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Sci-fi fantasy writer and licensed professional counselor. Editor for A Murder of Storytellers. Has a dog. Enjoys ramen and hot dogs. Taste is questionable.

[jackburgos]

Things you might not know about me: I drive a standard. Not because I'm awesome. Because automatic transmission costs an extra thousand dollars, and I'm not made of money. 😝 (at Tulsa, Oklahoma) https://www.instagram.com/jack_burgos/p/BwW1N7oHjaY/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1pmcrfobx6ayf

[jackburgos]

How to Respond When You've Been Called a Racist

Hi. Let’s talk about racism.

First, I want to talk about my race. I was raised by my mother to think of myself as White. After all, I am the descendant of well-to-do Colombian plantation owners. Back in the good old days, we owned a lot of land, and we had many serfs. Per the tenets of Latin American pigmentocracy, the Burgos were a White Colombian family. Of course this ignores the fact that if you put us under the sun long enough, our skin darkens quite a bit—to a light russet brown. In fact, my branch of the Burgos family descends from an adopted ancestor, my great-great-grandfather Gabriel Burgos, whose provenance is unknown, but who undoubtedly carried in him plenty of Native American blood.

Am I White? I don’t know. When I talk to a Black person in America, I am often told I am White, and they’re not wrong. I was born after the Drug War had already begun, causing my family to lose many of their holdings in Colombia. By the time I came around in 1983, we were no longer as well-to-do as we’d once been, but we still carried ourselves as if we were. And we still had enough money to appear rich to other Colombians. As far as other Colombians were concerned, we were White because of the way that we behaved. That afforded us a great deal of respect even within the Hispanic community where I grew up. If nothing else, growing up, I felt White.

I don’t always benefit from White privilege. Every so often, I have met a White American who has ripped it from me. That experience has always been jarring, and I have never been able to do anything but react with shock, as if I’ve been suddenly slapped awake. When I was told that I wasn’t a citizen of the United States because I was Hispanic, regardless of my having been born in this country, I was shocked. When I was compared to a monkey by someone who demanded to know how I’d crossed the border, I was shocked. That kind of thing so rarely happens to me, and when it does, all I can do is walk away, confused at my treatment. Because I was raised to be White in a predominantly Hispanic community in southern Florida, I never had to deal with facing such lack of respect growing up. Only in my adulthood, when I traveled to other parts of the United States, did I encounter racism that targeted me.

Even now, as Latin Americans are persecuted and rounded up in the United States, their papers checked and their lives unraveled, I’ve never had to deal with racism on a day-to-day basis. I’ve never had to deal with this hour-to-hour. I can’t imagine having to. Rather, I can’t imagine that I’d be a rational person after having to face such poor treatment so often. A behavior that is grating when it is experienced once can become noxious if it is repeated again and again. It becomes like nails raking down a chalkboard. The United States is an unofficial pigmentocracy, and the frequency of racist behavior that one is forced to contend with increases proportionally to the amount of melanin in one’s skin. That is to say, the darker one’s skin tone, the worse the frequency and the caliber of the racist behavior that one has to deal with on a daily—and, yes, sometimes hourly—basis.

Now imagine someone this harrowed sees me, an ostensibly kind, compassionate person who was raised to think of himself as White, say something like the following:

"I think it’s OK if someone working in a position of authority belongs to a white supremacist hate group in their private time, so long as their private beliefs as a member of said group do not interfere with their duty to the public in their position of authority."  -- A well-meaning White person

A person who experiences racism daily is not going to accept the premise that a person who espouses racist beliefs on their off-hours can keep their racist beliefs at home. It doesn’t seem likely to someone who interacts with White individuals daily who cannot seem to keep their racism in check. “If the White people I know can’t do it,” they justly think, “how can I trust a White person I don’t know to do it? And an avowed racist at that?” As much as I may respect the civil right to free speech, even I wonder whether it extends to hate speech. So does the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance.

It would be easy for someone who is assailed by racism on a daily basis to see a statement like the above as being in support of racism and, thus, racist itself. It would be easy for its author, who may or may not be a racist, to be identified as a racist for making a statement like this. For a person of color, it is intimately clear that racism is an insidious thing—and that a person whose job it is to provide services to the public cannot do so effectively if they are also a racist. So how do you, a well-meaning individual, respond when you’ve been called a racist?

So You’ve Been Called a Racist

It’s become such a bad word in our culture. Racist. You can’t call someone that without getting their heckles up. We all know that racism is a Bad Thing™. Ask any racist whether they think that racism is bad, and they’ll tell you that it is. The problem is that they don’t define themselves as such. No one does. Like the word “evil,” it’s a descriptor that has become so anathema to what we like to think of ourselves that we shirk from the word itself, whether or not it rightfully applies to us. No one thinks they’re the bad guy. And no one thinks they’re racist.

But racism exists. So how do we explain the difference between the number of people willing to identify as racists and the number of people who engage in racist behavior? Obviously, either racism doesn’t exist to the extent that Black people say it does—which is the argument unironically made by white supremacists—or a great number of people are unaware that they are racists. The latter seems more likely to be true, given the data.

So where are all the hidden racists? We don’t have the time to answer that question, but Project Implicit is trying real hard. Google search results have given us some clues as to how racist Americans are, and we’re very racist. At the very least, Americans engage in a great deal of behavior that could rightly be called racist. It’s easy to learn racist behavior from others without even meaning to when, for example, it is modeled to us as children. My mother used to tell me after a rough day of work that she had “worked like a Negro.” It took me until the seventh grade to learn that this was a reference to Colombia’s history of slavery. When I told my mother that, she explained that it was a compliment. After all, she was saying that Negroes were “hard workers.”

