Make It Happen Thursday: The Ethical Author Campaign and Other Thoughts

 

So, I found a link to a post about something called "The Ethical Author Campaign."

https://selfpublishingadvice.org/alli-campaigns/ethical-author

According to the post:

The Ethical Author Code was first devised as a “Big Idea” for The Bookseller's  FutureBook Conference 2014. The idea was to give authors a way to signal to readers that their publishing business activities are aligned with industry best practices.

I don't believe there's a problem with me sharing the tenets of the Ethical Author Campaign. In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't create this list, I copy-pasted it.

The Ethical Author Code

Guiding principle: Putting the reader first

When I market my books, I put my readers first. This means that I don’t engage in any practices that have the effect of misleading the readers and buyers of my books.

Courtesy

I behave with courtesy and respect toward readers, other authors, reviewers and industry professionals such as agents and publishers. I behave professionally online and offline. If I find myself in disagreement, I focus on issues rather than airing grievances or complaints in the press or online, or engaging in personal attacks of any kind.

Aliases

I do not hide behind an alias to boost my own sales or damage the sales or reputation of another person. If I adopt a pen name for legitimate reasons, I use it consistently and carefully.

Reviewing and rating books

I do not review or rate my own or another author’s books in any way that misleads or deceives the reader. I am transparent about my relationships with other authors when reviewing their books.

I am transparent about any reciprocal reviewing arrangements, and avoid any practices that result in the reader being deceived.

Reacting to reviews

I do not react to any book review by harassing the reviewer, getting a third party to harass the reviewer, or making any form of intrusive contact with the reviewer. If I’ve been the subject of a personal attack in a review, I respond in a way that is consistent with professional behavior.

Book promotions

I do not promote my books by making false statements about, for example, their position on bestseller lists, or consent to anyone else promoting them for me in a misleading manner.

Plagiarism

I know that plagiarism is a serious matter, and I don’t intentionally try to pass off another writer’s words as my own.

Financial ethics

In my business dealings as an author, I make every effort to be accurate and prompt with payments and financial calculations. If I make a financial error, I remedy it as soon as it’s brought to my notice.

Use of Tools and AI

I edit and curate the output of any tool I use to ensure the text is not discriminatory, libellous, an infringement of copyright or otherwise illegal or illicit. I recognise that it is my job to ensure I am legally compliant, not the AI tool or service I use. I declare use of AI and other tools, where appropriate.

Responsibility

I take responsibility for how my books are sold and marketed. If I realize anyone is acting against the spirit or letter of this Code on my behalf, I will refer them to this Code and ask them to modify their behavior.

I'm already transparent about things. I don't overprice my books, or claim to be some sort of guru, ultimate authority, or anything of that nature. I don't badmouth other writers to make myself seem superior. Doing that would just make me look like an ass. 

I do wonder a bit about the wording on this:

If I adopt a pen name for legitimate reasons, I use it consistently and carefully.

I mean...what?

What are illegitimate reasons for adopting a pen name?

As far as I know, there are two reasons people use pen names. The first is fear for their well-being including their professional well-being if they write under their own name. The second is because they want to use a pen name to differentiate their writing persona from their everyday self. 

And now, let's have a little fun. 

Are the names H. P. Lovecraft or J. K. Rowling pen names?

I say no. The legal names of these authors are Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Joanne K. Rowling. However, when Ms. Rowling writes crime novels under the name Robert Galbraith, she is using a pen name.

If Stephen King were to write as S.E. King, that wouldn't be a pen name, it would just be Stephen King using his first name and middle initial with his last name. Richard Bachman, however, was a pen name for Stephen King. 

The Richard Bachman story is fun to read. Basically, it boils down to Stephen wondering if people would still enjoy his work if it didn't have the Stephen King brand. 

Also, according to the Wikipedia article, "At the beginning of King's career, the general view among publishers was that an author was limited to one book per year, since publishing more would be unacceptable to the public."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bachman

This isn't why I have two pen names. I write in radically different genres. I thought it would muddy the waters too much to publish both my erotic and non-erotic stories under the same name. I also wanted to differentiate my fiction writing from my poetry and nonfiction. 

I chose the name Lil DeVille for my erotica author pen name because I felt it was both very feminine and very cheeky. Lil's a Li'l Devil writing her naughty stories, geddit? 

I initially published my Lovecraftian fiction using the pen name Team Netherworld to represent the various writing personas I'd developed over the years to help me deal with my trauma. I never had dissociative identity disorder. I've always been one "me," but that self was badly fractured, so I developed various personas to help me through. As I started to build my self-esteem a bit more, I realized the "Team Netherworld" pen name was a bit cumbersome, so I replaced it with C. L. Hart.

