The Adventures of the Introverted Author and Three Tetchy Teens! (part 1)

A little backstory, if you please...

You already know I write all the words for psychological contemporary romance/women's fiction. You probably know I have three teens (one in college in Georgia and two at home) - Ms. 19; Mr. 16; and Mr. 14 (his birthday is in 13 days so 14 is close enough for government work). You probably also know I live in Washington state - home of the Seahawks, the Space Needle, and way too much rain.

March 11, 5:23 am

So, to start our adventure, I received a text from Ms. 19 in Georgia with the warning that her university was contemplating... CONTEMPLATING closing campus and reverting to online classes only. A few things to note... 1 - she is in her Capstone studies, thus meaning she has an internship hour requirement to fulfill; 2 - she does not have a driver's license or know how to drive; 3 - there is no way in hell her father or I could just drop everything to go to Georgia. So, rather understandably, Ms. 19 had a moment of panic.

Mr. P and I did as we always do and began brainstorming possible options to get Ms. 19 either home or to a trusted friend or family member. We had a plan with many options should the campus be shut, Ms. 19 calmed right down and we carried on.

March 12

Contemplation got a swift kick into "we are closing campus effective March 22" with the notice that all classes for the week of the 16th - 20th were cancelled for students to pack and vacate campus. All students must be off campus no later than Sunday the 22nd. And to make this even more exciting, the decision was made with such haste that the staff was given no more notice than the students.

Cue CHAOS!

Professors trying to calm students while attempting to get solid info from the Administration.

Students scrambling to find boxes, rides, make arrangements, deal with homework, classes, and all the things.

Parents trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Pure madness.

What were out of state students and international students to do?

I spent the entirety of Thursday on the phone with Ms. 19; movers (because how am I going to get her shit from the dorm to a storage unit?); the storage facility we'd used before; the airlines; hotels in Atlanta; Mr. P... my ear still aches from wearing the bluetooth so long. Tickets home were purchased (thank the stars for that early tax refund!!) for Friday the 20th; hotel for the night of the 19th reserved; storage unit secured... all we needed was a mover to get crap from dorm to unit. Plans in place... breathe deep.

Then I got the email from our own public school district...

Effective immediately, all OSD schools would be closed on MONDAY, MARCH 16. Only March 16...

Sigh.

March 13

Ms. 19 put herself to the task of getting her ducks in a row, she found a staff member to help her move her shit to storage on Thursday the 19th so things settled... slightly... for a moment. Until the next email came in at 11:55 am...

Effective immediately: "ALL OSD schools will be closed from March 16 - April 27. Practice social distancing, don't let your children hang out with other children, don't go anywhere, we don't know what the hell we're going to do for classes but if you need to, you can drive through the parking lot and get your kid(s) breakfast and lunch to go. Wash your hands." (-Cliff's Notes version of a really long email.)

SIX WEEKS??

sigh...

March 14

Mr. 16: Hey, Mom and Dad, my friends want to go bowling tomorrow.

Me: That's nice but no. Mr. 16: Why? (teen whiny voice)

Me: Because that defeats the purpose of "social distancing". If your friend's parents are letting them go bowling, then your friend's parents are stupid.

Mr. 16: Fine! (growly, snarly face with a phone toss after a text saying he can't go.)

Me: Remember, son, you aren't the one who is at risk but if you go and become a carrier then run into someone else who has grandparents or compromised health, you spread the mess. Also, when you start feeling sorry for yourself... remember that your brother was supposed to be at Comic Con right now.

Mr. 16: Sigh... I know. I just think it's stupid this crap is ruining everything. Me: I know. But it's life.

March 15, 6:30 pm (so 9:30 pm Georgia time)

Email from Ms. 19 comes in.

"Effective immediately: All students must vacate the campus no later than 5 pm (EST) Wednesday the 18th... oh and stay the hell away from everyone and wash your hands." (-Cliff's notes version)

WEDNESDAY??

Finally, an email that sent my blood pressure through the roof. How the hell can they expect students to revise plans like that? On a Sunday? At 9 at night? A big part of me was ready to get on the phone to the asshat who'd sent that email and give them a piece of my mind.

Deep breaths ... lots of them.

Text to Ms. 19 from me: If they don't let you stay on campus that one extra night, I am going to start deducting the cost of this fiasco from the bill we still owe on.

Ms. 19: Fair enough.

