Dec IWSG and Happy Holidays plus Grey's Anatomy, Ally McBeal, #BathroomGate

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CvBag2SPD/ #BathroomGate The United States Congress doesn't want all elected members to be allowed to use the bathrooms in Government buildings. Gonna need to pause doing your job of running the country to poop at the deli down the street, I guess. We'll be back to toilet segregation in no time.

"This is your priority, that you want to bully a member of Congress, as opposed to welcoming her to join this body so all of us can work together to get things done and deliver real results for the American people?" Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said. - BBC news

Again, to clear this up, the MAGA Republicans are saying if a person is born with a 🌮 "taco" and has since undergone extensive surgery, medical treatments, psychology, basically thousands of dollars in medical costs, and now has an 🍆"eggplant," that person should use the bathroom labeled ladies. 🚺 Because that will prevent sexual assault. To have people who now have a penis in the ladies' room will PREVENT sexual assault. Additionally, a person born with an 🍆"eggplant," who has had the medical procedure to slice it open and fold it over, so now the person has a 🌮 "taco," that person should use the bathroom labeled men. 🚹 For their own protection, of course. 🤦

As usual, no mention of people born with multiple reproductive organs, or none. 

It's an American problem. Partly because our restrooms our so poorly constructed. Huge gaps between the doors and walls, neither of which go all the way to the floor or ceiling. The "locks" rarely keep the doors closed. And now, apparently, over half of the population has become obsessed with watching others use a toilet. 🚽🧻

But, back in the 1990's, the show Ally McBeal had a unisex restroom. "We all go together." Gen X survived with that. "Some say Ally McBeal was a quintessential show of the 1990s."

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

InsecureWritersSupportGroup.com

December 4 question - Do you write cliffhangers at the end of your stories? Are they a turn-off to you as a writer and/or a reader?

Cliffhangers... use one book to sell the next. My beloved Grey's Anatomy just did another big cliffhanger to 🤔🫣😵‍💫 drive fans crazy for the next few months. (Returns March 6. Jo!!! 🤰) 

You gotta go with what the story calls for, I guess. Traditional publishers seem to be looking more and more for novels under 90k. So, sometimes you need a cliffhanger. Of course, a lot of them also want stand-alones, so then there's no cliffhanger. 😅

A story I've been working on for a few YEARS has cliffhangers between chapters. A main plot point of the story might not exist much longer, so I don't know what to do about that. I should just indie publish it because trying to find just the right people to represent it is getting more and more difficult. 

https://bsky.app/jamiewriter.bsky.social

Some of you may recall my LONG battle with Twitter to restore my account. It had been shut down due to quoting a Jeff Dunham character joke in a blog post title and sharing a link to my post. (Oddly, a Gif with the same quote was readily available on Twitter. And Jeff's own account used the words multiple times without being banned.) 

ANYWAY. I finally got my Twitter account restored.

And now I don't even want it. 😅

Now the platform is full of hate speech, sandbags any posts with links, and is used to train AI.

TL;DR = I'm on Bluesky now! And I prefer it. Much happier place. If you've moved too, please hit me up. I'd love to make more writer pals over there. - JamieWriter 

Stop the Hate of Grey's Anatomy Tolerance

 

Ellis and Richard are the older characters on the show. There are flashback episodes to the intolerance they faced as surgical interns. Racism, sexism, the usual prejudice from small minds. 

Some people claim the show has "gotten too political and too woke." 

I poked a troll. Because the stance is crap. And prejudice shouldn't be "political." I mean, it is, especially now with the hate about to be fully in charge of the US government. (Our biggest threat will come from within.) 

I miss the days of people being afraid of getting called out for being prejudice. So yeah, today, I opted not to be silent. 

Bluesky

 

https://bsky.app/profile/jamiewriter.bsky.social

US Education

The dissolution of the US Department of Education will probably help America... 🤔🤨😐😑😑😑🫥😶‍🌫️

I'm sure the poorest children in the US will start getting the FINEST educational opportunities by September 2025. Oh yeah, it's gonna be like the prep school young Barron Trump attends, but for EVERY school in America. Right? 🤔🤨😒😬

Yeah, the Department was what held schools back. Funding is gonna flow like the Mississippi now! All universities are going to be Ivy league, because every child in America is going to be educated enough to attend Ivy league schools. Right?!?! 🤥👨‍🏫👩🏿‍🏫🧑🏻‍🏫

Sure. 

Yeah, the student loan situation could only be looking up. Heck, US secondary educational institutions will probably all be totally FREE by next year.

Right? 

🤔🫣

Sure. 

And if the United States is reclassified as an under developed nation due to the lack of education? 

😲

"Access to education and healthcare: Citizens of developed nations have access to quality healthcare and higher education." 

(We're already barely hanging on in several other requirements for "developed.") 

Yeah, that's okay. 🤬

Political story

 #politics 

Once upon a time...

There was a caterpillar 🐛

and it was preparing to transform, creating a chrysalis.

"Whoaaa, hold on there! You were born as a caterpillar. You crawl. That's it. That's what you are. That chrysalis is against nature, against some god or religion or something, and just plain offensive. Nexy you're gonna expect us to let you fly around, like others born with flight. You might poo 💩 in places caterpillars don't usually poo. And then expect us to respect your new identity by calling you *butterfly*! Ohhh no. Nope, nope, not on our watch. You go back to crawling or you will not be alive! Period. If you were meant to be something else, you'd have been born that way, NO EXCEPTIONS." 

And then the group eradicated all the butterflies 🦋 from the world, because obviously butterflies were not created by any god but by those evil Democrats, who obviously traved back in time and created such offensive, wretched creatures. 

Of course, butterflies were pollinators. So many types of flowers, fruits, and vegetables went extinct. But obviously those time-traveling Democrats created those species of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. And then other parts of the food chain vanished from existence. And that's all the Democrats fault! Because no god, no creator of the universe, would ever dare to make anything that can change. Butterflies are an abomination. 

In the next story, we'll learn about the serious evil of Seahorses, another creature created by time-traveling Democrats. They reproduce all wrong and mistreat the males. That species needs to be extinct. 

Make the world great again. Eradicate all the species that don't follow the rules of the one true leader. No more change in nature! No more diversity. 🍁🍂 Stop the leaves. Eliminate the science books that dare to suggest this is normal and necessary. Pinecones do not have an key ingredient in the life cycle of pine trees! Seeds do not turn into plants! 🌾 More Democratic lies!! 

(And someone go edit that part in Genesis that blames the Christian God for creating animals and trees and any nature that permits change!)

^ The above is sarcastic. 

But really, since the Republicans don't believe the LGBTQIA+ population could exist, may as well use the same reasoning for other nature. 

What if

 We've been making an assumption for the last decade that the "wall" he keeps longing to build is an actual, physical 🧱 wall, like made of brick or stone or whatever physical materials. 

🤔 What if we missed the much more obvious option? A "wall" in the more philosophical sense. 

Like, remember in the movie INDEPENDENCE DAY, when David sorta flips out and starts trashing his work place, because maybe if the planet is screwed up enough, the aliens 👽 won't want it? 

Well... what if that is the plan? 

Take away enough rights, mistreat large chunks of the American population enough to turn the country "cringe" 😬, maybe that "wall" will build itself because people won't want to immigrate. 

It's kind of brilliant. Like, imagine if the Native Americans who first made contact with the Mayflower, if they had shown the Pilgrims a horror show. Imagine if the first group of slaves that Columbus took got to Europe and were all, "thanks for the rescue from our toxic home," and then all agreed to make up a horror story of insurmountable odds. And Europeans were like, "maybe we don't want to sail west anymore." The Vikings didn't seem to enjoy Canada 500 years before that. 

Maybe this is the plan. Because maybe if enough Americans look like the old Sally Struthers commercials, which tinted the view of the whole continent of Africa 🌍 (wasn't the goal, but was the outcome), maybe that's the MAGA plan. To sully the country in the eyes of the world. 

Even hired a comedian to test it out. On the stage of a former president, a comedian insulted an American Commonwealth. And that former president did nothing, didn't storm out and defend his country. Just stood by. 

Because maybe it was a test. Could they trash the country and still win support from the country? 

Yup. 

So maybe they attack women, LGBTQ+, poor people, the elderly, disabled Americans, veterans, and 👱🏾🧔🏿‍♂️🧔🏽‍♀️🧔🏽👨🏿‍🦰👨🏼‍🦰👩🏻👩‍🦰🧑🏼‍🦲 nearly every ethnic group. Basically everyone. 

Hobbies, Fiction, Marketing, and Chucky #IWSG

InsecureWritersSupportGroup.com

One last bit of Halloween humor, from "SEED OF CHUCKY," where murder is a hobby.

