You Can Help the World Learn About America’s First Female Presidential Candidate!

I was originally going to post about Women’s History Month, but then this contest came up and it is related, so I couldn’t resist.

My book Madame Presidentess is historical fiction based on the true story of Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president of the United States in 1872 – 48 years before women got the right to vote. Last year it was optioned for TV/film but that didn’t work out so I have the rights back again. Taleflick and I are working hard to get more producers interested. And you can help!

Madame Presidentess is part of a special TaleFlick Discovery contest celebrating International Women’s Day. That means it gets an extra chance to be made into a film or TV show. But only if you vote!

 

 

To vote, once you click the button above, find my book and click the Vote button that looks like an up arrow on the right.

Ends: Fri. March 13 at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT/4 p.m. PT

Officially, you can only vote once. But you can always try again on a different device…Not that I’m advising you to or anything.

If you get a message that you’ve already voted, it means someone on the same IP address has already voted. This happens in workplaces a lot. You will need to vote from home if that occurs. If you’re still getting that message, please don’t give up! Contact Taleflick support ASAP.

Winning books need thousands of votes, so please share with all your friends. Here are some graphics you can use.

Thank you!

It’s time.

This time last year – April 5th, 2018 – I published a post that, among other things, reflected on the upheaval surrounding the RITA Award nominations.

You can find that post HERE.

The RITAs are the romance genre’s version of the Oscars. They’re sponsored by the Romance Writers of America (RWA), and if you write romance, getting a RITA nomination is a Very Big Deal. When the awards were announced last year, there was a huge uproar because the majority – the large majority – of the nominees were white.

In years past, authors of color have been nominated and a couple have won RITAs, but no black author has ever won a RITA award.

I finished last year’s post by encouraging everyone to read outside their comfort zone, to buy books by authors of color, and to listen to what authors of color have to say about how they’ve been treated and how they want to be treated.

And then a weird, but not entirely surprising, thing happened.

Nothing.

I mean, I wrote that post with the best of intentions, and in fact I followed my own recommendations, picking up books I might not otherwise have read. The ‘listening’ part didn’t happen, though. Not because I didn’t care, but because…I don’t know…the opportunity didn’t present itself?

Yeah, that’s kinda lame.

See, for the last year and a few months I’ve been treasurer of the Rainbow Romance Writer (RRW), the LGBTQIA chapter of the RWA. Last year when the RITA nominations caused such a stir, it was brought to the attention of the RRW board that authors of color view our chapter as unwelcoming. At the time, we put out a statement vowing to change.

Which makes my inaction that much worse, because I could have worked for an opportunity, and I didn’t.

Did I mention that when the RITA nominations were announced this year, they were just as white as in years past? The biggest difference has been the fall-out: authors of color spoke more forcefully, on twitter and on various RWA forums, calling out the Nice White Ladies whose subtle, unexamined racism perpetuates the system.

I am a Nice White Lady.

I care about the usual range of liberal causes, and I want to live in a world where racism isn’t a thing, where we can all let go of that particular piece of baggage.

It’s a nice idea, but we’re nowhere close to that yet.

In the days since the announcement of this year’s RITA nominations, I’ve kept pretty quiet, preferring to read the twitter threads and Facebook posts and show my support through re-tweets and likes. Which is fine, but it’s also a demonstration of the thing I can’t ever let go of.

My own privilege.

Here’s the thing. Once the social media dust settled last year, I was able to put aside these issues and focus on other things. The authors of color I know – even those I consider friends – don’t have that luxury.

This was brought home to me with particular eloquence in this essay on privilege by NBA player Kyle Korver. (HERE‘s the link to his essay.) More than anything else, this paragraph resonated with me, and prompted me to write this post:

What I’m realizing is, no matter how passionately I commit to being an ally, and no matter how unwavering my support is for NBA and WNBA players of color….. I’m still in this conversation from the privileged perspective of opting in to it. Which of course means that on the flip side, I could just as easily opt out of it. Every day, I’m given that choice — I’m granted that privilege — based on the color of my skin.

