Today I discovered this writer’s tactic to face her fear of rejection and failure, and it’s honestly very inspiring?! This kinda rewired my brain and I feel everyone should read and think about it.
im the adoptive father of like 14 different kids because im the only out and proud trans dude at my school and all the lgbt underclassmen subconsciously flock to me
me in the hallways at school: [hugs a freshmen trans girl, high fives a young butch lesbian, platonically kisses a bi dude on the forehead]
my straight friends: wow nate u have so many friends! how long have you know them all?
me: first of all these are my children and i love them and second i met two of them this morning and one last week
When I put them in the queue I thought everyone was going to get annoyed because they’ve seen them a million times, I feel terrible that so many of you guys haven’t!
There is this controversy in book industries about e-books; specifically Amazon who has made it easy for someone to self publish whereas before it would cost someone thousands of dollars and so if you did you were a loser because you obviously couldn’t get an agent or even get an indie publisher to back you. All of a sudden a million books are being self published by losers who are ruining literature because anyone can just print anything and nothing matters anymore. It’s the same thing they said when they invented the printing press and then again when trade paperbacks became a thing.
A whole bunch of people, mostly fanfic writers just repurpose in their work, start publishing these short erotic novels that they haven’t even edited and it was all getting weirder and weirder.
BDSM became mainstream because of EL James publishing her Twilight fanfiction ‘50 shades of gray’ and then suddenly there were a bunch of books that made people uncomfortable about time traveling to fuck dinosaurs. One erotic novel written by Christie Sims and Alara Branwen kind of became the poster child for the demise intellectualism.
A few years later someone calling themselves Chuck Tingle started to publish tiny erotica novels about people having sex with unicorns and Bigfoot that were intentionally weird with long and had highly specific titles. The covers went viral, most people thinking they were memes but then discovered they were real books that were actual short stories written by somebody who knew how to write and was obviously mocking the controversy.
Everyone was complaining and trying to find out who he was and journalists were trying to contact “him” but he refused to be interviewed. The popular rumor started going around that it was actually a father and son that wrote the books together and someone who everyone is probably sure was actually Chuck Tingle was anonymously interviewed and was like, “lol yeah and we usually write them start to finish in one night” which made people madder and was true because he really blew up when a meme about this dress went viral in a day and by the end of the day
Chuck
Tingle had a new erotic novel about fucking the dress.
Adding to the controversy is the fact that if you publish through Amazon people can read your books for free through their “digital library” but when people check out books it’s technically counted as a sale. Out of nowhere some dude named Chuck Tingle was at the top of the bestsellers list with these offensive books and sort of accidentally got nominated for a really prestigious award and everyone lost their shit.
The powers that be were changing the rules so he couldn’t win, which is what also happened to Neil Gaiman when his comic book Sandman got nominated and everyone was outraged that a comic book could be considered literature. Neil Gaiman actually won the award and then they put in a rule that no more comic books could be nominated, but they got lucky with Chuck Tingle and he didn’t win. Except then he was nominated for a second time.
Obviously Chuck Tingle didn’t win again,
but then he kind of doubled down and published books about getting fucked by his nomination and then fucked by the concept of getting fucked over by the industry. Then his book started getting really mostly sociopolitical and shoved his award nomination down everyone’s throats..
They were still just short weird erotica, but instead of being tongue-in-cheek funny they became condescendingly critical.
He has a website with an about me page but he’s become a folklore hero and everyone is 99% sure it’s fake.
As he stands now, the industries are still really upset but the indie scenes are considering them high art.
I am among the latter.
Don’t forget, the whole reason people nominated Chuck Tingle for the Hugo awards in the first place is because a lot of white male authors were really mad that women and racial minorities were winning awards. They nominated him, but of course, he wasn’t going to ruin the mystery by revealing himself, so instead he had someone go to the Hugos in his place… Zoe Quinn, who Gamergate centered around, and who was therefore the poster child of everything this group *hated*.
Chuck Tingle is a goddamn master.
