Monday, February 22, 2016

Angela Brown, Unicorn Bell, and Facebook Security

Every now and again, posts and blogs catch my eye and shout out is in order.

Angela Brown caused me to consider the lack of diversity in books.

On the one hand, I agree. More variety is a good thing. There is a market for different takes on life, rationales, and opinions. But I question whether someone such as I—farm girl, introvert, and fantasy aficionado—could deliver a true picture of life in New York City of a Broadway show cast member who loves to party. Or life as a transgender girl in Spain. I don’t think I have it in me. The amount of research blows my mind even if I kept my derriere home and Googled it all. I have no doubt traveling to these spots would be a living and breathing stranger in a strange land experience.

Summary: I fall back on write what you know.

I like twisting my set-in-her-ways mind in different directions. It’s creates flexibility by encouraging the synapses to branch out. But I can’t go down the path of forcing writers to be diverse when the experiences aren’t there.

Compelling works only so far. After a line is crossed, the story becomes awkward, fake, and unbelievable. 
I'd rather read it than write it. But that doesn't help the diversity problem, huh?

UnicornBell lost a fantastic moderator this week. E.J. Roberts is the force behind A Drop of Ink Reviews, a book review site in demand from readers and publishers. Even Random Books wants her reviews. How cool is that?

Our critique site will miss her, but we wish her well and hope to hear many more great things.

Facebook and security. When I edited my profile of FB, I made of point of NOT listing my birthday. IMHO, it gives too easy access to sensitive information. How many sites ask for your birth date as a security measure?

But I have relatives who know when I was born oh-so-many years ago and post happy birthdays galore. Oh well.

Do you stretch you writerly mind with diversity? Enjoy concise, fair book reviews?

Think relatives need to mind their own...er, do you believe posting your birthday is a security concern?



4 comments:

  1. If we can write more diverse, then we just need more diverse writers.
    Never thought about security issues with one's birthday. Thanks for the heads up.

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  2. I think that's why I appreciated your thoughts when you first shared them. I think you speak to the heart of the matter. It isn't just diverse content but content provided by a more diverse pool of writers. There are some things I just can't speak to but would love to read about when it is a genuine compelling story told from a perspective that is different from my own.

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  3. That's why we need diverse writers. Diverse voices. And we should be welcoming to all voices, even those that are different from ours.

    Too much info is out there for the hacker who wants it. I take it you don't want people wishing you a happy birthday. My brother figured out how to do that--he did something that makes it harder for people to post on his timeline. I have no idea what.

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  4. SHUT UP! we both wrote posts about the same thing! love it! and we both feel pretty much the same - write what you know, research what you don't and just write good! it's like forcing ourselves to write the hottest genre - not gonna come out well if it's forced and you have to research over the top.
    and angela is awesome!

    ReplyDelete

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