This is my weekly blog about life as an erotica author. These posts are suitable for general audiences, but probably not of interest to anyone under 50. Feel free to contact me with questions or for information about my 50+ erotica books. I Might even give tips regarding how to get involved. I encourage you to join my Patreon community.
4/20/25
Room to Respond
MANY YEARS BEFORE I became a born-again pagan, being saved from the clutches of organized religion, my career ambition was to become a Methodist preacher. Yes, when you read about how much of the Bible Brian memorized in LNDtH, that was based on my experience. I was able to quote chapter and verse and, in some cases, page number.
The summer between my junior and senior years in high school, I attended the Indiana Area License to Preach School at DePauw University, even though I could not receive my license until I’d turned eighteen and graduated from high school.
About thirty men were in the classes (all men), of whom I was the youngest and perhaps most impressionable. Yet there is only one lesson I still remember.
Among the men was a guy in his late twenties or early thirties who seemed intent on challenging everything. It seemed there was no subject on which he didn’t have an opinion or want to challenge an assumption or assertion. I liked that, as it seemed to be the direction my own life was headed.
Our pastoral counseling instructor was a kindly older minister whose name I have forgotten—I’ll call him Dr. Sanders. But his lessons on dealing with people in crisis and talking to parishioners when not in the pulpit were among the most interesting in the two weeks.
“Perhaps the most important thing to remember when counseling a person is to always leave room to respond,” said the old gentleman. I was certain he was well over seventy and was perhaps the gentlest soul I’d ever met.
“Dr. Sanders,” said the guy who challenged everything presented by every instructor we’d had. “What do you mean by leaving room to respond?”
The visage of the old man changed and hardened in front of our eyes as he turned on the questioner and said, “You think you’re pretty damn smart, don’t you!”
We were all stunned, including the questioner. Instantly, the old man softened again, and in his gentle voice said, “That just doesn’t leave you room to respond, does it?”
We all got the message. It was the most memorable lesson from that two weeks of instruction.
I have long discarded all the theology we were taught in that time, but I have always tried to remember and practice that lesson. Like most of the best lessons in my life, I as often fail as I succeed.
I’ve been married and divorced three times. It wasn’t because of good communication.
I think social media aggravates the situation. I see massive amounts of stupidity—which I believe is the proper term for ‘meme’—that just makes me want to shout in the face of the person posting or reposting it. And let us not even glance at the comments on social media posts. I just want to lash out and silence the offenders.
Silence them. Not leave room for them to respond.
They will, though. The more positive I am that I have posted something irrefutable that should end an argument, someone argues with it.
We get divorced.
Times of passion are often times when we just don’t leave room to respond in our arguments. I had to face this in some of the stories I wrote. In What Were They Thinking? the adults who parented the clan in Living Next Door to Heaven sit around on Memorial Day telling each other the stories of how they got involved in the clan and how they let their children get involved. When Marilyn (Brian’s mother) tells her story there were moments that were obviously hard to relive. Among them was Hayden’s confession that he’d had an affair and his plaintive conclusion, saying “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry!” I exploded. “We took wedding vows! I gave you everything. And you’re sorry? What did you do? Accidentally run into her on the assembly line and decide to put some parts together? How could you do this to me?”
In that paragraph of forty words, Marilyn asks four questions, but between the question and the attitude, there was absolutely no room to respond. Yes, the whole thing sounded kind of familiar to me. When you are in shock and grief and panic, you just don’t think of communicating. You lash out.
“You think you’re pretty damn smart, don’t you!”
Sadly, it happens to people every day. And as a result, it happens in my stories as well. I’m trying to make sure it no longer happens in my social media posts, but it does.
What Were They Thinking? and the entire Living Next Door to Heaven collection of ten books is available on Bookapy.
And that brings me to a topic I know many authors deal with daily: Handling criticism.
I have mixed feelings about reviews. On one hand, I don’t want to read them. They are known to be bad for an author’s morale, or a false boost to his ego. On the other hand, reviews are the single biggest thing that sells an author’s works. Even negative reviews bring attention to the book.
No matter what the review says, a primary rule is that an author should never respond to it.
I get it. If I read a negative review, my first thought is “Well, they obviously just didn’t get it.” But whose fault is that? I have successfully withheld my hand from responding at all, leaving plenty of room for others to respond.
I serialize all my stories and it is considerably harder to ignore comments by readers on chapters that are posted. This is partly because readers have a tendency to lock in on one thing that may or may not have any significant meaning in the story, and ‘discuss’ it forever!
In a coming-of-age story, I had a character mention that he could only get WLS Chicago at night when the weather was clear. Over fifty comments on that chapter revolved around where WLS could be received, what other 50,000 watt stations there were in the country, where various people were when they heard that station, and discussing the effects of weather and terrain on radio reception.
Honestly, the comments were fascinating, but they had nothing to do with the story.
I’ve made it my practice regarding comments to only engage when the commenter asks a question of the author, if comments become abusive, or if there is a technical difficulty I need to explain. That works pretty well and I don’t feel I’m ignoring my readers. I read all the comments on every story.
Email is the hardest yet most important kind of comment to deal with as an author. I receive email nearly every day relating to the story that is posting or the blog I’ve written. I read all the mail I’m sent, even if it is from someone who writes the same thing in every message.
These people have taken the time and energy to directly contact the author with their thoughts. Often, the message comes with a conclusion that says, “No reply necessary.” I appreciate that.
At least half the email I receive includes a question I need to respond to. I do so. Where is my Patreon address? Will there be another book in this series? Have I ever eaten at a particular restaurant in an area I’ve written about? I always respond to these messages and try to answer the questions to the best of my ability. They’ve left me room to respond.
Some email messages are just thank yous or notes of appreciation for making a story available. That makes up the majority of the remaining messages and I try to send back a brief “Thank you” to those people who have taken the time to tell me they appreciate my efforts.
Then there are email messages that don’t leave room for a response. They are simply venting about the current political situation, my ineptness as a writer, the terrible ending to a story, or how age is affecting my ability to focus. I just don’t respond to those. I don’t feel there is room to respond. The complaint is about something I can do nothing about. The book or chapter has already been published. I’m the age I am. There’s nothing about my political views that requires me to convince you I am right and you are wrong. It is what it is.
When there is no room to respond, I don’t respond. I’m not interested in starting a discussion or an argument about another person’s opinion.
Some comments that are intended to be insulting have the opposite effect on me. If someone calls me “woke,” I simply thank them. I know the actual definition of the term and it isn’t an insult at all. Next week, I’ll look at another term: “Metrosexual.”
