On Absurdism: Part 2

In my last post on absurdism, I more or less defined the philosophical construct of absurdism, talked about how we can apply it to the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and our lives and the world around us, and then asked:

If your mother asks but you don’t want to, should you or should you not go to Thanksgiving dinner?

And I ended with the idea that if there are no ultimate consequences, then other people’s opinions about whether or not you “should” go to Thanksgiving don’t matter.

It only matters what you think.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Does skipping Thanksgiving make you a “bad” person? No.

But how do we know that if there are no ultimate consequences?

Should you go to Thanksgiving?

That depends.

Do you think family is inherently valuable? Does the idea of family and maintaining family relationships have meaning to you? Even if you don’t want to go to Thanksgiving dinner, do you still think it is an important action to take?

If yes, then go to Thanksgiving dinner, whether you like and get along with your family or not.

If no, then feel free to skip.

It is rare, however, for answers to be so simple.

Because there are a lot more variables and moving pieces in a situation like this than simply whether or not “family” is something that matters to you or not. Because perhaps you don’t believe that “blood is thicker than water,” but you do have other reasons for maintaining relationships with family.

Like money, for instance. Maybe you like watching drama. Or maybe you don’t care about Family with a capital F, but you do care about specific family members, like your mother. Or a niece or nephew.

In which case, going to Thanksgiving despite your dislike of your other family members will make your mother happy, or allow you to see the people you do care about, and therefore bring you meaning.

Or maybe staying connected to your past has meaning to you, and going to Thanksgiving would give you a simple reason to visit your hometown. Perhaps you’re not sure what you think of your family or how you feel about the whole holiday in general, so you decide to go to learn more about your own feelings and priorities.

One of the challenging parts of figuring out this whole absurdism thing, is creating a new system for evaluating the pros and cons of actions. Because even if there is no ultimate meaning in the universe, your actions still do have consequences.

If you skip Thanksgiving, you could get written out of the will, for example.

Or you will never find out that your aunt died.

These things could have implications down the road in a way that does matter, in a personal or contextual way.

Regardless, there is great freedom in allowing yourself to question everything. But it is also challenging. For example, let’s look at the story which states: “Killing people makes you a bad person.”

Question: does it, though?

There are tons of stories that question this narrative just in pop culture. Look at NCIS. Bones. Pretty much every cop or military show features characters who have killed other human beings.

But to make it more palatable, we give the characters PTSD, or make them feel guilty even though it was state-sanctioned, or we couch it with “buts” like, “but he was a really bad guy,” or “but he was about to kills someone else,” or “but he was pointing a gun at me.”

Not to mention, we are surrounded by military men and women. They are an integral part of our community. Are they bad people? Not only for potentially killing others, but for choosing a profession in which it is likely they will eventually be in a position to kill someone?

I was only 18 when I 19-year-old friend of mine who was a service member who had already served time in Iraq confessed to me in whisper at 3 AM what it felt like to kill a person.

Were they a bad person?

Was it bad to kill Osama Bin Laden? Was it bad to kill Mussolini? If a person murders a serial killer or a serial rapist or a child molester, are they bad? What about police officers in high stress situations where someone is shooting at them? What about soldiers, following their commander’s orders in war?

And many people imagine that they had a time machine, they’d go back and kill Hitler. Would that make them a bad person?

No.

On the other side of things, there are some actions that I do believe to be wrong. For example, I believe that molesting children and rape in all instances is inherently evil or bad or wrong or whatever phrase you want to use, even though I do not believe in cosmic consequences.

And if I get called into a room in emergency (though at this point, it seems unlikely that this will ever happen—I’m going to become like that character in that movie who gets trapped in the airport and just lives there, except I’ll be trapped in the emergency waiting room, slowly starving to death), if the doctor deliberately lies to me about my health, I would believe that was wrong or bad or whatever.

But without ultimate meaning, and without the consequences of an eternity in hell hanging over our every move, how do we draw these lines?

So there are two different sides to this. The first is how do we make judgements about our own behavior, and the second is how do we make judgements about other people’s behavior?

I’m going to start with talking about my own behavior, and then in the next episode, I will talk about other people’s behavior, because that’s a lot more complicated.

There are two ways I can make good/bad judgements about my own behavior.

1. Does it hurt?

2. Does it align with my own personal meaning?

I am going to get more into the pain side of things in the next episode, but let’s say I decided to leave the emergency room without seeing a doctor.

Mysterious abdominal pain? I can handle it, right? It’ll probably go away. And surely, the physical pain is much more tolerable than the emotional boredom I’m experiencing and the physical discomfort of these god-awful waiting room chairs.

Well, I’m the most important thing to me. Because without me, I wouldn’t exist. Without me, I wouldn’t be having this pain, I wouldn’t be having this experience, I wouldn’t be observing or experiencing anything, so this conversation wouldn’t even be happening.

