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Review: Krampus

Posted: December 13, 2015 in Review, Scary Stuff
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I’ve been wanting to see this movie for months, and this evening I got the chance. Let me tell you, it was everything I’d hoped it would be.

Now, if you’re unfamiliar with the Krampus story, let me do some background: Krampus is a being whose origin dates back to ancient pagan beliefs, and he’s particularly well-known in central and northern Europe. While St. Nicholas is supposed to reward good children, Krampus would punish the bad children. Normally portrayed as a big, hairy demon with horns, he would leave coal, hit the bad kids with birch twigs, and/or drag the kids to wherever Krampus hangs out the rest of the year, depending on who you ask. On December 6th each year, plenty of cities and towns have Krampus Night, where people dress up as Krampus and have a parade chasing people around the town (sounds like fun).

In this movie, Krampus is summoned when a family loses the Christmas spirit, and proceeds to abduct each one of them to take them to the underworld. And let me tell you, from the very beginning, when you see an entire superstore torn apart by shoppers desperate for Christmas gifts, to the twist ending, Krampus is just excellent. It’s so well-written, with the writers (one of whom is the director and also directed the Halloween cult classic Trick ‘r Treat) taking us through a comedy film that manages to do all the horror tropes but remain funny throughout without being too obvious or self-referential. There’s never a dull moment, keeping your attention glued to the screen no matter what’s happening. The actors are also great, with most of them seeming like they’re either being themselves or playing around rather than doing any real acting, and just adds to the fun of the movie.

My favorite part of the film is the visuals, Krampus goes all out to make this the most visually interesting film ever. Except for the CGI gingerbread monsters (yes, there’s that in this movie), the monsters are all done with make-up and animatronics and actors. To say the least, they are terrifying, but what’s really interesting is that so many of them look like they’re pretending to be people in costumes instead of actual monsters. I’m not sure if that’s part of the humor or if that’s some sort of commentary on the Christmas season, but I like it. And I still would probably hide from these monsters if they showed up at my door on Christmas (thank God I’m Jewish).

Another thing I loved about Krampus is how it finds so many ways to make fun of the Christmas season. From the opening sequence’s critique of the commercialization of the holiday to the family’s interaction’s with each other to showcase how little time we actually devote to being nice and generous around these holidays, this movie finds all sorts of way to point out what’s wrong with the Christmas season. And maybe it’s because as a Jew I find the Christmas hype a little annoying at times, but I just love every second of it. And if you’ve ever been annoyed with how people treat Christmas or act around this time of year, you will love it too.

The one critique I would give this film is that when we finally get a good look at Krampus, he’s actually not that intimidating. He looks like someone took a Father Christmas costume, stuck on horns, lots of fur and chains, and added really bad teeth to the mask, looking more like that old rat Nicodemus from The Secret of NIMH than an actual demon. And maybe that’s because the other monsters are just so scary that the filmmakers decided to make Krampus look a little comical, but I would’ve preferred it they actually made him a bit more terrifying.

Overall though, this is a very fun movie. Is it something that’ll become a staple at Christmastime? Maybe not, but I think that the film has enough going for it that we’ll find good reason to revisit it every December. Especially if we want to remind ourselves how not to act around Christmas, or if we want to imagine certain politicians we dislike getting a visit from Krampus (I can think of about three or four right now).

On a scale of 1 to 5, I’m giving Krampus a 4.6. It’s funny, memorable, and reminds you what this season is really all about. Go check it out and have a good laugh.

Applying The Bechdel Test To My Works

Posted: December 11, 2015 in Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Writing
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I’ve been wanting to do a post like this for a while now, but I only got around to it now after a friend of mine did it on her blog and I thought to myself, “Yeah, might as well get my butt in gear and do this already.”

So anyway, if you’re unfamiliar with the Bechdel test, it’s used to measure how feminist a work of fiction, usually a film or a novel, is. It was first created by cartoonist Allison Bechdel for her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, and has since become used in academic circles and with critics.

Here are the criteria for passing the Bechdel test:

  1. You have two female characters (sometimes having them named is a requirement, and I’ll do that here).
  2. They actually have to talk to each other.
  3. They have to talk about something other than a guy.

