NOT YOUR MOTHER'S PROSE (NAUGHTY WORD WARNING)

WARNING: SOME GUEST ESSAYS HERE TODAY CONTAIN GRAPHIC CONTENT. READ NO FURTHER IF CURSE WORDS OR SEXUAL SITUATIONS OFFEND YOU.

Last week I was honored to guest post for Kellie Elmore on Magic in the Backyard’s Life in Quotations. Kellie encourages her guest authors to share a meaningful quote, put our spin on it, and create an exercise for readers. 

My quote came from author Lorrie Moore: “Write something you’d never show your mother or father,” which created a wonderful outpouring of emotional, real essays. The real-life stories took our breath away. 

Some shared on the site, others emailed me personally and asked if they could share anonymously or in more detail on my site and of course, I’m thrilled to share them here with you today.

• This first piece is by Anonymous. It’s a brutal, raw piece and I’m so proud of her. Her husband left her last year after a tumultuous marriage. Her pain is palpable.

THE LAST TIME by Anonymous

I remember the last time we fucked.

How you took of my body—as you always did.

But this time you stole something else—a part of me I never could have given you.

Your fuck was full of hate and passion-confused, unadulterated deliberateness with intent to hurt me—as you always did. I can’t forgive, my cunt won’t forget, and my spirit will not die.

Fuck you for leaving. I’d have hated if you’d stayed.

My loathing coupled with the deepest love, the kind you cannot accidentally come across. My love was real and you borrowed it, used it like a weapon against me. As you always did, you left me alone—hungry, hurt, and vacant like a room full of only echoes.

I tried so hard to be enough and you let me believe that I wasn’t, that I couldn’t be.

You didn’t pick me—as you always did.

I remember the last time we fucked.

• The next piece is by a new and incredibly smart Twitter follower of mine, Dee Austin. I'd love to read the full piece (if she chooses to write it). I'm grateful she chose to share this with us.   

Found Left Wanting by Dee Austin

It came like a secret least expected, and desperately unwanted. Bringing suspense, and desires once thought gone. Wasting time like stolen years, it left discontent.

• Ashely emailed me with this piece. It took a huge leap of courage for her to share this and she said she never would have had she not come across my post and exercise. I feel privileged to share this with you today.  

Butterfly by Ashley Williams

I have this silly little secret. I shouldn't be terrified to share this with some family and friends, but I am.  Still, it's time to be myself, and if they can't handle it, it's their issue. Not mine. So, here it is. I have two tattoos. Most people will never see them. They are on my back, hidden under my clothes. My own little secret, but now,  I’m saying it out loud. Because amongst most of my family and friends, this is taboo.  I’m a grown up, and I still don’t want my mother to know I have ink, even though I am very proud of the two pieces I have.

The first is a Celtic trinity knot.  I chose it for its Mind/Body/Soul meaning rather than the more recent Christian symbols. I got it four years ago. I’d wanted a tattoo since I was fifteen, but waited (a long, long time)  until I knew the design was right.  I had planned to go with my friend Lara to get the tattoo, but Lara fell very ill. We thought, more than once, that she wouldn’t make it.  When things looked most bleak for Lara, in her honor I decided to go ahead and get the tattoo. It would honor our friendship, whether she pulled through or not. Thankfully, she’s alive and well now.

The other tattoo I also wanted for years, but again had to wait for the right image.  You see, this one is in memory of my dad. Just before and after his death, butterflies were all around.  Old stories say that when a butterfly is seen soon after death, it means the soul of the departed is at peace. My dad died in 1998, and since then, I've had butterflies appear around me when I least expect it.  I think its my dad's way of checking on me. So I knew the only image that would work would be a butterfly.  The problem here was finding the perfect butterfly image to use.  Finally, the cover of Melissa Marr’s “Fragile Eternity” provided the butterfly inspiration I had been seeking.  The artist did a wonderful job. The tattoo is beautiful, the colors vibrant and just what I wanted.  This is a photo of it, immediately after it was done.

I like my tattoos. I like that I have this side of me that most people don’t know. I like that when I catch a glimpse of them in the mirror, I’m reminded of why I got them, reminded of my dad.  I don’t know why I’ve been so hesitant to tell some people that I have the tattoos. I suppose I am afraid of their judgment.  I get that tattoos aren’t for everyone. But if someone judges me for having one, do I really need them in my life?  So, here we go. I guess it isn’t a secret now.  And even saying it out loud is freeing.

• Dawn is a lovely, sweet fan and friend who shared this heartfelt piece. She too said it was so freeing for her to finally, after all these years, write something so close to her heart. I'm so proud of her.  

Incomplete, Forever Searching by Dawn Doyle

Ripped away, my body, my soul, my child. My own parents, trust gone, never replaced. No understanding for me, compassion for her, lost again, together.

