Sensitivity Readers or Censorship Tools?

The other day I came across this complete and utter bullshit: 

"Publishers are hiring 'sensitivity readers' to flag potentially offensive content."

Ummm....what?

You can read the post here if you want, but I'll give you a quick rundown of the details. 

Essentially, Veronica Roth was called a racist when her book "Carve the Mark" came out- because reasons (the post really doesn't spell it out for the reader). Oh and people bitched her for her "incorrect" portrayal of someone living/suffering with chronic pain. (Which may or may not be true)

Add to this a bunch of writers that are so freaked out about bad press and not writing a character that is a minority or a special interest group correctly, and you get opportunistic vultures knocking on your digital door.

"Oh, hey there writer friend. It's OK. Don't be scared. I'm an EXPERT because I am (insert SJW LABEL HERE). Let me read your book and EDUCATE YOU on what you are DOING WRONG YOU MISOGYNISTIC RACIST HOMOPHOBE (etc etc etc). This will ensure more sales!"

(No. No it won't. Hint: Bad publicity will increase sales. People love to gossip about books, and word of them will spread like wildfire. Other people will buy the taboo book of the day, just to see what it is all about. Instant multiplication of revenue!)

Publishers and authors think that this is a great idea. It's all good because you can PAY  SENSITIVITY READERS RANSOMS (I mean, FEES) to ensure that your book doesn't OFFEND anyone. Plus you get to fork over $250+ per sensitivity reader!

Wow what a deal...I mean rip off.

*gasp* You mean people are out there trying to exploit writer's fears and get money for it?

You're darn skippy they are, and they want you to pay them to censor your own voice in the process.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

This is CENSORSHIP.  And if I want to get hyperbolic- it is a form of  blackmail- write this the way we say you should write it or we'll trash you and end your career. (Oh and you have to pay us to make sure you do it right.)

Yeah. Fuck that shit.

All of the bullshit these writers are utterly terrified of doing wrong in their books can easily be avoided if they do this one simple thing.

It's crazy. You don't even have to pay anyone for it. You can do it yourself! Yes! You!

It's called:
RESEARCH YOUR FUCKING SUBJECT BEFORE YOU WRITE IT!

There's forums, support groups, Wikipedia, expert columns, websites, other BOOKS, and so on that you can read. Places you can visit to contact people and make sure it's legit before you finish your manuscript. Even...the LIBRARY! Whaaaaaat?!

FFS, you guys. You can even put a request up on Craig's List asking for anonymous interviews with people that have experienced the subject you wish to write about.

It's not that hard. Come on now.

Do yourself a HUGE favor. Don't hire a sensitivity reader. They just want to take your money and run. 

Oh...and just to give you a visual on what the current culture and political climate is right now, and where the idea of the sensitivity reader comes from:

Yeahhhh... I hope that helps.

Don't let them silence you. Don't let them invalidate your worldview just because it doesn't fit into their little box of blind authoritarianism.

Need help protecting your freedom of speech? Have any thoughts on this subject? Please, feel free to comment below. 😉

The Dying Light: A Free Preview

Frank and I had shared spooky stories ever since our families when camping together when we were seven. It was our thing—each of us tried to tell a scarier story than the other guy.

The last one he told me kept me up for a week. I had to sleep with a flashlight. Neither of us would ever admit just how scared we got.

But that was part of the fun.

“A long time ago, when the Finnish and Welsh settlers first came here, there was this Ojibwe tribe that worked the original copper mines. One clever tribesman managed to win the deed from the owner in a poker game. They’d been trying to get the property rights to it for years, saying the mine was made by their ancestors and rightfully belonged to them. So it was a big deal for them to get it back.

“A whole group of tribesmen goes down in the mine to survey and map out the oldest, deepest parts of the mine. Things seemed to be going fine, but none of them came back up at the end of the shift. They sent down a search party to see what happened, and there was blood and body parts everywhere. Like, people were just torn apart by something stupid strong.

“The day after, the tribe just up and left; they practically handed the mine deed back over to the settlers. The last Indian to leave told them not to go down too deep, as certain parts of the ancient mine was guarded by an evil great spirit called Gaaway Manidoo. He said that the miners accidentally found a sacred cave, and paid for it with their lives.

“Seeing how dead serious the Ojibwe were, they boarded off the area that lead down to the section where the murders happened.”

“What? That’s it? That’s your story?”

“No. Shut up, I’m not done yet.”

I laughed and he sucker punched my shoulder.

“You wanna hear the rest or no?”