No matter how important I think the fight against racism is, I have the ability to put it aside in a way some of my friends don’t. Hell, I was able to take a whole year off, even after hearing that a group I help run is part of the problem.

It’s a sobering thought.

I’m left asking myself how I’m going to make things different this year. It’s easy to throw things down in a blog post and then let them slide because there’s no accountability. I will say I’m lucky, because the same authors who pointed out that our RRW chapter has issues are willing to work with us, to share their ideas so that we can create a more diverse chapter.

I’ll be working with the other RRW board members to move forward on that dialogue. (Can it be a dialogue when one side is mostly listening?) In addition, the RWA has put together a number of resources for encouraging diversity, and while I don’t want to make a bunch of empty promises, I’ll be exploring what’s there.

I may not be able to change the world, but I can work on myself. I can put more effort into recognizing all the ways the game is rigged in my favor,
in the hope of finding places I can level the playing field, so that next year’s RITA nominations are a celebration of diversity as well as excellence.

How to be Creative in the Chaos that is Now

First, let me say that I am proud of Liv and Lyra sharing their posts the last two weeks. As authors and public figures it’s difficult to know whether or not to speak up about politics, always afraid of hurting our livelihoods for offending people. But I think we all know that things are just different now and we need to speak up and not fear reprisal. If you didn’t get a chance to check them out last month, please go have a quick read.

I do want to get back to talking about writerly things, but we cannot ignore the fact that the current climate has really had a hard, hard impact on writers. The constant chaotic news loop we’re stuck in takes so much out of us. Every day, sometimes multiple times a day, there is some new horror or frustration or just plain bullshit that has us throwing up our hands, randomly cursing, or slumping over with a deep sigh.

So how, how do you push through all that crap and be creative? How do you check out if even for a little while so you can get your words for the day? You don’t want to look away because that is a privilege and the guilt is overwhelming. But you lose your goddamn mind if you don’t take a break once in a while, right? Another chaotic loop.

Well, first of all, the best thing you can do is look the monster in the face. Take five minutes in the morning to call your three reps (both senators and your MOC) and tell the staffer or leave a short VM with your name and zip code and tell them why you’re calling, what you’re supporting or protesting. They’ll take a note, thank you, and be done with the call. Boom. One important contribution done. And yes, you should do this multiple times a week. If you have phone anxiety call after hours and leave a VM, those still count.

Secondly, participate, if you can, in protests. I can’t tell you how much faith and hope and resolve the Women’s March gave me last year. Even in my small city, the turn out was amazing. This past weekend my husband and I joined in on the Families Belong Together March. In the past my husband has had to work when the protests were scheduled in our area, but not this one, so he was able to go. He really didn’t think it would be much of a turn out, he wasn’t as excited as I was. At least, not until we got there. When the crowd filled in his whole demeanor changed. He joined in on the chants, he raised his fist, he took a spare flag from another protester to hold up (this was a very big deal because my hubs is a Marine Vet and in Nov 2016 he packed away all his USMC and veteran apparel and refused to wear any of it or talk about being in the service because he was so angry and disillusioned).  Seeing so many people turn out in our small piece of America, seeing all the other veterans proudly wearing their hats and shirts, really changed something in him. If you need that, go to a march.

And finally, do what I’ve done. Give yourself a break. Not forever, not indefinitely, but take the time you need. We all need to recharge. When you’re ready, get back to work, but take as much time as you need to finish a project. You all know I’ve been talking about a new book, but I haven’t written one word yet. I did finally manage to flesh out the two main characters and that feels like something. In doing so I was able to think about the magic systems and a seedy, black market system that will work as a wonderful red herring to the mystery I’m still figuring out.

Another thing I did to help me this year was become a student again. Not back to uni or to a workshop,  but I did look up Brandon Sanderson. Plenty of people know who I’m talking about, but if you don’t, he’s a best selling Epic Fantasy writer, who also happens to teach. And what’s even more amazing, his lectures are on YouTube. I watched an 8 series lecture and took copious notes. I started watching because I wanted to learn what he had to say on magic systems, but then realized it was a whole class and decided to start from the beginning.

