This is an excellent post, especially her point about FB the "friends" there and how pleas for help will go unanswered. It's something I've experienced; I've quit asking.
I feel like we've gotten too silo'd. Sure, when I was RWA and the only erorom author in the group I was looked down upon. The local SF con said I wasn't a real writer because I wrote romance/smut with SFF elements (that still hurts to this day)
I believe when the marketers invaded publishing around 2012 and started teaching us "rapid release" and "dictate for MOAR WORDS!" we began to lose the community and look upon everyone as someone to market to. Now that social media is fragmenting and communities are losing homes, there's no sense of support, no holding up one another so none of us drown.
The widgetization of books has turned all of us into producers of widgets, not people who pour our essence into our stories to share.
So to me, one of the most radical things we can do is reclaim that community. Reach out to one another. I remember group blogs and shared worlds and I'd LOVE to find those again in whatever form they take here. We need to remember that books aren't widgets, their pieces of our soul sent into the world to nourish and sustain not just us, but our readers too.
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