Author: JennyTrout

As I type this, I have -$267 in my checking account.

Yup, it’s me again. Asking for financial support. But this time, it’s not the same kind of appeal. This one comes with the reality of being a working writer.

Within the span of a few months, it is no longer viable for me to be a full-time writer. My sales have plummeted. I was unable to recover a large amount of money from the Facebook hack. We were already reeling from the money we lost in our failed move. And while the Patreon support continues to be incredible, with rent, utilities, car payment, gas, food for a family of four plus pets, a thousand dollars a month isn’t going to make it, even with my husband’s pay (which is over $15/h, but still not a living wage). I’ve applied for jobs, but until I hear back from anyone, we’re faced with having to get through August, September, and realistically into mid-October, when quarterly royalties will start trickling in.

For the first time, I’m not viewing going back to working retail or food service as a failure. I’ll be frustrated at how a day job will cut into my publishing speed, both for books and content here, on Patreon, and YouTube, but I won’t be going to sleep sick to my stomach anymore. I’m not asking the universe for a seven-figure bestseller or a fat traditional publishing advance. What I want more than anything at this moment is for one of these many jobs I’ve applied for to contact me and say, “Yes, we will give you money to work here.” I want to be able to know that my paycheck is going to arrive, instead of being the nebulous “maybe?” that it has been for the past twenty years.

Instead, I’m looking at a negative bank balance and no certainty that I’ll be able to secure employment. There are other ways to make money. I can sell my books, for example. I have an event in September that I committed to months before Facebook hackers stole thousands of dollars from my business, but I can’t afford to buy books to sell there. If I don’t go to the event and sell the books, I can’t make much needed income, let along make back the money I spent on the nonrefundable hotel room. If I could afford to sue PayPal in small claims court, I could get back the rest of what the hackers stole, but I don’t have the money to file or a way to appear in court in California. Everything that could make money at the moment costs money. Soon, I’ll have a Shopify store up and running to sell signed books, but not in time to deal with the immediate problems that I have. Like the negative bank balance and over a thousand dollars worth of bills still due to come out of it.

It’s so frustrating to come here for the second time in a year and shake the tin cup at you. But if you feel like you have the resources and/or spoons to lend a hand, here are some things that I would very much appreciate:

Direction donations via KoFi. When someone likes my work and wants to toss a tip my way, it’s always appreciated, no matter the size of the donation.

Patreon subscriptions. If you’ve been meaning to check out my Patreon, this would be a great time! There is so much content over there, from recaps to videos to weekly chapters of the Fablemere series. Plus, sometimes there is real life drama that is too juicy or wild to share with no paywall. Like my trip to the opera.

Word of mouth. Telling people about my books and my Patreon is so much more effective when it’s not coming from me. If you enjoy my books or my content and want to tell people about it, that’s rad.

Job-getting Witchcraft. Manifest me actually getting a call back from some of these places I’m applying. I’m not going into some highly competitive field here; it’s just sandwich shops, dispensaries, and grocery stores. Nobody wants to work anymore, is what I’m told. From my experience over the past couple of months, that means hiring managers, too.

Patience. Things are going to slow down in Trout Nation when I get a job. Please, I’m begging everyone: don’t forget me. I don’t want to give all of this up. I just need to be able to eat and put gas in my car and have electricity and feel like I can breathe without stress-vomiting. Unfortunately, I’m still disabled. I don’t know how much energy I’ll have to dedicate to writing. My hope is that absence will make the heart grow fonder. Just don’t forget I exist.

Things have picked up before. They might pick up again. I might go back to being a full-time author and blogger someday. I might have to work until the day I die. Who knows? But I’m proud of myself for separating my self-worth from my monetary worth for the very first time since the beginning of my career. Granted, that’s an easier mindset to get into when the catastrophic career and financial downturn is just a natural consequence of an election year, plus the nature of publishing, rather than someone actively sabotaging you. The first time I had to stop being a “full time writer,” I thought I was a failure who was letting someone else “win.” Now, I just think I’m a writer and this is how it goes sometimes.

I care about being able to live comfortably more than I care about my ego.

I wanted to make a much different post, though. A post where I would come on here and wax poetic about my new job and this new era in my life with positivity, probably with some asshole words like “transformation” or “freedom” or whatever. I really wanted to not have to ask for any help at all.

But on the other hand, asking for help is what ultimately got The Boss published and saved my ass the first time. Maybe asking for help will generate the energy to get the job I need. Maybe humbling myself like this will shift some kind of vibe in the universe for me.

I’m beaten down, but I’m not beaten. I’m still going to be a writer until the day I die. I’m not quitting. I’m taking care of business.

Keep on rocking in the free world.

It’s time for Dear Trout, a magical time when you can ask a real, living human disaster to give you advice, and that human disaster tries to answer in a way that won’t ruin your life if you act on that advice.

I’m not actually expecting an answer, just throwing this out in the universe like a message in a bottle. And maybe it’s easier to phrase this as if I were talking to a person who ‘gets’ mental illness and self-sabotage.