So I have to make a call: which will hurt more? Sitting in this stupid chair watching other people cough outside their masks during a pandemic, or going home and hoping the mysterious pain vanishes on its own and then it turns out there wasn’t anything wrong with me in the first place?

Sometimes these value judgements are impossible to make. We can’t predict the future—we can only guess. We can look at statistics and probability. And just make a choice and hope for the best.

But sometimes we can also add another dimension to the judgement—which is pain + relationship to our own personal meaning.

I would like to wait to die for as long as possible, so I can write more books. So if my discomfort at waiting in the emergency waiting room and my physical pain are about equal, all I have to do is say: well, the chances of me dying if I leave are slightly higher than the chances of me dying if I stay. Probably.

I’d like to stay alive, so I’ll stay.

Alternatively, perhaps I find some personal meaning in my health. Or this essay I’m writing. Or the simple experience of being in a hospital.

Is staying here good or bad?

Let’s go back to the Thanksgiving example.

Your mom wants you to attend Thanksgiving dinner. Is skipping good or bad?

1. Will it hurt?

   1. Maybe. You don’t like your family. It will be an uncomfortable day. (Neutral.)

   2. No. You don’t like your family, but it’s more of a passive apathy, not an active dislike. But going will make your mom happy and not going will make her sad. (Skipping is neutral/bad depending on the nuance of your relationship with your mom.)

   3. Yes. Your family is cruel and unkind. They will do everything within their power to insult and demean you. (Skipping is good.)

2. Will it align with your own personal meaning?

   1. Maybe. You do believe family is important, but not more important than anything else. (Neutral.)

   2. No. You think your family members are vocally racist, homophobic, and cruel, and going only lets them know that you’ll suffer through that type of behavior for the sake of “family.” By not attending, however, you can communicate that you won’t tolerate this. (Skipping is good.)

   3. Yes. You love your mother and want to make sure she knows it, so attending will ensure that you can maintain at least one relationship that has meaning to you. (Skipping is bad.)

Let’s shift the example slightly. This time, you are the mom. You want your kids to come to Thanksgiving. You believe that family has value. After all, you chose to birth them, you gave up your body, suffered a lot of pain, and spent 18 years raising them and spending money on them. You have decided and devoted your life to this particular meaning.

One of your children has decided that they don’t want to attend. You are disappointed and want to tell them. Would telling them be good or bad?

1. Does it hurt?

   1. Maybe. You want them to know your feelings, but you don’t know how they will take it. They may be understanding about it, but they might also not care how you feel. (Neutral.)

   2. Yes. You know your child will not respond well to hearing of your disappointment. They will tell you it’s their decision, not yours, and be upset because they feel you are pressuring them into trying to attend. Then they would withdraw more from you and it would likely hurt your relationship. (Telling is bad.)

   3. No. You believe your child will respond well to hearing your feelings, and appreciate that you expressed how you feel. And even if they still choose not to come, you think that sharing your feelings will strengthen the relationship. (Telling is good.)

2. Will telling them align with your own personal meaning?

   1. Maybe. Family has a lot of personal meaning to you. You want good relationships with all of your kids, even if they don’t get along with each other. You’re pretty sure your kid would be okay knowing your feelings because you’ve worked to have a strong, open relationship with them, but there is a chance they will feel like you are manipulating them. (Neutral.)

   2. Yes. You believe that in order to have strong relationships with your children, you need to be able to express how you feel. (Telling is good.)

   3. No. You believe that in order to have strong relationships with your children, sometimes you have to accept their decisions and deal with your feelings about it on your own. You believe that it doesn’t always help to share every feeling, and that by not telling them, they won’t feel pressured and therefore be more likely to come to a future family gathering. (Telling is bad.)

One of the catches to this process is that you could always be wrong.

Because the thing is, guessing the future is always, always, always telling a story. We guess the future by making up stories about what we think will happen based on things we believed happened in the past.

We get cut off on the highway. We tell ourselves a story: that person is a jerk.

But we don’t know that person. We have no idea if they were a jerk.

Perhaps they didn’t see us. Perhaps they were rushing to the hospital. Perhaps it was a simple mistake.

So when we get on that particular highway again, we might say, “Yeah, someone will probably cut me off.”

It’s a story we tell ourselves.

“Yeah, my kid will probably fly off the handle if I tell them I’m disappointed they’re not coming for Thanksgiving.” Because perhaps they flew off the handle last time we said the same thing.

So we choose not to tell them of our disappointment—but it turns out our kid really wanted us to talk them into attending, but since we didn’t, they assume we didn’t want them after all, and the family divide actually widens.

Because our stories… they were just stories we made up. Inaccurate stories. Stories that reflect our understanding of the world.

