Just so everyone knows what's going on, since most (and I emphasize MOST) of this group has been very supportive in the past (especially with my personal and health issues), I'm at a crossroads. The private-side reaction to Bikini Beach: Heroes has been ugly. Very ugly. What you've read in the reviews and comments is extremely mild. A lot of folks disliked the ending, and let me know. These comments were relatively polite, if at times a bit forceful. But the private messages were hateful and nasty - as in calling me un-American, anti-military, traitorous, hateful toward soldiers and veterans, and such. Lots of profanities, and even comparing me to the actions of Jane Fonda in Vietnam. It really wounded me, deeply. Since those reactions, I find my muse is whimpering in the corner, possibly mortally injured. I can't write. I have some vague ideas, but even those aren't fun to turn over in my mind, to ponder the opportunities for adding plot twists and turns, for fleshing out the characters. There is no enjoyment in considering stories or plots.
I know I shouldn't let the critics get under my skin, but as you know, I've been dealing with serious depression in the last year and a half. Writing WAS therapeutic from the stresses of life. With that background, I knew that writing and posting was always a gamble, that I'd publish something that would garner the type of reaction that I got for Heroes. But the viciousness of the reaction shocked me, and really knocked me back on my heels.
I don't know where I'm going from here. I don't know if I'll find the ability to write again. Even if I can write, I don't know if my badly-scarred ego will dare risk publishing again, for fear of another round of attacks. I don't know where I'm going from here. It may be time to turn another direction and close the door on this part of life. It may be a brief sabbatical. I don't know. This is, possibly, my swan song, at least from the writing and publishing side. Heroes wasn't, in retrospect, the kind of story I wanted to go out on, but sometimes, life throws us a curve ball, and we can only react. Thank you for all of the good you've given me.
Til vi má¸tes igjen - men hvis ikke, velsignelser vá¦re med deg.
Comments
Don't let it get you down
So what if you had a bad response to 1 story? Forget it. Just work on others. If every author did what you are thinking of doing, nothing would be written.
Develop a thick skin and keep on writing.
Sephrena
Only good writers attract a response
Unfortunately some damaged people feel like it is their right to heap abuse on any writer here which provokes a response. Somehow they feel that tearing someone else down lifts them up and gives them a false sense of self worth.
Here only the writer wins along with gracious readers. Erin will remove any abusive comment from your work that you wish. Any PM abuser may be blocked.
I hope that you will keep writing.
All my hopes
Ariel Montine Strickland
What's next? I don't know....
Elrod; I didn't read that story and after reading the first couple of paragraphs it wasn't my cup of tea. But I do agree with Sephrena just let it go and continue to write your best because you are a great writer and we all look for more from you! Thanks!
Richard
There was nothing disrespectful or unAmerican
... about your story. Life is full of choices, and being an honorable hero in a dishonorable war is one of them. What was the best outcome of this story? It's a moot point. There were two possible outcomes in two different universes. Did our hero/heroine's actions in the first scenario have any affect on the outcome of a dishonorable war? Probably not. Did the lack of intervention in the second universe affect the war? Maybe it did. Maybe it was the straw that broke the resolve to stay involved in such winless situations. When one signs up for the military, one signs away his or her life. General Patton said it very well, and I paraphrase, "It's not your duty to die for you country. It's your duty to make some other poor son-of-a-bitch die for his country."
If I had had her choice to go back and maybe make a positive influence in a society bent on continuing to get involved in religious wars, I would in a heartbeat. My hidden gender has nothing to do with it. Suppose our hero had been given the same choce by the SRU wizard: to go back, get an education, and to try to create a better society for the future; however, I would have to do it as a male. As much as I dislike the idea, I would still opt for that choice. Yes, those men would die; however, they would be just faceless names in a news broadcast, just like the lists we get every day or so. Suppose each of those fatal events had been eased in another universe, creating another crippled for life hero in the process? What would the overall benefit of the situation have been? Probably nothing. Yes, another medal would get passed out, but to what effect? Only to fuel the passion to continue an unwinable war. The one objection I have with this story is that our heroine has to live with the guilt knowing that the other universe happened.