(Uh, rereading this – if you do read this please don’t take offense at the self-sabotage thing. I don’t mean it as a judgement or anything. I think you’re fantastic. I meant, you write like someone who gets having to work against our own brain)

My partner is wonderful, and I think I want a divorce. I have ADHD, diagnosed, but unmedicated because it’s not an option where I live and moving is hard. I managed to have a successful career… But sometimes it feels like just existing in the vicinity of another human is too hard.

Items don’t stay where I left them because there are two of us in the same space. I can’t not have snacks at home (best way for me to not overeat) because he’s allowed to want snacks sometimes. We have horribly mismatched sex drives (in that I have none, she packed her suitcases one day years ago and went AWOL and I don’t think she’s ever coming back). Partner is super understanding about this and never pressured, but just the fact that I know he’s there and hoping for this state of affairs to change is like sandpaper on my nerves.

He gave up his job to follow me halfway across the world, and he picks up a lot of the slack at home. He puts more trust in me than I have ever put or will ever put in another human.

I love this man to bits, but I don’t know if I can still be with him. I’m exhausted, every day, all the time. It would be easier to live alone, I think. But I can’t tell if this is just the chronic depression talking.

Do I want to walk away?

No offense taken at the self-sabotage thing. It’s a little late for me to start denying that now.

I could answer this in one sentence: It’s the chronic depression talking. But I’m not gonna leave it there because that would be unhelpful.

I’m gonna focus on the two complaints you made in the beginning, about snacks and not being able to find stuff. These are annoying, but not insurmountable. If he wants snacks and your issue is your access to them, why not ask him to keep the snacks in a locked cupboard or drawer and not give you the combination or key? And not being able to find things because people pick them up and walk away with them? If it’s an important object, the two of you could make a weird little game of it. If you use, for example, a pair of scissors (I picked this because it’s the thing that always goes missing in my house), take picture of where you put it when you were finished using it. You can both do this. “Where are the scissors?” “The last time I saw them, I left them here,” and show each other the picture. You’ll either find it in that place, or one of you will see the picture and go, “Waaaait, I did pick it up from there and use it…my bad,” because it looks familiar. Like attracts like, so the probability that your spouse isn’t also laboring under some kind of spectrum or spectrum-adjacent disorder is narrow. You might both be picking up and wandering around with stuff and mutually frustrating each other.

Moving on to the sex thing, because it’s the biggest tell that your depression is driving this and not reason. You say he’s very understanding and never pressures you, but just you knowing that he’s there, hoping for things to change irritates you. If he’s not pressuring you, but you still feel that pressure? That’s internal. You’re feeling disappointed with yourself and projecting your disappointment onto him. Because you feel this way about yourself, obviously he feels the same, right? Unless he’s told you explicitly, “I’m waiting for this to resolve itself and I’m very impatient about it,” or is asking often, “Is your sex drive better? Is your sex drive better? Can we have sex now?” these are internal thoughts and feelings you’re creating for him.

That’s your depression.

You’re “exhausted, every day, all the time,” and think it would be easier to live alone, but he does a lot to contribute to the household. Will your exhaustion decrease if you, with unmedicated ADHD, suddenly bear the responsibility of the entire household, from chores to finances? I’m sure that your depression thinks so. Because it plans to make you avoid all those tasks, anyway, and then get even more depressed than you were in the first place.

I would never say that someone should stay with another person just because that person contributes a lot to managing the household. Anybody with a credit card can buy a dishwasher, you know? But there isn’t really anything in your question that reads like it isn’t being written by your chronic depression. If I had just read, “I love my husband but I feel like we’ve grown apart over the years and our visions for the future don’t align,” my answer would be a lot different. What I read, though, was a person saying how much they love their partner, the stuff their partner does for them (aside from a couple minor clashes about how the house should function), and describing a major symptom of the mental illness they have: the desire to isolate, even from the people who are closest to them.

If there’s other stuff going on that you didn’t include because you were thinking out loud in text and didn’t expect to see the question answered, obviously, that might change my answer. And some people are happier just being alone. But based on what I read, from one mental health struggler to another, it seems like your depression has you in a bad place. For what it’s worth, I’m sending you all those healing vibes people post about on Facebook when they want to be helpful but don’t know how to help from afar. It sucks to have to constantly second guess our own brains and reach out for reality checks and wonder if our thoughts are our own of the product of some dipshit mental illness we never asked to have. So, please don’t interpret all of this as me saying, “You’re wrong for wanting to leave your marriage.” What I’m saying is, “Your depression is bullying you. Please don’t make any major decisions without considering whether or not you feel the same way now as you’ve felt in the past before depression has sabotaged you.”

I wish you luck with whatever road you go down.

What three pieces of advice would you give to someone planning to self-publish their work?

My first piece of advice: never read your reviews. Unless someone sends you a link to their five star review gushing about how much they loved your book, do not read your reviews.