“OK, OK keep going. Sheesh.”

“Anyways, years later this miner, a young Finnish immigrant, comes across an old section of tunnels and decides to go in them. Then one day he comes up all excited ‘cause he found something.”

“What’d he find?”

“I’m getting to that part. Just wait for it. So the Finn, he gets some guy from the mine museum over in Marquette to come over with a newspaper reporter and they take all kinds of pictures. Turns out the Indians used that section of the mine for human sacrifices. It was a big controversy. My dad says he remembers it happening when he was a kid.”

“No way.”

“Ya way. They took lots of artifacts out of the mine for display; bones of the victims, sacrificial flint-stone daggers with beaded handles, the works. The miner sees that these things have value, so he decides he’s going to find something for himself. You know, like a souvenir or something that he could sell for a lot of money.

“He explores the whole mine system for months, searching for the perfect treasure.

“One day he comes up all pale and scared out of his mind. He’s got this clay pot in his hands, it’s an old oil lamp made by the Indians. His hands are gripped on it, like white-knuckled. He won’t let anyone touch it. He keeps it with him all the time, and starts getting really weird and jumpy. He stops working, he can’t handle being in the mines anymore. It made him a nervous wreck to be down there.

“That winter, he heads out to his cabin in the woods to go hunting. Just so happens that his cabin was over by the mines where he found the lamp.

“A bad storm hit. Like, total white-out blizzard. Howling winds, the works. The roads were closed for the season and the guy gets cabin fever real bad. His neighbor goes and visits him, because he was worried, seeing as how he was living there by himself and all, and he finds that the guy had boarded himself inside the cabin. Took him a while to open the door, and once he let him in, he kept going on an on about lamp oil, ‘cause he was running out.

“A few days later, the miner guy goes from one end of the town to the other, pounding on doors, screaming and carrying on about needing lamp oil and something hunting him from the shadows in the woods. People wanted to help, but no one had any lamp oil. By then most people had switched over to kerosene. So he was shit out of luck.

“His neighbor invited him to come stay at his house a few days, seeing as how he was all alone and it was a real bad snowstorm. He didn’t want the guy to freeze to death or anything, you know? But the dude refused. Even though it would have been in his best interest to spend a few days with people just so he shook off the cabin fever. But…he didn’t. He went home, dejected, scared out of his mind. Boarded up everything. Didn’t light a fire in the fireplace or anything, like he was trying to hide that he was there.

“That night, the locals heard something heavy running across their rooftops. My dad says that his uncle swears that he heard them himself. After the thumping on the roof, a man screamed, and over the wailing winds of the blizzard, they heard several gun shots. His neighbor’s wife rounded up her boys and they went over to the guy’s cabin. They find the boarded-over door on the ground, ripped off its hinges. Snow had drifted inside. The guy was nowhere to be found. All they saw was two deep bloody hoof prints in the snow, the other footprints around the cabin had filled in already by the snow drifts. The guy was never heard from again.”

“Shut up.”

“It’s true. I asked my dad. His cousin has a cabin over there. It happened.”

“Sure. Try another one.”

“OK. You hear the one about the snipe hunter?”

I hit him hard. “Shut up. Snipes aren’t real.”

“You know, Brad, I know where the cabin is. We should go up there.”

“Sure. Why not?”

You can get The Dying Light at all major online eBook retailers!

Serial Killer Known as the Vampire of Highway 55 Strikes Again!

If you like this, you'll love my vampire series, Addicted to the Abyss! 

You can read all 12 parts of Volume 1 for free, starting here: http://cassieshouseofhorror.blogspot.com/2016/09/addicted-to-abyss-vampire-serial-story.html

My New Horror Story Collection is Now Available on Kindle!

Lots of fun stuff going on right now in Casa de la Carnage!

I was interviewed on a local radio show called Motown Mojo Live last week. 

You can listen to the interview here:
https://soundcloud.com/user-244719454/motown-mojo-live-episode-77-lucid-furs-monique-given-cassie-carnage

I talk a little at the beginning, and then go into detail about my new horror story collection and my plans for my Addicted to the Abyss vampire series after the music break (in the middle). I also wax poetically about the horror of being swallowed alive by sinkholes. Good times. Good times. 💀❤

Also, I got my first book published by Bloody Whisper Books! It's available on Kindle.

You can get it here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WP551V9

This Week We Saw the Violent Shut Down of Free Speech. That is NOT Acceptable.