Although C and L are my real first and middle initials and Hart is the first syllable of my surname, I categorize this moniker as an actual nom de plume. I wouldn't be able to use it in a legal and binding context. C. L. Hartley is a variation of my name that I could use to sign documents. C. L. Hart is not.

Some might say "C. L. Hartley seems like a perfectly good name to use as a byline. Why didn't you use that?"

Well, because I use my real name as a byline on the Ornery Owl Poetry Collections, so I wanted something a little different for the byline on my non-erotic fiction. 

I plan to use my first name and last initial as the byline on my nonfiction memoir/self-help workbooks in keeping with the AA and NA tradition. You may wonder why I'd do this since I've never gone through recovery for alcohol or narcotics. 

While I used to be a heavy drinker and I did use drugs, sometimes fairly heavily, I was never addicted to either substance and I stopped using them on my own. However, I am not fully recovered from my trauma and I still have a tendency to sabotage myself. I like the tenet of AA and NA where people only use their first names. It doesn't matter if the person is well-known or unknown. 

Nobody has any more inherent worth than anyone else. That's the point I'm trying to get across by using Cara H as my byline on the Ornery Owl Diary and Workbook series. I'm neither better nor worse than anyone else. When I create these books with the intent of helping others, I am not Cara Hartley, Poet and Writer. I am not C. L. Hart, author of weird fiction. I am not Lil DeVille, High Priestess of Pornographic Cheek. I'm Cara H aka Ornery Owl, someone who quite possibly should not be alive given the abuse heaped on me by myself and others, but I'm here anyway and maybe there's a reason for that. 

And why Ornery Owl you may ask?

Perhaps in part simply because I like owls. However, another part of the answer lies in the serenity prayer.

grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can,

and wisdom to know the difference.

The severed, broken, damaged, abused, lonely, outcast human does not always possess that wisdom. The Owl knows, and she is Ornery enough to persevere. 

That's the reason behind Ornery Owl.

Free use image from Vintage Snips and Clips on Pixabay

Eugenia hosted Make It Happen Thursday at the Go Dog Go Cafe blog from 2018 to 2022. She stepped aside at the end of 2022 to concentrate on her other blogs. I'm not sure if anyone else will take up the reins, but I still like the Make It Happen Thursday concept--when I'm not doing FOAD Thursday, that is! 

Go Dog Go Cafe is still worth a visit!

https://godoggocafe.com/

Just Jemi: Hey, Thrillers!

Just Jemi: Hey, Thrillers!:   Lindsay swallowed hard and looked into the camera. “Hey Thrillers. It’s been a fun year broadcasting with you. Just wanted to let you know...

The unexpected ending is a lot of fun!

I was always a big horror fan, so you'd think I'd love Halloween haunted houses. I don't--I despise them! I prefer my horror in a book or on a screen.

Denise Covey: #WEP OCTOBER 2022 CHALLENGE - MICHAEL JACKSON'S "T...

Denise Covey: #WEP OCTOBER 2022 CHALLENGE - MICHAEL JACKSON'S "T...:  Hello there! It's time for the WEP October thrilling challenge where writers are asked to respond in any way they choose to Michael J...

In some ways, this story reminds me of an episode from an old Vampirella comic. The girl's father was a devil worshiper, and one night she saw him being absorbed by a light entity. Years later, she married a charming fellow who turned out to be a demon. That story scared the hell out of me! 

This story made me think of the girl I used to be and how desperate I was for male attention. I did some really stupid things in pursuit of such.

WEP Challenge October 2022: Thriller

 

Image by Лечение Наркомании from Pixabay

Genre:

Nonfiction, memoir

Word count: 

1000 Words

Critique Preference:

I'll accept a full critique of the mechanics, but I'm likely to get testy if anyone negatively criticizes the subject matter. I discuss mental health issues including substance abuse and trauma in this essay. If you dislike reading about such topics, I recommend giving this piece a pass.

Tagline

Sometimes the thing that thrills you most is a mask for what you'd rather not see.

Here's my story, it's sad but true...

Our subject needs no introduction!

Okay, she kind of does.

I’m Cara H, the Cheesy One, The Cheesemeister. I’m Cie, pronounced C. My real name is pronounced Care-ah, as in I care or pretend I do. Anyway, it ain’t Car-ah. The Car-ah is something you drive-ah. If I were a Car-ah, I’d kill you if you tried to drive-ah me.

