I'm Off Until At Least The Weekend

It's spring break for at least one of the New England states this week, and I will have houseguests tomorrow through Friday. 

I have a couple of other things in mind for you for next week, though.

I Guess I Have Joined The Ranks Of Controversial Humor Writers Part II

Hert Niks on Unsplash

Who? What? When? Where? and Why? are the classic questions writers deal with. For me, the most important is why? The eternal why? In this case, why did What We All Want to Say to That One Out-of-Touch Grandfather at the Playground,  a light-hearted consideration of male authority figures out of their element in a kid-centered situation (an example of using incongruity in humor, by the way), incite the heated response I described yesterday? 

Some thoughts.

The Nastiest Comments

The nastiest comments came from people who were registered with Medium under assumed names and had not published anything there. I have no idea what to make of that. Were they regular Frazzled readers? Were they parents or regular humor readers? Do they use that language with their kids? With their grandfathers?

Romanticizing Grandfathers

I also received comments that were not nasty from nice people who had nice things to say about their own grandfather experiences, which somehow seemed to keep them from finding any humor in what I had written. The whole concept of grandfathers may be very warm and fuzzy for some people, something they want to embrace and can't see anything funny about. The feeling seems to be that we shouldn't be laughing about situations involving a grandfather character. We should enjoy grandfathers in some other way.

Understanding Humor

When I saw the first insult comment, by which I mean the one about me being a bigoted, anti-male feminist who should mind my **** business, I thought, Okay. I don't want readers to see this comment and leave with that being the last thing they think about. So I will use this opportunity to show that I know something about what I am doing and that I have even been recognized for it in the past. After thanking him for calling me an anti-male feminist, I said, "However, "What We All Want To Say..." is not a feminist piece but an example of hyperbole--exaggeration that is not meant to be taken seriously. Hyperbole is often used in humor writing, and I've been known for it throughout my career. "Gauthier demonstrates a real talent here for humorous hyperbole..." BOOKLIST."

More and more of these comments kept coming. In response to one of them, I said, "This isn't a memoir..." But before long I just started saying, "Thank you for your comment." Because if people are so irate they are moved to tell a writer she is an ass, it's pretty unlikely they will appreciate being told they don't understand what they're reading. Perhaps it is also arrogant to try to tell them. And since I've already been accused of being superior, let's not go any further down that road.

Some Kind Of Ageism

As I mentioned in my last post, the subject of ageism came up several times in the comments I received. Which is a laugh, what with me being older than mud, myself. This blog is over twenty years old. Does anyone think I started it when I was twelve? But I believe there is, indeed, some kind of ageism at work here. However, it's not on my part.

One of the more thoughtful, less antagonistic comments I received advised me to punch up, implying that I was punching down in this humor piece. I had to think about that, because, yes, I do not want to ever punch down, meaning direct humor at the powerless. But after a couple of hours, I suddenly thought, Hey, how is humor relating to grandfathers punching down? Why are grandfathers powerless? The grandfather characters I created were not ill or physically unfit. One had been in upper management. One had been in the military. Why was this a powerless group that needed special consideration? 

The only reason I can come up with is the grandfathers' age. Were readers perceiving grandfathers as weak and inappropriate topics for humor merely because they were...old-er...old-ish...old?

Which I believe is ageist. I'm not ageist! You're ageist!

It never occurred to me that fit, healthy men my age would be perceived as lesser because of how old they were and thus require special consideration when writing about them. When I realized two days ago that this might be what was happening, I was livid. How freaking patronizing! Yesterday morning I was depressed about men having to accept this unnecessary protection from strangers who think they've grown weak and inferior with time. 

But the depression only lasted for about forty minutes. I don't stay down on the mat long. 

Maybe This Thing You Wrote Just Wasn't Funny, Gail

All writers need to accept the possibility that something they wrote wasn't good, after all. I can live with that and have for many years. I have lived with thoughtful critiques of things like my pacing and how I develop conflict. Now I will live with obscenities from people who feel a need to use them and name call when they don't get the laugh they were expecting from something I wrote.

