Best NO ever... A rejection letter can be just a beginning.

Several respected and successful writers have shared their rejection letters and they helped me deal with my own NO.  Reading their bout of NO gave me reason and courage not give up so maybe sharing my experience can help someone else... just a little.

A rejection letter or a rewrite/resubmit note no matter how kind or professional can feel like a punch in the face.

I brace myself before I open any e-mail from a publisher. My lovely inner dialogue screams, "How did you screw up this time?", "You suck and they don't want you or your work.", "Give up!"  and other variations that reflect my lovely lack of self-esteem/confidence in my writing (and let's face it myself).

Last year around this time, I got the dreaded "this manuscript is not ready for publication" e-mail= NO.

WHAM! POW! SMACK!

"I SUCK! That's it! I should never try to publish again." I can share my stories and forego the humiliation of rejection.

I thanked the publisher for their time and feedback (which was clearly wasted on me because me and my writing stink!). 

3 hours and 200 re-reads later of the e-mail... I actually internalized the words: There were real problems with my story. "OH MY GOD!!! How could I have missed these things? Can fix this and resubmit?"

I talked to a trusted friend who interpreted the e-mail as more of a rewrite and resubmit and not a "Why don't you give away your keyboard before the grammar police take it away?" What did I have to lose? "Another punch in the face," my almost non-existence shredded ego whined.

But I trusted this publisher. I want to make them my publisher. They know what they are talking about...

If nothing else I can fix my story and give my characters what they deserve. (Plus I'd get to WRITE more about a world I adore!)

I tossed out my carefully planned writing schedule and spent the next 4 months ripping apart and rewriting the story. 

The feedback made me dig deeper into my own experiences, I remembered things I'd forgotten or things I now take for granted but the character would not have.  I started the story in a different place. I got the character's reality out of my head and onto the page. I tossed parts out (which I saved for later). I fleshed out places I skated over. I added six new chapters and a number of scenes. I found better ways and about 30,000 more words to tell Zack's story.

Lynn West & Dreamspinner Press were correct in saying "the story wasn't ready". I liked the earlier versions of Lock and Key but now I LOVE it! I'm grateful for the careful attention and assistance the editing staff offers. I'm proud of Lock and Key. (It's not perfect, but the story is true to the characters).

So a NO isn't always a bad thing. My NO made me reach beyond, forced me to learn better ways of sharing my story and it gave me Lock and Key. 

Tomorrow (June 10th) at The Novel Approach Lock and Key's cover will be revealed! The book that was given the best NO ever will be released July 15th.

Big Hugs, Z. 

Zoos... and animal sanctuaries

Z. & Wombat

When I go on vacation with my love it is usually to a museum or to chase animal experiences. I don't mean visiting zoos (only zoos I've ever been impressed with were open air zoos like Singapore's zoo and the Steve Irwin zoo). We typically find animal interactions at animal sanctuary and our vacation money goes to supporting the little critters.

People have mixed feelings on zoos. Locking animals in cages is a terrible thing I won't argue that but they serve a purpose. You, my Pretty ones might not need to see an animal to know its value to the world but that's not so with everyone. There's much cruelty toward are furred (& non-furred) friends.
Zoos and animal sanctuaries help the animals with public relations.

((This baby tiger helped a woman to convince her grandfather to stop using tiger bones. This sanctuary for the tigers helps the community see that LIVE tigers bring in more money than DEAD. In Thailand, the Tiger Temple is giving locals jobs, improving the economy with tourism as well as educating the masses... even as they fight the negative spin the local government has tried to give  the monks help stop poaching >>> cutting into the bribes given the officials. How do I know this: I was there.))


Once someone sees a beautiful creature and has experienced the intelligence in their eyes it becomes more difficult to turn away from their plight. It's an easier sell to convince people not to kill, harm, wear, destroy habits if they feel connected to the animals affected.

Baby Sloth

Baby Sloths love technology

 I've literally traveled the world in search of animal interactions. We research and pick well rated sanctuary who are fighting to preserve, educate and save the animals in their area.

Costa Rica

Mei Wei & Z.

When I visit a zoo or a sanctuary it is MY responsibility to understand the risks to myself and the animals. Usually I meet babies who lost their mammas and are simply in need of love or adults that have injuries preventing them from returning to the wild.