Second piece of advice: don’t self-publish as a back-door way of getting into traditional publishing. The odds of sales being so phenomenal that agents and publishers come scrambling for you books is exceptionally low. Even should you get picked up that way, publishers will not give you leeway to have a even a minor sales dip on your second book with them. You will have to be viral, every single time, with less room for forgiveness and future planning that traditionally acquired authors are given (which isn’t a lot, anyway).

Third piece of advice: If you see someone social media say, “Authors, stop doing this thing in your book,” or “Authors, we’re getting tired of this incredibly specific thing,” ignore it. Write what you want to write. What’s the point of self-publishing if we’re writing for other people and not ourselves? Plus, you’ll never please everyone, and those “PSA FOR AUTHORS:” posts often contradict each other. Your audience is out there. If BookLoverBrenda85 doesn’t want another book with a heroine who sword fights, and your heroine sword fights, then you’re not her audience. But someone out there is.

That’s what I’ve got for the week. Need advice from someone who barely has their own shit together? Ask your questions here.

It’s ebook release day for RISE OF THE ALPHA GOD, the sequel to TAKEN BY THE ALPHA KING!

They want to burn the world. She carries the flame.

To protect their unborn child, King Nathan and Queen Bailey of the Toronto pack flee to the primeval wilds of Manitoba, where the werewolves seeking to destroy the royal heir can’t reach them. Their survival in the dangerous wilderness depends upon the very forces using them to bring about the end of the world: the thralls who have faithfully served and protected them for millennia.

Playing the role of regent, Lady Tara enlists Bailey’s bodyguard, Xiao, to help her contact outside magical forces for aid. With Tara’s knowledge of ancient myths and Xiao’s head for danger, they journey to London to investigate the thralls’ magic—and to seek out the only man familiar with the spell that brought Nathan and Bailey together.

But other magic is brewing in the untamed wild. A mysterious and primal being with his own agenda and ancient power. And he’s set his sights on Bailey…

Buy it now on Amazon. Unfortunately, Ingram Spark has not yet distributed the ebook to other retailers. That’s beyond my control, and frankly would it even be a release day for me if it went smoothly? The paperback on-sale date is July 31st, so expect another post when it becomes available!

Friends. I am here with news that may thrill and delight you:

The Jealous Patrons Book Club over on Patreon has just wrapped up Modelland, and we’re about to read…

Fourth Wing.

Full recaps happen at the $5 per month tier, and book club style posts are on the $1 tier (along with access to Jealous Patrons A/V Club videos, a feature that launched last month).

All images in this post are screencaps of a Facebook conversation. In lieu of alt text (which is character limited), text will be reproduced in the body of this post. Some names have been redacted to protect innocent bystanders. Also, a content warning: I make a flippant remark about religious CSA, and there’s some lazy fatphobia.

Pride month 2024 was a shit show online. Every social media platform invented their own version of the evil, probably lying for attention bisexual woman who brings her straight boyfriend, Chad, a hardcore white supremacist and violent homophobe, to Pride celebrations, and debated why this imaginary woman shouldn’t be allowed to do that. And when bisexuals and transgender people pushed back with questions like, “How do you know Chad is straight and cis?” they were accused of centering themselves and inserting unsafe people into the community.

Literally, this started on June 1st.

Another great feature of Pride month was the phenomenon of local news stations reporting on Pride festivities… after they happened. I didn’t see a lot of visibility for local Pride festivals, to be honest. Any of them I knew about, I knew from LGBTQA+ people who specifically mentioned them to me. The rest of them, I found out after the fact, when a local news outlet reported on them, then sat back and let the rage engagement commence. They knew exactly what they were doing when they posted their stories.

Maybe I should be ashamed of myself for taking the bait, but I’m wracked with an awful summer cold and tired and cranky and my interaction with one Kristy Marie on Facebook was the only joy I really got out of Pride month.

Redacted: Hastings DID IT!! Organizers created such a wonderful family-friendly space and it was BEAUTIFUL. The vendors, the drag queens, Spencer Lajoye….it was all perfect. I hope next year is somehow even bigger and better (although it’s always hard to beat the inaugral event!) What a great way to close out Pride Month 2024. *hands in a heard shape emoji* *ASL I love you emoji* *fistbump emoji* I hope everyone felt LOVED and SAFE and SEEN today! My family loves you!

Kristy Marie: [Redacted] drag queens and family friends don’t go together.

Redacted: Kristy Marie Huh, were you there? Went perfectly fine!

Kristy Marie: [Redacted] keep your babies close.

Jenny Erwine (that’s my private FB name): Kristie Marie “Mamas, keep your babies close! I was at Target, trying to avoid the Pride merchandise section and a man walked past us, pretending to be shopping. He even had milk and eggs in his cart, as if that would fool me. I knew in my heart that he was a drag queen trying to groom and traffick my DD! I grabbed my DD and fled to my car. I’m literally shaking right now.”

That’s you.

Kristy Marie: Jenny Erwine eat another donut.

