Tuesday, March 26, 2024
🎉🎉Latest Review for On the Edge🎉🎉
https://litpick.com/review/edge-review-weeksti
https://www.amazon.com/Edge-Play-Siren-Publishing-Sensations-ebook/dp/B07NYPR869
Monday, March 25, 2024
Saturday, March 23, 2024
See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil
QOTD: Would you trust your underage child alone with a non-blood-related adult just because the adult was famous?
I just finished watching the documentary Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV and I will never look at green slime or goo in the face the same way again🤯 A superhero named Nose Boy whose
snot hits a girl in the face? Ariana Grande squeezing and twisting a potato
trying to get juice out? A character named Pickle Boy? Amanda Bynes as Melanie
Taint?😳🤢 Seemed there was a lot of sexual innuendo going on in these children’s
shows. Makes you look at all the stuff Amanda is going through now and wonder.
Crazy? Or PTSD from being sexually molested? I know there are two sides to
every story, sometimes even more, but to be blunt, it seems like Nickelodeon’s children
shows mill back in the 90’s and 2000’s was being run by a tyrannical, misogynistic,
racist pedophile.
Saturday, March 16, 2024
✨✨Cover Reveal and Pre-Order 🎉🎉
The final book in my
Muses trilogy, Deadly Interlude, will be available April 10th, 2024.
In the meantime, check
out this beautiful cover.
Amber Daulton at Satin
Rose Designs did a wonderful job in plucking the images from my head and
capturing the characters.
Give me a FOLLOW on
Amazon to get a reminder, from them, when it's available.
Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Gracie-C.-McKeever/author/B0033RQOUM
Available for pre-order
here: https://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Interlude-Griffin-Muses-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B0CV86LQF4
Free for a limited
time with KU.
Friday, March 15, 2024
To ChatGPT and AI or Not to ChatGPT and AI?
✨QOTD: To ChatGPT and AI or Not to ChatGPT and AI?📚
I've never used ChatGPT or AI in my writing other than Spell and Grammar Check and lately to come up with titles. But... Ever get the feeling some book reviewers are using AI programs to write their reviews? I'm starting to see the same metaphors and adjectives (complexities, scintillating, tantalizing...) in reviews and they're all starting to sound strangely the same, all interchangeable but for the characters' names. "Honest" review? Doesn't sound like it to me.
Like a baby strung out on mother's milk, I keep swallowing for the nourishment. However, my ego's getting full and the baby's belly is about to burst. Baby can get too much of a good thing too. (How's that for a mixed metaphor? LOL)
So take your 5 stars and all the effusive accolades. Just let me know you really read the book. Good, bad or worse, tell me you liked it or DIDN'T like it and why. I'm a writer. I'm used to rejection. And after all these years, I have a pretty thick skin. Just be "honest" and logical. I can take it.
So take your 5 stars and all the effusive accolades. Just let me know you really read the book. Good, bad or worse, tell me you liked it or DIDN'T like it and why. I'm a writer. I'm used to rejection. And after all these years, I have a pretty thick skin. Just be "honest" and logical. I can take it.
I guess it was just a matter of time reviewers jumped on the ChatGPT and AI bandwagon like other authors. Not that there's anything wrong with it (Seinfeld, LOL). Because lately I have found myself using AI to help me come up with titles for an anthology and a short story: https://capitalizemytitle.com/ai-title-generator. It is a handy tool, but to use AI to write an entire book, story, article or review from beginning to end? Seems like it takes all the fun out of the creative process. I can't see doing it.
What's say you? Do you use AI in your writing and if so, how extensively?
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Salacious for salacious sake
Say that five times fast. But I digress.
Today some whippersnapper commented on my TikTok video
for The Matchmaker saying “This is like those Quan Millz books”. So having
never heard of Quan Millz (late to another party) I had to look them up and… Wow,
I don’t know whether to be insulted or flattered. Flattered because their books
are so popular, but my books are in no
way similar. I don’t have anything against urban or street lit; I’ve read
and enjoyed numerous urban or street lit titles and series (My favorite will
probably always be The Coldest Winter
Ever). Quan Millz’s stuff, however, is extra enough to give Maury Povich in
his heyday pause—extra provocative, extra street, extra controversial for the
sake of being controversial. I’ve got nothing against any of this. Do you
homeboy. I should be so successful.