On that last part, I usually take it to mean talking about a guy who is in some sense romantically linked to one or both characters. After all, a lot of stories focus solely on a woman’s quest for love or marriage, and that’s it, and I feel like that’s what this test was designed for. And what if the two women are detectives and they’re talking about a suspect who’s male and how he’s difficult to bring to justice? That should be worthy of passing the Bechdel test.

Now before I begin, I want to make one thing clear: I don’t see this test as the end-all test for how feminist a work is. While some do use the Bechdel test in that capacity, I see it more as a tool to examine various works of fiction and promote discussion, rather than as the only way to get a work to be called feminist. Heck, even film organizations who use the test when rating a movie do it mostly for collecting information on gender inequality in films and to make viewers aware of that same gender inequality more than anything else.

So without further ado, here’s how my novels (I’d do the short stories as well, but there’s a lot of those, so I’ll pass) do with the Bechdel test:

  • Reborn City/Video Rage. I place these two together because they’re part of the same series. And they do pass the Bechdel test with flying colors. There are several named female characters in RC, particularly protagonists Zahara Bakur, Ilse, and Iori. And they do talk to each other about a lot of other stuff besides men, including the gang situation in West Reborn and how being a gangster is not for the faint of heart (a problem for Zahara considering she prefers peace and harmony to violence and gun fights). Similarly in VR, there are at least four or five named female characters, including the ones I mentioned above, and they also talk a lot about things other than men, including the situation they’re stuck in or the history of the war that made the world how it is in their present (our future).
  • Snake. Um…yes, but just barely. There are three or four named characters, including the female protagonist Allison Langland. However, as so much of the book focuses on the Snake’s quest to save Allison and then to keep her safe, she doesn’t have a lot of onscreen time with other female characters. There is a scene where Allison speaks with another character about events to come, but the Snake is also part of this conversation, so I guess it depends on your point-of-view on the subject. If there’s ever a sequel to this book, I may try to do better on that front while writing the story.
  • Laura Horn. Despite still working through the second draft, I can tell you LH passes the Bechdel test. There are several named female characters, including our protagonist, and that they do talk to one another about things other than men. Especially the fact that Laura’s wanted for a crime she never committed. Yeah, heavy stuff. Guys and romance actually don’t come up that much. Yeah, romantic feelings are part of the story, but by no means are they the focus, and I expect that will be the case still when I reach the final draft (whenever that is).
  • Rose. Again, this one just barely passes, and whether it does is a matter of perspective. As I’ve mentioned, Rose is about a woman held captive in the home of a man claiming to be her lover. Rose spends a lot of time on her own or with the guy whose house she’s in. She does have conversations with another female, but this female isn’t exactly human, and a few other things about this being call into question whether or not it counts. There’s also a conversation Rose has with another girl in a flashback, but I don’t know if flashbacks count either. So again, this one’s up for debate, one that might not be settled until after the book is published (whenever that is).

So the final verdict is that one half of my novels pass the Bechdel test, and the other half are a matter of opinion. Again, this test isn’t definitive by any means, and as demonstrated in the cases of Snake and Rose,  there are shortcomings to the test. However, it does feel good to know that half my work does pass the test, and the other half might. Surprisingly about half of all films don’t pass the Bechdel test, while quite a number of movies pass what is known as the reverse Bechdel test, which focuses on men (not going to bother with that, except to say that Rose is probably the only one that doesn’t pass). I like to think it says something good about my personality or writing style.

Perhaps in a few years I’ll try applying the Bechdel test to my works again and see what happens. In the meantime, I think I’ll focus on creating good stories in general. And possibly applying other tests to the stories I write (though I’m kind of afraid of what the results might be and what they say about me as a writer). We’ll see how I feel about it.

What are your thoughts on the Bechdel test? Do your works pass it? Why or why not?

#FirstLineFriday

Posted: December 11, 2015 in Living and Life, Writing
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It’s Friday again, so you know what that means. It’s #FirstLineFriday. And God, am I glad the weekend’s about to start. Honestly, this week has been a little stressful. But hopefully good things will happen over the weekend and I’ll be re-energized come Monday.