Monday (Today)

Ms. 19 forwards me an email from her university giving her permission to stay on campus until her scheduled (by plane ticket) departure date. Cool. Now I don't have to go all sorts of pissed off mama bear on the university admins. LOL

Mr. 16 and Mr. 14 and I work out a plan for them to do homework/schoolwork from 9 in the morning until lunchtime with no lunches before noon. Any homework due that day must be completed before they are done for the day. If none is due that day then noon is their stop time. Then they should go outside for a minimum of 30 minutes in the afternoon because it's a rare opportunity for them to get air/exercise they don't usually get.

So, barring any travel restrictions, Ms. 19 should be home on Friday evening and I won't be a complete basketcase of sanity by the weekend.

Stay tuned for more adventures of the Introverted Author and Three Tetchy Teens!

#BeAlertNotAnxious #Covid19SocialDistancing

#WeCanDoThis

Food for Thought on the 18th Anniversary.

Have you ever wondered if he really meant to do that?

When September 11, 2001 it thought of, mentioned, discussed, or remembered, it is with horror so mind-boggling that it’s still difficult to process and sorrow so deep that it was and is being felt hundreds of thousands of miles away as though it was yesterday. But with that sorrow and grief, there is also anger.

“How dare anyone challenge the United States of America in such a horrific way?”

“How could anyone be so diabolical as to attack innocent people?”

That anger was felt from the moment the first airplane hit in icy, overwhelming ripples that didn’t just span the US, but throughout other countries – neighbors, allies, and victims of the events occurring in the US. And it fueled the country and its neighbors and allies, uniting us in a way that was almost poetic.

But, did the terrorists who spent months and years plotting and planning the events that

unfolded on September 11, 2001 sit down and plot their “short terms goals and long term goals”? There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Osama Bin Laden intended to deal a harsh and crippling blow to what he considered the epicenter of Western evil. He intended to show the US that they were not as awesome as they thought they were. But did he intend to strike like a viper and then move on to the next lesson to teach Western society? Or did he think, “If I get this plan to go off on 9/11, the world as we know it will end, I just have to be patient.”?

Did he contemplate the long-term effects of his actions beyond the day of attack and its immediate aftermath? Because the effects are certainly continuing.

Why do I say this?

Because through the grief came the anger – which is a normal part of grieving. As the dust settled and things got clearer, the US as a whole realized that they were no longer safe. Safety in our own homes, our own towns, our own states… our own country was gone. Poof. In the space of less than two hours. Two. That was all it took for the entirety of the US to lose their sense of security. If he could hit New York and the Pentagon the way he did with that much success when would he hit somewhere else in the US? His associates – the ones who actually executed the hijacking and attacks – they’d been hiding in plain sight right here in the US! Were there more?

People who’d been sobbing on each other’s shoulders days before, mourning the loss of so many lives and helping each other cope with everything began looking at each other with suspicion and doubt. And so began the long, slow descent into madness.

Over the last eighteen years, the US has sought someone – anyone – to fix the country. The people wanted to feel safe again. The people wanted to return to the innocence of thinking “it’ll never happen here”. The people wanted the overwhelming anger they had regarding the losses of that one day to ease and to stop magnifying every little thing. But they had no way to cope, it was so very overwhelming.

“Surely this president will fix the country, make it what it was before September 11, 2001.”

“Well, he couldn’t so this guy surely will.”

And all the while the anger has festered, rotting the US from the inside out. At the current rate of hate, racism, discrimination, and cruelty, the US will absolutely destroy itself. It’s backsliding so fast down the slippery slope that I’m not sure what can slow or stop that momentum. It’ like the country as a whole is caught in an endless cycle of anger, bargaining, – although who to bargain with is fuzzy at best – and depression.

“I can’t believe people aren’t being properly *insert whatever is the annoyance of the day*!”

“If we just do this *insert fix of the day*, it’ll be better.”

“Well, crap, that didn’t work either, I guess I’ll *insert method of handling depression* and go to bed.”

How do we break this nightmarish cycle? How do we stop the backward slide? How do we find our way through to acceptance that things will never be the way they were before September 11, 2001? There is no group therapy that can possibly be organized to work through the anger and depression. There is no quick fix to the problem because the problem lies with the loss of trust and safety and innocence. And as a country, accepting that things are different means that we have to accept a new vision of ourselves as a country and that’s terrifying. What if it’s not as good as the last vision?

We know the terrorists wanted to hurt and devastate the US on September 11, 2001. We know it. But were they fully aware of the seeds of destruction they were sowing that day and how those seeds would slowly destroy the US from the inside out?

