After suffering a minor physical breakdown last week, I fled to the bookstore. Because this is how I drown my sorrows: in the pages of a book.
And it would have been perfect if not for the noisy meeting of Future Bestselling Authors Who Wear MuMus Covered In Cat Hair. They had spread their fat massuscripts all over the middle of the coffee shop and were criticizing each other's work at full volume.
YOU CAN'T FEEL YOUR TEARS IF YOU'RE UNDERWATER! I MEAN, WHO DOESN'T KNOW THIS??
I hazarded a glance at the poor old lady whose novel-in-progress was being decimated by Balding Critic. I wanted her to stand up for herself, like HEY, have you ever tried crying underwater?
But Balding Critic wasn't done.
THIS IS 1945 WE'RE TALKING ABOUT! YOU HAVE TO USE THE APPROPRIATE RACIAL EPITHETS!
Then Balding Critic started listing them out–for the entire store to hear.
I was like: oh, crap. My geographical proximity to this is making my whiteness feel guilty by association.
After an agonizing moment, another member of the group spoke up, timidly: "Well, do you think someone will buy a book that has [racial epithet] on the first page? I know I wouldn't."
I was about to cheer for Timid One when Balding Critic shook her head vehemently: "NO! NO! THIS IS ABOUT HISTORICAL ACCURACY!"
Well, at least, her version of it.
Which was more like historical accurassy.
And that's when I moved camp to the far end of the store.
Dude, no wonder I gave up on graduate writing seminars. What a joke those were, all us unpublished authors sitting around slamming each other's writing. Or trying to come up with brilliant analysis of some guy's story about a dinner party where the main entree was Poop Loaf (I'm not making that up).
Now I just blog. And people send me hate mail.
Know what? It's way better. Dude, I love the Internets.
Historical Accurassy
After suffering a minor physical breakdown last week, I fled to the bookstore. Because this is how I drown my sorrows: in the pages of a book.
And it would have been perfect if not for the noisy meeting of Future Bestselling Authors Who Wear MuMus Covered In Cat Hair. They had spread their fat massuscripts all over the middle of the coffee shop and were criticizing each other's work at full volume.
YOU CAN'T FEEL YOUR TEARS IF YOU'RE UNDERWATER! I MEAN, WHO DOESN'T KNOW THIS??
I hazarded a glance at the poor old lady whose novel-in-progress was being decimated by Balding Critic. I wanted her to stand up for herself, like HEY, have you ever tried crying underwater?
But Balding Critic wasn't done.
THIS IS 1945 WE'RE TALKING ABOUT! YOU HAVE TO USE THE APPROPRIATE RACIAL EPITHETS!
Then Balding Critic started listing them out–for the entire store to hear.
I was like: oh, crap. My geographical proximity to this is making my whiteness feel guilty by association.
After an agonizing moment, another member of the group spoke up, timidly: "Well, do you think someone will buy a book that has [racial epithet] on the first page? I know I wouldn't."
I was about to cheer for Timid One when Balding Critic shook her head vehemently: "NO! NO! THIS IS ABOUT HISTORICAL ACCURACY!"
Well, at least, her version of it.
Which was more like historical accurassy.
And that's when I moved camp to the far end of the store.
Dude, no wonder I gave up on graduate writing seminars. What a joke those were, all us unpublished authors sitting around slamming each other's writing. Or trying to come up with brilliant analysis of some guy's story about a dinner party where the main entree was Poop Loaf (I'm not making that up).
Now I just blog. And people send me hate mail.
Know what? It's way better. Dude, I love the Internets.