Jenny Erwine: Kristy Marie “Hey there, Warrior Mamas! Today I was on FB and a DELUSIONAL alphabet person MOCKED MY CHRISTIAN BELIEFS after I tried to protect the children out there from their depravity. I was so mad, I was SHAKING. I had to step away from my computer and pray to Jesus. I asked him with an open heart, ‘Jesus, what should I do? Your followers are under constant attack. How do I respond to this minion of the devil making fun of my innocent FB post?’ And I had a moment of spiritual clarity. I know that His grace compelled me to make a lazy fat insult. He knows my heart. He knows that I’m prettier than everybody else, because that’s what my youth pastor would say when he was letting me drink Boone’s Farm in his RV (so I would be safe when I blacked out). God is good. Stay safe, mamas!”

That’s you.

Kristy Marie: Jenny Erwine do you have kids or are you just fat?

Jenny Erwine: Kristy Marie “PRAYER WARRIORS! You will never BELIEVE what a fat person said to me on the internet. Not only did they suggest that drag performers DO NOT harm children (which we all know is a LIE), they also mocked my Christian beliefs. I laugh reacted as hard as I could, and I called them fat more than once, but they refused to back down in the face of my very clever retorts. DH says I’m very, very funny, and he would know, because he has some of the funniest friends (like Kevin, who does this hilarious gay guy voice whenever he and DH go on their boys’s weekend fishing trips to Saugatuck). I have never been so ANGRY in my life. I’m LITERALLY SHAKING. I almost threw up. Please pray for me, because I’m not sure I can handle much more of this BULLYING.”

That’s you.

Kristy Marie: Jenny Erwine cry harder

Jenny Erwine: Kristy Marie “Okay, usually, I don’t make posts like this. Positivity is power and through Him all things are possible! But sometimes, ooh, people on the internet can burn. me. up. First of all, this FAT PERSON who doesn’t’ even care about children starts talking about gay things to me OUT OF NOWHERE. I told her she was messing with the wrong mama bear and she would NEVER be taking my kids to get GROOMED at a drag show. Do you know what she did? She mocked my faith and refused to engage me directly! All she did was write these posts pretending to be me on Facebook. As if I would ever let a FAT HAG like her see my posts. I don’t understand how people can be such BULLIES just because someone is a strong Christian who lives faithfully by His word! I can’t even get DH to put her in her place, because he’s at The General Wood Shop up in GR right now, buying lumber to build DD a playhouse. Pray for me to have grace and patience with this sinner, because this mama bear needs it!”

That’s you.

Kristy Marie: Jenny Erwine you got a lot of time on your hands doncha miss piggy? I’m sure you can find one last pride event to go to. I’m sure they have lots of
ho-hos *peace sign emoji*

Jenny Erwine: Kristy Marie “You’ll never believe what I said to this FAT COW who was trying to lure my children away from Jesus’s light! I called her Miss Piggy and said she could get ho-hos at the pride festival! And then I said she must have a lot of time on her hands because she kept replying to me. *sideways crying laughing emoji* I have time to reply because we’re at T-Mobile waiting for DH to get his phone fixed. It kept making this weird little noise that was like a thump and then a xylophone? I know it’s from the game Grindr, because he plays that all the time, but it’s not supposed to be sending notifications constantly, so I know he got hacked. Pray this doesn’t end up costing too much to fix, because we just tithed AND we have our trip to Branson coming up.”

That’s you.

Kristy Marie: *six of the over eleven replies Kristy Marie sent in two minutes with just my name tagged and no other text*

Jenny Erwine: Holy shit I broke her.

[End Screencaps]

Obviously, I hit a little too close to home with that Grindr comment.

The thing is, Pride Month news stories from mainstream outlets are never about lifting up LGBTQA+ people and spaces. They’re always about giving the bigots a platform to scream and call us child molester.

If local news outlets care about anything other than clicks and engagement, they would be reporting on these things before they happened, so that people could attend them. They could interview organizers, so that people could see that it’s not the local government spending hard earned tax dollars on Pride, but dedicated individuals running everything on donations. Hey, wouldn’t that make a great story? The fact that in most places in the U.S., Pride festivals need donations, sometimes from corporations who aren’t squeaky clean when it comes to social issues in the first place, to keep running? Exposing that might, I don’t know, encourage people to donate.

Maybe someone could report on the fact that some cities require Pride festivals to pay the police to be in attendance, and then insist the festival be over-policed, so that the organizers can’t afford to stage the festival at all. Or they could cover why a Pride festival would even need to be policed in the first place.

Spoiler alert: it’s because of the behavior exhibited in those local news story comment sections.

Pride doesn’t need visibility after the fact, and it shouldn’t focus entirely on the elements that guarantee to provoke outrage. But social media engagement is paramount to local media these days. Anything to get laugh reacts and angry diatribes. And it doesn’t matter where they’re from; Kristy Marie might not even be from Michigan. There were several posts made by people very concerned about grooming and child molestation at Hastings Pride who weren’t even from the United States, including a man from Canada who spoke endlessly about “carnal lust,” even in conversations that weren’t about sex.