And at the end of the day, do we really want to let the terrorists win? Do we really want to let them destroy this country? Is accepting that we, as a country, have been changed and now need to embrace that change and let ourselves move beyond the hate, anger, and depression so difficult that the United States of America must become the Divided States of America?

What The February!

Well, that happened.

February came upon us in its usual fashion. Snow, cold, cranky peeps with colds, flu bugs, and other gnarly cruds. It seemed like just another month in the wide world of publishing.

However, mid-February proved that wrong when all hell broke loose.

Plagiarizing.

OMG the Plagiarizing.

Then the book theft… I won’t call it pirating because that makes me think of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom and I refuse to give a thief that sort of image or kindness.

Either way, be it via plagiarism or outright theft of an entire book, stealing is stealing, and it is wrong. So very, very wrong.

Thieves do not deserve the romanticism of being called a pirate.

Now, I was raised in a rather strict religious family, not horribly so, but certain tenants were drilled into my head at an early age. You don’t cheat. You don’t lie. You don’t steal. Seems simple enough, like these things should be common sense. However, common sense seems to have left the universe.

When a person chooses to plagiarize or upload a book for free consumption without an author’s permission, it goes against all… and I mean ALL of these tenets.

Plagiarists and thieves steal the work and words of others. They cheat the systems put in place to protect the person who created the original content and they cheat the content creator out of potential revenues. They lie to the readers who think they are getting original content in a legal and honest way. This is why, to my mind, thieves do not deserve the romanticism of being called a pirate.

So what happened with this plagiarism to which I refer?

Well, a historical romance author, Courtney Milan, whom I’ve followed on Twitter shared the news that her book – or at least one of her books – had been used by an alleged plagiarist without permission.

I will pause and note two things here… 1- I will not name names of the accused as I do not believe they deserve more attention. 2- I say “alleged” because at this point there have been no charges filed nor convictions.

But the tale does not end there… it gets worse!

Anyway, Courtney backed up her accusation of alleged plagiarism with side by side screenshots of her book(s) and the alleged plagiarists “book”. The evidence as displayed by Courtney was damning at best but then the plot thickened.

The alleged plagiarist then openly stated that she had no knowledge of such theft and blamed a ghostwriter. This seemed to be quite the cop out, in my opinion, but I was on the outside looking in so who was I to say anything? Please note here, that I, personally, do not use ghostwriters – I have too many OCD and control issues. LOL But… and that is a big BUT, I have nothing against the honest, professional ones who do their due diligence and put forth the best product possible. There is, however, a line that needs to be drawn between the upstanding ghostwriters and those who slap shit together and call it a job well done when it really isn’t.

Readers started paying closer attention to the “books” of the alleged plagiarist and speaking out. The list of authors whose books seemed to have been stolen from began to grow and with that, the list of books stolen grew. A Twitter blogger, Caffeinated Fae, began keeping a list of authors and books. And the list grew.

To date, the list comprises no less than 53 books, 34 authors, 3 websites, 3 articles, and 2 recipes. But the tale does not end there… it gets worse!

Of those 34 authors, Courtney’s name features prominently, as does Tessa Dare, Maya Banks, Nora Roberts, and Diana Gabaldon, just to name a few. Yes, you read that correctly. Nora Roberts, the author whose books your mom’s and grandmom’s read in your youth. Diana Gabaldon, whose Outlander books have been made into a most popular HBO series. Yeah, those guys.

Needless to say, this battle is now being fought by bigger entities than little people like myself, people who are willing to stand up for and stand beside their indie counterparts both big and small.

Have I mentioned that I don’t believe thieves deserve to be romanticized?

My sympathy ends where the excuses begin.

Then, let’s talk about book thieves… they suck.

In the grand scheme of things, authors, musicians, artists, movie creators – people who create the things we all love – have had an ongoing battle with what the law terms “piracy” for ages. You’ve seen the notifications when you watch a movie or seen the disclaimers all over the place when you buy a movie or a piece of music or what-have-you. But there are those who take the purposeful and vile act of this sort of thievery to a whole new level.

It has come to light that there are sites here in the US (technically, it’s an international problem, but we’ll stick to the US today) that actively, openly, and willfully encourage the theft of author’s intellectual property. They invite the users of their site to add stolen content. They state in their terms of service that if a book cannot be found, then the user can request said book and return within days or sometimes even hours to get the book. The use of the DMCA is a futile exercise. The operator of the site states if a DMCA has been sent, then they’ll wait for a bit and get the book back. The flagrant disregard for the law, the authors, and other content creators is repulsive.