Have I been hurt. Yuppers. I can honestly say baby tiger bites HURT. (I was crying before I understood where the pain started) But it was my fault. I didn't have my back to the wall and tigers stalk prey from behind. I was also scratched and bitten by a baby panda. Snapped at by ostriches and licked by a giraffe.

College friend & Z.

 Money talks. Vote with your dollars...

In poorer communities it's easier to kill than to protect. Long-term consequences and animal welfare aren't higher than making sure your kids have food. Animal sanctuary's like Wolong Panda Reserve (now gone due to an earthquake & rebuilt in Chengdu) stopped farmers from shooting the pandas who were eating their crops by hiring the farmers to grow bambooo and employing people in their community.

When pandas attack (I couldn't stop laughing after he knocked me down) Panda Master was yelling, "Up! Up!"

Well fed Komodo Dragon... there were 3 handlers w/ shields

There can be a downside. When this picture was taken in 1998... I thought I'd asked the right questions of Sea World. As a resident of California for 6 months we were VIP members of Sea World. It wasn't until Black Fish came out that we found out how abusive their practices were to the animals (Watch the documentary if you have any questions... but be warned it's harsh.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will I continue to chase animal experiences: Yeah.  I will continue to be careful and  only support positive animal organizations.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zoos and animal sanctuaries may not be your deal but I promise you they have a purpose and many animals both living in captivity and in the wild depend on them.

 

 

 

 

 

Hugs, Z. Allora

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Assumptions Fuck Us... (not in a good way)

We interpret actions of others based on our assumptions. 

Someone laughs... 
                  Oh God! They're laughing at me... cause I suck!
 Why not: They heard something funny. I wonder what the joke was...

Based on our life experiences we have learned to expect certain things under a particular circumstances... many times even when it doesn't make sense to do so. 

Someone doesn't say hi to you...
                    They're ignoring me!
                    They're mad at me!                    
Why not: They didn't see me. Their mind was somewhere else.


Especially if we have bad experiences we are going to see the negative possibilities before anything else. The world has trained us to do so to minimize the damage. 

I just read an article: Challenging Negative Self-Talk by Ben Martin, Psy.D.
 ((http://psychcentral.com/lib/challenging-negative-self-talk))  The idea is if we challenge our negative dialogue we'd lessen the impact of our assumptions.

How to do this? Ask challenging questions. (I nabbed these four types of question from the article. See link above)

"There are four main types of challenging questions to ask yourself:

1. Reality testing

• What is my evidence for and against my thinking?
• Are my thoughts factual, or are they just my interpretations?
• Am I jumping to negative conclusions?
• How can I find out if my thoughts are actually true?

2. Look for alternative explanations

• Are there any other ways that I could look at this situation?
• What else could this mean?
• If I were being positive, how would I perceive this situation?

3. Putting it in perspective

• Is this situation as bad as I am making out to be?
• What is the worst thing that could happen? How likely is it?
• What is the best thing that could happen?
• What is most likely to happen?
• Is there anything good about this situation?
• Will this matter in five years time? 

4. Using goal-directed thinking

• Is thinking this way helping me to feel good or to achieve my goals?
• What can I do that will help me solve the problem?
• Is there something I can learn from this situation, to help me do it better next time?" (Challenging Negative Self-Talk by Ben Martin, Psy.D.)

When my characters first come to me I think about what assumptions they are living their lives by... In With Wings Darius thinks he's straight... so doesn't quite understand his feelings toward lead singer Angel Luv. Dare's low self-esteem makes him question what could the sexy rocker possibility see in him so how could he keep him...? Angel has assumptions of his own (how could he ever satisfy someone who is bisexual and mostly attracted to women >>>> he's a product of a society with some truly misleading views on bisexuality) These assumptions were what lead With Wings to be a happy for now ending... They need to work challenge and hopefully change these assumptions. (Psst, they do I promise). 

                                                                         Buy Link 

Whenever possible:
I try not to jump to the worst possible conclusion.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.
I try not to assume someone knows my trigger issues.
I try not to assume they know what's going to push my buttons and are doing it to hurt me.

Assumptions... let's not. 

Hugs, Z. 

Fuck You Cancer

Dear Cancer,

Fuck you! I hate you!