Thank you for addingthat. I was about to be “but it wasn’t an accident he was nominated for a Hugo”
Also Chuck Tingle is absolutely the pseudonym of another famous writer, we just don’t know which one.
I REALLY LOVE how this author has been baiting the MRAs and racists in the science fiction community!
Here’s a backgrounder I wrote on the results of the first Hugo Awards that the “Rabid Puppies” (as they’re known in the SF world) tried to ruin, and how it backfired: X
No lie, the Chuck Tingle story is my favourite modern mystery.
Also honestly if you talk to Chuck Tingle outside of his books he’s just… a really nice dude? Like the bit he does is very weird and wack, he frames everything in terms of stacked parallel realities and his vocab is… descriptivist, but within that framework he’s super gentle and respectful towards everybody and just wants the best for everyone.
Chuck Tingle is an angel, one of those really weird noneuclidean ones.
I saw a sad facebook post from the gay bookstore back in Ann Arbor where I used to live about how they hadn’t sold any books that day so I went on their online store and bought a couple, and while you don’t get #deals like elsewhere online, I’d love it if y’all would consider buying your next gay book from them instead of like, Amazon.
Common Language is a great bookstore and while I’ve only been there once, I follow it on Instagram and really want to see it succeed!
Their most recent Facebook post (~9:30 PM, April 18):
A little update:
At last count we had 211 online orders over the last couple of days. We generally have a handful of online orders PER MONTH. And many days our in store sales are 3-5 books. In other words, this deluge is significantly more than we sell in a month. We are literally brought to tears by this outpouring.
About 80% of them have already been fulfilled and are on their way to you.
The other 20% require special attention (out of print book, book temporarily out of stock, etc.) or we need to pull together books from various sources. Some of you will be getting emails from me!
Our staff is three people and one dog. And while the dog is, perhaps, the world’s sweetest dog, he’s not much help in this task. The lack of opposable thumbs is a big hindrance to many bookstore tasks.
Mind you, we are not complaining. Having a surge which overwhelms our current resources is a great problem to have. Heartfelt thanks.
As I take a short break from fulfilling orders I wanted to share a few thoughts.
This is transformative.
We will be able to pay some bills which will steady the ship for a longer voyage. In our wildest dreams this surge would continue, we’d hire more people to handle the load, and the world would have a thriving honest-to-god queer bookstore.
But even if it doesn’t continue at this truly astonishing rate, having a regular flow on online orders would give the store a level of security we haven’t seen in a long time.
All of you did this. You made it happen. And you can be a part of making that dream come true. In fact, you can be the most important part of making that dream come true. You can be an ambassador.
It was, after all, an ambassador who made this happen.
When a friend talks about getting a book, steer them to us. Our mission is to create a safe space for LGBT people, a resource for a community, a place of equality for women, a place where black lives truly matter, a place where your gender is what you say it is, not what anyone else says it is.
My students are up to something. They keep coming up to me and handing me pieces of fruit, and when I ask why, they just smile cryptically and say, “Don’t worry about it.”
Like, the apples I get. That’s a teacherly thing to give. But one of them just straight up handed me a grape.
I took a sick day today and sent an email to the first girl to hand me a piece of fruit, asking if I could have an explanation now.
Her response was to send me this meme:
That clarifies exactly nothing, thanks.
Walked into school today to an email from her saying: “There’s more to come, hope it doesn’t leave you *sour* (you’ll get that later).”
Ominous.
Just before my first class of the day, one of my students came floating in, a black cloak billowing behind her, hood pulled low over her eyes.
“An offering,” she said, handing me a plain white bag with a green ribbon.
Inside is this:
Life gave me a plastic lemon.
WE HAVE AN ANSWER!
Apparently this was the result of a number of my students playing Truth or Dare at a birthday party. I’m not sure which one of them came up with “I dare you to confuse Magistra by handing her a piece of fruit without explanation”, but I 100% approve of any thought process that ends with me getting free food.
Molly's Monsters 