Were we wrong to tell those stories?

No.

Because stories are all we have.

To be continued…

On Absurdism: Part 1

Everything is meaningless.

And I’m not the only one who thinks this! Have you ever read Ecclesiastes? That entire book of the Bible is a list of things that are meaningless. Solomon was quite the existentialist, really.

But I personally prefer absurdism, which is related to existentialism, but different.

The basic construct of absurdism is as follows:

1. Humans have an innate desire to understand the “ultimate” meaning of everything. They look for meaning everywhere.

2. There is no ultimate meaning. The universe has no ultimate meaning to give.

This creates a conflict (and cognitive dissonance) which is absurd, according to Albert Camus, hence the term absurdism. It is absurd to seek for meaning when there is none, just as it is absurd to search for something like Bigfoot, when none exists.

There are three ways to respond to this realization or belief about the universe and existence:

1. Deny it and allow someone else to provide or create meaning for you—this is sometimes referred to as “philosophical suicide.” (A lot of people choose this option, but you don’t have to)

2. Give up and die, because everything is meaningless. (Don’t do this. Don’t give into the absurd. Don’t let the universe win! And if you want more detail on why, read The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus.)

3. Accept it as a form of freedom and use it as permission to find or create meaning in your own life in spite of the fact that there is no ultimate meaning.

The difference between this and existentialism is small but important: in existentialism, the meaning you create for yourself becomes The Meaning. The ultimate meaning is the meaning that you create for yourself. In absurdism, everything is meaningless, and no matter what meaning you create, it’s still ultimately meaningless. And in that is freedom and joy.

Albert Camus, a 20th Century philosopher called the contradiction between how desperately humans desire to know the ultimate meaning, and the fact that the universe has no meaning to offer, absurd. Hence, absurdism.

The idea of “creating your own meaning” can be found in a variety of philosophies, however, when paired with the idea that “everything is meaningless regardless,” it opens up a wealth of possibilities—not only ideologically and philosophically, but also practically.

Think of it this way: life is made up entirely of stories we tell ourselves to explain the world around us. Right now, I’m staring at a TV screen in an emergency room waiting area, telling myself that cable TV is boring and wondering why people watch it. This is a story I’m making up—that other people find cable TV interesting… even though literally no one else in this room is paying any attention whatsoever to the television, no matter how bored and miserable we all are.

I can acknowledge this is a story I’ve told myself, and then change it if I don’t like it or if I don’t like the way it makes me feel. Perhaps I could alter the story to something like, “Wow, media companies spend a lot of money on creating shitty, boring content,” or “I am too intelligent for banal content like this,” or “I’m addicted to TV because despite how boring this is, I can’t tear my eyes away,” or “People do like this content but they’re pretending they don’t”–and I can story myself in circles all day long.

Everything around us is made of stories—our thoughts are stories, feelings are stories religions are stories, tradition is stories—even science is made up of stories. Useful stories, sure, but stories nonetheless.

Collectively, we assign relative importance and value to our stories—like my story about how boring cable TV is, is a story with little to no value to other people—unless I could get enough people to agree with me or I use it as a way to connect with some of the other people in the emergency room waiting area. But the stories we tell about how bad people go to hell? That story has a LOT of collective, cultural weight, because the eternal, universal stakes are incredibly high.

It is backed by another story, a story that is potentially so dangerous, that many people do not want to risk considering that it might be false. A story that the ultimate meaning in the universe is what happens to us when we die.

So how do we decide which stories have more or less value?

We vote.

Yes.

We vote by retelling stories.

A pastor preaches from their pulpit that all sinners go to hell—and then we tell our friends and our children and our spouses and our neighbors, until everyone around us knows the “truth.” And the reason we repeat the story is because we believe it. And we are afraid for the eternal, universal consequences of the story. We might not think we can reach everyone in the world, but it is our job to at least make sure the people in our close circle know. Because otherwise, they could go to hell. Forever. For eternity. Until the end of time, if such a thing exists.

The reason why we retell any story is because we believe it has meaning.

Social media has exacerbated our ability to repeat stories because now, all you have to do to retell a story is hit the share button, which means that stories that would normally have been buried in the past carry much more weight—simply because people keep retelling them. Algorithms play an important role too, because they prioritize action (all an algorithm wants you to do is interact with the content—like, share, comment, watch), and it since people are more likely to respond when they’re outraged, they add weight to stories that cause outrage.

Which means the stories in our culture that have the most weight right now are the ones which make us angry or afraid.

So what happens when you remove the “ultimate” meaning from the picture entirely? What happens when there are no cosmic consequences?

You live your life and you die your death. You’re alive for the time you’re alive, and when you die, you’re dead.

