READ Ted William Gross today!
http://teddygross.blogspot.com/
The Language Of A Symbol & The Wail Of Mourning
This is simply the best, most ringing testimony for battling hate for all the right reasons on a day devoted to remembering those criminally and barbarically put to death by hate, as symbolized by the Swastika, during the Holocaust perpetuated by Hitler and Nazi Germany.
We did it. We decided to provide an alternative. It’s a brand new, OPEN, PUBLIC, FRIENDLY, EQUITABLE fiction writers’ and poets’ forum, dedicated and devoted to providing a safe, equitable, and friendly working environment and online community support group for creative writers across the Internet world. This forum also provides private critique groups, writing buddy circles, and a general critique area, guaranteed to withstand scrutiny under the most strict interpretation of copyright law concerning first rights. (You can’t see that critique area until and unless you request admission, which is only grantable by a global moderator or a site administrator.)
The Deepening’s editors and editor-in-chief speaks there, too.
Want to hear zentao’s, womblin’s, and Kaff’s thoughts? Want to learn what these fine editors are thinking? Want to learn from them and from each other, supporting one another in a positive environment that nurtures caring, not hatred, that provides a just and balanced freedom for all but those whose only real agenda is selfishness and self-agrandisement? Then come and try our new alternative to the AW Hate Mob, the z7 creative writers forum for novel writers, short story writers, and poets: http://z7.zentao7.com/forum/
Oh, and zen’s been posting editorials there instead of here, his latest one posted today concerning the Million Writers Award 2007 and his sentiments on pitting one author’s work against another’s. See it here: http://z7.zentao7.com/forum/index.php/topic,227.0.html
D.L.Keur, owner/publisher, The Deepening
Long years ago, I submitted my very first story…to a prime market…and, within weeks, had an acceptance. That is not the norm, but neither is it unique. A good writer can publish his/her very first submission in a prime market — a very top market — provided that the author has “the right stuff” and provided that “the right eyes” see it.
Submitting your work means, first and foremost, you’ve got solid craft and solid copy. Second, it means starting with the very top markets that accept work similar to yours or could be interested in something unique if it would suit their market. There is no harm in trying and everything to gain PROVIDED your work is clean, grammatically impeccable, and professionally written and presented. So, if your work is good, and I mean good as measured, not by your “peers” over at Absolute Write or some other amateur writer’s forum, but according to industry standards, start submitting at the very top and work your way down through all qualifying markets until you get an acceptance.
What you don’t want to do is flood the market with work that lacks quality, craft, polish, and professionalism. Do that, and your name WILL be recognized, but not the way you want it to be. Your submission will come in and go out with a form rejection without even so much as a glance.
I receive many emails and letters requesting information on why and how an editor chooses a story or novel for publication. When working for a publishing company, it comes down to potentials for an outstanding bottom line, pure and simple. If a publisher believes your book or story will advance the bottom line, well over and above costs, then the book or story will be purchased.
Another factor, however, also comes into play — that of “fit.” How well does the story or novel integrate with successful works previously published or in the pipeline for release? Does the novel or story fit the publisher’s market audience and its house image? The publisher of Hustler certainly doesn’t want to buy a work which has prudent Christian values as its theme, no more than a publisher of SF wishes to purchase a romantic wander through Victorian England. More than that, however, a publisher who desires to maintain an established image of presenting controversial titles is certainly not interested in conventional stories…and vice versa. Take this to its fine edge, and you see that, rather than marketing your work according to what you think a publisher wants, instead, you must actually read their catalog releases from the previous year, compare them to those released in years previous to the last, and then hope that publisher is continuing along that line, that editorial and marketing decisions are remaining constant…because a house will change its direction should it deem it financially beneficial.
What about agents? Well, should you ever have privvy to candid conversations with them, you will understand that agents are lawyers, expert in contracts and negotiations designed to gain the best deal for their clients and themselves. Knowing that, you then should, of course, realize that everything they accept as a project is viewed with that very cold and calculating eye. They don’t care one iota about sensibilities. What they care about are financial potentialities, and they very much like sure winners.
Some authors wonder if their submissions are even read. At TD and most small presses, yes. With major players, well, sometimes, sometimes not. It all depends on need, time, mood, disgust level, and your presentation, and all of those stand about equal, so, you can see, “luck” has a bit to do with it. I can tell you, though, that if you are known to be problematic or carry a difficult attitude, your work will be avoided. Many agents and editors who work with major publishers do, in fact, research an author’s background as much as possible before deciding on an acceptance. Be careful how you present yourself and with whom and how you do associate in public and especially on the ‘Net. You are, after all, marketing yourself as an author, not just marketing one book or story.
I received an email this morning from a sensitive and rather distressed author whom I respect, Ted William Gross. (See his blog entries HERE.) It concerned yet another incident upon a very notorious writer’s forum which consistently exhibits “mob rule” behavior, bully tactics, these employed by the board’s clique-riven hierarchy. It is a hierarchy which condones abuse of those refusing to bow to their self-revered opinion upon any subject as well as upon any poster who fails to exhibit proper sycophancy to the administrators and moderators. In plain speak, if you disagree with AW administrative perceptions of reality, you may not post without suffering castigation and ridicule.