When in 1759, On the Mind was burnt by the public hangman in company with Voltaire’s poem On Natural Law, though he had soundly hated (and roundly abused) Helvétius’ masterpiece, he fought for its right to live, tooth and nail, uphill and down dale, on the essentially Voltairean principle:

“I wholly disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it.”

 http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/01/defend-say/

Last time I checked, we still have Freedom of Speech in this country. That applies to EVERYONE. 

I don't agree with a lot of what people are saying right now, on all sides. Although I might not agree with what you have to say, I will defend your right to say it. If I think that you are wrong, I will debate you, but I will not personally attack your character or physically assault you. It's unethical, and shows how weak of character you truly are when you engage in such things. 

Let me be perfectly clear here,

If you cannot listen to all sides of an argument, think for yourself, or decide what is correct and what is not, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

Between the violent, toxic rhetoric of extremists, cult-like behavior of several "social justice" movements, and news stations that are purposefully using language that minimizes destructive behavior and is actively creating a false narrative to whip everyone one up into a frenzy.

Y'all are going fucking nuts out there.

STAHP IT!



Damn it Chicken Little, the sky is not falling.

It's not.

Seriously. It's not.

Take a deep breath.

Take another one.

One more.

Now,

REPEAT AFTER ME:

• Everything is going to be OK. We live in a safe world (well, unless you're in second or third world countries, then you're fucked. Sorry bruhs. Them's the facts.). 
• There is no US vs. THEM. There are only people that have different perspectives, education levels, and understandings of how the world works. If I disagree with them, I will use intelligent discourse and facts to support my case. I will not resort to name calling, swearing or bandwagon mentality when I cannot sway someone over to my point of view. 
• I am a cultured, intelligent human being that can make decisions for myself and not follow a crowd like a brainless cow.
• I will scrutinize all posts I read that claim things that "might" happen, or are talking about "leaked" information from politicians. They often lie to scare people and fuel the outrage machine.
• I will research things that don't sound right or sound outrageous (you know, causing rage), before sharing them and instantly becoming an angry, frothy mess.
• I will not personally attack people on social networks for presenting a point of view that is different from mine. 
• I will engage in civil conversation and ask such questions as  "Why do you think that?" "Why do you feel that way?" "What do you think is going to happen?" "What do you think is really going on right now?" "Do you have facts to back that up?" You know, like an intelligent human being?

Here's what they don't want you to know:

Everything going on in the world today is the same old shit that has happened for centuries. 

NOTHING has changed, except we now have instant access to breaking news, and a ton of big corporations spin them to a particular point of view to scare you enough to make you violent.

Is that a good thing? No.

Is that fair? Obviously not.

Can you actually say that it's perfectly all right to go out there and physically attack (and sometimes kill) people that think and say things that are different than your point of view? Can you really?

If your answer is yes, I highly suggest that you go seek counseling and/or check yourself into a psychiatric clinic, because obviously you have allowed your emotions to high jack your brain and you can no longer think straight. You are not sane. Get help.

Are your beliefs worth dying for? Are they really? 

Seriously, think about this.

Really think long and hard about this before you act.

You'll thank me for it later...unless you want to passive suicide by cop. Then by all means, go right ahead. I'm not going to stop you. You obviously don't cherish the precious life you have been granted. Go on. Do it.

What? You changed your mind? OK then.

Do you want to be attacked by a violent mob and killed, just for existing? Is it socially, morally, or legally acceptable to do that to others?

NO. It's not.

So cut that shit out.

What's going on is a forceful, violent act of censorship.

Censorship is dangerous- on all levels. Because once it starts, it's a slippery slope down to government controlled thought policing. 

Read about McCarthyism. Read about Stalin and the Gulag. All this talk about "educating ourselves" when we aren't "thinking correctly" and towing the SJW party line? It eerily echoes what happened in Russia. 

Don't like what someone is saying? There are peaceful ways to talk about it.

Setting things on fire, breaking windows, attacking people en mass is not how it is done.
That doesn't bring more people over to your cause. It drives them away in droves.

Please, please people, be careful out there.

It's getting violent, and ugly. And before all the crazies are rounded up and sent to jail (or worse...sent to the Gulag for life) it's probably going to get more dangerous.

Stay vigilant. Keep yourself safe. Don't follow the crowds.

Start polite discourse instead of shutting communications down. Shouting down your opponent, using bullying tactics to shut them up, only makes them more likely to NEVER listen to what you have to say.


Remember:

"Fear is a strong emotion and it can be manipulated to steer people into making emotional rather than reasoned choices." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_mongering

Stop being manipulated. 

You're smarter than that.