That preacher shouting fire and brimstone? It’s just a story. Nothing more. The behaviors you could make that would send you to hell? They’re now just… behaviors. Things that you do. Actions you take. With no ultimate meaning behind them.

And to get to heaven? What heaven? There are no cosmic consequences at all, so all those “good” things you do? Well, keep doing them by all means, if you want, but don’t expect a pair of wings and an infinite library once you’re dead. Because you won’t get that. Because you’ll be dead. Just plain old dead. 

Of course, put this way, it might seem like a recipe for chaos, right? After all, if there are no cosmic consequences, and everyone can do whatever they like, what is to prevent everyone from murdering, raping, and pillaging all the time?

Well, don’t forget about the first part of absurdism: we all experience an innate drive to find meaning (even if there isn’t one). So in the absence of ultimate meaning, we are left to find and create our own meaning. The ultimate freedom, perhaps, instead.

So while yes, you might have some people who will seek meaning by murdering, raping, and pillaging (and remember, those people still exist and even twist the cultural ultimate meaning to justify their actions), you will also have people who find meaning by protecting the weak and vulnerable, standing up for those who can’t stand for themselves, and enacting justice on those who are true shitheads. You’ll have even more people who will find meaning putting a system in place to take care of and manage people who live by no rules whatsoever. And in essence, you’ll create a society which operates pretty much like the one we live in today.

Which leads us to the next important question, which is: If it’s basically the same thing in practice, what is the advantage of abandoning the ideology of cosmic consequences in favor of absurdism?

Power dynamics.

The threat of cosmic consequences leaves swaths of people vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation. It’s easy for a charismatic leader to say, “If you don’t do as I say, you’ll go to hell!”

“If you don’t submit to your husbands, wives, you’re going to hell.” Oppression.

“If you don’t tithe at least 10% of your pre-tax income, you’re going to hell.” Exploitation.

“If you don’t reach out to other people and tell them they’re going to hell, you’re going to hell.” Manipulation.

Granted, most statements aren’t this clear in their intentions. It’s more like, “To be a godly wife, you must submit to your husband,” or “We must be willing to give of our wealth to advance the kingdom of God.” But if you step back and ask, “Why would I want to be a godly wife?” the answer is basically, “Because if you’re not, you’ll go to hell.” Or, “Why would I want to advance the kingdom of God?” the answer is, “Because I believe everyone is going to hell if they don’t believe, and if I don’t do everything I can to save their souls, I will also go to hell.”

As long as the threat of cosmic consequences is there, everything points back to an eternity in heaven or hell.

Think about the situation of a priest abusing a child.

A priest is a leader in a religious organization, whose main responsibility is channeling the will of God, being a mediator between regular people and God, and providing guidance for congregates. A priest does this because he believes that it is his responsibility to help shepherd God’s people, to ensure that as many of them make it to heaven as possible. Because if they don’t go to heaven… then they go to hell (or purgatory, but the ultimate, ultimate consequences still end up being heaven or hell).

The people in a religious organization look up to the priest and respect his authority as a leader, and as someone who communes regularly with God. They are likely to do what he says to the best of their ability, because if they don’t… again, hell. They imbue the stories he tells about what it means to be human, how we are supposed to behave, and determining right from wrong, with extra, weighted meaning, through obedience and repeating his words to their children, families, and community.

So what happens when the priest commands something that is not the will of God? The people in his congregation are forced to make a choice: obey or disobey. And it can be so easy to become confused. Because if the priest is speaking the word of God the rest of the time, how are we supposed to be sure what he’s saying now isn’t actually the word of God? And if we get it wrong, guess what? Hell.

In a situation like child abuse, it’s easy to say, “No. That is wrong. That is not the will of God.” But the child doesn’t know. And what happens when your leader asks you to do something that is more of a gray area, such as shun someone who has left the church? Or if the priest orders women to submit to their husbands, no matter the husband’s desires or commands? Or if they tell you to cut ties with any family members or friends who have actively rejected their specific teachings?

What happens when the orders, rules, and ideologies being commanded or taught are so subtle that it is impossible to parse out right from wrong?

And I’m not just talking about cults here.

Because a leader’s (not just a religious leader either—any leader, in education, a workplace, science, politics, a family unit, a community, etc.) words are imbued with more meaning than everyone else’s, it can be easy to simply follow the path they lay out, step by step, into a state of violence and exploitation. And once you’re there, it can be difficult to see how you got there in the first place, and even more difficult to find a path back out.

But remove the meaning behind the stories—and then what? Take back the power to create and manage meaning individually—and then what?

You get to choose which stories have meaning and which ones don’t.

For example, my focus thus far in this essay has been primarily on finding or lacking meaning in a cosmic, universal sense. But what happens when you pull your focus in a bit narrower? Into a local context?