I’m convinced that straight men think about two men having sex more than gay men think about it.

I’m so glad it’s Canada Day and people like Kristy Marie won’t have as many Pride news stories to bother them. I’m glad straight men around the world will no longer be plagued by relentless thoughts of brawny, leather clad bears, their muscles rippling under a sheen of sweat illuminated by throbbing disco lights.

But mostly, I’m glad Pride month is over because it’s just another battleground, even within the community. And it’s so god damn tiring.

Phew, there’s a lot going on in this one, and while I know you’re saying you want validation and good wishes, I’m going to have to be Tough Love Jenny a little bit, so hold tight, okay, and then I’ll have validation and good wishes at the end.

Your family does have a toxic dynamic. You see the same dynamic developing between you and your brother as between your father and your aunt… but you largely blame only your brother for that, and you seem to expect him to change it all on his own.

Don’t get me wrong: you are one-hundred percent totally justified in not wanting your brother to belittle and insult you. I don’t know if you’ve had that conversation with him: you treat me the way Dad treats Aunt, and I want a healthier and more loving relationship than that with you. If you have had that conversation and he’s continuing to ignore it, if you’ve tried to explicitly convey to him that his behavior toward you isn’t okay and he keeps violating that boundary, cutting him off is probably the best option. What you’re describing, though, isn’t cutting someone off. It’s taking a break and resting up for the next battle. Ignoring him, then making excuses for why you ignored him without ever addressing the issue, only reinforces that he’s allowed to treat you this way without any consequences. And it sounds like that’s exactly how your aunt handles your father.

But if you haven’t explicitly discussed your feelings about this at all with him, and you’re just waiting to see if he figures it out himself… he won’t. You’ve both been raised in the same family, with the same toxic examples of familial love. Your brother is likely treating you the way your father treats your aunt because that’s what’s been modeled for you both. His actions are shitty. Does he know they’re shitty? Or does he believe this is how a brother shows love to a sister? My bet is the latter, based on his confusion at your refusal to be in his wedding. His behavior toward you suggests that he believes you’re in a mutually loving and healthy relationship, and seeing your aunt endure this same behavior without objection has just reinforced that belief.

If you have had a boundary-setting conversation with him, don’t tell him you just got busy and couldn’t call or text. Tell him flat out that you didn’t message because he violated that boundary. And if you haven’t had that conversation yet, don’t lie and say it was just something else keeping you from messaging him. “I stopped messaging you for a while because I was trying to think of the best way to approach this subject with you, but it’s time we had this talk.”

Now, I can’t guarantee that he’s going to hear you out and change his behavior immediately. He might dismiss your concerns entirely. He might say you’re overreacting. He might not be able to accept that your family has flaws. And in that case, unfortunately, you have to decide whether or not you want to stay locked in the role of your aunt for the next fifty years, or if you need to step away from your brother entirely until he recognizes the toxicity inherent in your relationship.

Here’s the validation and good wishes part: You’re not imagining that you’re in a toxic situation. You really are. And recognizing that was emotionally mature. I hope that things work out for you and your brother and hashing this out brings you closer together. But if it doesn’t, I hope (and believe) that getting this out in the open and setting boundaries is going to bring you peace.

While I think I have come up with my own answer to this question, I am curious how others answer it as well. Growing up life was a series of goals: high school, college, live overseas for a bit, grad school, a job, etc. But, after getting a job I enjoyed, I realized that I no longer knew what came next. For some, they go down the family path (find an SO, get married, have kids, usher kids down the education path), but that never appealed to me. So, I felt like I’d reached a plateau. It was not great for my mental health. So that is my question: what do you do once you’ve reached your goals and don’t know what to do next? When life has always been a series of mountains to scale, what do you do when you can’t see the next peak to climb?

Make another mountain.

Life isn’t like the game of the same name. You don’t have to make it to the finish line with a carload of pink and blue pegs and a paid-off mortgage. If the traditional path doesn’t appeal to you, you’re not a failure if you don’t take it. But that does leave you with the job of making another path. Maybe that can be your first goal.

It doesn’t have to include culturally approved milestones. It doesn’t have to be productive or look important to anyone else. You could just get up every single day and make a goal of doing something you’ve never done. Make a bunch of them. Make them big and small. “I’ve never run as fast as I can to the stop sign on the corner.” “I’ve never learned Russian.” “I’ve never run for local office.” Actually, that last one might not be good advice; you might end up drain commissioner or something. But you get where I’m going with this.

Nobody on the planet has ever lived the same life as someone else. So nobody on the planet should be measuring the worthiness or validity of their lives on someone else’s. Celebrate that you’ve completed the goals that you cared about. Now, you get find out what’s really going to make you happy.

That’s my three cents for the week. Got a question you want to ask Trout? Leave it here.

On June 23rd, literary agent Hillary Harrell of KT Literary took to Twitter to discuss a submission with a concept they* loved:

Just read a query that was essentially THE ROAD meets DELIVERANCE (#YA) and now I want someone to write this for me, please?

