Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp
A haven for creative people living with mental illness. This is the place where you can tell it like it is, not yet another place where you have to pretend to be someone you've been told you should be.
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Insecure Writers Support Group 6 March 2024
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
Insecure Writers Support Group 7 February 2024
February 7 question: What turns you off when visiting an author's website/blog? Lack of information? A drone of negativity? Little mention of author's books? Constant mention of books?
I don’t blog very much anymore, but back when I was more prolific, I was one of those bloggers who got a lot of flak for writing too much about too many different things and also having too many blogs. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had undiagnosed ADHD. As has happened to me all my life, people took a dump on me for the fact that my brain works differently.
I also took a lot of crap for writing about my psychological struggles. At the time, I had been misdiagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder. The diagnosis seemed to fit because there was a pattern of ups and downs. I didn’t realize until I was in my fifties that I had complex PTSD and was dealing with a fuck-ton of untreated trauma. I won’t go in depth here, but I think “borderline personality disorder” is a sexist, bullshit diagnosis. It is the modern-day hysterical neurotic. (I’m old enough that I’ve had both of these labels applied to me.)
Every single person with a “borderline personality disorder” label slapped on them has a history of trauma. The label is overwhelmingly applied to women and girls. If you are looking at someone with a “borderline personality disorder” diagnosis, you are looking at someone with unresolved trauma issues. Treat the trauma and you will see an improvement in the so-called “borderline personality disorder.”
When it comes to blogging, I used to be a much more open book. I saw how well that worked, so I closed the book. I learned a hard lesson that I’m never going to find “my tribe.” I’m a lone wolf, a unique entity, an acquired taste that most people don’t acquire. I’m not looking for validation anymore.
As for the drone of constant negativity, I’d much rather read someone’s real and honest discussion of their mental health issues than happen upon “Little Miss Sweet Tea and Sunshine” (yes, this is really what she called her blog and/or herself) who was, under her syrupy veneer, one of the most toxic people I’ve ever encountered.
“I simply don’t underSTAND those people who can’t see the BEAUTY in life,” she opined. “How can you go through life wallowing in self-pity? I just don’t GET it!”
People like this don’t want to get it. They don’t know or care what anyone else may have been through or are going through. They are best left well alone. As turn-offs go, Little Miss Sweet Tea and Sunshine’s blog is probably the one that turned me off the most.
If I go to a book blog, I expect to see posts about books. The idea that someone could think there were too many posts about books on a blog about books is a real head-scratcher.
If there aren’t enough posts about books on a blog? Well, it’s that person’s blog. They can post about whatever they want.
Sometimes people expect others to be professional content creators and judge personal blogs by unreasonable standards. For these people, I would advise that the blog’s creator didn’t make the blog for you. Don’t be a sanctimonious ass.
The message I get from the various blog rules and regulations is a muddled one. Do this. But not too much of this. Don’t do that. But do some of that. Your blog should have a personal touch. But not too personal a touch. Readers want to see pictures of your pets, but they really don’t give a flying flock about pictures of your pets. Readers want to know more about you as a person—no, not THAT much!
I say write what you like how you like.
Perhaps I have “oppositional defiant disorder.” That’s a new one I just learned about. It translates to being an ornery cuss. I’m ornery because I got sick and tired of people telling me what I could and couldn’t do, and what I did was never good enough for them. I finally said to hell with it and decided to do things my way.
On a personal note, constantly being harshly judged and told everything I did or enjoyed was wrong led me to becoming the kind of person who is only capable of forming superficial relationships. Any person you engage with online may be in a fragile place. It's better to do a little walking on eggshells than to behave like the proverbial bull in a China closet.
Ornery Owl Has Spoken
Free use image from Open Clipart Vectors
Ornery Owl is done with everyone's shyyyyt.
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
Insecure Writers Support Group 3 January 2024
January 3 question: Do you follow back your readers on BookBub or do you only follow back other authors?
Honestly, I'm not very active on BookBub or Goodreads. The only people I follow on BookBub are other authors. The only reason I keep the Naughty Netherworld Press Goodreads account active is because I have the blog feature set to mirror my blog posts on the official Naughty Netherworld Press blog.
http://www.naughtynetherworldpress.com
Facebook rejects links from my blogs as "abusive," and I can certainly see why. There is nothing more abusive than promoting one's writing without putting money in Zuckerberg's pocket. However, Facebook and GoodReads (powered by Amazon) have an understanding, so I post links to the GoodReads blog rather than my own.
