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Jan. 30th, 2020 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Well, hmmm... RWA One Month Later - apparently SmartBitches has put together a series of podcast chats with all the parties involved with the RWA Implosion. They won't be featured together, but on separate days. (Which makes sense, but is oddly disappointing.)
For a breakdown of what has happened to date, go HERE
Warning, it's an impossible to follow convoluted mess that has not gotten any better as far as I can see. And makes me very glad I'm not a romance writer or part of this organization in any way. I thought my organization was bad...
Note - non-profit organizations are often messes. People whine about corporations, trust me when I state that they look rather lovely in comparison to family owned small businesses and non-profits. In short? There's no perfect place to work. Even working for yourself has a down-side, because at the end of the day? You are stuck with yourself. There's no one else to grouch at.
2. Temperment of a 50 something woman on the verge of menopause
Thou Shalt Not Be Indifferent!
ME: Eh..being "Indifferent" is REALLY not my problem at the moment. I wish I could be indifferent. My difficulty is I keep swinging between wanting to hug the world and wanting to find a way to destroy it. Love or Rage. Hope or Fear. Humans are either selfish bastards not worth saving. Or lovely persons who must be saved at all costs.
Don't fuck with women going through or on the verge of menopause, we'll either hug you or kick you. Sometimes both simultaneously.
Mother: Yesterday you were hopeful, optimistic and at the top of the world. Today you are furious, pessimistic, and despairing. I never know which daughter I'm going to get.
Me: Yeah well...no period since December.
Mother: Ah. Menopause.
Me: Maybe. It's not entirely clear yet.
I have, however, discovered a CBD drink at work. So been grabbing that at lunch time, takes the edge off. Also meditation works. As does yoga stretching exercises. Shoulders and arms are killing me. It's either the new backpack I got, work, the news, or no period since mid-December. I can't decide how I feel about this turn of events...does this mean we're at the end of the perimenopause? OR is it another tease? This happened last year too at this time. I don't trust my body -- it likes to play games to see if I'm paying attention.
The problem with menopause is well the same one with perimenopause - you can't talk to anyone about it.
Me: So, what can I expect?
Mother: I don't know. It's different for everyone. I didn't go through half the things you are. Then again, I also had Graves disease through part of it.
My mother has no filter. Which I suppose explains me a bit, doesn't it?
3. Oooh, I like this. Sometimes, I really like Stephen King.
Where am I in this diversity discussion? Fair question. The answer is white, male, old and rich. (I didn’t grow up rich, and the memories of working for minimum wage linger, but I sure am now.) It would be absurd to dispute that and equally absurd to apologize for it. The first two traits are genetic, and the last two are the work of Time the Avenger.
Yet I’m proud to have written about strong female characters facing complex issues, in novels that have often been adapted for movies or television, with the characters brought powerfully to life by gifted actresses. The span runs from “Carrie,” a novel of female empowerment, more than 40 years ago, to “Lisey’s Story,” now in production as a limited series, about the power of sisterhood, a thing I learned about from my mother and her sisters, plus my wife’s mother and hers.
When people complained on social media a few years ago about Idris Elba being cast as Roland Deschain, the gunslinger at the center of “The Dark Tower” books, I replied that I didn’t care what the character’s skin color was, as long as he could draw fast and shoot straight.
The response reflects my overall attitude that, as with justice, judgments of creative excellence should be blind. But that would be the case in a perfect world, one where the game isn’t rigged in favor of the white folks. Creative excellence comes from every walk, color, creed, gender and sexual orientation, and it’s made richer and bolder and more exciting by diversity, but it’s defined by being excellent. Judging anyone’s work by any other standard is insulting and — worse — it undermines those hard-won moments when excellence from a diverse source is rewarded (against, it seems, all the odds) by leaving such recognition vulnerable to being dismissed as politically correct.
We don’t live in that perfect world, and this year’s less-than-diverse Academy Awards nominations once more prove it. Maybe someday we will. I can dream, can’t I? After all, I make stuff up for a living.
I agree with him. The problem I've always had with art is that it has been turned into a business -- to make money. Which makes it less than honest, and often only available to the privileged or those in power. What I love about the 21st Century is anyone can create and publish their art and for any reason. Sort of makes it more diversified. But alas, the promotion of it and marketing is still controlled by the privileged few -- so go after the evil marketing guys.