It was followed by hashtags, a starry eyed emoji, and utter bafflement across author social media on every platform.

Morgana Bourggraff, whose Twitter username indicates that they are currently querying agents, asked:

but not the querier?

To which Harrwell responded:

Hi, no, the author did not pitch it as such nor was the opening strong enough.

Another Twitter user, Jamie Damato asked:

with respect, do you not see how it’s actually kind of insidious for an agent with industry influence to reject a querying writer with no power and then try to get someone ELSE to write THEIR concept but “better” just because they didn’t use those specific comps?

echoing the rest of us, who were understandably apoplectic with rage. Absolutely, it’s “kind of” insidious. It’s despicable. It’s unprofessional. It’s unforgivable.

And it happens all the time.

In 2019, I tweeted extensively about the link between Kim Richardson’s The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek and the blatant similarities in JoJo Moyes book The Giver of Stars. The plagiarism was obvious: Moyes “wrote” a scene allegedly based off a historical anecdote that also appeared in Richardson’s book. But it wasn’t a historical anecdote at all. It was fiction, written by Richardson, who coincidentally wrote for a different imprint at the same publishing house as Moyes. And while tons of questions remain unanswered (why and how did Moyes, an author from the UK, become so gripped with interest over a niche bit of Appalachian history? What incentive did the publishing house have to investigate these claims? Are we supposed to believe that their in-house lawyers ever had any intention of bringing suit against themselves?), the scandal itself went quietly away. Moyes will continue her career as a wildly selling author and staple of celebrity book clubs. Richardson will probably always feel a pit of injustice in her stomach when she looks at the book she poured her heart, soul, and countless hours of research into. And, as always, traditional publishing and name recognition have won.

This is the way traditional publishing works.

Take the ongoing lawsuit brought by Liz Freeman against Tracy Wolff, Emily Sylvan Kim, Entangled Publishing, and Liz Pelletier, among others. The original filing is an eighty-six page catalogue of similarities from plot, scenes, character names, and sometimes clearly reworked passages of text. While some of the similarities wouldn’t have been damning on their own, the sheer number of “coincidences,” along with the basic facts that Wolff was Kim’s client and good friend, and that Freeman’s book was submitted to Entangled and pitched to Liz Pelletier herself (facts which Entangled’s lawyers don’t deny), seem suspicious, don’t they?

If you haven’t heard of the lawsuit, you’re not alone. It hasn’t received the industry-wide attention it should be receiving. Why? Because Crave was a hit, as was Fourth Wing, and therefore aspiring traditional writers can’t discuss it. What if they miss their big chance to be the next Fourth Wing at a publisher that’s experiencing such success that a pre-order listing with no title or blurb shot to #1 on Amazon within hours? If they keep their head down (or publicly dismiss the severity of the infringement as “there are no new ideas”), they might get into Pelletier’s good graces. And they certainly won’t cross anyone else in traditional publishing.

In 2003, an aspiring author I knew submitted to a major publisher. It was rejected on the basis of the heroine being an exotic dancer, something the imprint “doesn’t do.” Less than six months later, a book with a very similar plot (including the exotic dancer heroine that the rejection letter claimed was verboten by imprint rules), was published, written by a successfully midlist author. Though there were slight changes to the story itself, the back cover copy was the aspiring author’s query letter. Word-for-word.

What recourse did that aspiring author have? Social media didn’t exist in the form we’re familiar with now. There was no way to call them out. And even if she had, this was before Amanda Hocking blew the doors wide open for self-publishing. The only chance this aspiring author had at being a “real author” was to court traditional publishers. If she’d sought justice, she probably wouldn’t have gotten it, anyway (authors in her position rarely do), and it would destroy her chances of ever successfully submitting to any publishing house.

And this is how traditional publishing always wins: they hold the power. If a publisher or agent decides that your manuscript is good enough to publish, but would make better sales with someone else’s name on it, they’ll just have someone else rewrite it.

KT Literary Agency did make a statement regarding their now-former agent’s behavior:

We at KT Literary have decided to part ways with an agent whose recent public statements directly contradict our values and the trust we work to build with our clients. We are reaching out to affected clients to discuss their representation options and ensure continued support. Thank you for your patience and understanding. KT Literary.

But what did this agent get fired for, other than getting caught? Is it truly about damaged trust between author and agency, or did Harwell break a code of silence within an industry that continues to exploit querying authors to pad their wallets and elevate their more profitable clients?

I think we’d all like to believe it’s the former. But any realist knows that it’s the latter.

*All unknown pronouns have been replaced with the gender neutral singular “they”

Correction 6/25/24 – Agent Emily Sylvan Kim was misidentified as Emily Silver Kim. Kim is not affiliated with author Emily Silver.