Now, I’ve written quite a number of books, so I like to think I know what I’m doing, but it was still nice to take this as a refresher course. It gave me some food for thought about a lot of things and it felt good to be a student again. There are a lot of his lectures to be found, but I started with his BYU 318R Writing Class. Seriously, check it out. And if you’re a newbie writer and struggling with your first book and can’t afford/don’t have time for school, take advantage of this. It was an amazing course, probably better than a lot of the classes I took in uni because so many of those were focused on reading.

Hopefully something here helps you figure out a balance to being informed without being overwhelmed and getting back to work. We need a middle ground; don’t let them steal your fire.

Vote.

On Tuesday our blog-mama Shauna PMed me a reminder that I was on the schedule for this week. I opened WordPress and started a new post and….

….crickets…

For the last couple days I’ve done little more than stare at the blank blog page, wondering what in the hell to write. This doesn’t seem like the time to tell people all about my fluffy new romance….which isn’t happening anyway, because I can’t focus long enough to write the words.

No, my overwhelming response to current events can be summed up in two words:

We’re fucked.

The government is kidnapping children at the border? We’re fucked. (See Lyra’s No Kids in Cages post from last week.) The Supreme Court determined the *president’s (blatantly racist) travel ban fell within his scope of authority? We are fucked.

Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy is retiring, giving the *president another opportunity to stack the bench and putting at risk women’s rights and LGBTQIA rights and many of the other things I consider vitally important?

We are so, so fucked.

Then this morning I read a short essay by a guy named Will Stenberg. He’s a musician, and he wrote a compelling argument against the phrase “we’re fucked”. (Here’s a link if you want to read the whole thing.) His premise suggests that, while “we’re fucked” is a fair initial, first-brush, emotional, response to any given situation, making it the only response is tantamount to giving up.

Basically, “we’re fucked” = rolling over and letting the bad guys win.

And that’s not really me.

The big hook in Stenberg’s essay was that it may be old fashioned and not very sexy, but VOTING has never been more important. We must vote in our primaries and in next November’s election. We must vote our hearts, and our dreams, and our future. Yes, we may not all agree on specific issues, but we must show the world that we value tolerance, and equality, and fairness.

All the Russian interference in the world won’t be able to overcome a thunderous voter turn-out.

If November feels painfully far away, or you’re feeling helpless, I thought I’d share a couple things you can do right now to get involved.

First, you can email info@TonyTheDemocrat.org to sign up for Postcards To Voters. I’ve been doing this for the last few months, and am approaching 500 postcards sent to support Democratic candidates from Florida to California and a bunch of states in-between.

Every time I see a news report that pisses me off, I ask for 20 more addresses and get writing.

Also, this Saturday 6/30/18 there’ll be a nationwide, coordinated protest called Families Belong Together. MoveOn.org has put together a site where you can enter your zip code and find a list of events in your area. (Link HERE.)

I signed up for a silent meditation that day, but I think my husband and son will be down at the SeaTac Detention Center where some of the asylum seekers (parents, not kids) are being held. If you’re free on Saturday, I hope you’ll look for something in your neighborhood and that you’ll join with others who want to #resist.

Third, you should follow Celeste Pewter. She’s a former political staffer who keeps a close eye on the issues of the day, particularly in regards to how our elected officials are taking action – or not.

Celeste maintains a website – #ICalledMyReps –  where she details bills that are coming up to vote, and she supplies scripts with talking points via twitter and through her website. Our electeds are working for us, right? Calling them, even if it’s just to say “I hope the Senator will support XYZ”, is the best way of informing them of what their constituents want.

The more calls they get, the more likely they are to take action.

So yeah, these are difficult days. Yesterday in particular was a punch to the gut. But…BUT...the fight isn’t over. This country is young enough that we’ve not yet had to live through an authoritarian regime, and this administration is a tremendous challenge to the strength of our institutions.

I believe We The People are up to the test.

Hang in there.

https://twitter.com/Celeste_pewter/status/1011420722424508417

If you’ve got other ideas for how to #resist, please leave them in the comments.

Also, Mom, if you’re reading this, apologies for all the eff-bombs. These are extraordinary times.