You can promote your books on Readers Roost free of charge. Readers Roost is a multi-genre blog, so pretty much anything goes. If you have an upcoming book tour you'd like to let me know about or if you'd like me to put together a guest post for you, email me at chartley65 at gmail with BOOK PROMO (all caps helps) in the subject line. If I'm putting together a guest post I will need a media kit with all information you'd like me to include and graphics attached separately. I can promo books in languages other than English but the post will be in English so the information provided in the media kit must be as well.
I also recommend joining the Marketing for Romance Writers group. You don't have to be a romance writer. You can find other authors willing to help with promotion in this group.
https://marketingforromancewriters.groups.io/g/main
Wishing you all a productive year, whether you're active on BookBub and GoodReads or not!
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
The Xenomorphs Understand #WEP
Per the Wikipedia entry on Lovecraftian horror, H. R. Giger's book of paintings, which inspired many of the designs in the film Alien, was named Necronomicon after a fictional book appearing in several of Lovecraft's stories. Dan O'Bannon, the original writer of the Alien screenplay, has also mentioned Lovecraft as a major influence on the film.
It’s no wonder a fourteen-year-old me, who had not long ago started reading Lovecraft’s works, was so taken with Alien. I was already a seasoned horror buff. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that I started reading Edgar Allan Poe’s works at six years old. I loved reading horror comics under the covers with a flashlight, even though this activity contributed to my fear of venturing down the dark hallway to the bathroom during the night. The giant cockroaches that invaded our poorly-constructed New Mexico home and the whatthefuckery of a massive furnace vent right in the middle of the damn hallway floor making it so you had to scoot along the wall or risk burning your feet on the hot metal grate didn’t help.
I didn’t consciously entertain the idea of the Xenomorphs being misunderstood until decades after my first viewing of Alien. In 2012, I was sick of my life and sick of myself. I was hung up on a guy who was never going to see me as anything but a booty call. I was grieving the loss of my father. I was out of hope, but my son still needed my help, so I had to find something to distract myself from punching my own ticket, which was the action I really wanted to take.
My therapy came in the form of crazy fan fiction crossovers featuring evolved Xenomorphs.
Nobody but me will ever read these stories. When I reread them, it’s obvious how much I needed someone to understand what I was going through and how lost I felt.
The Xenomorphs—my fellow Outsiders—saved me.
Much of my writing centers around the idea of acceptance. I hoped one day I’d find an audience of outsiders like myself who would enjoy my strange worlds. This has never come to pass, which may be no surprise to those on the outside looking in. Normal people don’t get me, and I don’t get them.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I’ve tried to convince people that I’m a writer, but at heart, I’m a wannabe musician. Since You did not see fit to bless me with musical talent, I turn my thoughts into stories rather than songs.
Now you know my secret.
I read a lot of biographies and memoirs, partly because I write fiction nearly every day so I want to read something else, and partly because I’m still trying to find people who are like me in some way. I’m currently reading Edward Van Halen: A Definitive Biography by Kevin Dodds.
Eddie Van Halen had something to say about being true to your vision, and I’m going to let him say it uncensored.
“I’d rather fail with my own shit than succeed with someone else’s.”
Jimi Hendrix felt the same way. I try to keep this attitude in mind, but it’s difficult in a world that doesn’t want stories chock-a-block with troubled characters. As John River said,
“In this world, no one can be different or strange or damaged, or they lock you up.”
They also lock you out. It’s hard to make an impact as a writer anyway, and weird fiction is far from a popular niche. I would prefer to spend my time writing Lovecraftian fix-up novels and kooky fan fiction crossovers, which have some pretty dark roots if you bother to look beneath the surface. Most people don’t. However, I can’t generate social currency with these works, so I spend most of my time writing romance both steamy and sweet.
More than once, my stories have been branded technically proficient but lacking emotion. However, when I let myself bleed all over the page, I receive no response. Reading the truth about someone who was the target of bullying and the victim of sexual assault isn’t fun. However, when I write for fun, the result is deemed “too weird.” I try to give the people what they want, but then I die inside.
It’s not that I think the romance stories I write are bad. I like my comparatively well-behaved literary children. However, it saddens me when I neglect my melancholy, misunderstood, alienated brood with their tragically poetic souls in favor of promoting the more acceptable lot.
Weird fiction has saved me many times.
That’s why I’ll always love my New Weird Tales even though nobody else gets either me or them.
The Xenomorphs understand.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian_horror
789 words
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Insecure Writers Support Group 6 December 2023
December 6 question: Book reviews are for the readers. When you leave a book reviews do you review for the Reader or the Author? Is it about what you liked and enjoyed about your reading experience, or do you critique the author?
I...um...wut?
I'm not sure I understand the question correctly, but I'll take a crack at it.
When I review the book, I'm reviewing the story, including what I liked and/or disliked about it. I probably know little to nothing about the author, so it really isn't my place to critique them as a person.
