Trigger Warnings are Censorship

Yes, they are. All those people who will tell you they're just there to protect a small handful of people who cannot control themselves if they see or hear something upsetting are lying to you, or they're lying to themselves, but in either case, they're lying.

Are there people who are so sick that when they see a word they lose control? I'm sure there are, and I'm also sure that we shouldn't be changing society to protect this incredibly small minority. We also shouldn't be changing it to protect that larger group of fakers and whiners who claim that certain words 'Trigger' them. That later group should learn to shut up and grow up, and we should pay them no heed at all. Actually we should all disparage them, because they deserve it, for using the mental issues of those who really are ill, as a trick to force their worldview on others.

Look, there are things out there that upset all of us, in one way or another. But you don't see the vast overwhelming majority of people in the world falling down and screaming every time they see or hear something that 'Triggers' bad feelings or memories, do you? No, because they're grown up adults and they know that the whole 'Trigger Warning' fiasco is just that, a fiasco based on lies.

Of course there are those people who will claim 'It's only Voluntary!!!' Yeah, I'm sure the Nazi's told the Jews that the camps were 'only voluntary' as well (oh noes! Godwin alert!! Yes, I used Nazi's on purpose, are you triggered yet? No? Guess I'll have to try harder). Oh, and yes, they did.

The problem with any 'voluntary' standard is that sooner or later (usually sooner) someone always comes along and makes it mandatory. Go look around, try to find some cases where this hasn't happened (yet). Oh, I'm sure there are a few, but the fact is, they're so few that you'll have to really search to find them. The first thing that always happens is social pressure. In one debate I was a part of recently, the person in favor of 'Trigger Warnings' accused one of the opposed to being favor of rape. "How can you be opposed to putting Trigger Warnings for rape on a story, unless you are in favor of rape!" They said.

I'm not kidding, they actually said that, they actually made that accusation, and then for two weeks the discussion fell silent because none of the others who were opposed wanted to be branded a rapist.

And that is what will happen if everyone starts giving into 'Trigger Warnings,' if you as an author don't, you'll be silenced by being accused of the most heinous crimes imaginable. And if you do give in and start putting them on, well, do you want to be putting such 'tags' on your story as 'Rape, Murder, Mutilation, Incest, Assault, Battery, Theft, Robbery, Violence, Curse Words, Religious Overtones,' etc, etc, etc? No, of course not, so you'll just stop writing instead.

BTW, I just described almost every Greek and Shakespearean play ever written, as well as 90 percent of most classic literature. There probably isn't a book on the NY Times best seller list that doesn't contain 80 percent of those 'Triggers'.

Trigger warnings are the foot in the door for the speech and thought police, it is not something being done to help people who you shouldn't be worrying about in the first place. It's solely a method for those that think they are better than you, and know better than you, to control what you say, what you think, what you believe, and what you read. And if you don't see that, you are a very foolish person who has no understanding of history, or human nature.

Trigger Warnings are an attack on authors everywhere, on all artists, on all creative people. It is a war, and if you give in to it, you will be silenced if you do not write the approved stories with the approved words. If you don't stand up against it now, while you still can, you find yourself being attacked for saying and writing the 'wrong' things. You will doxxed, you will be swatted, you will lose your job. Don't think they won't do it, they're already doing it in other fields, now they're after us, the writers.

Remember: It is better to die on your feet, than to live on your knees.

But it's better still to take a stand against those preaching censorship before they have their foot in the door, and have gained the power to crush you.

Move those goalposts!

So, I was in a debate over censorship (which I disapprove of), and I made an argument, in the debate which proved my point perfectly, as one person in the debate was actually using the very thing I was arguing against, to censor people in the debate.

Score!

So what does the other side do? They totally ignore my 100 percent factual proof, and claim that I was getting 'too emotional'. Yup, they lost, they knew they lost, they couldn't argue against me, so they changed the goalposts and started to argue that my point wasn't valid, because I was too emotional.

So yeah, done with those folks. The next thing that comes after personal attacks are motions to ban, because obviously you are a bad person.

To be honest I don't know why I even bothered. I thought they wanted to talk about writing, but instead they just wanted to push the next SJW item on the checklist, speech control.

Somebody in England ALWAYS makes it.

Why this is, I have no idea, but sometimes I think it speaks volumes for a particular segment of English society. I engage in a couple of different hobbies, like motorcycles, and sometimes those require a special tool, if you're the type of person that does all their own maintenance.

I have found, that while certain tools are almost impossible to find, you will always find at least ONE person, in England, who makes it, and is selling them.