First of all, I want to point out that we will assign meaning to things. Absurdism posits that humans have an innate desire to find and seek meaning—which means, even if there isn’t any, we will still assign meaning to something, whether we want to or not. And things do have meaning, if not in a cosmic sense than at least with in a specific context. I personally believe that while there may be no ultimate, cosmic, eternal meaning to anything, there can still be contextual or personal meaning.

For example, I am still in the emergency room waiting area. The order that people are treated matters here, because the whole point of a hospital is keeping people alive. It doesn’t matter if you think life has meaning or not, or whether there is a point to keeping people alive in the first place. The whole point of the hospital is to reduce pain and keep people alive. We, collectively as a society, have decided that the concept of a hospital has value and meaning. And while we may exist and walk through life in a self-centered way, we cannot entirely discount the experiences of everyone else just because we want to. Because their experiences affect our experiences and vice versa.

So, within a specific, localized context, things do have some type of meaning.

In addition, we will attribute meaning to things because we were taught and socialized to (and debatably born to, per absurdism—I think we probably were, but I’m not knowledgeable enough on the nature vs nurture research to include it here).

So if nothing has ultimate meaning but something have localized contextualized meaning, how do we go about the process of determining what has meaning and what doesn’t in our own lives?

This is where we can use absurdism to take a practical approach to life.

I believe that we can make the argument that if anything has an inherent meaning, it’s life.

Making the statement, “Life is meaningless,” only allows us to give in to absurdism, rather than grow from it or use it to build an ideological foundation. Life does have meaning. Why? Because without life, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.

Because if anything matters to us, it should be ourselves. Us. Our brains. Our lives. I. Me.

Does all life matter? That’s a different debate. But at very least, I believe that I matter. Why? Because I’m interesting to me.

“Because it’s interesting,” might not seem all that sexy or sleek as a reason for assigning meaning to anything at all, but is it any worse than assigning meaning to something because a magical being in the sky created us to run a mortal rat race where we all always die in the end, only to be condemned to an eternity in either heaven or hell, based on our actions in life, except for that there aren’t any rules in life but the ones we make up, most of which don’t make any sense to begin with?

“Because it’s interesting,” pretty much defines my ultimate philosophy for determining what does and doesn’t have meaning.

You’re probably familiar with Descartes, “I think, therefore I am.” Cogito ergo sum.

Or, as Descartes put it in the mid-1600s, "We cannot doubt of our existence while we doubt.” As long as we have the ability to conceive of our existence, we exist.

Everything we do, feel, and experience happens to us. Our entire lives revolve around us. Even when it seems like our lives revolve around something else, like a significant other or our kids or a career, the reason always points back to us. To me.

• “My life revolves around my kids because I love them and their lives bring my own life meaning and purpose.”

• “My life revolves around my career because I want more money or I’m passionate about what I do or I care about the people my services provides assistance to.”

• “My life revolves around my spouse because he is violent when angry and I am afraid for my wellbeing if I do not cater to his every whim and need.”

These things all point back to us, our existence, and how we feel. The feelings might not be good or healthy, but they are ours, and they drive our interest—they dictate what things we choose to pay attention to and think about.

The things that have meaning to us are interesting; the things we find interesting give our lives meaning.

In a practical sense, what does this mean? What do we actually do with this information?

I personally have begun by questioning everything. What do I find interesting? What do I not find interesting? What do I think has meaning to me? What things am I spending time and energy on that actually aren’t all that interesting and don’t have meaning to me? And how can I build my life around the things that are interesting to me?

I’ve been questioning things for as long as I can remember, comparing my own life experiences and thoughts to other people’s. My questioning has always tended to revolve around the thought: Why do I have to feel or think something, just because someone else does?

And the answer is: I don’t.

They get to choose what they want to ascribe meaning to, and I get to ascribe meaning to things which are of importance or interest to me.

One example is this:

Say your mother wants you to attend Thanksgiving dinner with all of your siblings and their families. But the thing is, you don’t get along with your siblings. You don’t like them. You don’t have anything in common with them. You don’t find them interesting, and you’ve never found meaning in your loose relationships with them.

Do you go to Thanksgiving dinner?

Collectively, most people assign meaning to the idea of “family.” The TV show Supernatural is essentially fourteen seasons of “My family is more important than averting the apocalypse.” This idea is all over in media, books, TV, and pretty much everywhere you look. Family first. Family is important. “Blood is thicker than water.” Though that’s not necessarily the original aphorism—”The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” is another variation, and there are several others.

Regardless, people suggest and believe that biological family is the most important thing in life, and you shouldn’t do anything to risk your relationships with them.

But what if your family is abusive?

What if your family has abandoned you?

What if your family thinks you’re evil? Possessed by the devil? A terrorist? A liar? Evil?