Because I don't know how best to answer this anymore. I've had several other creative pursuits over the years, but I mostly just watch tv and movies with my husband now. I don't do most of the other activities I enjoyed when my body functioned better. Sorry. I barely give a damn.

I do go on useless rants on social media from time to time. Since this one is about books, I'll share it in this post.

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/CR7NAfFACnY3Rzgy/

🙋‍♀️ Hi, excuse me... I'd like to add to the question, please.

We have NA, YA, teen, middle-grade, ... seriously, the first 20 years of life all have their own little subgroups. 

Where's elder fiction?

And no, Captain Sarcasm (who always appers when I ask this), I do NOT just mean "large print." 

I mean novels with protagonists over age 65. 

And no, I also don't mean the history or political fiction sections, even in the years when nearly all of Congress and higher were people over age 65. 

( 🤔 One would really think life quality would be better for seniors, especially when they were the most represented group in the highest US Federal Government... but no, shockingly the representation didn't actually improve the situations.) 

If there's a story with a detective🕵

- mystery subgenre

- if that's a woman 🕵‍♀️, now it's "chick lit mystery"

- if it's a 17yo teen girl, now it's "YA chick lit mystery" 

- 🧛‍♀️ give her fangs, now it's "YA fantasy chick lit mystery" 

- she falls in love with 🧝‍♂️ an elf, now it's "YA paranormal romance"

(And all romance is automatically for women, even when it's 👨‍❤️‍👨 guys... 🤔🤔🤔🫣🤨🤨😶‍🌫️)

Seriously, bookstores like Barnes & Noble would take a main character and break categories down to the smallest niche. And Amazon is even worse, if you go to the site on a computer and scroll down to look. 

BUT

Over age 21 is adult. And that's it. 

As if a main character over a certain age couldn't have additional internal struggles? Or extra life experience and wisdom. 

Reimagine, for a moment, Twilight but Bella was Betty White. 

"Edward, you're too young for me."

"We were born nearly the same year. Actually, you're still older than I am."

"Yeah, but I mastered makeup years ago, so I know how to conceal reflective, sparkling skin. Honey, I can't commit to someone who hasn't figured out how to apply foundation. You've gone to high school and college over and over, and not once gotten makeup tips? Never took a cosmology class? Hon, you're an idiot." 

Ohhh... but there's no market for THAT book. Because we don't have a space for fiction with elder main characters. 

Wait... we do on tv. 🕵‍♀️ "Murder, She Wrote" had an inadvertent female detective elder, and look how well that show did. And elder male detective shows? Also had tv spots.

But as books? 

🕸*tumbleweeds*🕸

Okay, they probably exist.

And Goodreads probably has a list. Created by READERS, not publishers. Because we don't market reading or entertainment to seniors... just medication, diapers, and reverse mortgage scams. As if audiobooks couldn't be big sellers with older adults? 

It's a marketing HOLE. 

And that, by the way, IS THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION.

There's no men's fiction because then they'd have to market to men. Sorry, advertising people have ruled that men can only purchase tech, alcohol, cigars, sports, and cars. Men don't read. 

These are the same advertising geniuses who won't market video games to females. Even when Halo Online revealed that half the players were, in fact, the females they refuse to market to because women don't play video games. 

Ad executives keep deciding on rules, but they are totally daft at actual market research. They keep telling people that THEY decide what sells and to whom... 

And social media has proven they are WRONG. 

So, one last rant from the soapbox...

All these politicians begging for money (I get at least 3 texts a day, I don't know about you) because they can't WIN without money...

Those same fool advertising people are telling them that! 

Get online. Social media campaigns have higher results and positive interactions, when done well. Stop wasting money on what an ad agency says. 

Oh, and no one wants to read a book about some astronaut geologist who is left behind on Mars. 

Except for all the people who bought The Martian from Andy Weir. And that Matt Damon guy, who played thr character in a blockbuster movie. Just another example of advertising people being proven wrong. Indie books can sell, and get big Hollywood deals. 

---

"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

The real problem is indifference. 

Whatever happens next will be because of people who just 🤷 shrugged it off and were indifferent about what could occur. 

Don't blame the scorpion. 🦂 It is going to sting, because that's what a scorpion does. 

🐢🐸 The turtle (or frog, depending which version you've heard- same story) is always gonna get stung for letting the scorpion get on their back.