So very tired of the uphill battle.

So very with you. I was trying to explain it to my (generally clueful) guy, and he just doesn't grok. Doesn't understand what it's like when every media outlet and social media site is full of this one horrible thing that the world is trying to write off as just one disturbed person, and I follow a link to watch some happy people dancing and the links in the sidebars are 2/3 horrible incidents of violence against women that US media hasn't even mentioned. And I am editing a story that treats violence and control as sexy and desirable without really thinking it through, and it's squicking me out, especially now. So tired.

Rest is good. Defending space is good. I don't have cats of my own, but I think I'll borrow a couple this weekend. And there is chocolate beer and scotch that tastes like bog bodies. And I will make something lovely and put it into the world as some small counter to the exhaustion, I think.

Hang in there.

And I am editing a story that treats violence and control as sexy and desirable without really thinking it through, and it's squicking me out, especially now.

So am I. I feel your pain. Mine was written by a woman; what about yours? (I'm begging her to correct this, as it sends a dangerous message, not to mention asking her to cut the unneeded gender roles stereotyping. Whether she will agree to change things is anyone's guess.)

Mine is also written by a woman. My sympathies! Mine, I think, is throwing everything into shaping an honest-to-goodness book, but losing track of what she's actually saying at the sentence level sometimes. I'll finish my first edit today and explain my concerns in the accompanying letter, but I'm not in a place to do much more than nudge her toward healthier character relationships. With so many popular romances and teen books selling exactly this kind of poison (Twilight-flavored, basically) to great success, who knows if I'll convince her? And even then, it's hard to get this far with a book and be challenged to unpick and change the threads that you've already woven so carefully into it.

Good luck with asking, and with not letting it gnaw too much at you, whatever she chooses!

You know what drives me crazy? When sexist poison like this gets published and people scream, "Where was the editor?" What makes them think that WE have any power? The writer wrote it!

*headdesk headdesk* Though, of course, not everyone gets the difference between a copyeditor and an acquiring editor. And in a lot of cases, there's an acquiring editor who put it on contract and didn't request changes before publishing it, because there's an audience that wants to escape into that fantasy. And readers buy it and read it and plow it back into the mulch of creativity that they draw on when they write their own stories, and on it goes.

Two more pages...

And here I was worrying that the novel I'm writing would be problematic because the guy's violent and, well, he tries to be controlling, and yet his girlfriend stays with him. Between what you've said here and what I've seen elsewhere this week while doing promo stuff for another book, I'm thinking I'm more likely to get complaints that she doesn't find this behavior sexy and, in fact, informs him to shape up or get the hell out of her life. That's depressing to think about.

I'm glad people like you and gehayi are working at the pre-print level to do something about this. I've been troubled by the Dangerous, Controlling and Violent = Sexy trend for a good long while. In fact I just did a whole meta post on the subject, which I originally started before the whole spree killing / #YesAllWomen thing, so it turned out being more timely than I thought. It's mainly me gushing about Jon Snow from Game of Thrones, but also wondering why more "romantic" heroes aren't just, y'know. Decent human beings. (I'm also eager for book recs, from anymore more well-read in the genre than me.)