(Wow, that was hard. It’s not good, but it is truth, it is real.)

 **Ed. note: I disagree. It's amazing.

• Here's my own piece. Written about lost love.  

Touch by Rachel Thompson

Feeling his hands holding her soul.

Keeping the garden of her emotions,

Close inside his fist.

Meeting her rush of words,

With a silent finger.

Shhhh….

Guarding his heart,

Pushing aside all that matters,

With his clear-eyed gaze.

He grasps her fire,

Before watching

It slowly fall.

Brushing off her tears,

Work to be done.

Knowing but not seeing,

What he can’t hold.

She turns, waiting…

Urgent for his touch.

Clasping in his hands

What he can’t deny,

And doesn’t question.

What he doesn’t

Carry anymore,

Is what cages him.

Walking along the shore,

Folding her heart in his hands.

He keeps it with him,

In the pages of his journal,

Like a bookmark keeping his place

Hidden, at times, mislaid.

She used to be strong,

Never handing over her love.

He’s taken her, filled her…

His slave, his mercy.

Her heart so raw; he doesn’t know--

She’s already 

Lost.

• Finally, here's Kellie Elmore's beautiful piece. Known for her heartfelt, honest and generally uplifting demeanor, I cornered Kellie and asked her to write something on the spot! She came through beautifully. 

Lost by Kellie Elmore 

lost; bearing heart pleas in formed syllables and phrases- doubting smirks conjures tears, not good enough; I believe- sometimes, maybe they are right.

As always, comments welcome, retweets and shares loved. I'll make sure these wonderful, brave souls hear your comments. Remember, they are putting themselves out there and you are here as guests in my blog home. Use your inside voice. 

Finally, a bit of housekeeping. Both my books are officially Amazon Kindle bestsellers and The Mancode: Exposed hit the Amazon Top 100 Paid. To celebrate, both eBooks are available this week for only 99cents  (remember, no Kindle required. Free apps available for smartphones, laptops, PCs, tablets, and cloud). Tell a friend, buy them for your sister, brother, mom, dad, dog.  

I'll be back on Thursday this week with a cool bit of news...

WRITE YOUR OWN DAMN BOOK

aka THE D.I.A.L. STRATEGY FOR DEALING WITH CYBERBULLIES 

I feel really fortunate that I’m in a career, finally, where I write whatever I want. Nobody is standing over my shoulder saying “Nope. You can’t say that.”

Well, there are people who say that, but we’ll get to them in a minute.

I give my thoughts, opinions, curse, talk about sex, high heels, and well, be as much of a snarky bitch as I want. I even say “Hello, Mcfly,” cause I think it’s funny and I’m friends with one of the extras (now an author) from the movie. Sometimes I write difficult essays about my past. I do this because I’m a writer. And because I can.

I’ve written two books of essays, released them both this past year and am thrilled to say they’ve been well-received, are selling well, and one, The Mancode: Exposed, even made it into the Kindle Top 100 Paid the first week of January this year.

For the most part, the majority of my reviews are terrific. For the record, I don’t have friends and family review my books. I don’t even ask. Legitimate reviewers (book bloggers, book reviewers, even well-respected journalists, etc. -- people I don’t know and have never met) are giving their opinions. And of course, there are people who read the book and post reviews on their own.

I also get lots of people who don’t like, no who hate what I write. Who judge me as I person, based on my writing. And that’s cool. No really, it is.

I love that I’ve made them so hopping mad, so emotionally curled up into a little ball of fury that they write horrible, mean things about ME. That this redhead in a sea of blondes is the target of their vehement rants. Me, this chick that a year ago nobody had ever even heard of before.

It’s awesome.

Now, I don’t react to any of these reviews because A) it would be unprofessional and B) seriously, it’s a waste of my time.

But wait. Is it?

As authors, we put ourselves out there and knowingly or not, are now targets of criticism. Reviews, from readers and reviewers, help others make buying decisions. Like it or not, you and your book are now a product. Most legit reviewers follow guidelines – checking for structure, flow, grammar, editing, formatting, proofreading, etc. while readers general give a gut feel to the work.

Unfortunately, there are also people who regularly give 1-stars for whatever reason. To protect their own favorite authors in some way, because they don’t like you, indie backlash, who knows? Oftentimes, these folks haven’t even read the book (notice it doesn’t say ‘Verified Purchase’) and their reviews are often one line.

So, I’ve come up with what I call The D.I.A.L. Strategy for dealing with these 1-star reviews to help my author friends and readers separate helpful reviews from those that are perhaps just cyberbullies.

1) DEAL: One of my author friends says, STOP. Don’t read anything under a 4-star. It’s bad for the psyche. Another says it’s toxic for your soul and it affects your confidence.

But, is it a waste of time to read them in the first place…really?

No. Listen, we put ourselves out there. Accept that people will hate you for whatever reason. Your hair color. Your eyes. Where you live. People hate that I mention a certain brand of shoes and say “baby.”

So what? Deal with it. Man up.

I don’t mean read it to let it get under your skin and crawl into a trembling hole of freaked out chocolate coma. Ok, well, do that if you must, but then get up and drink some coffee. It’s good market research and demographic data, i.e., people who hate that I say “baby” are not people who will buy my next book.

Good to know. And oh well.

For any creative, should we heed our critics?

2) IGNORE. As a long-time sale rep (fifteen years), I had a proven track record of success. Won lots of awards, trips, bonuses, was promoted to the home office, blah blah. Had decent managers, one great one, several not so great. One not so great got in my car for our first ride-a-long and after our first call together said, “I don’t see what the big deal is,” and put me on performance improvement. (This was after I’d been chosen out of all the top senior reps in the region to work with the international head of the company and had a stellar day just weeks earlier.)

What she said didn’t change a thing about my daily routine (except for a few more inane reports). I still exceeded my quotas and won more awards.

My point is this: everyone is a critic. People who dislike you and even people who think the world of you. Is that feedback helpful? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Ignore may seem antithetical to my other points but what I mean is don’t let it eat at your soul. It is what it is. These people are not gods. Does their opinion matter that much if you don’t even know who they are? Do you respect total strangers who are saying awful things about you? I know I don't. 

3) ANALYZE Do I read it all? Yes. I learned, for example, that some people think #hashtags are #typos. People sometimes criticize or judge what they don’t understand. So I added into my introduction an explanation of what hashtags are as well as a quick sentence on my Amazon page. (I even had to explain them to Amazon, but that’s a whole other blog post.)

Someone else said I used cliché “Sex and the City” phrasing in all my essays, which made me laugh since I’m one of the few women who hated that show. Though I did use one example of Carrie in one essay. (And everyone knows she wore Blahniks and I love Prada.)

But that is useful information for future. At some point. Probably. Maybe? 

4) LAUGH What many of these 1-stars write is so off the mark (and I’m not only talking about my books here; I’m very protective of my favorite authors and check their pages often), I often wonder if they read the book I wrote, or if we read the same author’s book.

Clearly many of these folks are on a mission to leave poor reviews for authors that often have nothing at all to do with the content of the book itself. Notice, they are often a single line – a sure sign they haven’t read the book at all.

I wrote last week that it’s important authors (or any creative) surround ourselves with people who support us, but ultimately you have to trust your own voice and vision.

My overall feeling is this: don’t take anything personally.

Writing is an art. Words can be so lyrically beautiful they can make us cry. Or we can disagree in fury. Or laugh til our stomach hurts. Evoking any emotion is the point. Any author lives for that.

Hate me all you want – that’s a pretty strong emotional reaction.

Thank you.

I’m writing my view, my experiences, my truth.

If you want to write your truth, write your own damn book. 

Answer this: What's YOUR way of dealing with difficult reviews? Comment below, on Twitter, or Facebook. I LOVE comments, opinions, and polite discourse. If you don't want to be polite, go drink more coffee.  

You should FOLLOW Rachel here, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, or email any questions. 

Want help with your social media or author campaign? Email me for info, rates, and references. 

HIGH HIGHS & LOW LOWS

What an enormously crazy week here in #badredhead world.

Even I'm sick of talking about my book, but for the sake of those who are on the fence about Amazon's "evil" program KDP Select, I thought I'd share some data with you.

I took my book THE MANCODE: EXPOSED free last week for two days. TWO DAYS (for those not in the book world, this new Amazon program requires exclusivity, but allows authors to go free for five days of their choosing once every three months).

This was last Tuesday and Wednesday, January 3 and 4. I went free along with about four or five other bestselling authors and we mentioned each other on our pages, a cross-promo if you will.

I had over 22, 000 free downloads in that two days.

Now remember, those are FREE downloads -- I make no money. But, that's a good thing.

Bear with me.

Why is that good? Because it shot my book up to the top of all kinds of free lists, charts, rankings, etc. AND it helped my overall ranking. I went to bed on my birthday (January 2nd, if you want to send presents) at about 23K overall, and woke up at #883 overall.

So what does that mean when I went off free at the end of the two days?

It put me in the #400 or so range. This was important because on Friday of last week I was the featured author for the Indie Book Collective's Bestseller For A Day -- see last week's post below. Long story short, the goal is to get that author into the Kindle Top 100 Paid -- and we did! Or I should say, all of you who purchased The Mancode: Exposed on Friday did and I thank you from the bottom of my snarky heart.

I ended up at my lowest (which means my best) ranking, as low as #76 at one point -- awesome.