Anyway, onto the rules of #FirstLineFriday:

  1. Title a post #FirstLineFriday (hashtag included)
  2. Explain the rules
  3. Share the first one or two lines of a potential work, a work-in-progress, or a completed or published story.
  4. Finally, ask your readers for feedback.

This week’s entry is from a novel idea I had all the way back in high school, and is one I think people would really enjoy reading. If they can deal with whatever the main villain is. Anyway, enjoy:

A drunk man stumbled his way out of Chinatown, unaware that he would soon be famous across all of San Francisco.

Thoughts? Problems? Tell me in the comments below.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got some stuff to take care of before the day is done, so I’m going to get on that. Until then, you have a great day, my Followers of Fear. I know that I will, if this afternoon goes as well as I hope.

The Allure of Shared Universes

Posted: December 6, 2015 in Reflections, Writing
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You know what there are a lot of these days? Fictional universes where characters from a variety of diverse works are all brought together into a single work or series of works where they interact with one another in various ways. From HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, to the many different iterations of DC and Marvel comic book worlds and their film and television counterparts, to the shared elements of Anne Rice’s vampire and witch series and Stephen King’s interconnected multiverse and then some, there are a lot of these shared universes these days. Heck, there’s even theories from everyday people about how different works by certain creators are all secretly part of the same story (examples include this Pixar theory and this theory on the majority of Joss Whedon’s work).

So I’m wondering, what is the reason behind all of these interconnected story worlds? What makes storytellers and creators of all different mediums want to have such expansive universes where everything is secretly connected and you have to create a huge conspiracy layout on your wall with tape and string and stuff?

Well, I think some part of it is money. At the end of the day, most storytelling is a business (except for maybe some of what appears on YouTube), and if two characters in separate stories are making profits for a creator or their business, they may try to bring the characters together if it’s feasible and if the fans want to see it. Heck, that’s kind of the reason for most comic book crossovers and the movies based around those crossovers. Fans enjoy seeing Superman and Batman work together or Tony Stark mentor Spider-Man or whatever, so the companies give them what they want and get a profit back.

That’s not to say that all of it is money or that money’s the biggest motivator (unless you’re a Hollywood studio, of course). Another big part of it is the creators. They love their characters, and many would like to see those characters they’ve invested time and effort in come together in an awesome story. How would they play off each other? What sort of trouble would they get into with each other and how would they pull themselves out of it? And how would they grow after meeting each other? I think a lot of writers create these crossovers just so they can answer these questions. They may make multiple volumes to continue asking those questions, adding new characters or situations to continue creating exciting new stories and dynamics. It can be pretty enticing to do that with characters you love so much, and I bet audiences enjoy it as well.

In fact, I’ve imagined doing that with Snake and Laura Horn. Yeah, I have. I’ve mentioned before that I’ve wanted the story of the Snake to continue, and I’ve planned sequels not just for Snake, but for LH as well, including one where the two characters meet and get into a crazy adventure together. And I may be a few books and several years from that crossover, but it’s there if I want to write it, and eventually I will write it. It just sounds like too much fun to pass up.

snake front cover

I really have to get around to that sequel someday soon.

Another reason that creators may do crossover works is just because it makes things easier. Now, I hear you typing in the comments already “How the heck does a crossover or shared universe make things easier?” I know it seems counter-intuitive, but let me give an example: Anne Rice introduced in Queen of the Damned, the third book in her Vampire Chronicles, the Talamasca, an international organization of scholars interested in studying the paranormal. Now, try as I might I could not find any information on why, but when Rice wrote her Mayfair Witches trilogy, she brought in the Talamasca society. Why? Because at some point in the first book she details the entire family history of the Mayfair family and its dozen-plus matriarchs and I guess it made sense to just bring in the Talamasca as an explanation as to why there was an entire history of the family when the family itself isn’t very interested in its history. And it helped with the later books in certain ways to have the Talamasca. See? It was easier to bring in an existing fictional organization concerned with the paranormal than make up an entirely new reason for a third party to document an entire mystical family’s history.