For the most part, Millz’s stuff seems to have been
written in a humorous vein and is satirical (i.e, This H*e Got Roaches in her Crib) and I applaud the brother for
finding a niche and milking it.
Anyway, interesting and enlightening article on Mr.
Millz here:
And if anyone wants to check out the video that spawned the “This is like those Quan Millz books” comment, click the link: https://www.tiktok.com/@graciecmckeever/video/7336800537846762795
So how do you like your urban or street lit? With just a little salacious on the side or squirted all over like a little kid putting ketchup on fries?
Thursday, March 07, 2024
Trigger Warnings: Part Deux
I was thinking about trigger warnings this morning and my view and understanding of them is morphing daily. When someone tells me to keep the tissue handy for a book or a movie, that’s technically a trigger warning. It means (for me anyway) that something’s going to make me cry. But it doesn’t have to be something sad or involve a death like in the classic Brian’s Song or Love Story, or Marley and Me (the latter of which I have yet to see because
*SPOILER ALERT*
I heard the dog dies and I just wasn’t in the mood to cry. This and I’m not that big an Aniston or Owen Wilson fan). But I digress. A tearjerker book or movie could just be a romantic movie or something sweet that makes you go awwww. When I think of trigger warnings I don’t think of cathartic or cleansing or enjoyment (like I get at watching a sad movie). I think of something traumatic that triggers one’s anxiety or another drastic emotional response. I guess I just wasn’t thinking of crying in response to something sad, or bittersweet or romantic as a drastic emotional response. And again, it’s all about choice. If I choose to watch (or in the case of Brian’s Song, re-watch) a tearjerker after being warned it’s a tearjerker then that’s on me.
There may be a Part Trois as I keep getting the
hang of this.
Individuals already affected by trigger warnings or other empathetic allies who want to stay informed are
probably well aware of this site, but just in case you’re not: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/
Monday, March 04, 2024
Trigger Warnings: To Be or Not to Be?
That is not a question. There is no choice. In
today’s climate and culture, an author must
include trigger warnings for their books and stories or risk alienating
their readers or worse.
The questions is:
When is a trigger warning too much?
Recently one of my
book promo posts through a collaborator garnered several comments about
‘interracial relationships’ being listed under my Author’s Note as a trigger warming. The
remarks ranged from ‘Interracial relationships? I don’t see it’, to ‘Interracial relationships as a trigger
warning seems wrong’, to ‘Why would interracial relationships be a trigger warning?’ Needless
to say, I asked the promoter to remove ‘interracial relationships’ from my Author’s Note, but
I did respond to the critics in the Comment section: “I see numerous mentions regarding interracial relationships as a trigger warning. In trying to include all the possible scenarios that could trigger an individual, I suppose I overreached with that one. Maybe. Just trying to cover all the bases as some individuals may be "uncomfortable" seeing and/or reading about interracial relationships."
I never specifically said interracial relationships was a trigger, only included it as a note of what to expect in the book; it just happened to be listed with other elements that are typical trigger warnings.
I still think my including interracial relationships in my Author’s Note was valid, especially nowadays when almost anything can be considered a trigger to someone, somewhere. Maybe not to you or me, but to someone. It’s impossible to list all the possible triggers and you can’t please everyone. The minute you try, someone else finds fault with what you’ve said or posted or written. Damned if you, damned if you don’t. I’m learning about Trigger Warnings by trial and error—I know, I’m late to the party again—and recently learned that (thirty-two published books in) my own writing is considered “dark romance” because of its triggering content. News to me.
There are lit mags
that request you list any possible trigger warnings for your submission so that
they are better able to make a decision about which of their editors or first readers to assign
the story. Fair enough. But then I have to comb through my memory bank, short
of re-reading an entire story I’d written a while ago and been widely
submitting, to figure out if there
are any triggers. Again, what’s not a trigger to me, may be a trigger to
someone else. So some or all of the triggers may get by me and I submit the
work without noting any trigger warnings.