What if you never had a family in the first place?

Then, this large story that we collectively tell can cause significant pain because the story is backed by a cosmic consequence.

Because most people agree that:

• If you are bad —>you’re going to hell.

• If you don’t love and appreciate your family unconditionally —> you’re bad.

Look I made a loop.

But if you remove the ultimate consequence from the equation, there is no weight behind this story anymore. If hell doesn’t exist, there is no ultimate consequence for being “bad.” And in fact, the concepts of what equates to “good” and “bad” become wholly diluted, because suddenly, it doesn’t matter what other people think good and bad are.

It only matters what you think.

To be continued….

Rove City Series Update

Good news, everyone! The Rove City series is now available on all retailers! Plus, Book 1, Midnight Wings is (sorta) free--and what I mean by "sorta" is that it's free everywhere, except sometimes Amazon messes with the price, so you might have to check back once or twice. And if you can't get Amazon to give it to you free, let me know and I'll send you a copy.

In addition, if you prefer to own your ebooks, you can purchase them through Payhip and have them delivered directly to your Bookfunnel app. 

For those of you who have never tried the Payhip/Bookfunnel situation before, I wrote this blog post about how to own your own ebooks, and set up a 25% off coupon code for any of my books that is good for the month of July: ROVECITY721 

Anyway, I wanted to pop in and talk for a few minutes about Rove City! I have been getting messages lately as people have made their way through the fifth book in the series, The Ungrateful Bot, wondering when the next book will be out. I'm excited to announce that Book 6, Rattled, is almost here! It's in the final stages of production, and I'll send out an email as soon as it's live on all retailers. It should be ready in less than two weeks. In the meantime, I thought you might like a small teaser, so I have the cover reveal for you, as well as the blurb so you can find out a little bit more about the book. 

It is a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, so if you don't remember that fairy tale from when you were a kid, definitely give it a gander.

Here's the book description: 

Sophia’s life is a mess. She’s dating her boss. Working in a job she doesn’t want. And now, she’s being poached by the Queen’s Lab to work on a super-secret project she has no interest in. But when security shows up at her door to escort her to the Tower, she decides she might as well see what all the fuss is about.

There she meets Thorne, a mysterious, enigmatic colleague whose position at the lab isn’t entirely clear. But only moments after meeting him, he offers her a cryptic warning: keep your morals to yourself.

At first, she’s offended by this advice—but the reason quickly becomes clear: there’s nothing simple about trying to help people who are being eaten alive by living metal.

In only a matter of days, Sophia is drawn into a world of mystery, excitement, and danger, and as far as she can tell, there’s no way out.

I also thought you might be interested in seeing the book cover for Book 7, She-Bear. I do not recommend looking up the original of this story (also titled She-Bear) as it is a Grimm original and a pretty horrific one at that. It is definitely NSFW and not safe for children or teens.

That said, the book that I wrote is clean--I got rid of all the parts I didn't like, and kept only the non-terrible parts of the original story. In fact, my version of it is so different than the original, you could probably say that it was "inspired by She-Bear" and not even really based off it.

But I'm an artist and I reserve the rights to take liberties with my stories, what can I say, lol. 

I've also recently hit an important milestone with Midnight Wings: over 100 reviews on Amazon (that's even after Amazon deleted a bunch)! And only a single 1-star, which I consider a big win. If you're curious, you can pop over and read all the one-, two-, and three- star reviews, but here are a couple of my favorites: 

5-star: "I truly enjoyed the authors’ interpretation of the classic Cinderella story. Without giving any spoilers, I enjoyed the altered settings in which this all took place. I can’t wait to get into the next book. Kudos to this amazing Author." - Domaneke

4-star: "The writing was great, flowing easily, dialogue written well, prose good. And the story unveiled pretty naturally, with just a few stilted exposition passages for the backstory. Honestly, when I finished the story, my main complaint was: I want more!" - Rachel

3-star: "This was a cute story and a nice way of twisting the Cinderella story." - Tina

Alright, that's all for now. Stay tuned for the release of Rattled!

How To Buy E-Books Directly From The Author

Did you know that when you buy an e-book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, you don’t really “own” it? You’re technically leasing it for an indefinite period of time. But at any point, a corporation can revoke access to your purchases for any reason—if they think you’ve violated their terms of service, for example, or if they shut down their platform.

Yes, it’s convenient to purchase a book on Kindle and manage it in your Kindle app or [fill in your favorite reading app or device]. But if you have hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of ebooks contained in a single account, it might be worth it to look into your options for backing up your data.

So how do you purchase e-books so that you can really “own” them? And how do you gain “ownership” access to the books you’ve already purchased?

Currently, the answer to this question is not at all simple. But there are few things you can set up a system to make managing your e-books easy, while also retaining access to all of the books you’ve purchased no matter what a big ‘ol mean corporation might think of you.