I’ve also heard that’s why HP Lovecraft created the Cthulhu Mythos. He didn’t intend to create an entire cosmology, he just decided it might be easier to work with some familiar characteristics when creating all-powerful monsters, and from there it wasn’t too hard to make the jump to connecting Cthulhu to Yog-Sothoth and any of the other Old Ones. Now, I’m no Lovecraft expert, but I’d buy that explanation.

King’s references are so crazy! Check out this chart!

Of course, some authors do it because it’s fun to have a shared universe, for a variety of reasons. You can return to familiar characters and locations by doing so. You can make your readers marvel and go back to another story to say, “Hey, that matches up with so-and-so.” You can create a cosmology or a special reason why a character or characters or place or places appears in so many stories (I’ve got a character or two like that, I just haven’t been able to put them into any works yet. I tried with the human Barbie story and Evil Began in a Bar, but I couldn’t fit them into the former and I haven’t figured out how best to edit the latter yet, so…). And sometimes, it’s just fun to mess with your readers and make them wonder what the heck it all means (I’m pretty sure that’s the reason Stephen King references his other works so much, and the Dark Tower books simply grew out of a desire to create a complex story out of all that messing about).

Whatever the reason someone creates a shared universe, it’s pretty clear that there are plenty of reasons to do so, and that shared universes are here to stay. And whatever the reason behind them, as long as they’re done with love and people enjoy them, I see no reason not to keep doing them. Besides, I may have one or two I’d like to create someday.

Do you have a shared universe in your fiction? Why’d you create it? What has been the result of that?

#FirstLineFriday

Posted: December 4, 2015 in ideas, Novel, Writing
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It’s Friday again, so you know what that means. It’s #FirstLineFriday! Also known as one of the highlight of my weeks. Especially if people like what I put out.

Okay, here are the rules, as usual, for #FirstLineFriday: you write a blog post with the title #FirstLineFriday, hashtag and all, and then you repeat the rules. Then you post the first one or two lines of a possible work, a work-in-progress, or a completed or published work. Final step is to ask your readers for feedback. It’s great fun.

This week’s opening comes from a novel I had the idea for yesterday while walking home and listening to the Needful Things audio book by Stephen King (that was a trippy and creepy book, I tell you). It’s the sort of story that has a really strange mystery to it. I hope when I get around to writing it, I’ve figured out the mystery a bit more. Enjoy:

Any writer, engineer, or psychologist who’s good at their job will tell you that a story, Rube Goldberg machine, or the mind is made up many different and complex parts. Looking back, I think I was stuck in twisted versions of the first two and in danger of losing my own mind, as un-complex as that was at fourteen.

Thoughts? Too long? Suggestions? Let me know in the comments below.

That’s all for now. I’ll try to post a few posts over the weekend. I’ve got a special one planned for Saturday night, believe me.

Have a great weekend, my Followers of Fear!

Self-Pub Authors: Finding a Narrator on ACX

Posted: December 1, 2015 in Journalism
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My latest article from Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors is Finding a Narrator on ACX. I gained a lot of experience in the matter over the four months it took me to find mine, so I thought I’d share that experience with a helpful article. Perhaps it’ll get noticed by the company, like the last article I wrote on them did. If so, I hope they don’t think I’m a girl again when they tweet about it. That was hilarious, but I don’t like to be mistaken for a woman when I’m not at a costume party or have some other good reason to cross-dress.

Anyway, check out the article if you have the chance. And while you’re there, check out some of the other articles on Self-Pub Authors, which is written by independent novelists and designed to help you write, edit, publish, and market on your own while saving money and maintaining quality. Believe me, it is great. I wouldn’t write for it if it wasn’t.

That’s all for now. Have a great day and I’ll see you later, my Followers of Fear. Preferably I’ll see you with good news while I’m at it.

Reborn City’s Audio Book Has a Narrator!

Posted: November 28, 2015 in Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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RC cover

It’s been a long time in the making, and a lot of work since I announced that I was planning on turning Reborn City, my science-fiction novel, into an audio book back in August. I listened to a lot of audio samples, contacted a bunch of potential narrators, and even received a couple of auditions. But as of today, I am very pleased to announce that Reborn City has a narrator!

