. It’s offensive. And it’s dangerous.

Tags: censorship
Posted in Rant Alert | 5 Comments »

The Jewel Award of Excellence

January 15th, 2012

Who wouldn’t want to win this coveted prize? Established in January 2012, this prize recognizes excellence according to me. Winners are chosen at my discretion. Bribes are welcomed and, well, the competition has been fierce! Winners receive accolades!

This year’s nominees so far:

Meljean Brook for excellence in satire (no Bribe necessary).
Dreaming In Books in the Young Person Most Likely to do Something Awesome (guaranteed winner based on his suggested bribes and general awesomeness)
Alex Smith, Quarterback for the SF 49ers, in the Person Most Entitled to Say FU to the Media Category
Arjun Rampal in the Smoking Hot category

Include your nominee and category in the comments. Feel free to mention the bribe you’re willing to offer me in order to have your nomination win.

Tags: Jewel Award of Excellence
Posted in Arjun Rampal, Humor | No Comments »

Some Reviews For Not Wicked Enough

January 10th, 2012

Publishers Weekly

Miss Lily Wellstone visits her best friend, hoping to improve Ginny’s lingering postwidowhood depression. Unexpectedly, Lily falls into a passionate love affair with Ginny’s older brother, the fittingly named duke of Mountjoy. While buoyant, independent Lily is outwardly trying to breathe life back into the fusty atmosphere of Bitterward with entertainments like treasure hunts and balls, she secretly indulges her more ignoble appetites with the nobleman. But Lily believes love comes but once in a lifetime, and she has already loved and lost, while Mountjoy is all but engaged to another. Readers will enjoy this diverting Regency romance, set refreshingly far from London high society, as they wait to find out what finally drives the lovers to the altar.

Rogues Under The Covers

What an absolutely charming romance this book is!
I adored, absolutely adored, how Mountjoy grows to call Lily Wellstone. That is just so sweet and personal to me. Oh, and the ending. Sigh. You can feel the love between Lily and Mountjoy and the last chapter left me with a huge smile and happy sigh so big that I immediately read it again. Romantic to a T. Overall, a entrancing romance that will leave you happily satisfied and looking forward to the next story in the series! I know I can’t wait for it!

RT Book Reviews – 4 Stars

Jewel’s latest addition to her Reforming the Rakes series reinforces her reputation for writing character-driven, subtle, but highly emotional tales readers will take to their hearts.

Reviewed By: Kathe Robin

Tags: Not Wicked Enough
Posted in Book Reviews | No Comments »

Carolyn Jewel