I am a veteran of 21 1/2 years of military service. For six of those years I had my finger on the figurative 'red button', ready to send a hell beyond comprehension to somewhere on the Eurasian Continent. Likewise, some other poor son-of-a-bitch over there had his finger ready to do the same thing to us. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed.
Our heroine made a temendous sacrifice to try to improve mankind. She is a heroine.
Portia
The sum
Is greater than the parts, Elrod. I didn't read the story, the tags/keywords told me enough for me to know it wasn't my cuppa Joe. But that's just one story. You know I'm not going to blow smoke up your skirt*, but that one story is not the sum of your works. So this one was a strike out, you've knocked plenty of 'em out of the park. Forget this one and move on to the next. I don't always like what you write, but I certainly do not want your voice to fall silent. Get back in there and start swinging.
* Where did this phrase come from? Strange.
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
keep going
To be honest, with or without depression it sounds like you got a really rough ride. I hope your muse can come back stronger because the only way you are going to beat these people is by continuing to write. I'd hate to think that this was a website where people could be bullied out of writing.
*hugs*
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Heroes
I enjoyed the story the first time. When I saw your note here, I went back to check a second time. Did the critics read the same story, or a different one with the same name, by the same author? I defend their right to make nonsense judgments (some of Beethoven's works and most of Stravinsky's were harshly criticized), but you cannot take them to heart! (Thank God Beethoven didn't--altho I'm not quite so sure about Stravinsky). I speak as one who has been on the receiving end --check the comments on Only A Baby Machine. And please, follow Beethoven's example.
Susana Quemada
Writing for yourself
When you're doing it just for yourself, you put a part of your heart and soul into a story. Having a thick skin or not, it hurts having that 'rejected.' I do hope that you and your muse can recover, because I do on the whole like your stories. No, I don't read each one, because not all of them appeal to me.
This was one I avoided because I sensed that this one would touch on some 'buttons.' The reordering of reality comes with landmines that I first discovered reading the Professor's Ovid stories. When I suspect such is coming, I pass on that one.
On the other hand I understand that you go where your muse leads you. I do hope you can coax her out. From what I understand, you write to ease stress and express a part of yourself you normally keep under reserve. Please don't let this stop you from doing the things that are healthy for you.
Biggest and most Gentle of hugs
Grover
To say I'd hate to see you
To say I'd hate to see you "retire" would be an understatement. After you stopped writing before I stopped reading. It was finding you writing again and finding my place here that woke me up again. Besides the love of bikini Beach you introduced me to operation rescue and to Tommi, a character that is just as strong as Anya.
Really wish you would not quit. Really really really hope you don't. I read a lot of good and decent stories here now but no one and I mean no one has even come close to what you do.
I want to know what happens to Anya, Grandmother, grandmother's missing daughter, Jenny and Melinda, liz, suzie's story and any continuations of Tommi and her sister and friends, Dee too...
One final comment in regards
One final comment in regards to the awful emails you received. There are a lot of petty small minded people out there that think Patriotism is writing a mean email when reality is most of them would run away when they themselves would have to defend this country because only cowards hide behind viscous emails... Please don't take small minded worthless people's comments personally because they themselves are already hateful. Remember Tommi's mother and sister??? They are the types to email something nasty...
On of the first stories I read...
When I started to explore MtF was yours, and I was hooked. Most of the stories I have read do not come close to the quality you create.
While it was a rough road for a while, I am a much happier person, as I am transitioning from MtF. You have given me many hours of reading pleasure. Please don't let a bunch of no talent trolls ruin it for both of us.
Thank you, whatever you decide I'll be an admirer.
BTW, I don't think anyone has explored what happens when a T-girl goes through Mrs. Beach's little park.
Elrod I read Heroes
and to be honest it left a bad taste in my mouth. I think you wrote yourself in a corner with no way out of it. If I'm correct this happened a year or so after he and his fellow soldiers returned home.I'm certain there were children that resulted in those soldier's families that didn't exist after he made the choice. Again I think you left yourself no way out.
Some reasoning by the characters seemed faulty to me and doesn't ring true. For example more women than men are entering and graduating college, more women are starting and own business than men. In this recession more men than women lost their jobs so the reason for concern for the girls to me seemed contrived and as cover that he wants to be free of the pain. I don't blame him for that choice but to me that's where the story starts to fall apart.
But I didn't then because I really like your stories and I only hope someday to be somewhere near you in writing skills. Take it from someone who really, really did not like the story ending do not stop writing because you add positive values to this universe and I think you tried to do that here.
Katelyn
Understanding is our way.
Speaking the truth to such unthinking and unfeeling hatred of any other form of reasoning is extremely stressful and at times dangerous.
Some of the protest comes from people who have so much pain and investment in maintaining there Ideals they can not see that these Ideals as truthful and necessary are being co-opted by evil people using the brave sacrifices for there own evil ends. Our heroes pay with there lives so the evil people can make money and take freedom and control away from all of us.
You only put your finger on a nerve that, the wounded, the trolls, and the empty minded grabbed upon to vent there poison unfortunately on you. This is the time for a strategic retreat from there war and not read there posts or Emails. They can speak there minds but not on your time.
Your ending was very good for the story and examines a fictional alternative solution to a fictional situation nothing real was harmed in this depiction.
Take some time and heal from this thrashing. But don't give up writing to feed someone else s ego.
Huggles and love
Michele
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
Perhaps you are looking at things wrong?
If you can take a step back emotionally for a minute, any story that creates great passion could be called a success. It means you moved people to comment/PM/Email both for the good and the not so good. At the end of the day it is still a story, a piece of fiction. If you got under someone's skin then you wrote something powerful. If you pushed some people's buttons and they told you how, you have the option of not doing that again. Or if you have a point to make, doing it in a different manner.
I think passionate response good and bad is better than indifference. You have such a large body of work, it would be next to impossible to have everyone love everything. I would also remind you than you have to be happy with the story yourself. If it is what you wanted, then that's the story you wanted to tell. Take the feedback, internalize it, evaluate ite it, take what you agree with, disregard the rest. Then move on to the next story. (Easier said than done I know)
Write in other universes for a while and let BB sit. Or create something entirely new...you aren't chained down to any type of story or universe with which to work.
{{Hugs}}
It Was Only A Story
But the private messages were hateful and nasty - as in calling me un-American, anti-military, traitorous, hateful toward soldiers and veterans, and such. Lots of profanities, and even comparing me to the actions of Jane Fonda in Vietnam.
Am I missing something here? You wrote a story, in which you created a character who made a choice. That does not imply that you approve of the character's decision. All you did was invent a set of circumstances that led up to it.
The people venting their hate need to sit in a room and write 'it was only a story' repeatedly until they understand the purpose of fiction.
I scarcely know what to add to the rest, save this.
Elrod. You have, in a relatively short time, become what could be termed a legend in our genre. You've created a vastly popular universe, one in which you graciously invited others to play in, and cemented your name in the halls of TG Fiction as a pioneer.
Bikini Beach is bloody marvelous, and there have been only one or two stories written therein that I didn't thoroughly enjoy. The characters you created are real and loved by many, many readers, and other writers as well. I doubt seriously if anyone who reads our stuff, if asked who Grandmother or Anya are, would be hard pressed to come up with the correct answers.
I completely understand your consternation at the rather poor reception Heroes received, and it does hurt when you write something from your heart, only to have it ridiculed, if not actually hated. Rest assured though that your name is synonymous with quality work. I know, when I read a story written by Elrod, that I am in for a good ride and an entertaining time. Everyone writes a clinker now and then. Trust me, I've written more than a few myself. PIck yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back in the saddle. I am convinced you haven't written your magnum opus yet, and I am looking forward to reading it when you do.
As one who has enjoyed your stories immensely, I thank you for all your hard work and your talent, Thank you for sharing your vision with us. I dearly hope we haven't seen the last from your inventive mind.
Hugs and love,
Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
I hope you will keep writing,
I hope you will keep writing, perhaps after a break if you feel that's necessary for your mental health. You're one of the better writers here and it would be a poorer place without you.
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