Stephen King - The Oscars are Rigged
For a breakdown of what has happened to date, go HERE
Warning, it's an impossible to follow convoluted mess that has not gotten any better as far as I can see. And makes me very glad I'm not a romance writer or part of this organization in any way. I thought my organization was bad...
Note - non-profit organizations are often messes. People whine about corporations, trust me when I state that they look rather lovely in comparison to family owned small businesses and non-profits. In short? There's no perfect place to work. Even working for yourself has a down-side, because at the end of the day? You are stuck with yourself. There's no one else to grouch at.
2. Temperment of a 50 something woman on the verge of menopause
Thou Shalt Not Be Indifferent!
ME: Eh..being "Indifferent" is REALLY not my problem at the moment. I wish I could be indifferent. My difficulty is I keep swinging between wanting to hug the world and wanting to find a way to destroy it. Love or Rage. Hope or Fear. Humans are either selfish bastards not worth saving. Or lovely persons who must be saved at all costs.
Don't fuck with women going through or on the verge of menopause, we'll either hug you or kick you. Sometimes both simultaneously.
Mother: Yesterday you were hopeful, optimistic and at the top of the world. Today you are furious, pessimistic, and despairing. I never know which daughter I'm going to get.
Me: Yeah well...no period since December.
Mother: Ah. Menopause.
Me: Maybe. It's not entirely clear yet.
I have, however, discovered a CBD drink at work. So been grabbing that at lunch time, takes the edge off. Also meditation works. As does yoga stretching exercises. Shoulders and arms are killing me. It's either the new backpack I got, work, the news, or no period since mid-December. I can't decide how I feel about this turn of events...does this mean we're at the end of the perimenopause? OR is it another tease? This happened last year too at this time. I don't trust my body -- it likes to play games to see if I'm paying attention.
The problem with menopause is well the same one with perimenopause - you can't talk to anyone about it.
Me: So, what can I expect?
Mother: I don't know. It's different for everyone. I didn't go through half the things you are. Then again, I also had Graves disease through part of it.
My mother has no filter. Which I suppose explains me a bit, doesn't it?
3. Oooh, I like this. Sometimes, I really like Stephen King.
Where am I in this diversity discussion? Fair question. The answer is white, male, old and rich. (I didn’t grow up rich, and the memories of working for minimum wage linger, but I sure am now.) It would be absurd to dispute that and equally absurd to apologize for it. The first two traits are genetic, and the last two are the work of Time the Avenger.
Yet I’m proud to have written about strong female characters facing complex issues, in novels that have often been adapted for movies or television, with the characters brought powerfully to life by gifted actresses. The span runs from “Carrie,” a novel of female empowerment, more than 40 years ago, to “Lisey’s Story,” now in production as a limited series, about the power of sisterhood, a thing I learned about from my mother and her sisters, plus my wife’s mother and hers.
When people complained on social media a few years ago about Idris Elba being cast as Roland Deschain, the gunslinger at the center of “The Dark Tower” books, I replied that I didn’t care what the character’s skin color was, as long as he could draw fast and shoot straight.
The response reflects my overall attitude that, as with justice, judgments of creative excellence should be blind. But that would be the case in a perfect world, one where the game isn’t rigged in favor of the white folks. Creative excellence comes from every walk, color, creed, gender and sexual orientation, and it’s made richer and bolder and more exciting by diversity, but it’s defined by being excellent. Judging anyone’s work by any other standard is insulting and — worse — it undermines those hard-won moments when excellence from a diverse source is rewarded (against, it seems, all the odds) by leaving such recognition vulnerable to being dismissed as politically correct.
We don’t live in that perfect world, and this year’s less-than-diverse Academy Awards nominations once more prove it. Maybe someday we will. I can dream, can’t I? After all, I make stuff up for a living.
I agree with him. The problem I've always had with art is that it has been turned into a business -- to make money. Which makes it less than honest, and often only available to the privileged or those in power. What I love about the 21st Century is anyone can create and publish their art and for any reason. Sort of makes it more diversified. But alas, the promotion of it and marketing is still controlled by the privileged few -- so go after the evil marketing guys.
Stephen King - The Oscars are Rigged
no subject
Date: 2020-02-01 10:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-01 09:17 pm (UTC)Everything is cheap and money is spent in odd ways.