As of this writing, I've climbed back up to #96 but it's holding fairly steady in the Top 100. The book is also across the board #1 on Marriage, Parenting and Families/Humor, and Parenting and Relationships. It was also #1 in the Kindle Lending Library for NonFiction books (of almost 40K books) for the weekend and is still in the Top 10.

And the best sign it's doing well? The haters are crawling out of the woodwork. Always great.

Yes, it's exciting. And I would be excited. If I weren't so freakin' exhausted...

Why, you ask?

Well, my husband sawed the flocked tree in the house so my floor is covered in flocking flock. (Notice how I didn't say fucking flock? Oh. Damn.)

I've got a killer migraine that even Nutella has not cured (never mind -- that's totally #Chickspeak), and I've got a six-year old recovering from the stomach flu which has had the wonderful side effect of making him too weak for temper tantrums.

Silver lining, baby. Silver lining.

Nothing like reality to keep a girl in check.

Or an evil Amazon program.

BESTSELLER FOR A DAY IS THIS FRIDAY!

BESTSELLER FOR A DAY IS THIS FRIDAY, 1/6! 

Something cool is happening this Friday, January 6.

Something YOU get to be a part of.

And it only costs a buck.

Yea, you heard me right. One dollar.

But to you and I, it could mean so much more. Why, you ask? Because not only do you help me show the Big 6 publishers what an indie author can do by purchasing my top-ranked, highly-praised book The Manocde: Exposed, you also have a chance to do something for yourself: get FIVE terrific additional books free AND you also have a chance to win a free Kindle for you (or a friend).

How awesome is that?

Details below:

January 6 is Bestseller for a Day! This is your day to save with RachelintheOC’s The Mancode: Exposed, the follow-up to her bestselling A Walk in the Snark! (Also promo priced at only 99cents for this special event!)

Experience Rachel’s trademark humor this January 6th with Bestseller for a Day PLUS five 99 Cent Bonus Buys! And be entered to win a Kindle!

This Indie Book Collective event is designed to push indie authors to the top of the Kindle charts! Readers get great books at great prices, and authors get the promotional push to be successful. And we all know what successful authors do—they write MORE books to feed your need to read.

What are people saying about this hilarious new offering from Rachel Thompson?

“Mancode: Exposed is a scathingly funny, rapid fire and heartfelt look at guys. Author Rachel Thompson delivers a satirical piece that invokes shades of Penny Marshall and Seth MacFarlane.”

~Casey Ryan, Host & Creator, Cutting Room Floor radio program

“I absolutely just love the work of Rachel Thompson. Not only is she an amazing person, her writing is witty, humorous, and OMG brilliant! Where the heck does she come up with this stuff?”

~BK Walker, reviewer, bkwalkerbooks.com

Here’s more about Mancode: Exposed!

I’m over forty. I don’t have a blankie. I have vodka.

Is it possible to truly expose men?

Okay, wait.

Men, women, sex, love, stereotypes…important world topics like garages, lingerie, and um, chocolate? It’s a melting pot (okay, now you’re just getting hungry).

But more than that, it’s about all the levels in which we communicate, viewed through Thompson’s looking glass of humor and deconstructed with her special brand of snark!

She explores controversial questions like:

·      Can we outrun our DNA?

·      Will women always be slaves to our talkative nature (après sex)?

·      Will men never be free of the chains of emotional withholding?

·      Can we transfer their paper towel changing abilities from the garage to the kitchen?

This January 6, it’s your turn to grab The Mancode: Exposed for the incredibly low price of 99 cents and see for yourself why it makes readers laugh with appreciation. And don’t forget FIVE bonus buys with the chance to win a Kindle:

Pups in Teacups by Carolyn McCray

Myth of Mr. Mom by Jeremy Rodden, et. al.

Muse Food by Jess McCallum and Amber Scott

The Dee View by Dee Dee Robson

Our Indie Experience by The Indie Book Collective

Just purchase The Mancode: Exposed at the promotion price, send a friend that you know would love finding a fun, fast-paced read at an awesome price, and grab the FIVE Bonus Buys that are the perfect companion reads to this hysterically funny book! Hop over to BESTSELLER FOR A DAY this January 6^th and fill out the entry form (located at the top of the right hand column of the site) for five extra entries to win a Kindle!

Interested in participating in Bestseller For A Day as a Bonus Buy book? We’re always on the lookout for great indie books to include in our promotions! What’s required? You must be available in eBook format, be on Twitter, and have a blog. Want more info? Contact us at indiebookibc@gmail.com for more information!

FOLLOW Rachel on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, or email any questions at RachelintheOC.com. Be sure to purchase your copy of The Mancode: Exposed this Friday, 1/6 and don't forget to go BACK over to the Bestseller For a Day website for all the goodies!