My ZZR1200 needs a special tool to tighten down the nut that holds the front forks on. Most people (dealers included) use a tool that doesn't really work right, and sort of does a half-assed job. Especially as you can't put a torque wrench on it. There is a special socket however that will do the job, and yeah, only one guy in England makes it.

It just came today! Now to go wrench.

So, the year so far

So far this year I've put out four novels. To be honest, I'd hoped to be at five at this point, but with my father dying, and having to fly to NY twice this summer, well, let's just say writing wasn't a priority for almost three months.
As it stands right now, I have two more novels planned to be out this year, and a third one if I can find that time (which is already halfway finished, so it should be 'easy' to finish - ha!).

Of the two planned ones, the first is in the Portals of Infinity universe, but is not part of the existing series, it's about Nikki, the sister of the hero from the series, who has found herself drawn into this new and interesting universe. For her, this is a huge bonus, because she will finally be able to do the things she always wanted to do, but couldn't in our world. I haven't titled this story yet.
The other planned one, will be book Six in the Portals of Infinity series. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the books after #6 will still (mostly) be in chronological order, however, I will endeavor to write them so that you can pick up any one of them, and read it, without having to read the previous ones in the series.

The third one, is another book in the Shrean universe, where Lost Souls takes place. Different characters completely, different story line. Much more adventure with a lost prince, young love, and all that kind of stuff. The first half of that is done (I wrote it while watching deadliest catch. American restoration, and pawn stars), I'm curious as to if people will like it, it's different from my other stuff, just like Lost Souls is different. More YA / Romance / shifter stuff.

I do have two other books planned for the Hammer Commission story line, one is a prequel about how Rafael came to be where he is today, the other is about what happens to Mark after he's 'loaned' out to the US government. One of those will get written next year, and if it does well, the other one probably will follow six to nine months later.

As for the anthro fiction, if enough people show an interest, I will start a kickstarter for the third book in the COS trilogy. Due to the overwhelming amount of piracy those books are receiving versus sales, I will only continue to write in that universe if paid up front. Sorry folks, but I can't afford to work for free, much less lose money on a book. I have to eat, and I have bills to pay. Furry fandom is not as big as the other fandoms, and hard SF still isn't as popular as it used to be (which is why I don't write much of it currently). So when hundreds of people pirate those stories, that's half the audience, and earning a thousand dollars for 8 weeks worth of work (and I have to pay $400 of that to the government in taxes), is not smart. Sign twirlers make more money than that.

I am always open to comments from my readers as to what you'd like to see next, or see more of. I want to do my best to please my readers, because you folks are the reason I'm able to do this. Being able to tell these stories that are bouncing around in my head, and make money at it, is a privilege.

Thank you,
-John Van Stry

The people at Amazon really are very helpful

So, insomnia, woke up at 5am, couldn't go back to sleep.
So while dealing with some correspondence (I have a distant relative who is a lawyer and I keep getting his email lately) I discovered that book one from my Portals of Infinity series was no longer showing up on my author page (the detail section) and a link to a former bogus/scammer paperback version (which Amazon removed) was still there (now it's a dead link).

So rather than write them, I called them (well technically they called me), and they took care of all of that. The person on the phone was actually very technically skilled and went in there and fixed it. Not what you expect from tech support these days, right?

I know a lot of people like to bag on Amazon, but to be honest, they've always done well by me and always done their best. Few companies these days really make the effort that Amazon makes in customer service, and not just for its customers, but for it's vendors as well.

Thank you, Amazon.

Does this constitute as a 'sex scene'?

Really, I'm curious.

'He made love to her.'

'They made love.'

'They relaxed together after making love.'


Now, I'm curious, do any of those constitute a sex scene to you? I always thought a sex scene had to have descriptions of actual sex, you know, like a porno shows two people have sex, but if the scene fades out and you see nothing, well, it's not a sex scene, because it's all in your head.

anyway, curious minds want to know and all that!

*sigh* Looks Like Lost Souls is a flop. Edit (Maybe not?)

Well, apparently no one likes 'Lost Souls', while I did get a few positive emails, I haven't gotten a single review on Amazon. So sales, which started off okay, have dropped significantly. It's still getting some reads in KU, but again, with no reviews after a week, people aren't going to give it a shot.

I might finish the next book I wrote for that 'world' as it is already half done, remember I wrote these mostly for myself, for fun, but it's on the back burner now, so it'll be a while. My beta readers all thought it was a great story and would do well, but I guess not. I wonder if I should just pull it and release it under a pen name? Maybe people don't expect that kind of story from me?

