From Cyborg Love Stories to Sapphic Gore: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Writing

The first novel I ever attempted to write was a cyborg love story.

A scientist decided to craft her perfect mate and, somehow, ended up with a cyborg. The anti-cyborg government decided their love ruined their plan to dismantle all non-human entities and started hunting them.

Really, looking back, it’s not the worst plot I’ve ever come up with, but the writing and characters are best placed in a b-movie (are their c-movies? d-movies? that’s more accurate LOL). I remember that my scientist had gold eyes (no idea why) and the cyborg had one eye in the middle of their forehead (yeah, I clearly got cyborgs confused with cyclopes). Needless to say, it never got published :) In fact, I never showed anyone the story, and it sits on a floppy disc (yes, I’m that old) somewhere in the universe for which I have no idea exactly the coordinates.

Since then, I’ve studied writing, joined many different writing groups, and fulfilled a dream of going back to school and getting my MFA in Writing. I’ve published books, editing anthologies, and become a freelance fiction editor to work with authors and help them enhance their work and, of course, to help them understand the different between an AI creature and a giant from Geek mythology. Oh, and my work-in-progress is a sapphic horror with plenty of gore.

The journey has been wild, and here’s a summary of what I’ve learned about the writing community as well as myself:

The good: Writing is our lives, dreams, therapy, and purpose. It’s the reason we get up in the morning. Creating worlds, characters, and stories is something that runs through us even in those times of writer’s block. For me, it’s the only thing I’ve ever truly wanted to do, and I am thrilled, privileged, and humbled to be a storyteller like so many before and many after. The indie community is extremely supportive and helps boost each other up. Getting something published for the first time is elating, and even if a story never sees the pages of a publisher’s catalogue, sitting down and constructing a story from start to finish is a huge accomplishment that fuels creativity. It’s an incredible occupation!

The bad: We must be our own marketing team, or at least, most of us must be our own cheering squad. The lucky few will land big contracts from big publishers and have teams come up with strategies to sell books. For those who stay in the indie word, by choice or because of living in the slush piles, the responsibility for book selling rests completely on our shoulders. So, if you are an introvert, if you’re not great on TikTok or Instagram, if you don’t want to have an account of every new social platform that comes up, it really isn’t a choice. You have to step up and that can be extremely draining not only mentally but in terms of your time that could be spent writing.

The ugly: It’s no secret that writers get crushed under the sole of egotistical editors, receive a ton of negative reviews from disgruntle readers, and often have their souls squashed by the never ending wait for a publishers response (I submitted a manuscript back in 2014 and still haven’t heard back. Fingers crossed!). We’re expected to accept silence from submissions that go unacknowledged. We are pitted against fellow authors for a rare seat at the table. This is the side of writing and publishing we aren’t meant to speak out about.

So, why do we do it? Is the good worth the bad and the ugly? That’s a decision we all have to make for ourselves. There’s no shame in deciding to move forward in a career that brings more joy. Many of us consider quitting, myself included. There’s times with the bad and the ugly get the best of me, and I want nothing more than to restore my sanity and step away. That’s normal. For me, it’s the good that keeps me going. I remember why I started writing, decades ago, as a little kid buying her first diary with money she earned from cat sitting. Writing was an outlet. It was my joy, and even on the worst days, it still is.

Sometimes, that joy is clouded with disappointment, envy, or frustration, but it’s still there, and while I have to dig deep at times, once I pull it out, it keeps me going.

Happy writing :)

Should Books Have Ratings?

It’s a discussion that keeps coming up. With movies, TV shows, music and video games already under the umbrella of a ratings system, why not books? Would it be beneficial for readers, especially tweens? Or is it one step away from censorship and book burning parties?

First, it’s important to realize that there is a difference between ratings and censorship. Censorship involves altering or eliminating content while ratings involve classifying content based on some sort of standard. When we’re talking about rating media, we’re referring to the process of an independent group such as Common Sense Media which scores books based on several elements including violence, sex and nudity, educational value, and profanity.

So what are the advantages and disadvantages to applying a rating system to literature? Let’s take a look at the issue from both sides.

Pro Ratings

In 2012, a professor at Brigham Young University's department of family life, named Sarah Coyne, conducted a study suggesting adding a rating to book covers, specifically of young adult books. She claims that this would “empower” parents to make thoughtful and wise decisions in regards to what their young children (ages 9 - 12) should be reading.

That doesn’t sounds so bad. Many parents already monitor their children’s media content, using pre-existing ratings to determine if a movie or TV show is appropriate. I know plenty of parents who have guided their children toward more child-friendly content based on the small rating box in the corner of a video game.

But I can understand how supporting a rating system could spiral out of control. Remember book burning? But maybe if society learns to separate ratings and censorship, there could be a way to please those who benefit from ratings while avoiding censorship.