Quick reminder that June is when I go on my annual writing retreat to the Keweenaw Peninsula, and that will be happening next week. Once a year since like… over a decade ago, I started going up there with some friends for a week of distraction-free writing and being away from administrative stuff. I just realized the other day that I finished writing the recap of the final chapter of Fifty Shades of Grey the night before I left on my very first of these annual June retreats. All of the Boss books have been written on this retreat. I can’t even get my mindhole around it. I missed last year because I was directing The Music Man, and this year I am ready to put the words down.

Anyway, that means no content here, on YouTube, or on the Patreon for a week. But if you head over to my Abigail Barnette Facebook page, you can see the cover reveal and sale date announcement for Alpha God Rising!

Onto the questions!

How do I ask my 73-year-old dad to stop using AI to create art for his books? He recently finished a book which is getting published by a small press later this year. He’s setting up a substack and used AI to make a logo for it, then asked me to fix the text as it was the only part that didn’t turn out well (debatable tbh). As an artist, this makes my stomach turn in a way I can’t explain. I’d offer to just do the art myself but I’m not good at the kind of graphic design thing the project needs (I’m more of an illustrator) and I feel weird asking him to do something differently when I can’t help with it and it doesn’t totally affect me. I guess I’d like him to hire someone, but I don’t have a suggestion as to who. I just really hate AI art on principle, but I have a hard time standing up for myself and my principles and I’m afraid he won’t understand and it’ll be a fight for nothing. He doesn’t use AI for writing, just visual art—he’s a writer and I do both. We get along really well and I guess I’m just scared of rocking the boat.

The internet—Threads, at least, and BookThreads, in particular—sure had your back this week. The popular subscription book box OwlCrate was called out for platforming author Lauren Roberts, who allegedly shared multiple pieces of AI art depicting her characters on her Instagram. Readers who questioned OwlCrate had their comments removed, or were blocked, and outrage followed. Another author, Cassie Alexander, posted a long, long thread promoting her lecture on using AI art at Inkers Con, and it didn’t get her the reaction she’d probably hoped for. Reader responses to both of these situations made it clear: readers do not want AI. Not in words, not in art, not on social media, not at all.

If I were you, I would send your dad some links to some of these responses. You could approach it as fear for his future success. “Look, Dad, I know you’ve used AI in the past, and I’m worried that you might be hurting your bottom line. This is how readers feel about authors who use AI images.” Because readers have made it clear: if they see AI art involved, they assume the contents are AI generated, and they don’t trust the creator. A reader’s trust, once lost, is lost forever.

You could also introduce him to Canva, an app that every publishing writer should probably have, anyway. Canva has free fonts and images an author can use to make logos and promo, with templates sized for posting on social media sites. It’s user friendly and has a monthly subscription fee for people who want to access the entire library of fonts and elements. The unfortunate side of this is that Canva also makes some AI tools available to users, but maybe once he sees reader response to the technology he’d think twice about using them.

Re: the ‘dig a hole and get in it’ plan to succeed at Naked and Afraid – could you give some advice on surviving in the wild by expanding on that plan? Would you dig a hole you could lie down in and find some kind of cover for it, or is it a vertical hole you could stand in and bury yourself into until there’s just a little head sticking out for passing deers to investigate?

(I hereby declare I do not intend to dig a hole, nor get in it, nor participate in any strange TV shows I’d never heard of until a certain blog post mentioned them, as a result of any advice I may receive.)

The number one issue I see people complain about on Naked and Afraid is bugs. People have tapped out due to the psychological stress of being bitten by bugs over and over. My theory is that if you dig a hole and get in it, the flying type of bugs can’t get you. I’m sure there are bugs in the dirt, too, but not as many as the air has. You also probably won’t get cold, because your body heat will fill up the space.

My hole plan involves something deep enough that you can sit on the bottom with your head at least six inches below ground level. Not long enough to lay down in (that kind of hole requires too much energy to dig), but wide enough to comfortably sit with your knees bent. The hole can be lined with palm fronds or leaves or whatever. And yeah, I guess you could put stuff over your head.

The biggest challenges presented by what I’m just now coining “Hole Survival” is getting out of the hole to go look for food or to tend the fire or go poop. I’m envisioning some kind of rope-tied-to-a-big-rock scenario where I can pull myself up out of the hole. But you run the risk of collapsing the sides every time you exit. Clearly, I still need time to work out of some of these details.

That’s all for this week. And next week, since I’m going on that trip. But after that, I’ll be back with more great advice that probably won’t require anyone to dig a hole. Got a question you want to ask Trout? Leave it here.

Welcome to the first installment of Dear Trout, my hopefully weekly advice column. Look, we all know shit happens, sometimes I’m gonna skip a week or something. My plan is to do two questions a week, unless this really takes off and I have to bump the number to keep up. You can submit your questions here. The form asks for a name so I can refer to you while still maintaining your anonymity, but some of you put your government names on the form, so I’m worried that I didn’t explain that part correctly. So, I’m dropping the idea of using names at all. It’s still on the form because I’m lazy. Put a good name for a penis in there, if you feel like.

