Less than by Liz Flaherty

I usually only have Wednesday at the Window when I have a guest. Today, the guest is me. I wrote this for last night's Black Dog Writers' meeting. This morning, I added a little to it. Although it's written for writers and about writing, I think it matters in other areas, too. No one deserves "less than."

This week, I read a review on A Year of Firsts, a book I released last year. The title of the review was: This was a worthless and boring waste of time! One star was awarded, and the rest of the review went like this: “This was such a boring read. I seriously had a hard time getting into it. Was it me or was Syd always talking to herself? And I also wished the author made it easier to keep the characters straight. Too many names at once were just too confusing. And why did the chapters have to be so long? Oh, that made the read that much more daunting. Don’t authors know that it’s easier to read shorter chapters rather than longer ones? No, they have to go with 12 REALLY LONG and ENDLESS chapters!” (The book was 192 pages, just to give a hint of how LONG and ENDLESS they were.)

On Sunday, we went to watch a couple of musicians perform. They were retirement age, talented and funny and singing familiar songs. We liked them a lot.

After the show, I went to tell them how much I enjoyed it. My friend June was right behind me. I got there in time to hear one of them say they were both retired professors from a nearby private college.

As someone whose formal education ended with high school graduation, I am both impressed and intimidated by education and those who have a lot of it. (The exception to this is my kids, who have numerous degrees between them, but, as the saying goes, I did teach them to use a spoon.) I assume that people with letters accompanying their names other than M-R-S and Mom Emeritus not only know more than I do, but are smarter as well.

I asked one of the musicians what he taught. Art, he said, and talked about it a little bit, plus he said he painted as well. His partner taught history, but I didn’t catch whether it was art history or…you know…history history.

Behind me, June said I was interested in education and that I was a writer who’d written lots of books. Oh, my goodness, his face lit up. “That’s wonderful,” he said. “What do you write?”

Before I could mumble anything, June said, “She has 20-some books published. She writes romance.”

As impressed as he was by the fact that I had books published—which doesn’t carry nearly the cachet in its bag of tricks as it used to—was just how uninspired he was by the genre that I wrote. His face collapsed in on itself and he visibly recoiled.

He started to say something, and I admit to not knowing what it was. I just said, “Never mind. I saw your face. I enjoyed the show,” and went on to speak to his partner.

While my romance writing has segued pleasantly into women’s fiction over the years, I still have a loyalty to the genre that taught me a lot, entertained me a lot, and gained me publication and occasional paychecks. I still read it, although not as much. It grew one direction and I grew another. It became both uber-inclusive and uber-exclusive almost in the same breath. I just got old, which is where romance’s uber-exclusivity came in. The genre as a rule excludes people past their 40s wherever they can.

I guess that is the way genre fiction is. If you’re the protagonist in a cozy mystery, you can be old, but you’d better be quirky, too. If it’s horror, it needs to be…well, I don’t know; the only horror I’ve ever read was a couple of Steven King books that I thought I should like because he’s such a good writer.

And that line…that one right there before this…is the reason I wrote this.

Stephen King is more than a good writer; he’s a great one. His book On Writing was the most helpful instruction manual I ever read. But I don’t read horror or anything else that scares the bejesus out of me. The fact that I don’t read it doesn’t have a thing to do with its quality, does it? It just means I don’t read horror.

I read that Henry James said Louisa May Alcott was “not a genius” after he wrote a really awful review of Moods. While I’ve never read Henry James, I have read virtually every word Miss Alcott ever wrote and I will stack her genius up against his every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

But even then, if someone wrote in a genre not respected by the literati, a face was made. A writer’s work was denigrated. The words “less than” floated both silent and loud in the atmosphere just as they do now.

Romance novels often don’t hold their shelf space for long. They’re replaced quickly and easily. And yet the keeper shelf in my house is comprised almost completely of them. They, not the pretty hardbacks with their dust covers still intact, are the ones I re-read, that I’ve had to replace from eBay because I’ve literally read them until they fell apart. Less than? Hardly.

I have learned a lot in the process of getting old. I know about hair color, that refined sugar gives me heartburn, that either talking or looking down on someone else doesn’t make me any smarter or taller. I have learned that if the music’s too loud, you can leave. If you don’t like the book, you don’t have to read it. If artwork doesn’t touch your sweet spot, look elsewhere.

But don’t critique with the intent of harm. And don’t make a face.

BANNING BOOKS by Liz Flaherty

 “Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.” ~~ Stephen Chbosky

Stephen King

This happened in 1991. After all these years, I can hardly believe it came to pass, but it did—book-banning really happened at our school. It made me know then that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. I said then that we had to choose our battles—we still do. I wish I was better at choosing them. I wish I’d fought this one harder.