I will not claim that I was not shaken by this experience. I ate half a bag of vegan chocolate chips over a twenty-four hour period. Vegan! But like the grandfathers in What We All Want to Say to That One Out-of-Touch Grandfather at the Playground, I am neither powerless nor lesser. In fact, I may have just come up with an idea for a humor piece relating to what happened these last few days.

Thanks, commentors!

I Guess I Have Joined The Ranks Of Controversial Humor Writers Part I

Hert Niks on Unsplash

I have been a published writer for going on twenty-six years. In that time, my work has been critiqued in various ways, as it should be. If you are a writer, you want to be known as a writer. You want to be part of literary discussion. Being part of literary discussion can mean professional reviews, blog reviews, Goodreads reviews, and personal responses from readers. Or it can mean comments on your on-line publishing. I've always found those to be pleasant, until last week when I was told I was a "bigoted anti-male feminist" and that I should mind my "**** business." And that was just getting started.

By the way, I am of the philosophy that everything is a writer's business, so that last bit wasn't as great an insult as the person who left it hoped it would be. Sorry. Also, the commentor used the asterisks. So he wasn't that offensive.

The Kind Of Less Than Stellar Criticism I Used To Get 

My first publications were books that were reviewed in professional journals. Now professional book reviewers tend to consider structural type things. On the occasions when they were pointing out negatives, they might say things like:

• "Readers may find the ending abrupt and learn more about Ethan Allen than they want to know..." Booklist
• "...the office politics at times slow the pace..."  Publishers' Weekly
• "There is little cohesive development or central conflict in this short novel;" "The pacing is also somewhat uneven, with some stories losing their comedic effect as they drag on for several chapters." The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. Ouch!

I also had a reviewer call one of my books a one-joke story, and someone said of another that my main character was no Junie B. Jones, which is a big blow in children's books.

Regarding responses from readers, I once had a very civil exchange with a man who felt I shouldn't have used "goddamn" two or three times in a book in which Ethan Allen, who was a legend in his own lifetime for his use of profanity, figures prominently. We agreed to disagree.

Goodreads often gets mentioned for having unpleasant reviewers. I don't have any big complaints. Because I used to write children's books, I often saw reviews at Goodreads that were obviously from kids. My favorite is a short one from over ten years ago that begins with "I just read this book Happy Kid by Gail Gauthier but it wasn't very good." It ends with "I would not recommend this book to anybody, ever." Come on! That's adorable!

The Kind Of Less Than Stellar Criticism I Got Last Week

I have been writing humor and essays for various publications on the Medium platform for close to four years. Readers are extremely important at Medium. You get paid by the number of people who read your work and the amount of time they spend reading it. Readers also provide any critiques writers will receive in the form of either claps (applause) or comments. I've had thirty-one pieces of one sort or another published there in one place or another. When I've received comments, they've either been positive or engagement--as in discussing more ideas that could have been added to the piece or things that had happened to the reader that were similar to what I'd written about. We would have a nice little back and forth about it. 

So imagine how unprepared I was two days after What We All Want to Say to the Grandfathers at the Playground* was published at Frazzled to see the comment about my being a bigoted anti-male feminist and minding my **** business. I'm hesitant to do direct quotes here, by the way, because I just don't know how to attribute them. Feel free to go read the comments yourself. Enjoy.  (*Original title mentioned in earlier blog posts. It has been changed, as you will see. Read on!) 

Now keep in mind, Frazzled specializes in parenting humor. I've always liked it, because it does a good job of sticking to its theme while publishing very funny material. I've submitted a lot of work there, because I wrote situational humor for and about children for many years and am on my second generation of children in my family. The parent-child world is a milieu I enjoy and have experience with. 

Also keep in mind that I have written and published elsewhere at Medium a humor piece called The Best Moments For A Sex Scene During A Thriller. It was illustrated with a picture of two very scantily dressed people making out on a beach. Nobody had a problem with it. I also wrote Your Guide To Finding The Perfect Church in which I suggested making your decision on the basis of the quality of the coffee hours offered. No one was bothered by that, either.