Sadly, my experiences with Online Book Club burned me out on doing book reviews and I rarely have time, anyway. I'm almost always amenable to doing promotional posts. You can learn more about that at the following link if it sounds like something you'd be interested in.
https://ornerybookemporium.blogspot.com/p/ornery-literary-services.html
Here's a link to a four-star audiobook review I wrote in October. I cite several reasons for enjoying the story and explain my reason for giving it four rather than five stars.
https://ornerybookemporium.blogspot.com/2023/10/for-long-run-audiobook-review.html
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Insecure Writers Support Group November 2023: NaNo or NoNo?
Thursday, October 19, 2023
The Star Child and the Phantom of the Opera #WEP
Over the course of more than a century, many actors have played Erik, the title character of Gaston Leroux's 1910 Gothic mystery/romance The Phantom of the Opera. Born with a disfigured face, Erik was abandoned by his father and his mother expressed overt disgust at his deformity. He wears a mask to hide his face.
A feeling of being an outsider may not be necessary for an actor to portray Erik authentically, but it can certainly help. Lon Chaney, the first actor to interpret Erik on film, was the son of deaf parents. He learned sign language at a young age. Chaney exhibited a self-reliant and perfectionist attitude, which sometimes strained his relationships.
Chaney drew from sympathy for The Other to lend authenticity to his portrayals of deformed or monstrous characters. As he wrote in a 1925 article for Movie magazine:
"I wanted to remind people that the lowest types of humanity may have within them the capacity for supreme self-sacrifice. The dwarfed, misshapen beggar of the streets may have the noblest ideals. Most of my roles since The Hunchback, such as The Phantom of the Opera, He Who Gets Slapped, The Unholy Three, etc., have carried the theme of self-sacrifice or renunciation. These are the stories which I wish to do."
Ray Bradbury once said of Chaney, "He was someone who acted out our psyches. He somehow got into the shadows inside our bodies; he was able to nail down some of our secret fears and put them on-screen. The history of Lon Chaney is the history of unrequited loves. He brings that part of you out into the open, because you fear that you are not loved, you fear that you never will be loved, you fear there is some part of you that's grotesque, that the world will turn away from."
Unlike Erik, Lon Chaney was a triumphant figure whose abilities as an actor and makeup artist are still lauded more than eighty years after his passing.
Nearly seventy-five years after Lon Chaney brought the Phantom of the Opera to life, a man better known as a musician than a thespian brought a powerful authenticity to the role, drawing inspiration from his own experiences. The name Paul Stanley has become synonymous with the Star Child character he created for his band, Kiss. Star Child allowed Paul a way to become someone besides Stanley Bert Eisen, a deeply wounded and angry young man who looked normal on the surface but saw himself as distorted and possibly unlovable.
Until I read Paul’s autobiography, I had no idea how sensitive and thoughtful he is. I knew he had been born with microtia, a condition affecting both the appearance and function of the ear. Paul’s right ear was deformed, lacking an ear canal and eardrum. His peers targeted him for ridicule, calling him Stanley the One-Eared Monster. Between holding his own against bullies and dealing with a volatile home environment, Paul became a defensive personality always ready for a fight.
Although Paul’s parents never expressed any strong revulsion regarding his disability, they weren’t particularly supportive either. Paul describes the house he grew up in as filled with constant tension and frequent arguments. His older sister had serious mental health challenges and at times acted out violently. His parents weren’t affectionate with each other or their children. Paul believes his thirst for acceptance led him to develop addictive sexual behaviors.
Unlike the tragic and ultimately doomed Erik, Paul Stanley is a triumphant figure. He found success at a young age despite his insecurities. He managed to avoid succumbing to substance addiction in an industry that offers constant temptation. He has a healthy relationship with his children. He has been been happily married to his second wife, Erin, since 2005. He credits mental health counseling with helping him work through his anger, self-doubt, and tendency to overextend himself to the point where he starts having panic attacks.
Since Gaston Leroux wrote The Phantom of the Opera, attitudes toward those who do not conform to exacting standards of beauty have not significantly changed. People still place a greater emphasis on a person's external appearance than on their character. While technological advancements have been impressive in recent decades, ridiculing those who fail to meet rigid ideals of attractiveness remains not only acceptable but encouraged. We need to do better, starting now.
730 words
Acknowledgements
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon_Chaney
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtia
Blake, Michael F. A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney's Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures. Vestal, New York: Vestal Press, 1997. ISBN 978-1-8795-1121-7.
Stanley, Paul (2014). Face the Music: A Life Exposed. HarperCollins. p. 13. ISBN 9780062114068.
Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera is in the public domain. Free digital copies of the story are available here.