I write dystopian and Lovecraftian fantasy and science fiction under the pen name C. L. Hart. That’s my first two initials and the first syllable of my last name. I picked it because my literary heroes H. P. Lovecraft, P. G. Wodehouse, and J. K. Rowling asked me to join their prestigious Secret Society of Authors Using Two Initials and a Surname.

If there really were such a society, I would join. We would sit around drinking tea and telling stories.

I also go by Owl. Ornery Owl, that is. Ornery Owl is the persona who pens my poetry and helps me dredge up repressed memories. I am Ornery Owl and I have something to say, come what may. You can listen, or you can ignore me. Whatever.

I was born on February 15, 1965, during a raging blizzard. It was a portent of a turbulent life to come.

I wish people would have listened when the head nurse spoke up and said leave this one alone. People have always made it their business to get up in my business, even though they didn’t care a hill of beans for me. It’s the rare person who gives a damn. The rest are either nosy or evil.

I grew up dancing with the likes of The Beatles, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and The Rolling Stones. Later, I danced in the dark with Bruce Springsteen. When The Kinks said “Come Dancing,” you know I did.

“Do you love me now that I can dance?” I asked my schoolmates.

“You can’t dance. You’re ugly and weird. Nobody likes you,” my classmates said, and my inner critic confirmed it.

My inner critic’s name is Ayce Hole. I named her after an awful diet candy infused with lidocaine. It was supposed to numb your stomach so you wouldn’t feel hungry. I wanted to look like the After pictures in the Ayce ads, so I ate the candy.

When I looked in the mirror after noshing on a couple of mouth-numbing caramels, I hoped to see a gorgeous swimsuit model looking back at me. Instead, I saw an unhappy, bulimic teenager with numb gums, and because the candy had no nutritional value, I was hungry. Like most miracle cures, Ayce was a scam. Quelle surprise!

I was seventeen years old and a senior in high school when Michael Jackson’s album Thriller was released. I dug the Werewolf story set to music. I wanted to create exciting entertainment like Michael. I was an ugly duckling with a voice like a pissed-off swan, but I hoped that the Powers that Be would take pity on me and alter my less than comely appearance and far from crowd-pleasing musical abilities. Barring that, I hoped they would put me on the path to becoming a comedic actress. Character performers don’t have to be drop-dead gorgeous.

What I craved even more than talent, however, was adulation and excitement. I not only needed to be told I was good enough, I needed it reaffirmed constantly. I needed to hear that I was amazing! Beautiful (in an unconventional way)! Talented! Wonderful! Of course, because I don’t really believe a word of it, I needed it repeated again! Again! And again!

I wanted to be the thriller, and I wanted to get my thrills. I was always on the hunt for the next party. I needed one drink to pull me out of my shell, another to lower my inhibitions, and however many came after that to help me forget how much I hated my life and myself. I couldn’t stand for things to be still. I always felt like I was buzzing inside. Being high or drunk helped reduce the imbalance between the way things were and the way I felt they should be. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my behavior was a cry for help.

It literally took more than five decades for me to finally understand what was going on in my head. I had many erroneous labels slapped on me over the years. My favorite of these has to be “hysterical neurotic.” I’ll never forget the clown of a shrink who bestowed that sassy little number on me. I’m proud of the way sixteen-year-old me gave him what for. He was a damn Freudian misogynist who didn’t deserve the respect he demanded. I saw right through him.

My second favorite label is “borderline personality disorder.” Borderline personality disorder is the modern hysterical neurotic. This label is overwhelmingly applied to women and girls. The manifestations of “borderline personality disorder” don’t come out of nowhere. Every single person this label is applied to has complex PTSD. Every “borderline personality” has been traumatized, often sexually.

I was also misdiagnosed as having both type 2 bipolar disorder and OCD. When I was unable to afford Lithium, I expected to have “bipolar” episodes. I never did. With a little research, I discovered that I actually have ADHD and complex PTSD. People with ADHD can manifest obsessive behaviors and negative feedback loops that mimic certain aspects of OCD. However, the approach to short-circuiting such behaviors is different with ADHD than with OCD.

Suddenly the reasons for my thrill-seeking made sense.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve been cheated because I could have started making progress a lot sooner if I’d known what was really going on sooner. However, as the curmudgeonly Dr. House observed, you don’t get what you deserve; you get what you get. No amount of complaining will allow me to go back and make my discovery sooner, so I’ll just have to take it from here.