No, they came out with pitchforks and torches for a list humor piece about grandpas at the playground.

How Bad Did It Get? 

   

So far, I've been told:

• I sound like an ass. 
• I was being a jerk.
• More about me being anti-male. And also ageist.
• A suggestion that I may not have had good relations with my grandfathers, father, or any man.
• A question about whether I got out on the wrong side of the bed the day I wrote that piece. 
• I may have been called a sanctimonious shit sack, but I'm not sure. I had a little trouble figuring out who that person was talking about. But I'm betting it was me!
• I sound whiny.
• More on the ageist business.
• I have no empathy and am potentially cruel. That guy was actually kind of nice.
• I have a superior attitude and probably not that much to be superior about. This one was pretty civil, and the second part is sadly all too true.
• I was insulting old white men, and I could only do that because they are the only nonprotected demographic left. It took me a while to get my jaw up off the floor after I saw that.
• I will continue with updates if any more come in.

Now please don't think this was the only kind of comments I got. There were people who liked the piece. There were people who clapped for it. There were people who clapped for some of my responses to comments. I had some lovely exchanges with people that I won't go into in the interests of time.

But many of the comments I was seeing were markedly different from anything I'd seen before. In fact, they were different enough that the very supportive Frazzled editor contacted me to say he was sorry about them and to offer to let me tweak the title to see if that would help readers recognize the humor  and take some heat off me. (Which is why it now does, indeed, have a different title.)  And he said yes, these comments were unusual.

So what was going on?

Since I am philosophically opposed to lengthy blog posts, which this one already is, I've done some editing and am  publishing my take on that question separately.

Friday Done List April 12

Well, this was an interesting week, what with a solar eclipse and some interesting responses to my most recent publication. 

Goal 1. Adult Short Stories, Essays, And Humor

• I had a new humor piece published at Frazzled. 
• I did some marketing of said piece.
• I wrote some careful responses to readers who left ugly, even vulgar comments about said piece. Though I did kind of like being called an anti-male feminist. 
• I wrote more than a page on the short story! 

Goal 2. Submit 143 Canterbury Road To Agents

• Made another submission!

Goal 3. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding

• Three blog posts counting this one.
• Promoting two of those blog posts.
• Promoting the new humor piece
• Reading an arc of another author's book.

Some Annotated Reading April 11

A book finished--Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes. I read this because it was described as science fiction with humor, and, of course, I have an unsold science fiction with humor manuscript, because I have all kinds of unsold manuscripts. Chilling Effect is another good example of humor supporting story. I had a little trouble getting into it, because it seemed a little formulaic light scifi/adventure/romance, except with a female Cuban main character. Well, it turns out I like formulaic light scifi/adventure/romance, and I liked this female Cuban main character. This is the first of a trilogy, and I'll read at least the next one, if I don't get distracted by other things. I read an ebook edition of Chilling Effect on my iPad, and at about the halfway point, I started looking up the main character's Spanish asides, which were almost always cursing. If I read the other books as ebooks, I'll start looking up the Spanish from the beginning. I have books on cursing in French, which I would now like to look at again. So much to read, so little time.

To Keep My Brother Alive, I Will Fly 7,500 Miles by Dipika Mikherjee at The Los Angeles Review of Books. I read this moving piece, because the author was the leader at a workshop I took last week and liked.

I had a good solar eclipse experience on Monday (who didn't?) even though we only got 90 something percent sun coverage and the six-year-old and I were both disappointed that it didn't get darker in the yard where we were grazing on a table full of snacks. The temp dropped, though, which was interesting. Anyway, that was part of what led me to read Watching the Eclipse From the Highest Mountain in Vermont by Nick Paumgarten at The New Yorker. The other part of the reason I read it is that while I don't ski and haven't been on Mt. Mansfield, I do go to Stowe every year for our personal retreat week. I found this piece so lovely with just the kind of tone I like that I'll probably not read any more eclipse memoirs. I will probably continue to look at pictures, though. 