I’m not so cocky to think you won’t win in the end… pretty confident you’ll be the death of me. But you won’t take my life.

I will fight you, but I will live while I do it.

While I freak out every three months awaiting blood results to see if you decided to make a reappearance... But I will live.

I still wear the scars from surgery that won’t ever heal… I know the two new rips in my flesh from the biopsies are still fresh and have yet to scar…

Every doctor's appointment holds a terror I never experienced before but after every test I await to hear you've returned somewhere.

You terrify me. You've taken people I love. You're taking people I love. You will take people I love...

But I will love and laugh and write and play and fight for others. I will live.

So fuck you cancer while you will end me you’ve forced me to enjoy every second of my life. You've given me a perspective and a laser focus to be happy and to bring as much happiness as I can to others. Even while I say fuck you... thank you for making me grab every opportunity available to me without hesitation or guilt.

Hugs, Z.
((written only because these words need to be set free out of my brain.))
PS FUCK YOU CANCER

Showing The Spectrum

Sometimes I wonder if I'm not a bit too neurotic in showing the spectrum.

Recently labels have been getting a lot of attention. Whether you see labels as great or terrible isn't what I'm going to debate... (My personal feelings on labels since you're wondering... oh you're not? Well, skim on ahead then... Labels can be good or bad based on how they are applied and what they are used for. Good if it helps find a community & an identity and bad if used to pathologize or exclude).

Labels are HERE. People slap labels on people whether we want them or not. At times, accuracy doesn't seem to be a determining factor in their application. I want to direct your focus on the spectrum within labels themselves.

There's a spectrum to everything. Each and every label has a range. Take this tube labeled Carmine Red:

I studied Chinese Brush Stroke Watercolor in Suzhou for about five years. Carmine Red was the go-to-color. It produced the lightest shade of pink I'd ever seen to the boldest fire red I could have imagined and all that diversity came from the same tube labeled Carmine Red.

When I'm writing a character sexual orientation is an important building block to the character's development (along with a host of other things). I tend not to stop at the basic tick off rainbow boxes of LGBT. I dig deeper. How does the character express it? What's their relationship to their sexuality? Where are they on the spectrum of within that sexual label? Are there other things they identity with that shape and redefine how they see this label? What do others think of this label? Has this label evolved over time?

I tend to not assign only one character a specific notch on the given spectrum. I'm driven to show the variation within the spectrum. So usually two or more characters (within different books and across my series) will have similar labels attached to them. It's an easy way to explore the variations within any given label.  (Psst, between you and me: when someone says well I'm X and this is how X is=it drives me insane... um, that's how X is for you and you might even be the average for X but I twitch a little because we can't invalidate other Xs who aren't exactly like how you are X. RIGHT?)

Josh (The Dark Angels: Tied Together) & Dusty (The Dark Angels: Finally Fallen): Both demi-sexual but Josh doesn't even think past his love interest to an orientation where Dusty's bi-sexual with strong preferences toward men.

Boon-nam & Lalana: (Illusions & Dreams): Both women are transgender. Boon-nam needed affirmation surgery to live an authentic life where as Lalana did not need to live and love. 

Dare (The Dark Angels: With Wings) & Dusty (The Dark Angels: Finally Fallen): Bi-sexual and were in denial... Dare struggles to accept a new label (and after 4 books he's still not settled with it...) while Dusty shrugs and wears it almost immediately.

Justin (The Dark Angels: Finally Fallen) & Adirake (Illusions & Dreams): Both guys crossdress and neither are transgender. Justin uses gender bending his clothing as a way to deal with a horrible past and Adirake is a performer.

Robin (The Dark Angels: Tied Together) & Cutter (Club Zombie: Zombies Suck): Both are into BDSM. Cutter uses it as an escape... a break from life. Robin needs it as part of his life.

Jake (Illusions & Dreams) & Xander (Lock and Key coming out in July): are pansexual... Jake is very sexually expressive (he literally fucked a hole) where Xander is monogamous and shy.

Walker & Lafayette (Club Zombie: Zombies Suck): Both are Doms but their submissives need something very different so the expression of their dominant sides appears different.