***

My son came home from school the other day and told me that someone had submitted a list to the powers that be at his school, requesting that books named on that list be eliminated from the school library. Apparently, the person who made the list did not want his or her child reading those books.

That’s fine by me, but don’t tell my child he can’t. Or the girl down the road that she can’t. Or all the other kids in the school that they can’t.

Books in school libraries are chosen by people who know children, like children, and want what is best for children. Their choices are not always perfect, but they are made with the people in mind who are going to be reading the books. If they chose with the idea that they were going to please everyone, their choices would be a lot easier.

But the library’s shelves would be bare.

The Bible would be gone. Mark Twain would be gone. Judy Blume would be gone. Nathaniel Hawthorne would be gone. Dr. Seuss, Margaret Mitchell, and, of course, Stephen King would not be allowed through school doors. Because they all offend someone, sometime, somehow.

I personally don’t read Stephen King’s books. He scares the bejesus out of me and keeps me awake at night. So I don’t read them. But I have a kid who does, and he finds things in Stephen King’s writing that I can’t find and don’t want to take the time to look for simply because I don’t like being scared. (Note in 2017: In 2001, Stephen King wrote my favorite book on writing of all time, called On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft—go figure.)

A young lady named Christy Martin recently had a “Student View” published in the Peru Daily Tribune that made a lot of sense to me. It concerned the labeling and banning of certain records, most notably those by the group 2 Live Crew. The statistics quoted in the article supported informative labeling, but “banned the ban.”

Books, like records, are often “insulting, repulsive, offensive, sexist, and utterly distasteful,” as Miss Martin said, but it is never up to one person or one special interest group or one church congregation to decide for everyone. Let them be labeled like movies and records, if necessary, but don’t try to ban them.

It is most certainly within parents’ rights to demand that their children not be required to read material they do not approve of and it is the school’s responsibility to honor these demands, but let it stop there.

My children all read Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War in school. I read it when they did, all three times, and never did learn to like it, but they did. At least one parent I know requested that his children read an alternative selection and his request was honored. It was enough.

I told my kids I didn’t want anything by 2 Live Crew in the house, just as my mom never let me play the Kingsmen’s “Louie, Louie” at home. I found out that a 2 Live Crew tape has been in my son’s room for a couple of years now, just as “Louie, Louie” became one of my favorites. I can’t help but wonder, if I’d never said a word pro or con, if my kids weren’t smart enough to decide about 2 Live Crew on their own, and I can’t help but wonder if Mom shouldn’t have listened to the Kingsmen and to me before banning “Louie, Louie” from the house, thereby practically forcing me to embrace it as a rock-and-roll legend to be forever loved and defended.

But it is my house, and if I find 2 Live Crew offensive, it is okay for me to ban it—or at least try to. If my mother thought “Louie, Louie” was a dirty song, it was all right for her to ban that in her house, too.

But not in your house. That’s your business. And not in the school attended by my children. That’s my business.

Added in 2020. It got done at that time. The book in question was banned because one mother didn’t want it there. And, oh, my gosh, there are people who would ban everything in libraries now if given the chance. Because there was a lot of ugliness in history, just as there is now. Because writing was done using the morals, ethics, and mores of the time and sometimes they stunk. Because people today are sometimes hurt by what was written then.

I think they would be more hurt by hiding the existence of the way things were then; banning the existence of those books would give way to denial of those flaws.

It would also be throwing out the good with the bad. One of my favorite authors for teenage girls was Janet Lambert, from Crawfordsville, Indiana. I read every word she ever wrote and loved them all. I learned many things from them. Good things. But in those books, I don’t recall there ever being a black person who wasn’t a servant. I don’t believe she would write that way today—at least, I hope she wouldn’t—but reading them not only taught me good things, it made me pay attention to others that weren’t so good.

Paying attention is important.

I’m not saying all books are good. I’m saying there are no limits to what you can learn if you read. And if you pay attention. What others read isn’t your business, but there’s no other way for you to argue points than if you’re fully armed with facts and knowledge of both sides of a situation.

Added in 2022. By introducing House Bill 1134 into discussion at the Indiana General Assembly, the State Legislature is leaning even heavily than usual into banning books that might be uncomfortable for some from the classroom, into demanding more from its teachers than can ever be delivered, into doing full-on destruction to public education. I don't know enough, frankly, to argue all the points within the bill or the demands it is making, but teachers do. Principals do. As I said up there--and surely I'm not the first person to say it--paying attention is important. Contact your representative and request an unbiased and easily understood explanation his or her vote. 

Like so many times now, I don’t have a neat, tied-in-a-bow ending here. Just read. Learn. Listen. Pay attention. Inform. Have a great week. Be safe. Be nice to somebody.