Humor

Things That Shook Me More Than That Earthquake by Aarushi at The Belladonna Comedy I liked this. Plus I admire anyone who can write this quickly about a current event. I think I've heard of a workshop coming up somewhere on doing that. Hmm.

Please Remember You Can Talk to Me, Your Mom, About Anything, Anytime, in These Specific Ways by Lily Hirsch at Frazzled.  Evidently, I just really like this writer, because I keep linking to her work. Also, we have a four-year-old family member who tried to get her brother away from me on Easter Sunday so she could tell him about some trouble she got into without me hearing her, because she already knows I'm a hardass. She's not telling me about anything, anytime, in any specific way. And, you know, I can live with that.

Another Story Behind The Story

I had a new humor piece published yesterday at Frazzled. As with many of my humor pieces, What We All Want To Say to the Grandfathers at the Playground has a backstory.

Tom Barrett on Unsplash

Last year I spent a couple of afternoons alone at a popular town playground with a kindergartener who had a half day of school. Great times, great times. On one of those visits I witnessed an older man yelling at a child who did not appear to be his family member. The old guy moved off, and I saw a woman holding a little boy in a Spiderman costume who was sobbing. Okay, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the kid just happened to have a sad thought at the same moment a stranger was shouting. Nonetheless, I stuck to my kid like a leech the rest of the time we were there, prepared to take care of that guy if he came near my boy. 

Then the guy actually spoke to me! As we were discussing leaving, I told my little guy that I had cupcakes in the car. (Because I did! Honest to God, I had cupcakes in the car!)  Lo and behold, the guy and his child companion were walking along beside us, he heard me, and said, "Yeah, good luck with that." I am ashamed to say that I just laughed and hauled our butts out of there. I should have said something like, "I don't need luck, sir. I have cupcakes. You should try it. Also, I don't yell at other people's kids unless they're about to run into the street, but that's just me." 

Yes, cupcakes do appear in this humor piece.

This whole thing happened close to a year ago. I have been enraged ever since. I like to think of myself as being too zenny to hold a grudge, but...maybe.

I finally started putting together things to say to guys like him as a humor piece, because I wanted to have something I could submit while I was feeling down about the short story I've been working on for months and not finishing. So that worked, anyway.

Friday Done List April 5

Goal 1. Adult Short Stories, Essays, And Humor

• Received a rejection on a humor piece. I kid you not, I've submitted so many times to that place that the editor and I are on a first-name basis. I may have mentioned that before. 
• Resubmitted the humor piece. It was accepted and will be published next week.
• Attended a workshop/presentation on travel writing, because I'm traveling this fall. The workshop was quite decent, but now I have so much travel reading I should be doing.
• Worked on that short story. It seems as if I'm so close to being done.

Goal 2. Submit 143 Canterbury Road To Agents

• Made one submission.
• Made a note to myself to check out a literary agency that I thought only represented children's work, but I was wrong.

Goal 3. Community Building/General Marketing/Branding

• Four blog posts counting this one.
• Marketed one of those posts on Facebook. Will also market it on Twitter and Goodreads.
• Reading two arcs in hopes of being able to support the writers. These are digital arcs, and they aren't great for reading on a treadmill or stationary bike. I can't increase the size of the text.
• One of those arcs could end up being a reading arc for Time Management Tuesday here at the blog.

Goal 4. 19th century novel, which is totally just for fun.

• Did a little bit on a third draft of a first chapter.

Some Annotated Reading April 4

This is two weeks worth of reading, because I was a lazy blogger last week.

The Poet Laureate Project 

I read some Robert Penn Warren, who was both our third poetry consultant (the precursor to the poet laureate position) and, a couple of decades later, our first poet laureate. I read his novel, All the King's Men, when I was a teenager and felt I'd done some grown-up reading. I wasn't even aware he was a poet until a couple of weeks ago. And he is a poet I find accessible. I particularly like Tell Me a Story and True Love.  