Okay, let's circle back around to the bathroom issue & why I flip out when people use the "Do You Want Him In The Women's Room" argument. (To be clear if you haven't seen my rants on this topice you've been under a rock or avoiding me... I FULLY SUPPORT people using the bathroom matching their gender identity. I don't freaking care what's in your pants just hand me toilet paper if I need it, don't talk on your cell phone, and flush.) There's a wide spectrum of what someone who is transgender looks like for a host of reasons.  I don't think any of us are in a position to police anyone else's gender identity. (Fuck me there's a wide range of what any of us look like!!!)

If I'm honest I think I buck the binary and worship the edges of any spectrum because that's where I usually find myself.

May we all appreciate spectrum and the variations within it. Invalidate no one...

Hugs, Z.

Cuckolding

So what is cuckolding? I'm going to have my assistant YouTube explain it to you.
Trying super hard to finish a manuscript.
Enjoy!!!
Hugs, Z.

Words Can Have A LOOONNG Reach

Words matter... 

 

We know that.

That's why according to investopedia Coke spent "a total $3.499 billion in 2014, $3.266 billion in 2013 and $3.342 billion in 2012."((http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/081315/look-cocacolas-advertising-expenses.asp))

It's hard not to absorb the advertising that sex is bad...

 

What is slut shaming?

"Slut-shaming is the experience of being labeled a sexually out-of-control girl or woman (a “slut” or “ho”) and then being punished socially for possessing this identity. Slut-shaming is sexist because only girls and women are called to task for their sexuality, whether real or imagined; boys and men are congratulated for the exact same behavior. This is the essence of the sexual double standard: Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts." Leora Tanenbaum Author of “I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet” 

Ms. Tanenbaum ends the article,

"...slut-shaming is not really about women’s sexuality. It is grounded in the belief that men get to assert themselves, and women do not. It may be getting a lot of attention these days, but slut-shaming is really just a catchy way to signify old-fashioned sexism." ((You can find the entire article here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leora-tanenbaum/the-truth-about-slut-shaming_b_7054162.html))

 

My Own Experience Being Called a Slut

*1st time the boys at the park figured out it was a person assigned female at birth that was kicking their 14 yr-old asses in basketball.
*When I questioned my friends who was having sex about why didn't they tell their boyfriends what felt good to them so they could enjoy it as well...
*On my way into Planned Parenthood for my 1st gyn
*A time or two when I didn't feel the need to get someone off who didn't make any attempt on behalf of my orgasm.
*When family members found out what I read...
*When family members and a couple of friends found out what I wrote...
*Every time I see a poll about sex in romance books...The usually the majority claim sex isn't that important... (to which I strongly need to disagree!)
*When a boyfriend was threatened by my interest in BDSM...
*All the other various times the word was tossed at me or those near me
*Anytime someone's actions equated to that kind of judgment...
*When a publisher identifies as being "clean" and providing "guilt-free" romance reading but makes it clear BDSM isn't something they publish>>> assume that people who are into it are dirty and guilty... (I'm good with that right... there loss  >>>>> I had much more of an issue with when their submission requirements ban gay characters it has thus change it's wording to no LBGT themes...)

Epic Fail... I internalized the negative

I'm shocked and ashamed that I internalized the negative dialogue society has given to the world about BDSM. I was doing edits for my upcoming release Lock and Key (July 15, 2016!!!!! BSDM world revolving around Entwined the BDSM club of my dreams... anyway)...  My editor pointed out I used the word "normal" for a non-BDSM centered relationship, which implied the BDSM relationship was abnormal. I was horrified! (I've been a happily love slave for many many many years.) How could I consider my relationship anything other than beautiful... then I looked around at all the messages force fed to me... How many TV shows and movies make BDSM a weird/odd/dangerous/deadly/anything but normal lifestyle? How many times did I see a face of disgust being made when I admitted my interest/participation/fucking downright LOVE for BDSM? Countless...

I had drank the Kool-Aid and it has seeped into my psyche. Somehow I ingested the negative dialogue even when I know better (Proof of my very existence)

What Can I Do?

I can be mindful of how these negative ideas and images free float in the world and if I'm able I'll address them. Be it racism, homophobia, sexism, ageism, transphobia, anti-sex... If I can speak out and up I will.

I need to watch what I put into the world (& work with people who are able to catch such slips).

Words matter and have a long reach. I'll try to be mindful of their power.

Many hugs,
Z. Allora

(Psst, you can do the same if you want!)