And if you’re thinking, “But I follow all the rules! They’d never revoke my access!” I kindly submit—yeah, no. First off, terms of service are complicated and always changing. Unless you’re a lawyer and can fully understand all of the implications of the contracts they make us sign to use their services, AND you read, in full, all of the updates they make every time they make an update—you could be violating their ToS right now and you’d never know it.

Secondly, you might be right! Maybe you’re not violating anything! But that doesn’t matter if their robots (or real life employees) think you are. They can still revoke access and not give it back. And are you really going to hire a lawyer to get back access to your ebook collection?

Consider this: a few months ago, someone submitted a notice to Amazon that one of my books violated a Disney trademark. It didn’t. I proved it. I even got Disney to send a notice saying they had nothing to do with it. It still took months for them to reinstate my book.

Case in point: big corporations can do whatever they want to little guys (authors and readers alike) and there’s basically nothing you can do about it.

So here are a few things you can do.

1. Understand DRM.

DRM stands for “Digital Rights Management.” According to Wikipedia, “are a set of access control technologies for restricting the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works.”

The most important thing to understand is that some books have DRM enabled on them, and some don’t. The ones that have DRM are more difficult to download, and you may be prevented from doing so (unless you have the know-how and tech to strip the DRM from them).

In most cases, the author or publisher gets to make the choice about whether a book has DRM or not. Some choose to use DRM because they want to protect their work from being pirated. Other authors believe that DRM does absolutely nothing to prevent pirating, and only makes it more difficult for legitimate readers, such as yourself, to manage their e-book collection.

Here is a helpful article about how to tell if a book has DRM on it.

Some readers only choose to buy books that don’t have DRM. Other readers choose not to worry about this at all. But it is helpful to at least understand the concept, particularly if you are struggling to download or manage a book—it may be because of DRM.

2. Buy directly from an author.

Not all authors offer this as an option, but many authors are starting to more and more. They may offer their books for sale as a direct download from their website, or they may offer them through an e-commerce platform like Payhip. Payhip is what I use. When you purchase a book in this method, it is like purchasing a PDF—you receive and email or a download link and are able to download the ebook file directly to your computer or device.

If it is possible, buying a book directly from the author—whether through a program like Payhip, though the author’s website, or via the author literally emailing you a copy of the book—is the easiest way to get a DRM-free .epub file of the book sent directly to your email. You can then download it to wherever you store your ebook files, and upload it or send it to your preferred ebook management tool.

3. Learn about apps and programs to help you manage your ebooks.

There are many non-corporate and open source apps and software that will allow you to manage your ebooks locally (meaning on your computer or device). And once you have this software, you will always be able to read an access the books you’ve purchased, even if it’s not in your preferred reading format. In short—if you download books directly to your hard drive, you will always be able to access and use the files you’ve purchased, no matter what Amazon or one of the other companies thinks does or says.

(Except the FBI. If they raid your house and take your computer, I can’t help you lol.)

One of most common platforms discussed in reader and author circles is called Calibre. It is free and open source. I use this to manage my ebooks on my computer. It is a simple platform, and works on any operating system. Calibre also supports the conversion of one ebook format into another, for use in a different app or program.

You might also check out IceCream Ebook Reader, which has both free and paid versions, or Alfa Ebooks Manager. For more options, check out this article on various options for ebook managers. Some cost money; others don’t. It’s all about what type of system or services you’re looking for.

There are also plenty of apps for your iPhone or Android, if you like to read your books on your phone or tablet.

The number one app that most authors use is called Bookfunnel. The app is amazing, with a sleek look and straightforward functionality. With a Bookfunnel account, you can download all of your books at anytime to your desktop to back them up. They can also open books in any format. Many readers use this to manage free books they get through promos that authors do.

A couple other apps that I have seen with good reviews include FBReader, BlueFire Reader (for about $4/month), Aldiko, Pocketbook Reader which is especially good for international readers, and Readera.

Disclaimer: I have not used every single one of these, so please don’t get mad at me if one doesn’t work for you, or if they were free but started charging lol.

4. Learn how to keep back-ups of your ebooks.

Did you know you can make back-ups of the books you’ve purchased?

The process for doing so will vary depending on your device and distributor—so if you buy your books on Amazon, how to back them up will be different than the process than if you buy your books through Kobo. I’m not going to go through the detailed, step-by-step process for every program and platform, but if you’re interested in doing this, I recommend searching, “How to back up my ebooks from [fill in your source of ebooks here].”

Keep in mind, if you have a lot of books, the process might take a while. Once they’re downloaded, you can simply keep them in a folder on your computer, or transfer them to an external hard drive, if you want a second back-up. Or you can add them to a program such as Calibre. If some of your books have DRM enabled, you may run into some issues with that, but again, you can search the internet for how to resolve that issue.