One day at a time.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Free use image from Open Clipart Vectors

https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2022/10/wep-october-2022-challenge-thriller.html

Sally's Scribbles: GLASTONBURY CND FESTIVAL - WEP

Sally's Scribbles: GLASTONBURY CND FESTIVAL - WEP: WRITE EDIT PUBLISH The music theme continues this month April 2022 giving us  A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall  Bob Dylan  Glastonbury CND Festi...

Good work on this by Sally. My one nuclear disarmament protest involved walking to the now-closed Rocky Flats nuclear power plant outside Boulder, Colorado. The protestors held hands to surround the plant, which also manufactured nuclear weapon triggers. It was very peaceful and I don't think anything harder than cigarettes were smoked. I doubt we accomplished anything but there was no harm. 

I certainly could walk a long way in those days! Now I have trouble walking more than a quarter of a mile without my upright walker because of the problems with my lower back. 

I never went to a festival on par with Glastonbury where I had to camp out or anything. I'm the sort of person for whom "camping" means in a cabin with running water and electricity.

 I did drag my then 13-year-old son with me to a festival in Winter Park in 2003. It was far less fun than I hoped it would be. The bus transporting us from the lodge to the stage area was full of drunk idiots (of course). 

I wasn't doing well either. My well-meaning but ignorant doctor kept trying different antidepressants on me. I learned the hard way that those drugs do absolutely nothing for my depression or anxiety, but they do make me psychotic. I wasn't violent, but it was frightening for my son to see me so off kilter. 

Thankfully, those days are behind me. 

Where It's At Wednesday: Little Bites with Sensible Bunny

 

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Greetings to my -666 fans! Meet Sensible Bunny, the newest member of the Crazy Creatives Cheerleading Camp.

Sensible Bunny takes little bites of both food and her to-do list because she doesn't like to choke on her food and she doesn't like to become overwhelmed by work, even when it's working towards a creative goal.

Sensible Bunny and I created a new daily planner for me. Today's task from 52 Weeks of Writing was to break my goals down further. Since I have a lot of goals, I've broken them down over the course of the week. The new planner looks a little bit something like this:

Week At A Glance

My World Monday

Rhyme Time Tuesday (doesn’t have to rhyme) + Review It Tuesday

Wednesday Edits

Take a Chance Thursday/Make It Happen Thursday (pieces for submission, review the current week’s progress, and plan for next week. Visit Go Dog Go Café to participate in Make It Happen Thursday.)

Flash Fiction Friday, Fanfic Friday

Sexy Saturday (erotica series)

Change the World Sunday (poetry, pictures, and politics) + Sunday Dinner at the Grover Hotel

This doesn't mean that I can't work on other projects on specified days. What it means is that since I have a lot of goals, I now have a day where I bring each one into focus. For instance, on My World Monday, I focus on my serials from my Universe (including certain borrowed characters.) The Mighty Adventures of Nyarlathotep and Yadira. The Perils of Gerry and Pepper. The Madcap Adventures of the Dreamlands Brotherhood. And so on.  

I've got a lot of 'em. I wish I'd thought of them twenty-five years ago. I will never finish this interconnected set of serials. They will continue on and on until the day that something stops working in this old body. Perhaps if the soul reincarnates, I will continue working on them in another life. Or perhaps I will instead run screaming away across the fields upon seeing one of my books and decide to work on something--anything--other than writing.

I have thus revealed that I believe reincarnation is a possibility. Or I hope it's a possibility. Or I'm a fatalist and suppose that it's probably what happens because I can't imagine the grind not continuing. The wheels of the gods grind slow but they grind exceeding fine and all that sort of thing.

I'm not here to convince anyone else to believe as I do or even suppose as I do, so I would appreciate if you do not presume it's your place to browbeat me into believing as you do, whether you believe that I'm going to hell for not being a devout fundamentalist Christian or whether you believe I'm stupid for postulating that reincarnation is a possibility. I'm not here to argue about theology. I'm simply expressing my thoughts on the matter. 

That being said, I like this simplified and catchy system, and if it helps me to imagine a friendly cartoon rabbit reminding me to implement it, that too is my business.

I've never understood why some people get so snifty about adults liking cartoons. I'm not saying that you have to like cartoons. Don't tell me I can't like them. It doesn't make a person more or less mature to like or not like cartoons. I find a character like Sensible Bunny appealing and comforting. Sensible Bunny would never berate or scold me the way my inner critic does. 

A person who does not have a history of being emotionally abused probably doesn't need a friendly cartoon support animal. This doesn't make the person who benefits from such a concept less worthy of respect or more deserving of ridicule. The people who think it does need to take a hard look at themselves and ask themselves why they see the need to be so mean-spirited to make themselves feel superior.