If you’re unfamiliar with Reborn City, it’s a dystopian science fiction novel that follows Zahara Bakur, a Muslim teenager who’s forced to join a street gang called the Hydras, and her involvement in a strange plot involving the gang’s superpowered leaders and the shadowy corporation that rules the city they live in. The novel contains themes of Islamaphobia, racism, gang violence, drug addiction and several others.

It also is a world that has much more resemblance to our own than Hunger Games or Divergent does (just look at the refugee situation these days and how some governments have responded to refugees these days) and I like to think it makes a little more sense than those books.

The audio book will be narrated by Barron Bass, an actor and voice artist based out of New York (check out his website here). I heard some of his samples on ACX, the website I’m using to produce the audio book (see my article on that site here). I liked what I heard, and I started corresponding with him. Once I heard his audition, I had a pretty good feeling I’d found my man. After some more weeks of correspondence, I sent him an offer and he accepted.

Our esteemed narrator, Barron Bass.

Now, I’m hoping we’ll have the whole thing done by early March, but I’m flexible. If Mr. Bass needs more time, I’m willing to give it to him. You can’t rush perfection, after all.

So I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next, which following the production process on ACX is that the first fifteen minutes of the book are recorded for my approval. After that, I give some feedback, and we work chapter by chapter on the book. Once it’s all done and it’s uploaded onto Amazon, Audible, and iTunes, I’m hoping a lot of people decide to check it out and take a listen. Maybe leave a few reviews while they’re at it.

And if RC does well, then maybe I’ll do Snake as well, and any other book I decide to publish from here on out. We’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, I’m going to go do my happy dance. Have a good rest of your day, my Followers of Fear. I know I am.

#FirstLineFriday

Posted: November 27, 2015 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff, Writing
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It’s Friday again, so you know what that means. It’s #FirstLineFriday! And since yesterday a good number of Americans stuffed themselves full of turkey, I’ve got a special Thanksgiving edition for you all! Woo-hoo! I would also make it a Black Friday edition, but that’s just a horrible practice that’s unfair to both customers (apparently the sales on Black Friday are no more special than sales at any other point in the year) and to employees (you can guess why).

As always, here are the rules of #FirstLineFriday: on Friday you write up a post titled #FirstLineFriday (hashtag and all), and then you write out the rules. Then you post the first one or two lines of a potential story, story-in-progress, or a completed or published short story. Finally you ask your readers for feedback. It’s a lot of fun, and I enjoy hearing what people have to say about it.

Here’s this week’s entry. It’s from an idea I had for a bloody and very strange story that I came up with the other day. I hope I get the chance to write it out someday soon. Enjoy:

Jake scooped out three slices of pie and some whip cream. The pie and cream were the only parts of Thanksgiving dinner that hadn’t gotten blood on them.

Thoughts? Problems? Let me know in the comments below.

That’s all for now. I’m house-sitting till Wednesday while my dad and his wife are on their fifth wedding anniversary trip (congrats, you two!). I think I might throw a wild party while they’re gone. Or maybe I’ll behave myself, edit and write, and watch Doctor Who. We’ll see what I’m in the mood for.

Happy Thanksgiving and have a great weekend, my Followers of Fear!

What I’m Thankful For

Posted: November 26, 2015 in Living and Life, Reflections
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It’s Thanksgiving in America today, when you’re supposed to be thankful for what you have in your life. Well, you should be thankful for all that year round, but especially today, because…the government made this a national holiday with that sort of connotation.

Well, in the holiday spirit, I’m going to write about all the things I’m thankful for in my life. There are quite a few, but I think I can get keep the list down to the most important ones.

My friends and family.

Whether I met them online, through school or work, or if I’m just related to them by blood or marriage, I love my friends and family. They keep me strong and help my mood stay up. Yeah, sometimes we have our disagreements. My sisters and I can get very nasty towards each other if we spend way too much time together. But it’s the people in my life that keep me less insane and are why I get up each morning. Love you guys. I’m so thankful you’re in my life.

My stories and those reading them.