The Francophonie Project

I managed to finish reading Menuet by Guy de Maupassant. It is about a man who meets an elderly dance instructor and his elderly wife, a dancer. Or it may be about something deeper regarding the narrator. Reading this raised a lot of questions for me about how we judge short stories now and how short stories from the past relate to that. Which is interesting, because what reading this in French and English was supposed to do was improve my French. Francophonie Month is over now, so I can put this book back on my To Be Read Shelf, where it has been for years.

Some Serious Cultural Reading

The Rise and Fall of the Trad Wife by Sophie Elmhirst at The New Yorker. This was enlightening. The woman who was the main focus of this article was interested in the trad wife lifestyle, because she was into nostalgia. If that's the attraction for others, too, then that makes some sense. I, personally, think nostalgia of most--nah, of all--kinds is dangerous, but, again, nostalgia would provide an explanation for what's going on here. What I still don't understand is why women who choose to live this way want to tell the world about it. My guess is that they are hoping to monetize a blog or attract a big following so they can sell them a book. But that isn't exactly what we think of as trad wife behavior, is it? And why did they choose the trad wife lifestyle to try to make money off from? Why did they think people would "buy" that? Yes, I know some of them were right. But, still, where did this come from?

Humor

We Are Unable To Offer You A Place At Yale Because Your Essay Read Like The Closing Narration Of A Teen Rom-Com by Amelia Tait at McSweeney's. I still feel a need to read things with childlit/YA connections.

When a Recipe Says It's "Quick and Easy" by Jiji Lee and Patrick Clair at McSweeney's. I wish I'd thought of this.

Listen, Cat: I'm Not the Out-of-Control Infant You Once Knew by Nick Gregory at Points in Case. We have a cat. We have a preschooler in the family. 

Suggestions For Rebooting The Marvel Cinematic Universe From Farmer, Essayist, And Poet Wendell Berry by Jeff King at McSweeney's. Here's what you have to understand about Wendell Berry and me--Years ago, I was a member of a reading group in which there was another member who was humorless, narrow-minded, judgmental, and unpleasant. (No, I am not talking about myself.) She was a huge Wendell Berry fan and suggested we read one of his books. As a result, I know Wendell Berry's name.  But reading him? I just can't.

American Expat in France: Probably Don't Do This by Kat Garcia in The Belladonna Comedy. What I particularly liked about this is that while it appears to be a list, it is really a story.

Ten Reasons to Run That You, a Parent Who Hates Running, Can Give Your Kid Who Also Hates Running by Lily Hirsch at Frazzled. The title is a little long and awkward, but that's part of the joke, and it really does tell you exactly what this funny piece is about. 

Gaaaaiiiiil. You've Got Some Reeeeading To Do.

Net Galley just approved me to read two arcs I requested. And I'm reading a book from Hoopla that I'll lose after 21 days, so I need to finish it up. Because it's worth finishing. I should just drop everything and read for a while, don't you think?

One Net Galley arc is for A Beginner's Guide to Starting Over. I'm going to read this in support of the author, Gabi Coatsworth, who is a Facebook friend and fellow Connecticut writer. Also, this is described as a woman's book, and I have a manuscript that I haven't found a home for and that I sometimes describe as a woman's book. I'm thinking this is a little research.

The other Net Galley arc is for Lit by Jeff Karp. I heard about this book through the author's publicist, who sent me an e-mail. I thought the book sounded like something that could become a read for Time Management Tuesday. The website talks about tapping into high energy brain states. I could use some tapping into high energy brain states here. There may also be an ADHD connection, and we have an ADHD connection in our family. ADHD is a draw for me now. Thus, I've got a couple of reasons to be interested in this.

I now have to do some reading for a workshop I'm registered for. So, you know, #amreading, as they say on X. And maybe elsewhere.

This Week Might Be Different

We have people here painting. This morning I was up, showered, and dressed by 7:20 in order to be ready before they got here. This will go on for at least two more days, maybe three.

With these kinds of hours, I may write another book this week.