I have remembered that I always found writing poetry before I write anything else calming. I've done this over the past couple of days. I do not put any restrictions on my expression. It doesn't need to be the best poem in the world. I often confine myself to short forms because I have a tendency to run on otherwise. 

You know, ProWritingAid, some adjectives and adverbs are necessary. I don't ALWAYS confine myself to short poetry forms but I generally do. I changed the word to "often" instead, but fuck's sake. Sometimes these damn grammar checkers are irritating as fuck. 

Anyway...

Writing prompts are useful tools to prevent my mind from running amok. I haven't been able to share my recent creations with the writing prompt hosts because I am planning to submit the poems created over the next few days to Humana Obscura. Since I want to thank the prompt hosts for their help and want to let other writers know about the opportunity for publication, I leave a comment doing just that.

In fact, here you go. Don't say I never gave you anything.

https://www.humanaobscura.com/submit

It is freeze-your-tender-parts-off cold today. Our furnace runs on propane. Propane prices per gallon mirror gas (petrol) prices. We have a 1000-gallon tank. The propane company divides our fills into equal monthly payments rather than insisting on the entire payment up-front. Nonetheless, it's expensive. This month's bill was $225. 

The stove, water heater, washer, and dryer are all-electric. This month's bill was around $225, which is better than it was the first year we were here but still a big chunk of change for people living only on my $1240 per month disability check. It's actually $1380 per month but fucking United Healthcare takes away $140 of that for Medicare. Anything over $1308 means you're living too high on the hog, you disabled piece of shit. 

If you think I'm bitter about this Draconian system that comes nowhere close to covering the cost of living, I am. I speak not only for me but for those who have it worse than me. 

LEAP (Low-Income Energy Assistance Program) will give AmeriGas (the propane company) $500 sometime in the next couple of months. I don't know exactly when. They do it when they do it. It helps, but I'm pissed off because they gave us $1000 last time and only $500 this time. I suppose they don't have the funding to give as much. They rely on donations. 

Imagine that, a program that the government should run has to rely on donations so people don't freeze to death. Fucking hell. If anyone asks me why I'm a socialist regarding welfare programs, issues like this are why. 

I suppose I've gone on long enough. I'll probably pick this up again tomorrow, but as a wise man once said, tomorrow never knows.

I'm concerned about my only two friends. I've not heard much from either of them in quite a spell. I always worry that I've made people angry, but I suspect they aren't doing well. 

Spirit of the Universe, help me keep taking things one day at a time. Please help me remember that I don't need to measure up to anyone else's standards and please help me to be realistic in my standards for myself. I want to be challenged but not overwhelmed. Perhaps it will sound trite and unsophisticated, but let me know you are there and that you care. I often act like I'm an island, but I'm a lonelier island than I like to admit. Amen.

Ornery Owl is thanking Sensible Bunny for her assistance.

Free use image from Open Clipart Vectors

Resource Books:

52 Weeks of Writing

https://amzn.to/33sESxd

Self-Help Sucks

https://amzn.to/3sCWA9q

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

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Come As You Are Party + Charity Sunday: Association for Size Diversity and Health

 

Free-use image from Pixabay

Content warning for brief mention of self-harm and suicide ideation

What if neither of the bodies depicted in the image above is "bad" or "wrong?"

What if they are both just bodies?

This is the concept promoted by the Association for Size Diversity and Health.

https://asdah.org/

The Association for Size Diversity and Health adheres to the principals created by Dr. Lindo Bacon in their book, Health at Every Size. 

https://bit.ly/HAESCIE

A full explanation of the HAES approach can be found here.

https://asdah.org/health-at-every-size-haes-approach/

The Health At Every Size® (HAES®) approach is a continuously evolving alternative to the weight-centered approach to treating clients and patients of all sizes. It is also a movement working to promote size-acceptance, to end weight discrimination, and to lessen the cultural obsession with weight loss and thinness. The HAES approach promotes balanced eating, life-enhancing physical activity, and respect for the diversity of body shapes and sizes.

Speaking as someone who tried to hate myself thin for 33 years to no avail, the diet approach did me more harm than good. My thyroid fried itself as I entered my teens and I developed PCOS. I have been treated shabbily for my size not only by the general public but by those who are supposed to "do no harm." 

When I was in nursing school, size-shaming was not just overlooked, it was actively encouraged. 

Even my current GP, who does not harp on weight loss and generally treats me with respect, honed in on weight as the focus for why I should increase my dosage of thyroid medication, which I am reluctant to do because too much thyroid medication causes my blood pressure to rise and my pulse to race. 