 

The Assignment: Write Something Scary by Navi Vernon

I love assignments. My daily to-do lists serve a useful purpose, but there’s nothing like an official assignment to set me on point. Blank screen and GO.

Hmmmm… on second thought, “write something scary” is somewhat ambiguous. The upside is that it allows a broad creative license. The downside is that it didn’t come with the neat parameters most often associated with an assignment. How should one run with this? 

Obviously, there are options. Write a scary story, write about something universally scary, or write about your personal “something scary.” Sometimes even those lines blur. 

Good people struggle daily with “something scary” in the form of mental illness, addiction, abuse, adultery, housing insecurity, terminal diagnoses – I’ll stop there but you know there are others. 

Uncertainty alone can be a “scary” trigger. A well-placed “what if” can set some into a tailspin of terror. 

Stephen King routinely writes something scary. His greatest gift is his ability to tap into some universal fear that we all had as kids. Whether the “something” lived under the bed or in a storm drain surrounded by balloons was irrelevant. The fear of the lurking unknown evil creeped us all out. Still does. I was 50’ish before I dared to dangle any body part over the edge of the bed after lights off. 

Seems like the more wrinkles I get the less scary life is. Either that or I’ve simply grown accustom to my fears and they no longer have the power they once did. 

My fears as a child were much different than when I was a young mother – hoping to keep my babies safe and healthy. The first night I set the bar pretty low for each of my three daughters. I just didn’t want them to stop breathing on my watch. Of course, parents are destined to live in perpetual worry if not downright fear about their kids—whatever their ages. Experiencing this kind of “something scary” is uncomfortable, but it’s worth it.  Guess that’s the price of love. 

Something scary has the power to wake you up in the middle of the night, but you don’t see many horror movies about unpaid bills. I suspect we’ve all been there at one time or another. 

And, all that, my dear listeners is what my friend, Nancy, would call revving up—the wandering free writing we do until we arrive at some central truth. 

I think I’ve arrived. What scares me now is that life windows are beginning to close. From the “you can do anything you set your mind to” of my youth to something less certain now. Almost 20 years ago, I went through a period where I needed a reason to get up in the morning—a reason to imagine a future. Long before making a “bucket list” became trendy, I put three things on a “long-term” to do list. 1. Graduate from college – check – better late than never. 2. Get buff – ha! It took me years to realize that “buff” is relative; something one achieves at (always) the next level, never the current one. I’ll settle for healthy – check. 3. Hike the Grand Canyon. No checkmark. One day, I realized I may have waited too long. Some windows close before we step through. We wait for more money or more time. We wait until… fill in the blank. And, then, one day that particular option has been grayed out. You couldn’t choose it now, even if you wanted to. It’s gone. 

A few years ago, I asked my mom to illustrate three children’s stories I’d written as an undergrad. Before I turned the series in for a grade, I’d added ridiculously rough sketches to the first story with wordy picture descriptions for the other two. I’d always treasured the quilts that had been collaborations of my mom and grandma. My stories paired with her drawings would give us a chance to do something similar for the next generation. I was pumped when I pitched my idea to Mom. 

Yet, even as I handed her the first book, she said she wasn’t sure if she could it. For an instant, I saw something unfamiliar in her eyes—self-doubt. Somehow, I managed to say, nonchalantly, “oh, well, give it a try. It’ll be fun.”

Inside I was thinking: What? She’d tackled projects like this before. Mom was a practical artist, more of “a figure it out as you go” vs. the artsy/visionary type. Like me, she worked best with an assignment. She loved a challenge. Mobility issues may have sent her to assisted living, but she was still quick-witted, smart, and creative. 

We didn’t mention it again for a week or two. One day, she handed the book back to me and said simply, “I can’t do this.” She didn’t make a big deal about it, so I didn’t either. It wasn’t until after her death when I found her sketching attempts in a small notebook that I realized she was right. Her practical, on-demand drawing skill that had served her well for a lifetime was no longer available. That window had closed. 

Suddenly the future seemed less certain. If it happened to Mom, it will happen to us all. 

As windows close, our worlds shrink, sometimes so gradually we don’t even notice. Until. Use it or lose it went from old adage to a warning for me. Logically, I’d always known that. But, this made it real—transformed it into my something scary.

Today, our planner leans heavily toward active vacations. “While we can,” I say. Joe gets it. There’s plenty of time to see things through a tour bus window when we’re old. A meme on Facebook sums it up for me. “One day I won't be able to do this, but today is not that day.” Stay tuned on that Grand Canyon hike.

