The End of MindCrime is Near

thought_police_posterWhen I would express pro-free speech opinions back in 2012 (when I really started posting my personal views on social media) thru about midway into 2015, I received awful backlash from the writing community.

I was berated, ridiculed, mocked, blocked and black listed in some small press circles (none that are relevant or pay any kind of real money.)

I find it bizarre that today, as I continue the exact same arguments and viewpoints, I’m met with a TON of vocal support. I’ve been re-posting blogs from a year or two ago that got me absolutely burned alive at the time that are now being shared and celebrated.

The tide is truly turning. The end of the PC era of self-censorship in the arts is upon us and I for one hope we never see anything as ugly and oppressive toward art again. Damn the invisible prison of our minds and damn the social justice prison guards who seek to keep us in bondage.

There’s a psychic prison break happening and I’m proud as fuck to be a part of it.

I don’t think it was ever the ART itself that was censored, but the artist. More to the point, the artist’s ability to communicate and connect with a fan base through social media.
 
As I stated in my blog about the Stepford Wife syndrome, authors, artists, poets, musicians, (and non-artists as well) are constantly smothered by the social justice police and pressured to virtue signal and show endless guilt toward anyone and anything that isn’t us. (Yesterday’s Columbus Day embarrassment was a perfect example.)
 
Pick any hot social topic and there is a social justice warrior chomping at the bit to publicly shame you for taking the “wrong” stance on the subject on your personal social media. And the wrong stance is literally anything outside of the copy/paste Tumblr feminist blogs the social justice warriors hover around like gnats to a hog’s ass. 
 
Any deviation from their hardcore extreme liberal viewpoint is met with unparalleled aggression in the digital age. (And I’ve ALWAYS been a moderate liberal, to be clear.)
 
No, this is not government censorship. It’s actually much, much worse. It’s mindcrime and our own brothers, mothers and neighbors are our judges, jurors and reputation executioners.
 
It’s 1984 in 2016.
 
Their weapons are our own faces and our own words used against us to shame, harass and push us into hiding. Banished from social circles, jobs, and even our homes in some extreme cases.
 
It’s a calculated cultural drive to brainwash western civilization into believing one tiny, narrow, regressive world view without ever once having to enact a single page of legislation.
 
But we’re hip to it now. We’re done letting the pressures of social justice silence our voices. The walls of the mind prisons are crashing down all around us.
 
We are free to think again.

Why being a Literary Lone Wolf isn’t a Bad Thing.

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Writing is a solitary art. It’s you and your word processor. The end.

But even in the age of self publishing, to get your writing out to the world, you must collaborate with other humans on some level. You need your editor. You need a graphic designer, and in some cases you need a publisher.

But you don’t need to kiss anyone’s ass.

If you’ve been around small press publishing for more than a few years and you haven’t connected the dots between publishers and their best selling authors (often times one in the same individual) then you’ve either got the perception of a rock, or you’re purposefully turning a blind eye toward the rampant nepotism that exists in the publishing world.

Oh my god, he used the N word!

Yeah, I did? So what? Nepotism runs the world. It invades every facet of our lives from government all the way down to our menial labor jobs. Hang out in any writers group for a few minutes and you’ll see the brazen gloating about it. Except it’s never referred to as nepotism. It’s called social networking. To use the N word is to immediately give social networking a negative connotation. It says that the individuals didn’t get where they are by talent and merit, but rather by social station alone.

Duh.

You’re kidding yourself if you think that every published author on a small press label got their break by talent alone. Again, hang out with writers and publishers for five minutes and they’ll tell you how they don’t want to work with assholes. Or that people who aren’t friendly won’t find success. Or that their talent pool is derived from the friends they make in writer groups.

That’s what makes the world go round. You don’t put your name and face out there, you don’t get noticed. You pick fights and start drama, people avoid you. Common sense. Don’t be an asshole if you want friends. But what if I told you that success based on talent and merit alone is, in fact, attainable?

Are you the kind of person who sees all the schmoozing and ass kissing going on in writer groups as disgusting, or at the very least as pandering and maybe lacking in integrity? Well, take it from me, a guy who puts the bare minimum amount of effort into writer groups and socializing with publishers and editors. I’m friends with influential people in the small press, sure. But I’ve never asked those individuals for favors, nor do I ever expect to receive one. I’m not friends with them to take advantage of their station, but because they’re interesting people with similar interests.

What I’ve done as a writer, I’ve built on my own. I’ve won and been nominated for awards very important to the genres I write in. I’ve done so while speaking my mind honestly and with integrity, and never compromising my core beliefs, even when those beliefs piss off influential people in the small press. I truly do not give a fuck what affect that has on my precious reputation because in a few years I’ll be dead forever and my books won’t. My books aren’t assholes, they’re books with their own reputations completely separate from mine.

Yes I network with authors. Yes I attend literary gatherings and conventions, but I never do so with an eye toward using others to gain station in the literary world. That’s ugly. That’s gross. When I look at the awards and nominations on my writing desk, I don’t owe that sense of pride to anyone. I didn’t get here by nepotism. I got here by hard work, self belief, and talent. I get that everyone won’t be so lucky. I came to fiction writing with a fanbase from making movies, but I built that the exact same way. On my own. A decade of hard work. Without the help of any producers, or investors or distributors compromising my vision as an artist.

I am a literary lone wolf, here to tell you that it’s ok to go it alone. You don’t have to dress up for the party. You don’t have to be best friends with the kid throwing it, either. Write well, and the rest will follow.