She suggested adding in another blood pressure medication, an idea which I gave a hard pass. I am already at the maximum dosage of two blood pressure medications, Irbesartan and Amlodipine. I can't take ACE inhibitors, which make me cough, or beta blockers, which exacerbate my asthma. I refuse to take a diuretic because I already have to pee all the time thanks to diabetes, another gift from my trash fire endocrine system.

Whenever the focus is placed on my weight as opposed to my overall health, I go into a shame spiral. I starve myself. I don't want to go out in public. All the hard work I've done to accept myself goes to shit as I once again start imagining cutting the adipose tissue away from my body, calling myself a worthless, fat piece of shit, and thinking that the world would be a better place if I killed myself.

I wrote about how it feels to be a large person in a world that loathes large people in the following poem, which you can read if you care to.

https://poetryofthenetherworld.blogspot.com/2020/11/i-eat-myself.html

Ragen Chastain, creator of the Dances With Fat blog, wisely observes that people don't take care of the things that they hate, and that includes their bodies. Teaching people to hate their bodies is emotional abuse, not "tough love." If shame worked, there would be no addicts, no alcoholics, no fat people, nobody with mental illness, and no smokers.

A person's size is more complex than the "calories in, calories out" model proposes. One can't determine anything about a fat person's food intake, level of physical activity, medications, or medical conditions by their size. The only thing one can determine is that the person is that size.

Even medical professionals who agree that many larger people have endocrine problems still deem it acceptable to shame these same people for their size. I can't wrap my head around that.

I told my PA that the numbers I care about are my blood pressure and my labs, including my blood glucose. I said that discussions of my size or weight are off the table. 

I am more likely to comply with treatment protocols if I'm not mired in self hate.

Emotional abuse doesn't work to mold people into what others think they ought to be.

Imagine that.

I will be donating a dollar to ASDAH for every comment on this post. 

As this post discusses a sensitive topic, I would appreciate that comments be respectful or not made at all. As someone's mother once said, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything.

My share for today is my entry for Day 25 in my perilous diary, Breaking Free from My Addiction to Validation. This journey has not been without it's setbacks. I am obviously still fighting my demons, and they win more often than I would like them to. 

Day 25

October 29, 2021

Spirit of the Universe, please set aside everything I think I know about myself, about my story, about my need for validation, and especially about you, Universe, so that I may have an open mind and a new experience with myself, with my story, with my need for validation, and with you, Universe. Please help me to see the truth. Amen.

I’m going to say something shocking.

You don’t need to “love yourself.”

If you’re like me, self-loathing is behind many of the difficulties in your life. I have trouble asserting myself and standing up for myself. It is very difficult for me to form bonds that go deeper than the superficial. I don’t trust other people and I tend to put myself last. The problem with the median nerve in my left arm stems from the fact that I kept pushing myself well beyond the warning signs that something was going wrong until one day I was in excruciating pain and could no longer work.

If you don’t stand up for yourself, people will walk all over you.

However, if you’re like me, you just can’t hang with the idea that you need to “love yourself.”

When people tell me that, it makes me cringe.

The only person who can say that without it making me cringe is Ru Paul.

Therefore, I advise you not to focus on “loving” yourself.

Accept yourself. Respect yourself.

You are as good as anyone else. Nobody deserves to be taken advantage of or treated like crap.

You don’t need to believe that you’re beautiful. I’ll never be able to think that I’m beautiful. Honestly, the idea feels kind of creepy to me. “Beautiful” has never done me any favors. It’s a lie that guys who want to get laid without caring about who they’re hurting tell.

I once saw a post on Tumblr that said something along the lines of “I don’t think my stretch marks are beautiful. They aren’t ‘tiger stripes.’ But they are human and deserve to be treated with respect.”

That is what I’m talking about.

I will never think that my too-small eyes with their skimpy eyelashes are beautiful, although I’ve always liked the color even though it’s a moss-green rather than a scintillating emerald green.

I will never think that my chipmunk-cheeked face is beautiful.

I can’t see my double chin as beautiful.

I don’t think that my gray hair is beautiful although I’ve always liked the thick texture (except that it’s a real pain in the ass to take care of) and I do like the way it looks right after I’ve applied the silver dye that I use to give it a bit of pop.

I don’t think that my big ass, chunky legs, jelly belly, or saggy boobs are beautiful.

And no, I don’t think that my stretch marks are “beautiful” or “tiger stripes.”

What I do think is that people don’t need to be “beautiful” or “fuckable” to deserve to be treated with common decency.