***

Navi Vernon and her remarkable voice are part of Black Dog Writes, the writers' group at Black Dog Coffee in Logansport, Indiana. We meet the third Tuesday of each month at 6:30, weather permitting, and would love to have any local or regional writers or just curious people join us. 

Find and follow Navi at Living Commentary. You'll be glad you did!

Banning Books? Not in My House... by Liz Flaherty #WordWranglers

This happened in 1991. After all these years, I can hardly believe it came to pass, but it did--book-banning really happened at our school. It made me know then that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. I said then that we had to choose our battles--we still do. I wish I was better at choosing them. I wish I'd fought this one harder.

“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.” ― Stephen Chbosky

My son came home from school the other day and told me that someone had submitted a list to the powers that be at his school, requesting that books named on that list be eliminated from the school library. Apparently, the person who made the list did not want his or her child reading those books.

That's fine by me, but don't tell my child he can't. Or the girl down the road that she can't. Or all the other kids in the school that they can't.

Books in school libraries are chosen by people who know children, like children, and want what is best for children. Their choices are not always perfect, but they are made with the people in mind who are going to be reading the books. If they chose with the idea that they were going to please everyone, their choices would be a lot easier.

But the library's shelves would be bare.

The Bible would be gone. Mark Twain would be gone. Judy Blume would be gone. Nathaniel Hawthorne would be gone. Dr. Seuss, Margaret Mitchell, and, of course, Stephen King would not be allowed through school doors. Because they all offend someone, sometime, somehow.

I personally can't stand Stephen King's books. He cares the bejesus out of me and keeps me awake at night. So I don't read them. But I have kid who does, and he finds things in Stephen King's writing that I can't find and don't want to take the time to look for simply because I don't like being scared. (Note in 2017: In 2001, Stephen King wrote my favorite book on writing of all time, called On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft--go figure.) 

A young lady named Christy Martin recently had a "Student View" published in the Peru Daily Tribune that made a lot of sense to me. It concerned the labeling and banning of certain records, most notably those by the group 2 Live Crew. The statistics quoted in the article supported informative labeling, but "banned the ban."

Books, like records, are often "insulting, repulsive, offensive, sexist, and utterly distasteful," as Miss Martin said, but it is never up to one person or one special interest group or one church congregation to decide for everyone. Let them be labeled like movies and records, if necessary, but don't try to ban them.

It is most certainly within parents' rights to demand that their children not be required to read material they do not approve of and it is the school's responsibility to honor these demands, but let it stop there.

My children all read Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War in school. I read it when they did, all three times, and never did learn to like it, but they did. At least one parent I know requested that his children read an alternative selection and his request was honored. It was enough.

I told my kids I didn't want anything by 2 Live Crew in the house, just as my mom never let me play the Kingsmen's "Louie, Louie" at home. I found out that a 2 Live Crew tape has been in my son's room for a couple of years now, just as "Louie, Louie" became one of my favorites. I can't help but wonder, if I'd never said a word pro or con, if my kids weren't smart enough to decide about 2 Live Crew on their own, and I can't help but wonder if Mom shouldn't have listened to the Kingsmen and to me before banning "Louie, Louie" from the house, thereby practically forcing me to embrace it as a rock and roll legend to be forever loved and defended.

But it is my house, and if I find 2 Live Crew offensive, it is okay for me to ban it--or at least try to. If my mother thought "Louie, Louie" was a dirty song, it was all right for her to ban that in her house, too.

But not in your house. That's your business. And not in the school attended by my children. That's my business.

Added in 2020. It got done at that time. The book in question was banned because one mother didn't want it there. And, oh, my gosh, there are people who would ban everything in libraries now if given the chance. Because there was a lot of ugliness in history, just as there is now. Because writing was done using the morals, ethics, and mores of the time and sometimes they stunk. Because people today are sometimes hurt by what was written then. 

I think they would be more hurt by hiding the existence of the way things were then; banning the existence of those books would give way to denial of those flaws.

It would also be throwing out the good with the bad. One of my favorite authors for teenage girls was Janet Lambert, from Crawfordsville, Indiana. I read every word she ever wrote and loved them all. I learned many things from them. Good things. But in those books, I don't recall there ever being a black person who wasn't a servant. I don't believe she would write that way today--at least, I hope she wouldn't--but reading them not only taught me good things, it made me pay attention to others that weren't so good.

Paying attention is important.

I'm not saying all books are good. I'm saying there are no limits to what you can learn if you read. And if you pay attention. What others read isn't your business, but there's no other way for you to argue points than if you're fully armed with facts and knowledge of both sides of a situation. 

Like so many times now, I don't have a neat, tied-in-a-bow ending here. Just read. Learn. Inform. And while you're at it, have a great week. Be safe. Be nice to somebody.