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A Chicago area girl born and bred, I've lived in Mississippi, Montana, Michigan, and...ten years in the wilds of northeastern Indiana, where I fought the noble fight as a book editor. Now, I'm back in Illinois once more...for good. (At least I intend to make it that way!)

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Rejoicing in the flak...volume 2

Just got an e-mail last night from a fellow Christian writer who congratulated me on riling up the likes of Nora Roberts, Jennifer Cruisie and Pat Gaffney...saying getting reaction from the likes of these names is probably a feather in my cap. 

I don't doubt it--after all, Queen Nora spends precious little time penning letters to the editor of RWR, and ditto for the other two. They would no doubt plead more pressing engagements, like deadlines for their latest million-selling books. If I were in their shoes, I probably wouldn't write letters to editors much either. But they made an exception in this case, and it's all about what I had to say. Or, maybe I should clarify--what I believe a great many people in RWA want to say, but are afraid to.
Which brings up a whole 'nuther idea, a nagging thought that I've had over and over and have no answers to. Posting about it here will verge on preaching to the choir, but I'm tempted to do it anyway, because even Steve, my buddy, brought up the curious fact that there were no letters printed in the RWR this month agreeing with my position. 
And this is something I've been wrestling with for awhile. 

One woman did put up a letter several months back, asking RWA not to mess with the idea of one-man, one-woman romance stories as their foundation. She basically warned of much the same things I did, only perhaps without so strong a connection to pedophilia as I made.
(There's a whole 'nuther subtopic we could go into about the recent Church scandals, pedophilia, and homosexuality, and their interconnectedness...but that's another topic for another day. It's just a real curious, and real obvious, connection, one that you're not hearing about in the same liberal media attacking our Church. But, I digress.) 

But other than that one letter, and one refuting it, which basically I ended up turning around and refuting back... :-) There's been precious little evidence in RWA of not only any Christian presence but even of a more traditional presence and mindset that would have said, "Well, DUH, of course," to the notion of one-man, one-woman being the foundation of modern romantic fiction, and something we might want to stick with, even to the point of defining it if we felt that necessary. 
Which makes me wonder a couple of things. 
1) Is the moral, upright point of view really that rare nowadays? or, 
2) If it isn't, where are the other letters? 

I can tell you a short answer: people aren't writing them because they know what kind of abuse they'll be subject to for doing so. Heck, I had to completely delete one blog of mine from the system, there was so much of this abuse coming in. I despaired of leaving the blog up for Round Two, so I didn't. People don't want to stick out their necks only to see the blade coming down, and I don't blame them. 

On the other hand, however, isn't right worth standing up for? In public? And damn the consequences? 

I still think so...and I used to think lots of people would agree with that. But it's a little troubling not to see more evidence of it at the moment. It makes you think, and it makes you wonder. 

I'm hoping it's not an accurate barometer of where we are as a group of Christian people--that we're only willing to take moral stands where it's "safe" to do so. We wouldn't be here if that was the background of our faith and of our predecessors. 
So we do have to be very careful, and concerned, if we're passing on the wrong message to those who could most benefit from our being brave. Standing up for right only when we're sure nothing will "happen to us" as a result certainly isn't the legacy we inherited from the Church thus far. In some circles, it's become the legacy of the Church today, but we have to fight against that, too. 

To my mind, it's a fight worth waging. But I sometimes wonder how many of us really feel that way anymore. And what will become of us, and our faith, if we stop fighting the good fight the minute things get nasty. 

Pondering, 

Janny

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Thoughts on becoming a "public person"

I had one of those epiphanies this morning; they come every once in awhile, things that take you aback and make you consider something you hadn't before. It happened when one of my friends said to me, "Well, you seem to have become a public person in doing what you did." And I thought, Wow. It's that easy to become a "public person"?

And then I thought, Wouldn't it be wonderful if, indeed, that was true? Well, wonderful in a way. But I won't find that out this time around...because, despite appearances, it hasn't happened yet.

On one level, yeah, my name's out there, all right. My name's on a lot of blogs, a lot of boards, a lot of e-mails, and apparently, a lot of people's minds. So I've gotten a slice of being a "public" personality, for what that's worth.

But am I, really, any more a public person than I was before I wrote to the RWR? I would maintain no. Not at all.

I didn't become a "public person" simply because something I wrote got a lot of knickers in a twist. That didn't do it, for the simple reason that the hundreds of lines of text that are being written about me, invoking my name, or cussing me out now...don't have anything to do with me as a PERSON. They have to do with an image. A straw woman, if you will.

Someone people seized on and are hanging in effigy. But not, really, anyone who resembles who I AM.

They have nothing to do, for example, with this blog.
Or, for that matter, my other one.
Or with the years of experience in the trade that have contributed to my publishing credits, my teaching credits, and the people who can point to guidance I gave them that helped them along the path.

They have nothing to do with the fact that I love to sing, and can die happy because I've seen Sam Ramey sing Figaro. (yes!)
They have nothing to do with the long succession of cats I've owned over the years, who in themselves would probably provide blog material for years to come.
They have nothing to do with my beautiful, brilliant children, and how proud I am of them.
They have nothing to do with the fact that my husband has survived a very early heart attack, has had other complications over the past week, and has still managed to get himself back home for some good old fashioned home cooking and recovery time.
They have nothing to do with my faith...which I prove not only by staying Catholic, but by being a Cubs fan. (Hey, faith manifests itself in all kinds of ways.)

In short, you'll see thousands of words online about "me" right now. But in reality, those words aren't about ME at all. They're about strangers' IDEAs of one aspect of who I am.

And in most cases, who these strangers seem to think I am is a very judgmental, nasty, and biased person, a right-wing nutjob who'd throw them all into a baptismal font against their wills and force them to convert to some form of Christian/fascism that even scares ME to think about.

Of course, that's usually what happens when people don't bother to find out who a person really is. It happens when they prejudge, based on bits and pieces of information. In other words, it's based on bigotry

Interesting, considering that's the most popular term for ME nowadays.
But that is, after all, what happens when people don't want to risk being corrupted by the facts.

Because of this, I have a renewed empathy for other public figures and household names. The amount and kind of press a man or woman receives now has little to do with his or her character, beliefs, actual thought processes, ethics, or soul--and everything to do with what certain media types DECIDE that person is, slanting their comments and coverage accordingly...having the nerve to call what they do "journalism"...and hoodwinking vast numbers of people into believing they're getting "the real truth" about someone.

Balderdash. Of course, it's not the truth. Any more than what you'll see on most sites slamming ME is. How can it be, when it's written by strangers?

Oh, people went to my blogs and looked at my profiles...but just long enough to find something they could pick on. Oh, people took personal preferences, politics, and religious ideas from my sites, things I had deliberately steered AWAY from mentioning in my letter--not because I'm ashamed of them, but because they were irrelevant--and extrapolated them into personal insults in order to discredit what I said. But nothing they said truly discredits me...because it's on the level of playground taunting.

It doesn't take much thinking to call someone names. Nor any courage. So while Janet W. Butler, in some ways, has become a "public person"...Janet W. Butler, the real person--who would have been willing to exchange e-mails with many of these people, if they'd had the guts to do so--is still hiding behind the curtain. Not by choice, but by design: the design of people who don't choose to know a whole, real person with multiple facets, but who instead choose the low road of insults, slams, and name-calling.

This might make for some interesting conversation, some lively blogs, and a lot of mutual patting each other on the back. But has it made for any real public dialogue, communication, or exchange of idea or opinion based on actual ideas and opinions?

Read the blogs yourself, and unfortunately, you'll get the answer.

Paddling away in the water over the bridge,
Janny