Understandably, my stories are very important to me. They’re almost like my children. I’ve put so much work into them over the many years, and I always feel so happy when I get to a new stage in their writing process or when they get published. I’m so thankful that I’m able to write these wonderful stories and to work on them. It’s my passion, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

I’m also thankful for my readers. Whether you’re on my blog or checking out my books, you people are important to me. Every writer is a bit of a narcissist (why do you think we’re so desperate to get our work read by others?), so you guys tuning in every time I publish a post or ordering a book off Amazon just bring the biggest smile to my face. Thanks for coming at all and coming back again and again. It means so much to me.

The experiences I’ve had.

I’ve been to Germany twice. I’ve also been to England, France, and Israel in my time. I graduated from a good school with a great sports program (Go Bucks!) and I got to study fields I love. I’ve had great work experiences, with Ohio State, the building I lived in for two years, and the US Army. There’s a good likelihood that I might get that with my next job, once I find it. I have a blog with hundreds of followers and it’s growing, slowly but steadily. And of course, I’ve published a few books and I’ll hopefully publish a few more in the coming year.

There are also a bunch of bad experiences that I’d rather not remember, but they helped me grow as a person, so I’ll acknowledge them too.

To say the least, I’ve had the pleasure to see and do a ton in my short life, and I probably will get to do much more in the future. I’m thankful for my experiences, good and bad (though I could always use less of the bad). They bring quite a bit of spice to my life.

How good I’ve had it.

There are a lot of people less fortunate than me. I’ve never been persecuted because of the color of my skin, what country or region I’m from, or my religion. No one tells me what I should do with my reproductive organs like they know better than me when they don’t. I’ve never lived in a violent neighborhood or feared for my life just by walking out the door. I went to college and I’ve been able to earn a living except for short periods here and there. And there’s a growing amount of people in the US who don’t think I’m sick in the head, unholy, or after their children just because of my sexuality. And I’ve had a bunch of people in my life supporting me and showing me right from wrong and offering me their advice when I need it. I’ve had it good.

And there are people out there who cannot say the same thing as me. Plenty of people the world over suffer because of their race, their religion, their gender, their sexual orientation, their ethnicity. They’ve been hungry, or lived in war-torn areas. They’ve experienced violence in their own homes. Some, through genetics or accident, live life without the full use of their bodies or minds.

I’m aware of how privileged my life has been, and how so many people struggle through life because of some form of unfairness or another. That puts me in the unique position to try and help them. Whether it’s raising money for charity, advocating for a certain change, attending meetings, writing blog posts, or simply weaving an issue into a story, I’m making a difference. Perhaps it’s pretty small, but it’s better than nothing, right? And just because it’s easier to let other people handle the problems of the world, doesn’t mean I should.

So I’m thankful that I’ve had a good life. And I’m thankful that I know it, and that I’m in the position to make a difference. Because if I don’t, then I’m basically contributing to the decline of the world and of humanity. And I don’t want that to happen.

 

I’m not exactly sure who I’m supposed to be thanking on this day (God? The Founding Fathers? Whichever President who made this holiday a thing? It’s never really discussed), but I’m thankful. I can’t take for granted anything in my life, because it could be taken away at a moment’s notice. You never know what will be thrown at you. And here today, I’m making sure people know what I’m thankful for and that I don’t forget it.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll see you all tomorrow. It’ll be Friday, and you know what that means. Goodnight, my Followers of Fear.

What are you thankful for in your life?

Comment Craziness on Facebook

Posted: November 20, 2015 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership
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I’ve been meaning to write this post all week, but for a number of reasons–including my desire to wait and see how this played out–I’m only just getting around to it. But now that I am, let me start by saying this is a most unusual blog post, even for me. It has only a little to do with anything writing or horror-related, which usually means this would be a political post or about my life in general, but politics is only incidental to this story, and it doesn’t really feel like something affecting my life. It’s just amusing, like watching a cat chase a laser dot around the living room without realizing it’ll never catch that dot.

