Stupid. Tacky. Rude. Obnoxious. Heck, I got tied up with an Access Romance blog post that came before I even wiggled my fingers.
Part of me wants to duck and cover. My off the cuff comments on eHQ have sparked a firestorm of personal attacks. And really, there is nothing I can do. I apologized for offending people on the forum and thought the matter was over. Boy, was I naive.
Since authors seem intent to keep the matter open, let's talk about it constructively so I can learn from the finger pointing and hand slapping, and that commenter who suggested I eat sh*t, and the flowery poster who said good luck at Wal*Mart. Well, I'd love to have a book at Wal*Mart, so sorry that didn't have it's intended offensive purpose.
What I DID say is: "When do you give up on a book?" Meaning, how many pages does a writer have to hook you? The book I was reading at the time starts in chapter three, and I wanted some enlightenment as to why. I got it from eHQ - slow build up to make the reader care, backstory that becomes important later, style.
THEN all h*ll broke loose. I wondered why this kind of book was acceptable after the publisher came out with a 1st chapter contest. Would this book have won the contest? Again, I got my answer, but in doing so tweaked more than a few noses. (By the way, it's considered a stretch for the writer and established authors are allowed that perogative. Readers are buying the author name now, not the line, so it's less risky for an established author to take the chance than an unknown.)
SO I apologized. More than twice. The editor came on and cleared it up. So I thought. Then authors for the line decided to teach me a lesson I did not ask to learn. They decided to teach me professionalism. Which two authors on the eHQ forum had done so tactfully. Still, they felt the need. Odd, since most of their blogblasting was name calling. Professional indeed.
Do they want me to cower? Hide? Shrivel up under a rock? Probably. I'm glad they've never made a mistake. I hope someone is more sympathetic with them when they do stumble.
I also want to say thanks for the support of the people who've emailed me privately, agreeing, but smartly not wanting to open themselves up to the fray. I've never had so many people from eHQ email me in one day. Funny, isn't it?
7 comments:
Stand your ground. I think those who find offense in certain matters are scared to face the truth about their own writings. No one's perfect, but everyone should be entitled to their own opinions. I know there are some best selling authors who I do not like their writing at all...but then a million other folks may think I'm off my rocker. So what? Like you said, name recognition got them there.
Jenna, I wrote a very long detailed response to you at Julie's blog that explains exactly how the whole thing looked from the outside so I don't want to repeat it here.
But summing up, in my opinion, the whole thing had died and nobody had done much of anything except disagree with you. Cordially, for the most part, and many of us just chose to stay out of it (me included) and hope it went away. I was a little worried it wouldn't, because I know Brenda reads those boards.
And I was right. It was NOT the authors who brought it back up, it was the senior editor of the line itself who took offense at your comments.
Everything got bad after that because when she commented, instead of JUST apologizing and waiting for all of this to go away, you went back at her, continuing to knock books in HER line, not once but twice. That, in my opinion, was where you crossed the line from merely opinionated to just foolish. Snapping at the senior editor of the line you want to sell to is foolish. Sorry if that offends you, but I don't know anybody who would disagree.
I'm not saying you don't have the right to your opinion. I'm not even saying you don't have the right to state it publicly on the internet (though I don't think it's wise.) But doing it right on the message boards of the publisher of the books, when you know the senior editor visits there? Well, that was just not a great move, as I am quite sure you now see.
And linking your posts there to a blog here that says (basically) that nobody cares about the name of the author on the book so "better" books by new authors should be the ones getting published instead of the bad ones that are being published now...good grief, did you really think you weren't going to catch any flack? Not just from those authors, but, again, from the senior editor of the line you're trying to sell to who could so easily click on your blog link and read it for herself (as I did??)
I am really sorry you took some hits today and I imagine this was a super-tough ordeal for you. But I also really think you need to acknowledge your own culpability in the whole thing rather than just getting mad and saying authors are using you for target practice because you pointed out how lousy their books are (which is, frankly, how your latest post comes across.) Yes, you apologized...there, at eHq...but it wasn't until after you said the same thing several times so even more people got pissed off. And you were still over here making comments that seemed to negate your apology.
Ya screwed up. Okay. God knows I have done it a LOT (including once wishing a raging case of herpes on a reviewer. Not one of my finer moments, believe me.) It happens. You deal with it.
But getting angry at authors who had a right to be angry with you probably isn't the best way to make all of this go away.
But on the positive side...it WILL go away. Live and learn.
Good grief, so much for summing up. That was obviously every bit as long.
Sorry.
It's hard for me to be pushed. It makes me want to push back. I made my mistake with the best intentions.
In the name of learning I wanted to know why books had different openings. I learned that. Very publicly. I think I've been consistent across all boards in my opinions. Like I said on Julie's blog:
Alison - I’m learning that all I’ve spent the last year studying, I have to unlearn. When you’re starting you try and look for guidance everywhere you can, hence my stalking of the Blaze forums and eHQ Q&As. And too often newbies are told to focus on technicalities. Unfortunately it isn’t until after you sell that you learn editors care little about technicalities and everything about story. Oh. Wow. That was Brenda’s point wasn’t it? Damn. I wonder how long it will take me from all these self-inflicted gunshot wounds?
Oh! And my point about the other authors was that they were calling me out on my lack of professionalism by name calling. No one learns that way.
I feel it is very important to point out that NONE OF US MENTIONED JENNA BY NAME or POSTED A LINK TO THE DISCUSSION or TO HER OWN BLOG. She outed herself by posting. We were not name calling if we weren't using names. We were commenting on your comments and how foolish we thought they were. And hurtful. We didn't even say which thread it was at eHarlequin and since there are about a gazillion, very few people would have known who we were talking about.
Jenna, I tried to explain to you on my blog that your comments were just another in a long line of comments that implied that published authors are lazy. Why do you keep leaving out the part where you said we get a "bye" to write bad books and that the editors don't hold us to the same high standards as new writers. You said on my blog that you understood why writers were offended, but then you come on your own blog and once again start firing at us.
And I, for one, never once read the words "I'm sorry" for what you said--you were just sorry that you offended us. Loads of difference.
And now I'm letting this rest. I see no reason to continue to post to you on this blog or mine. Read what Leslie said and take it to heart--she's trying to help.
This is my opinion as an unpublished writer: I think we've all read books at one time or another that have made us think I can write better than that which is why a lot of us got started writing.
I'm sure my opinion will change once I get published but until then, I am going to continue to write the cleanest, most technically correct books I'm capable of writing. There's no other option for an aspiring author.
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