I don't know, but if it doesn't pick up a lot of reviews by Tuesday, and if sales don't come up, it's dead.

But this shows how important reviews are, if you like a book, and you don't review it, don't expect the author to write another one like it. Because reviews sell books, and without reviews, we won't write those stories

Edit: Apparently the KU borrows on it (which I normally don't pay attention to, because under the old system those weren't worth much to me) are continuing to go up. So while I may not get many sales, I may get borrows. Strange, never had more borrows on a book than sales, but this is getting about 10 times as many. So it may NOT be a flop after all.

Wow, this is a first

If Amazon pays out the same for the KU program as they did last month (about a half penny per page read), I will possibly make more money from page reads than from actual sales!

That has never happened before. The old system favored short stories, so of course it quickly got scammed by a lot of people, and folks like me, who write novels were getting screwed (along with Amazon - who did something before us novel writers all left). Now all the scammers/gamers are screaming about it being 'unfair', and suddenly people who write books that people actually read all the way through are making money.

I have never written my books to try and game the KU system, I just try to write things that people will read and enjoy. My target has always been books sold, not KU borrows. And for the first time I'm getting almost as much money for a KU borrow, as for a sale.

This is a very pleasant surprise.

Just what's been going on...

I've been busy this week with a few things. A lot of it has been centered around the new book 'Lost Souls', I've been doing some promoting of it, as well as converting it to paperback. I need to do book 5 of POI, which is the latest, I may do that this weekend.

I've also been dealing with some issues on the new book, which as usual is still untitled. One day I'll be better about titles, I'm sure. This will be the first book that deals with William's sister Nikki in the POI universe. There are going to be some changes going forward, either with the book six in the series, or the book afterward. To you, the reader, hopefully you won't really see anything different, but I want to restructure a few things so that people can pick up any future book in the series, and read it without having to go back to book one, unless they want to.

Now, there will be some books that are a bit more tightly linked of course, so you may have to go back one book, but I want to make it easier on those people who are new to the stories. The difficult part of this will be in titling the books. I think I'll have to add a list of the books in chronological order in the flyleaf, or after the copyright page once I start doing that, so people will know where they are in the series chronologically.

Also, as I write books about other characters in this universe, I'll need a way to communicate timeline order, not just when they were written, but when they take place. The current book I'm working on actually starts at the halfway point of POI book 3, and there is some crossover. But not much. And that's only because I have the start of Nikki's story, which we saw a little of in book 3 of POI.

As for writing Nikki, she's going to be a lot more of a tomboy than other female characters I've written before, so it will be a little bit tricky to try and get the right mix of feminine and more 'butch' like behavior. I'm am modeling her after someone (and I will never say who!) that I think captures that kind of behavior. (Well, actually two someones).

I'm also going to redo my main website, sometime in the next week or two, and I'll be putting up some primitive maps of the two main worlds in POI, I really need a simple wysiwyg html editor, I'm tired of coding html in vi. I may just do it in word (because I own a copy of word), yeah I know it's full of bloat, but it's easy. And all the 'free' wysiwyg html editors I've seen to date are complete pains in the butt to use.

So, that's it for tonight, and if you haven't checked it out, please check out a few pages in Lost Souls and let me know what you think here. It's a lot different than the POI series, and yeah, a bit of a romance in some aspects. I grew up in a day and age where writers diverged all over the map, and I'd like to do the same occasionally. Keeps things fresh.

Lost Souls Print version now available

For those of you who may be interested, the print version is now available!

https://www.createspace.com/5704708

Lost Souls is now available on Amazon!

My latest novel, Lost Souls, is now available on Amazon at:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01489KXRS

Please check it out! No, it's not a Portals of Infinity story, this is more of a high fantasy type tale, in a world full of mythical beings and creatures, like Elves, and Dwarves, and Shreans.

Wait? What are Shreans you ask? Well, maybe you should read the book! :-)
Or at least check out the free sample!

Thanks,
-John

Lost Souls, Cover is done

Well, here is the cover for the new book, Lost Souls. The text is still out at the editor, so I can't commit to a publishing date other than 'soon'.

This is a new story and a new Genre for me, as this is a YA Fantasy, an it introduces the Shrean race. As I've mentioned before, I have a few of these stories that I wrote more for my own pleasure than anyone else's, but when they came up in conversation, a few folks asked to see them, and they liked them, so here they are.

I'm not sure when the next one of these will come out, but this one is a standalone. The next one is about totally different characters and is even more YA than this one, as the characters in it are teenagers, but it is the same fantasy world, just a different place in it.

I just hope people like it as much as my niece did!

-John

Oh, the cover: