Other Author Weighs In: Armintrout

[naeko.livejournal.com]

As a response to Hamilton's delightful blog about how all other authors are doing it wrong, Jennifer Armintrout had some things to say.

Barfing On My Keyboard

"Bleeding On My Keyboard" begins innocently enough with Laurell lamenting how difficult it's been for her to work on her latest manuscript. Fair enough, I've been there. I can get on board with feeling like your own writing is trying to straight up murder you. In fact, I would wager that pretty much every writer has felt that way now and again.

Laurell disagrees with me:
Some very successful writers don’t seem to feel that emotional connection to their work, or at least not to the degree I do. I used to envy them until I realized the price of that cool distance. They write like they feel with less depth, less of themselves on the page. It is a safer way to write, less frightening, less hurtful, less pain for the writer, but the writing shows that.

This is where it all starts to go a little wrong. As a writer, I resent the implication that unless "I’ve screamed at my computer, cursed other characters, fought and lost to them," I haven't managed to make a connection to my work. I love my job. I wouldn't love it if it constantly frightened and hurt me, and I don't think it needs to.

(More at the link, of course)


This has been brought up elsewhere, but not here, yet, so I'm relaying it for those of you who haven't seen it. I personally think Armintrout has made some good points, and I like to see when other professional authors calls LKH out on her shit. She likes to put up a wall of, "haters gonna hate" and just assume that all the people who don't fall at her feet and worship what she writes are just not intelligent enough or just don't get her, or whatever other excuse du jour she's using. I like seeing another professional, published author take issue with her words. To me it seems like she might be at least slightly more likely to take them seriously.

Then again, she's not listened before, so maybe I'm wasting perfectly good hope.

Comments

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

?

"Sugar and spice and everything nice" is a nursery rhyme (the answer to the question "What are little girls made of?")

I think her point is that "catty" is a gendered insult, and it is often used when women are not conforming to a gendered stereotype that they should be "sweet" (the "we" there is "people in general").

I don't see any implication that there is anything wrong with being sweet, just that there is something wrong with people in general assuming that all women should be sweet, and using gendered insults to dismiss them when they are not.

A disagreement among male authors would be unlikely to be called "catty" but rather "a dust-up" or "a fight" or something more active or evocative of physical conflict.

[pith]

I'm well aware of its origins, thanks :) I'm saying the argument and the wording are uncomfortably close to LKH's.

Many people do unfairly criticize outspoken women, but an author should know better than to use generalizations like "we". Authors make their living off words, so they should know what the implications of those words are. She could have easily said "Many people" or "Too many people". That's what I dislike, because LKH formats her arguments in a similar fashion.

I use "catty" to describe a type of behaviour regardless of the sex/gender of the person in question, so I disagree with her general "we". Is she then saying she is also guilty of using "catty" in that way?

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I think you are picking nits. "We" = "many people" is a very common usage in the US, where Armintrout is from.

[pith]

Members of this community have been far more exacting when dissecting LKH's use of language. If we're going to subject LKH to that sort of scrutiny, it's only fair that other authors are treated in a similar fashion.

[naeko.livejournal.com]

I hate myself for what I'm about to do but:

THIS!