On to the questions of the week:

I wish I had a fun question, but I just lost my mom and I’m a grieving, lonely mess. Do you have advice for someone who is desperate for some kind of sign, to be able to believe there’s an afterlife? I’m so afraid that she’s either forgotten me, or just isn’t out there anymore and I’ll never see her again. Or maybe she realized I was a bad daughter and hates me now.

We all know that I’m an ooky-spooky, twitchy-witchy, new age buffoon with beliefs so extreme that I sometimes bully myself over them. I’ve talked before about hauntings I’ve experienced, the fact that I was in a coven at one time, I’ve even done tarot readings on YouTube. I have no trouble, as Jenny “crystals have energy” Trout, telling you that there is an afterlife. Not just an afterlife, but more actual lives after this one, and some of them may be on Earth, a fact I think about every time I fail to recycle a beverage container. There’s an afterlife. The universe is too specific to be by accident.

One thing I can’t explain is how to believe in it. I was raised religious. I have no mechanism to doubt, so I would be talking out of my ass if I tried to even speculate on how not-doubting works.

What I find really interesting about your question is that you say you want to believe in an afterlife, but the scenarios in which your mother forgot about you or started to hate you are only possible if there is an afterlife. I feel like that’s a pretty powerful sign of two things: you do believe in life after death, and what you’re experiencing is a natural feeling of abandonment that happens after a death.

You know logically that death isn’t a choice we make. We die because we’re ill or we die because we’re old or we die because there’s an accident. But whether the death is expected or sudden, we always want an explanation. Why, God? Why did you take Aunt Hildy away? She was only a hundred and seven! It doesn’t make sense, but our logic brains can’t accept that grief is its own process. We feel our human confusion surrounding death and interpret it as something that can be cleared up with an easy answer, even while we know there is no easy answer. Your brain could be saying, “Since we can’t blame mom for leaving, let’s blame ourselves instead. Then something will make sense.”

I think that when we’re grieving, we have to be careful about how we let our brains talk to us, but doing that is exhausting on our own. I think it would be a good idea to look into getting a counselor, if you haven’t already. There are people out there who can unpack all this stuff way better than I could ever hope to, and guide you through it. And I hope things get better and you can get to a place where you allow yourself to look forward to a joyous reunion with your mother.

What is the best way to overcome executive disfunction with regards to writing? I can break the process down into tiny steps, but actually starting can take me months.

I struggle with executive function (“What? No! But you’re so consistent and organized!” they said, sarcastically), especially when it comes to focusing on just writing the damn thing. I’ve found a few things helpful. The Pomodoro Technique has worked on-and-off for me. If I can do it and really stick to the rules, I can get a good few weeks of work out of it.

When that fails, I use a program called Write or Die 3. There’s a free version online, but I bought the full program for its “Peril” mode. You set the amount of time you want to spend writing, the amount of words you want to write in that time period, and then you hit “Ready?” The program shows you a cute little animated cat, prompts you to name it, and then tells you that this cat you have just named trusts you and has no concept of betrayal before revealing that the cat is dangling over some deadly green liquid. If you stop typing, a chain will slowly begin to lower the cat toward the danger juice. It is incredibly motivating.

I’ve also found that sprinting with others is a great way to get words on the page. One of my group chats has a Discord server where we can drop in any night, from 7pm-11pm EST and use a plug-in that I believe is called Sprinterbot to keep track of our time and word counts. It ranks participants from most words to least, so if you’re competitive, that’s an extra layer of fun. But it helps to just do the activity with someone else. If this is something that appeals to people, we could always add a channel for this purpose to the Trout Nation Discord; just chime in and let me know.

But if it’s not concentration and executive function holding you back from starting, then it might just be imposter syndrome or a fear of imperfection holding you back. In which case, fuck those things. You’re allowed to write. Nobody has to give you permission. You can write the thing just because you want to. Tell yourself a date and time when you’re actually going to start doing the thing. You cannot get out of it. No excuses. The most intimidating part of starting is actually doing it, but once you start, that hard part is over. You don’t have to start from scratch on that project ever again.

That’s all for this week. Submit your questions here or give our friends your (gentle) thoughts in the comments.

Obviously, I’m in no position to give anybody advice.

But I want to.

If you would like advice from someone who, until the age of twenty-five, believed that jackalopes were a real animal and they used their antlers for digging, please leave your questions here and I will answer these questions in blog posts. You might even get useable advice. A man named Gene said that I’m insightful. And he has a moustache, so… he’s a little bit better than you.

You can ask me advice on anything. Writing stuff. Relationships. Misunderstandings. Whether that guy at work is from Switzerland or not because you’re too afraid to ask him yourself. I’ll give you some kind of answer. Don’t ask me legal or medical stuff. I won’t answer legal or medical stuff because I love not being in jail. Not being in jail is my favorite part of the day.

Send me your questions, but again, I must stress, you are asking someone whose entire strategy for success on Naked and Afraid is to “dig a hole and get in it.” I’m not a professional at anything. I’m just nosey and looking to give my life a little pizzazz with your personal business.