But the point is: the files will exist on your computer, in your possession, for you to manage however you want.

5. Understand there is no perfect system.

Just like in the real-life analog world, there is no perfect system. Valuables can still get stolen from safes. A fire can still burn down your house. Rust or mold or rot can still get into your closets or basement or home.

The same is true in a digital world. You can still get hacked. You can still accidentally delete things. You can still misplace your external hard drive. You can still fry your motherboard or get bluescreened and lose everything.

But, taking simple precautions like these can help you protect your collection of ebooks so that you’re not at the mercy of a company like Amazon.

How My Own Direct Sales Work

What I would like to see, in the grand scheme of things, is direct sales being a safe and convenient way for readers to buy books from their favorite authors, without having to always rely on media giants and corporate distributors. Not only will this allow you to receive the item you purchased (the book) and have delivered directly to you, but it also allows the author to make a larger amount of money, even at the same or reduced prices for the buyer, because the author doesn’t have to split royalties.

So for example, if I sell a book on Amazon at $2.99, I usually make between $2.02 - $2.06 once I’ve subtracted the 30% royalty and the distribution fee. On Payhip, it costs the buyer exactly the same amount, $2.99, but I make $2.87 once I’ve subtracted the credit card transaction fee. That’s +$0.82 difference for me per sale, at exactly the same cost for you, which is huge for me when multiplied by sales over time. In addition, it gives me the option to pass along the savings to readers —I can charge you only $2.10 for an ebook, and still make the same as I would if you bought it on Amazon.

If you choose to buy an ebook directly from me, you would start out at Payhip: https://payhip.com/ArieleSieling and select what book you want to buy.

This is what my store looks like:

And at the top of the page, there are collections, one for each series, so you can go right to the books you’re most interested in.

In this example, I’ve selected Midnight Wings. You can pay using a credit card or Paypal, and it walks you through the process much the same as any other site transaction.

Next, it will pop up with a download link, so you can immediately download the .epub file to your computer.

If you accidentally click away or don’t want to download it immediately, never fear! Payhip will send you an email automatically with a download link that you can use at a later time:

(I gave myself a super secret coupon code so I didn’t have to pay for my own book lol)

And then, to make it more convenient for you, I’ve set it up so you will also get a follow-up email from Bookfunnel, where you can again download the file, or have it sent directly to your Bookfunnel app.

And that’s it. Once you’ve got BookFunnel or Calibre set up, you can buy a book on Payhip, have it delivered to you, and be able to read it within minutes. It takes about one extra step as compared to Kindle or Kobo and you have access to it forever (or as long as your data remains uncorrupted).

And that’s that!

There are probably hundreds of ways to set up a system like this, but this is just one example that is relatively simple and allows you to own the digital ebooks you’ve purchased.

I hope this is helpful.

Let me know if you have any questions! I can’t promise to answer them, lol, but I will try.

New Book Release: Voro's Return!

Ah yes, it’s finally here. The fifth installment of the Land of Szornyek series—a post-apocalypse filled with rampaging monsters. The Voro’s Return has new monsters and old, new characters and old, and enough plot twists to hopefully keep you wanting the next book!

Blurb:

Askari and the others spent their winter in the Vault, taking the time to heal, rest, and learn as much as they can. But with the first drops of melting snow, an all too familiar face appears: Devor.

Askari knows he is taunting her, trying to get her to react and she knows she should resist. Yet all she wants is to kill him... until she finds out that there might actually be a way to save Agi in the process.

As the days grow slowly warmer, Askari and the others embark on a mission to save their friend and fellow warrior--and possibly the future of the human race.

This is the 5th action-packed book in the Land of Szornyek series.

In related news, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes a series good. You know, crafting the plot of one book is a skill—but doing a whole series? It’s a lot more complex. There are a lot of moving pieces. A lot of characters. A lot of places and worldbuilding and little, teeny, tiny details to keep track of.

So what makes a series good?

I have no idea.

There are a few basics, of course: wrapping up plot holes; characterization stays consistent throughout; a new and exciting climax/challenge for each book; tie-ins from the beginning to the end; no timeline inconsistencies; and a series climax that satisfies everything that has been laid out before it.

But you could have all those things, and the series could still fall flat.

So what I’ve decided is to not worry about it. I’ll tell the story I think I want to tell, read some books and articles on crafting series, and otherwise—just keep moving forward. Because the best thing I can do? Is to learn by doing.

Anyway, so in The Voro’s Return, a few questions are answered. Some new secrets are revealed. Information about …the other side… is shared.

Plus, you get to hang with some of the favorites—Rudi, Moose, and Minda, along with the others.

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so on Amazon!