This old, fat broad deserves to be treated with the same levels of common decency as someone half her age and/or half her size.

You don’t need to think I’m beautiful and fuck off with “seeing the potential” in me. That shit is just creepy. Honestly, nobody wants to be made into someone’s project.

You don’t need to “love yourself” or think that you’re “beautiful” to be worthy of respect and dignity, and that includes from yourself.

I have a graphic that I use in blog posts with reasonable frequency. It says: “the pressure to be perfect is purely for profit.”

Who is benefiting from convincing people (women in particular) that they need to be a certain size or look a certain way, or they are worthless?

The beauty and diet industries have perpetuated this trash for years. They benefit from our self-loathing. They encourage it. It’s time to hit back and knock these multi-billion-dollar bullies on their asses.

Two of the items in my son’s and my recent food bank allotment were Smart Ones turkey dinners. These things were awful. There were four tiny morsels of turkey in a weird-tasting runny gravy with watery garlic-flavored mashed potatoes on the side. Aside from the fact that this isn’t enough food for an adult, it was entirely unpalatable.

I used to sink a lot of money into diet frozen dinners and shakes that left me ravenously hungry an hour later. This crap prompted binge eating because starvation does that.

The only diet you need is the Fuck It Diet.

https://bit.ly/FIDCIE

I eat many more healthy foods and binge a lot less since I stopped dieting.

This doesn’t mean that my story has a Goldilocks ending where I magically become the “just right” weight and the handsome prince comes and swoops me off my now-svelte feet and we live happily ever after. I’m still fat and there is no prince, not that I even want one. But I am healthier and feel better at the size I am. Not that this is a measure of my moral worth. As Ragen Chastain says, nobody owes it to anybody else to be what they consider “healthy.”

Spirit of the Universe, please help me to accept myself at whatever size I am and wherever I am in life. Help me to discern what I really want to focus on in life and to follow my dreams.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Fat and Ornery

Free-use image from Open Clipart Vectors on Pixabay

The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)

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Naughty Netherworld Press: A Leap of Folly #8Sunday #MFRWHooks #SnipSun

Naughty Netherworld Press: A Leap of Folly #8Sunday #MFRWHooks #SnipSun:   Image by Marta Cuesta from Pixabay Note: I had a really odious week and was not up to sharing fiction or even poetry this go-round. This...

A snippet of an autobiographical piece that I wrote for the Reedsy prompt this week.

Hope. Dreams. Life... Love: Beyond the Book: Desks

Hope. Dreams. Life... Love: Beyond the Book: Desks:   “What is in your desk drawers?” I had a desk in my study for maybe twenty five years. It was a cheap if well designed desk with plenty of ...

I work at a desk for projects like scrapbooking but I haven't used a desk for writing and the like in years. My feet swell when they are in a dependent position for too long. It actually works better for me to sit with my legs up on a couch or bed so my feet aren't hanging down. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse, so that is how I roll.

Blow Your Stack Saturday: I'm Not Special or an Inspiration and I Don't Want to Be

Guerrero Words: Dancing… in Ink: The COVID-19 pandemic has stolen a lot from people. It has taken loved ones, work, health, sleep, easy smiles, peace of mind… It has left mi...

I'm a hermit by nature, so isolating doesn't bother me. In fact, even in a town of 154 people, sometimes it's too "people" outside for my liking. 

I mostly have an "it is what is" attitude towards my various physical issues, but I bloody well wish that people would stop calling attention to my walker! 

I bought myself an upright walker so I could walk further without my back and right leg screaming at me. I can now walk a mile in relative comfort if I take brief breaks whereas before the walker I could do a quarter-mile at best. 

I swear sometimes if one more person gives me an "attagirl" when I'm just trying to take a walk in peace, my head will explode so hard that the whole town will be wiped off the map.

I suppose people mean well, but I find it demeaning and the trepidation at being confronted with praise for going out and taking a walk makes me not want to go out. 

I'm just a person taking a walk who has to use a tool so their back doesn't kill them. I don't want special treatment, praise, or pity. I just want to walk in peace.

Anyway, this post inspired me to lay down these thoughts, which means it was thought-provoking, and that's good. So, thank you!

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Angry and Ornery

Free-use Image from Pixabay

The Hidden Self

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

This is a response to a post by Pensitivity 101.

https://pensitivity101.wordpress.com/2021/03/22/worlde-230/

I always hated working in an office setting, having to pretend I was someone I wasn't. To a degree, though, the same applied when I was working as a bartender in a casino.

Rainbow: a model office worker

Rainbow: a model office worker:                                                                                 Author: Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken 

My neurological makeup made me a poor candidate for office work. I would become severely clinically depressed after a couple of weeks having to adhere to a schedule that necessitated being awake at 4:30 in the morning. The years that I worked in an office setting were among the worst in my life. I always did much better working evening or night shifts, which generally meant doing physically demanding jobs.

Becky Flade, Author: Half Price for Every Device #MFRWHooks

Becky Flade, Author: Half Price for Every Device #MFRWHooks: March is National Women’s History Month and March 8 th – specifically – is International Women’s Day! I love to write strong, unique women....

These all sound like interesting stories. I'm probably the odd one out here, but I didn't mind reading just the blurbs although I would not have found excerpts bothersome at all. 

As for a woman I admire, I'm going to say something that is very unlike me because I'm generally quite hard on myself. At the moment, I admire me for not having punched my own ticket as I have wanted to do so often in life. Try though my haters might, they ain't found a way to kill me yet. I'm too obnoxious to go down easy.

If I Had Only...

 

Image by Dina Dee from Pixabay

This is my response to a post by C. Lee Mackenzie.

https://www.cleemckenziebooks.com/wep-kicks-off-2021-with-a-kiss/

As someone who has been sexually assaulted, I resonate with the feeling of wondering what I did to provoke it. Even years after the event, I wonder if maybe I could have prevented it if I had behaved differently at the time.

The image that I chose for the post reminds me of a dream that I had at six years old. In a tomb within a pyramid was a woman wrapped in bandages like a mummy whose body had been cut into perfect cubes, yet she remained alive. Her face had not been wrapped. She was anywhere between 25 - 40 years old. Her eyes were closed and her expression was one of sadness and resignation to her fate. There were at least two men in the tomb with her. I could sense that she felt like she might as well play dead because a woman is not allowed to live her own life, she must live to serve man.

I can't recall being consciously aware of the prevalence of chauvinistic attitudes and the fact that women are always supposed to be pretty and compliant while men can look however they look and do whatever they like, but I suppose that I must have had some awareness of the inequalities that I was destined to face because I was a girl. I wasn't pretty, but I wanted to be. Still, perhaps there was an awareness that being perceived as pretty is a trap too. It sucks to only be desired for beauty.

Even at that young age, I was aware of the way that men looked at women and what they expected of women. My mother did not get to have her name as "Susan Ornery" or even "Mrs. Susan Ornery" on her credit card. The name on the credit card was "Mrs. Roger Ornery." The department stores and credit card companies viewed married women as their husband's property.

At six years old, I had the silly idea in my head that I wanted to have twelve children named after each month of the year. I later altered this to the more sensible idea of having twins, a boy named Glen and a girl named Glenda, because I loved Glen Campbell's song "Rhinestone Cowboy." However, I knew damn well that I never wanted my name on my credit card to be "Mrs. Dick Grayson," even though I was head over heels in love with Burt Ward as Robin. Even if I changed my last name, the first name on my credit card would be my own.

I honestly see that dream as precognitive. I have had a difficult go of things and many of the abuses that I have endured are 100% because I am female and there are a lot of angry males in the world who use women and children as punching bags.

~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~

Free use image by Open Clipart Vectors on Pixabay

52 Week Blog Challenge: Two Words: Hell and No

https://mfrw52week.blogspot.com/

Week 33 Question:

Online dating: Have you? Would you?

You know that saying, unlucky at cards, lucky in love?

I don't know where that comes from, but I'm crap at both.

This was a rubbish post. I'm sorry. I was working on a new chapter for one of my WIPs and haven't even gotten around to publishing comments on my new MFRW Book Hooks post yet. Anyway, I just noticed that I missed the cutoff time for this. I'm going to bed now.

Image by Irina Savchishina from Pixabay

In closing:

Online dating: Fuck a whole lot of that shit. I'd rather nail my foot to the floor.

Tan Renga Wednesday on Saturday: Cherry Trees in Full Bloom

Image source

springtime is coming

hope to put the longer days

to practical use

shadows become longer

cherry tree in full bloom grows

~Chèvrefeuille & cie~

notes

Once my son and I are done clearing out that blasted mobile home (the one where I lived for 18 years and he lived for close to ten) we will finally be able to concentrate on what we want to do with our new home. I would like to plant a few dwarf fruit trees. I've always loved cherries, both as a fruit and a plant. I try to keep looking to the future, to have aspirations but also keep in mind the need for practicality due to my health issues.

The Ageku of this Renga is © Chèvrefeuille. The Hokku was written by me.