Thankfully, as your resident weirdo, my books don’t seem to be popular or cool enough to be stolen so I simply soldier on, watching from the sidelines, cheering for the authors – both indie and trad. However, I can’t bring myself to feel sorry for the people who use the sites that willfully steal copyrighted property.

They attempt to garner sympathy with the “I can’t afford to buy all the books I read, I have bills to pay, children to feed, *insert other lame excuse*…” But they have a smartphone or tablet of some sort or they wouldn’t be downloading illegal content. They have internet service or they wouldn’t be downloading illegal content. If they say “but I have to go to the library, or Starbucks, or *insert other place to access free wi-fi* to get my books” then I say check out a book from said library rather than stealing one. Don’t buy that triple shot uber-doodly-whatever coffee from Starbucks, buy a book rather than stealing one.

My sympathy ends where the excuses begin. If you crunch some simple numbers, it will make you violently ill what these thieves and users steal.

Hypothetically speaking…

If one single book thieving site admits to having more than 21 million downloads… holy hell. I should be so lucky. Now, let’s multiply that number by the price of one of my eBooks – which is $3.99, you get about $83.7 MILLION stolen in one year.

Is your ass twitching yet? Mine is.

Now, let’s contemplate longevity… if that same site has been up and running for ten years… TEN YEARS! That is $837.9 MILLION that the rightful owners of the content never saw. That’s nearing a billion dollars. A billion. From one site. (and there are literally hundreds of them) Let that sink in for a minute.

But the authors get paid when the person gets the original file… right? Nope.

The Amazon policy for return does not consider “pages read” or length of time a file has been in someone’s kindle when a book is returned. The modus operandi of these thieves is to “buy” an eBook, download the file, strip the DRM (the stuff that is supposed to keep it from being stolen or otherwise distributed illegally) then they return the book for a full refund.

How do I know this? Because I, like many… no, ALL other authors, have been victim of the “Amazon Return Policy”. I had one single “reader” in Brazil “buy” ALL of my books… not just one or two; not just one series but ALL of my books in one day and systematically return ALL OF MY BOOKS. In less than a week. The same thing happened with a “reader” in Japan.

Do I think these people “read” my books? I’d be a daft prick if I was that naive.

What these “readers” don’t know or most likely don’t care about is that as authors, we can see what is bought, when, and from what Amazon market. We can see where the problems are occurring but we are without recourse to stop this practice as it is “Amazon’s Return Policy” and they refuse to look at or fix the problem.

The reading community and the writing community form a symbiotic relationship.

But, on the bright side… because there is always a silver lining somewhere.

Situations like the plagiarism and the blatant book theft tend to polarize and solidify the honest readers, writers, and the creative community as a whole. The honest authors strive to work harder to give their readers quality books regardless of the time and effort, we work for quality over quantity. The honest readers spend more time doing their due diligence to avoid the scammers and thieves. The honest readers give their favorite authors a virtual hug and say, we understand and we’ll wait for your next beautiful masterpiece. The honest readers remind the honest writers why they write.

And please, don’t kid yourself… as authors, we always know when the readers are genuine in their love for books and reading. We always know. Just as the readers always know which books are being stolen from and let the authors know what is going on.

The reading community and the writing community form a symbiotic relationship and unfortunately, the parasites seem to be overwhelming the ecosystem. We need help from the “Aqua Scum 2003” *from Finding Nemo* to clean the tank but right now, Amazon, the US FCC, and other regulatory bodies are working with an antiquated “under-gravel” filter that has been clogged by the debris of honest authors slowly dying under the toxicity and has been left uncleaned for far too long.

Why did I share the explosive ending to February with you? Because even though I run in the lower echelon of the writing world, I keep my eyes and ears open… I also get asked about the news that circulates. I may be of little consequence, but I do have readers who are spectacular and some of my very favorite people and I will never hide anything of importance from them. I like to believe that they know they can come to me for honest and sincere answers when they ask. I like to believe they prefer to be informed rather than remaining in the dark to the things that may and often do affect them as much as these things affect me.

In closing, I would like to thank my readers for being so awesome. They are some of the most patient and understanding people I’ve ever had the pleasure of being associated with. I would also like to address the liars, cheaters, scammers, and thieves who may see this… those people suck. There is a special Karma for this sort of person and Karma has a pretty heavy hand when dealing justice. Also, if you’re going to do something stupid like lie, steal, cheat, or otherwise break the law… don’t.