Okay, back to the beginning. If you’re at all familiar with contemporary American politics, you’ll know that we’re less than a year away from the Presidential election, and already election season is in full-swing. I’ve come out as a Hillary Clinton supporter already, and I follow her on Facebook. On one of her most recent status updates, I left a comment and that was the start of the craziness.

Now I know some people have some really intense opinions on the former Secretary of State. I get that, but I’m going to ask that you hold off on your opinions until this post is finished. Anyway, this was on Tuesday, in the wake of the Paris attacks, and already people in power were talking about limiting refugees based on religion or entirely. Secretary Clinton posted this on Facebook in response:

We’ve seen a lot of hateful rhetoric from the GOP. But the idea that we’d turn away refugees because of religion is a new low. -H

Well, that resonated with me. I’m a supporter of the refugees, and I don’t like the idea of turning them away. So here’s what I wrote as a comment:

America was built by religious refugees, as the GOP loves to point out. Turning away refugees becauseon their religion is hypocritical and goes against what America is supposed to be about.

This was one of the earliest comments on that particular post, which might explain what happened next.

Who knew supporting one candidate could lead to so much craziness?

Within half an hour, that post had over 300 likes and a growing number of comments. Some of them were supportive or in agreement. Others were…angry. Disagreeable. A few were throwing insults at my face. Others were attacking other people. Pretty quickly it degenerated into a debate between various commenters over this or that fact.

Did I say debate? I meant a mess of cobras fighting each other for superiority because they don’t like one another or their political beliefs. I’m pretty sure blood was spilled several times in the course of three or four days.

I won’t quote directly what people said, because some of what was said was just really awful and I like to keep this blog a mostly positive place despite this being the blog of a horror novelist. I will say that a few people called me names, said I knew nothing about the law or what America was about. One guy actually tried to direct message me to tell me I didn’t know anything and call me a dumbass. Thankfully, Facebook allows you to decline messages from people you don’t know, so I deleted that conversation quick as a rabbit.

My favorite insult hurled at me was some guy who had a similar name to a famous American writer’s real name told me I should go and study history. Joke’s on that guy, because one of my majors in college was History!

About an hour into this madness, I decided to comment back, the only comment I left in this crazy den of verbal Hunger Games contestants:

So I posted this comment about an hour ago. It’s got 550+ likes, 50+ comments, and a few people getting angry with one another over differences of opinion. And I’m just sitting here wondering, “Why can’t my sci-fi novel get this sort of attention? Islamaphobia and dealing with it is one of its major themes!”

If I see an opportunity to plug my books, I will. What do you want from me? It’s a hard world for indie authors, and we gotta do what we gotta do to make it in this hard, terrible world. And anyway, I was wondering why Reborn City didn’t get that much attention, especially considering the themes it explores.

In any case, this plug didn’t do me any good. That comment only got three likes, and only one person actually replied to it. They told me it must be because, like me and my original comment, my novel must be stupid because I don’t know anything.

That’s probably the only comment that actually hurt me. I put a lot of work into what I write, to make sure they leave impressions on people. Calling them stupid? I take offense at that.

At least nobody used that comment to seek me out and leave me false reviews just to hurt me. That would’ve been really dickish.

So at final tally, we’ve got 1,383 likes, 243 comments, and a whole rather nasty list of web vitriol. The activity was strong through Tuesday and Wednesday, but dropped off on Thursday, which thankfully I’m glad for. It was just nuts.

And how do I feel about being attacked? Well, I think knowing this was only temporary made it easier for me to just detach from it and not let it get to me. In fact, I felt a little bit good that I managed to stay out of the fire that I somehow managed to cause. I kind of felt like an evil villain with a set of human dominoes, just watching things play out and waiting to see what remains. Yeah, that’s callous, but it’s not as bad as what some of the people were saying in that comment thread. It was enough to make sailors blush.

Still, it was pretty amazing that I could get so many people riled up just with one comment. People really are sensitive when it comes to politics, and that sensitivity can get amplified through the anonymity of the Internet. The worst were the Donald Trump supporters (and they made themselves obvious, believe me). Those guys were the craziest of all

Oh, and people who want to comment some nastiness on this post, be careful. The more you comment, the more my profile is raised. That is all.

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