Were a simple request for the individual to adjust his signature because the symbol was too suggestive of the Holocaust effected, much pain and anguish could have been avoided. We are long past this now, however, as, instead of soothing things with gentle words and water, verbal gasoline and nitro accelerants were employed, something summarily unsurprising and, in fact, completely forseeable if one is familiar with the administrative individuals and their venue that is AW and its corresponding blog(s). http://community.livejournal.com/awwatercooler/890.html with the wonderful “Johniesfuckwit” comment in that blog thread: http://community.livejournal.com/awwatercooler/890.html?thread=4730#t4730 PRINTSCREEN OF ABOVE FUCKWIT POST REFERENCED IN IMAGE
It is the unfortunate fact that AW is ruled with notorious, inequitable, and unbalanced moderation and administration, as exhibited by MacAllister’s own warning/veiled threat to someone’s polite inquiry concerning the present hue and cry which has come public to blogs concerning the posting of a “backwards swastika” in user “Bartholomew’s” signature: “And I recommend you be very, very careful about bringing this particular squabble to the board,” said MacAllister http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1158231&postcount=2 http://www.thedeepening.com/Images/MacAllisterPost2-27-06.gif , this warning given to the very polite and generalized query concerning respect: “An action taken without bad intentions can be viewed as a mistake. Becoming aware that your action was tasteless and not taking steps to correct it … it’s a disrespectful offense. For goodness sake, if you’ve been made aware that your signature is offensive to a fellow writer, please change it.”
MacAllister’s warning is so very similar to the threats and warnings others have received from time to time (including a much more pointed and violent one directed to the owner of The Deepening when she was but defending against slander and maligning comments posted by AW regulars concerning her magazine and its subscriber rates) that one must come to the conclusion that, in fact, any time some AW “outsider” posts that which is considered contrary to a mods or an administrator’s sentiments and opinions, as is historically evidenced in their database and its backups, that poster will be subject to retaliation in the form of reprisal.
In fact, this board and its adherents consistently exhibit an “intolerance of tolerance” to anything contrary to their own bias, and demonstrates, in actuality, a cultivation of ridicule and hatred toward “outside-the-circle” others, quashing objection and even discussion by castigation and malicious sneers, removing, moving, unethically editing, or cutting up posts and threads in such a way as to discredit the castigated party, pointedly posting threats of banning, and engaging in outright removal of the poster from the board.
That AW does in fact promote snideness and sneers by AW “insiders” can be evidenced by the liberal hand allowed “accepted” members in turning a thread into farce and snickering rejoinder. http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56692. In point of fact, AW is notorious for its rape of all those who are not within its sanctified circle, which includes anyone who dares to speak without earning points with the mods. That IS the sad truth…which is why any judicious writer, author, agent or editor does neither frequent its pages nor promote its existence.
So what about this “backwards swastika?”
User “Bartholomew” chose, for indistinct reasons, to employ the svastika or wan symbol in posing a link in his signature to Buddhist webpage:
http://www.buddhistinformation.com/…metta_sutta.htm. Why the gentleman, a Westerner by his image and textual syntax, but purportedly a Buddhist (a religion which values peace and harmony), would choose to use such an image in a Western venue without being very clear in his intent, leads one to find him guilty of attention-seeking (which is completely contrary to Buddhism) — that he did in fact use the symbol to draw the Western eye, knowing the symbol and its counter to be infamous and socially notorious. I believe this because, were he to have legitimately desired to post the symbol, wan, as it is associated with Buddhism, he would have assured that association visually by using the symbol, wan, in a clearly identifiable context which could not be misconstrued nor catalyze negative reaction. He chose not to do so, knowing that the symbol’s use, left or right-facing, would immediately set off a Nazi association in the Western mind which would lead to clicks and attention. Well, Buddhists and Hindus do not flagrantly post symbolism out of context in alien societies, especially symbolism which they know suggests the harm of another in that society. In the West, in a temple and in the texts, in the Buddhist and Hindu forums and venues, the symbol is accepted and acceptable. But it certainly isn’t used in a flagrant manner simply and expressly because of the extremely justified sensibilities surrounding it in the West.
Now, couple the appearance of this symbol with some other previous AW threads containing very strong anti-Semitic sentiments which went unmoderated and unattended by board moderators and administrators, and one is hard-pressed not to consider AW’s volatile and acerbic response to a Westerner and a Jew’s valid and substantiated sensitivity to the appearance of this symbol as at least willfully calloused and insensitive, and suggestive of supporting anti-Semitism.
In the Western world, few symbols are as well known in the world today as the swastika, and this one symbol is, in fact, identified with Nazi Germany, the Third Reich and the Holocaust. Since the AW board does in fact reside in the U.S. with the majority of its users based in the Western world, as opposed to India, China, Japan, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia, it is obvious that the symbol will in fact be thus associated unless explicitly and clearly posted as:
1) an outcry against the Holocaust and its violation of human and life rights
2) a vehicle explicitly educational concerning the symbol’s historic significance and evolution,
3) specifically and pointedly Buddhist/Hindu/AmerIndian in reference.
In point of fact, this was not the case.
But should the symbol be banned? Banning anything has to be done with care, but so does using anything.
Personally speaking, banning anything on or in any public venue has to be done with care, but so does posting it. Just because someone is offended by something doesn’t mean it should be banned. However, when a distinctive symbol and its equally suggestive “flip” is so universally and unanimously identified on a global basis, historic evidence substantiating this its most notorious reference, as meaning horrific torture, murder, and outright genocide, and, in fact, use of such symbol expressly condoning and applauding it (Skinheads), then one must object to that symbol’s use in any form not specifically and noticeably tagged as intending the Hindu, AmerIndian, or Buddhist symbol as opposed to the Indo-European modern associations with Hitler’s reign.