In my day (yeah, I
said it, and I’m dating myself, LMAO) the only content warning we had for a
book was the cover and the back-cover blurb. If you were like me and a dear
friend of mine, we used to skim through the insides of books for any hot, spicy
dialogue or scenes and when we found them, that was a reason to purchase the book (I believe this is how
we chose Chances by Jackie Collins
and how she became an auto-buy for a long while after). If this skimming method
and the cover and back-cover blurb were not enough to “warn” us about the book’s
content then oh well.
You would think there would be no such thing as wall-bangers with the amount of triggers and forewarnings and “spoilers” that go into promoting a book today. There’s no room left for surprises, which I find one of the best things about reading a book, the opportunity to be amazed by unexpected twists and turns and discover and learn about new ways of life not like mine. Some of those ways of life might be about drug dealing or the mafia or war. I don’t remember The Kite Runner having any trigger warnings, and there were quite a lot of events that could be construed as triggering in that book. But had I not taken the risk to read it, something so far outside of my normal read, I would have been deprived of one of the best books I have ever read. Same goes for a book like The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Domestic Violence among the triggers) or Tiger, Tiger by Margaux Fragoso about a young girl’s being groomed by a pedophile, or The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, a book about a Black teen who is killed by a cop (a theme that probably comes as close to a trigger for me as anything ever will). To my knowledge, none of these books had trigger warnings. If they were published today, they probably would though.
There are books, TV shows and movies (besides those featuring Black teens shot by cops) that I do tend to stay away from because I don’t like the subject matter. I won’t go as far as saying it “triggers” me. I’d just rather refrain from certain unpleasantries and I think that’s the distinction that some of the publishing world may not be making: stuff that actually triggers or stuff that’s just unpleasant (obviously, my interracial relationships inclusion in my Author's Note was guilty of not making this distinction).
The unpleasant
subject matter for me is the antebellum south and/or slavery. By its very
nature, I know what I will be in for when I read or watch this content. I don’t
need a trigger warning. I know there will be physical and sexual abuse of Black
people. I know that Black people will suffer unimaginable grief and pain—emotional
and physical.
I have not seen 12 Years a Slave to this day and I
daresay I’m depriving myself of an evocative and stimulating watch. Gone with the Wind, same thing. I just
don’t want to put myself through the vileness. Yes, I saw the original Roots and Roots: The Next Generation. I read Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred and her Parable books, all with their triggering content. I enjoyed these books and TV shows. I survived to
read and ‘enjoy’ others. There were no trigger warnings back then, but because
of the subject matter, I knew that there were going to be distasteful content
in the books and I made the choices to partake accordingly.
I think the
content warnings that are on TV shows—mature content, adult language, strong
sexual content, smoking, drug use—and the motion picture content rating system
are enough warning for me to make an informed decision about whether to read or
watch something. But that’s just me. Usually these warnings are what attract me
to a book, show or movie, rather than
warn me away, but I understand why these warnings may drive others away and/or may not be specific enough. This is why trigger warnings are
getting much more detailed (i.e., my interracial relationships inclusion) and prevalent.
Things like
suicide, domestic abuse/domestic violence (all of which are pervasive
in my Play On erotic romance series and others of my books and what makes them
“dark” romances) are major triggers nowadays and not something I considered
triggering when I sat down to pen my books. I just considered these issues par
for the course and part of what made my characters who and what they were and
what made my stories real.
Being a survivor
of domestic violence and growing up in an environment where it occurred, I
suppose I should be triggered by depictions
of DA/DV in books, TV shows and movies but, unless I’m in denial, I’m not
triggered. Again, that’s just me. Maybe there’s a trigger out there for me and I just haven’t encountered it
yet. I hope I never do.
In the end, it’s better
to err on the side of caution and add trigger warnings, exercising empathy for
those for which they apply and can help. Thus my overreaching with interracial relationships in my Author’s Note.
So what’s your
verdict? What type of trigger warnings, if
any, do you want or need to see in your books, TV shows or movies? Or do
you even want them at all?
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