Editor and writer Rachel Manwill’s article WARNING: On YA, Ratings, and Censorship doesn’t support censorship, but does challenge people to consider a rating system claiming, “The ratings themselves are not a form of censorship; the stores and booksellers that would use those ratings to restrict purchases – they are the ones guilty of censorship. The ratings are NOT. “

Valid point. We know To Kill A Mockingbird was banned from schools based on content. It was the adults and school systems that decided to ban it, along with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and even Harry Potter got backlash thanks to some Christian parents who felt the witchcraft premise might not be appropriate for their children.

The ratings aren’t the problem. It’s how we handle the ratings that is the concern. So why should people who want the ratings suffer because some people take it too far?

Against Ratings

Well, some people will suffer because people take it too far. At least, that’s one of the anti-ratings arguments. If we were to rate To Kill A Mockingbird “R” based on theme and content, what would happen?

Scenario One - Parents would be allowed to decide if their child can handle the content. Some teenagers might be more mature and advanced than others, and their parents may decide to allow their children to read this book. Others, may decline. And that would be the end of the story.

Scenario Two - Parents would rally together, citing an “R” rating as completely inappropriate for their teenager’s English class. The book would get banned.

See the concern?

The National Coalition Against Censorship argues this exact point, that public education would suffer and what starts out as an innocent request for ratings would end in censorship.

Writer Lauren Davis examines the issue in her article The Thriving Industry That Helps Encourage Book Censorship. She states “rating services tend to boil content down into overly simplified categories, with bullet points that can at times read less as thoughtful dissection of the texts than as a warning to parents.”

Also a valid point. The violence and racism in To Kill A Mockingbird wasn’t frivolous, but if a parent who never read the book were to look at a bulleted list of “questionable” content found within the book, they might be quick to write it off before giving it a chance. And where would we be without books like the ones on the banned list?

My Opinion

I wish there were a way to have ratings without censorship. As a book reviewer, I can’t tell you how many times I wished I knew what trigger warnings were in a book before I started reading. But yes, that means I would have cut those books off my to-be read list. And to be completely honest, I refuse to read certain books with specific triggers. Some books just aren’t for me, and if possible, I appreciate the heads up.

But as a writer, I want to be able to write whatever I want without fear that someone will rally against my work and deem it unfit for the masses. I care deeply about my stories and my characters. They have purpose and meaning, and it would be discouraging to have my work boiled down to bullet points from Common Sense Media.

So I’m somewhere in the middle.

Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

National Encourage a Young Writer Day - April 10th #EncourageAYoungWriterDay

Let’s Get Writing!

April 10th is National Encourage a Young Writer Day! To celebrate, I am going to give daily prompts on my twitter account and instagram stories in order to encourage anyone 18 years old or under to explore the world of writing. For those interested, they can send their stories, poems, lyrics or scribbles to my at nicobellfiction@gmail.com and I will compile them in a blog post for later this month. You don’t need to follow my prompts in order to be eligible for the blog post. Just make sure your writing doesn’t contain extreme violence, extreme profanity, sexual assault or excessive gore. And please, only those 18 years or younger can participate :)

Open from April 1st - midnight April 10th. I reserve the right not to publish any content I find that doesn’t meet the requirements.

For other ways to encourage youth writing, check out the National Day Calendar website.

Now get writing!

Four Simple NaNoWriMo Prep Tips

Four Simple Tips :

It’s time again! November is National Novel Writing Month. So dust of those manuscript plot ideas, grab a pen and paper, and get started!

Um…

But how? How does one go about the task of writing 50,000 words in a single month?! Especially, November. Uh, ever hear of Thanksgiving? How can anyone get work done while stuffed with turkey?!

I’m going to tell you. :) As someone who loves NaNoWriMo, and successfully participated in it for many years, I’m going to share four simple tips that work for me.

1. Have a sensible timeline. Key word: Sensible. The first year, I decided to write everyday. I broke that promise the first weekend. The key to pacing out this month long marathon is time management, according to your own realistic expectations. If you don’t want to write the week of Thanksgiving, don’t. Just make up those words some other time. Get a calendar, post is someplace you can see from your desk, and keep track of your progress.

2. Gather a support system. This website is perfect for such a task. Not only can you track your success and receive a printable certificate when you complete your work, but you can connect with other NaNos and cheer each other on.

3. Have your plot outlined. There are outliners and there are pantsers within the writing world. Those who write out the details of their manuscripts, the chapters, each individual scene, all before beginning their manuscript are outliners. And then there are people who sit down in front of their computer and let the creative juices flow, no outline at hand. As you can guess, these are the pantsers. For this particular experience, I’d recommend adopting the outliner’s approach, especially if this is your first novel. Knowing how the book progresses will save a lot of time.

4. Have fun!! Turn off that inner editor and simply sit back and let the creativity bolt through your fingertips. You got this!

Getting started is always the hardest. But you can do this! Take it one day and one word at a time. And when it’s all done, come back here and comment below! Let me know how it went!

(Since I’ll be participating, I won’t be blogging during November. )