If someone had made a generalization about what excellent cocaine farmers the Colombians were, my mother would have been upset about that. But it’s hard to look in the mirror for most people. Although I never believed it, my mother could have very well meant to compliment Black Colombians for their work ethic. If this were so, my mother may not be a racist, but she would still be engaging in racist behavior.

So what do you do, then? That’s why you came, after all. You want to know how to respond when, inevitably, you say or do something that insults a person of color and gets them to call you a racist. How do you avoid becoming the next White racist viral meme or video?

Step 1: Stop Everything!

Your first instinct will be to say, “I’m not a racist!” Resist that urge. It’s the same impulse your child has when you catch them doing something wrong. It’s the same impulse my racist mother had when she “complimented” the work ethic of Black Colombians.

“I didn’t do anything!” they might say, standing among the debris of a shattered ceramic vase.

“Well, someone broke the vase,” you, the parent, might say.

And, in fact, someone has broken the vase. Someone’s feelings are hurt, or no one would be calling you a racist. Moreover, if you are the one being called out for racism or racist behavior, then you are the reason that feelings are hurt.

But what if you really, really didn’t do anything? It doesn’t matter. Another human being has told you that you are causing them pain. Isn’t it worth at least trying to figure out what caused that pain if not you? As a potential ally for social justice, isn’t it true that you ought to minimize pain and suffering wheresoever you find it? Wouldn’t this situation, where the pain being experienced is directly in your control, be a perfect opportunity to do so?

Step 2: Consider What Has Happened

Someone has called you a racist. But what does that mean?

Quite simply, a racist is “a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another” (Oxford). The belief that one’s race is superior to another can be so subtle as to be imperceptible to the one who holds that belief about their own race. This is evident to people of color, many of whom have remarked at the incredible confidence with which many White Americans carry themselves in any space, no matter to whom it belongs.

If someone has called you a racist, and you believe very strongly that you are not a racist, then rest assured that you are part of a very large population of people which includes a great many racists and a great many non-racists. That is to say that your claims of being “not a racist” are likely to fall on deaf ears as they have been heard many times before from people who have used them in bad faith.

Instead, consider that you have been accused instead of racist behavior. That is, don’t focus on the untestable claim that “you are a racist.” Instead, consider that you may have engaged in behavior that is commonly engaged in by others who one might appropriately call “racist.” Although you might disagree—and there is a non-zero possibility that you are right—we’re not going to attend to that right now.

Right now, you’ve been called out because you did something that hurt someone else, and that’s the true message that you need to take from having been called a racist. While you may or may not have done something wrong, you still did something that hurt. Unfortunately for you, racist behavior is all too common in the United States. When your behavior reminds a person of color of racist behavior, then you are likely to be identified as a racist, whether correctly or incorrectly.

You should note, however, that people of color very rarely start confrontations with people they do not care about. After all, we’d be having confrontations all day long if we responded to every instance of racist behavior with righteous fury. If someone has called you a racist, then they care what you think. They are giving you the opportunity to correct your behavior and to salvage the respect that they have for you.

If you choose to use your time to argue with the content of the claim made against you—a claim that was made in direct response to behavior that you engaged in—rather than dealing with the hurt that you have caused, well, you’ve just indicated what kind of person you are. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of person that sees another human being in pain and thinks, How will this affect me? It’s not a good look on you.

Step 3: Consider Your Behavior (Instead of the Other Person’s)

That other person seems mad at you. After all, they called you a racist, and one has to be mad to do that, right?

You’ve already resisted the urge to defend yourself externally, but even harder is resisting the urge to defend your behavior internally. Your brain is very quick to defend your status as a non-racist, and it will attempt to do so in the most energy-efficient ways possible. Changing your behavior is hard, but changing your opinion about an individual is easy, and that’s the path we often take.

“I would take that person at their word,” you might say, “if only they calmed down first.” Or perhaps, “if only they were willing to speak like rational adults about this.” Or often, “if only they would be civil about it.” Unfortunately, White people have historically used the veneer of civility in order to vilify civil rights leaders and other minority leaders whose voices they found threatening. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke out against the “civility” that was used as a cudgel against his people:

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.’"  -- Martin Luther King Jr.

He was a great speaker until he was murdered. Unfortunately, not everyone you know is as great a speaker as he, and that means that, rather than call you out on the specific behavior that you have engaged in, some people might resolve to call you a racist and leave the rest to you to figure out. Consider the last time you were angry about something. How effective a communicator were you then?

Instead of focusing on the behavior of the person of color who is presently in pain and calling you out for causing it, try focusing on your behavior. What did you do immediately before you were called a racist? What did you fail to do? As a White ally to people of color, as I know you hope to be, you might be confused that your behavior could be labeled racist at all. Try to work past the confusion and identify the behavior that the person of color called out as problematic. Can you reason out why it was problematic on your own? If not, resist the urge to ask. Now is not that time.

Think without speaking. It’s a valuable skill that minorities learn quickly.

Step 4: Apologize (Without Excusing Your Behavior)

You’ll notice you haven’t yet said a word. To many people of color, watching a White person not become red and defensive at the first sight of a race issue will be a welcome change. You’re already doing so great.

Now it’s time for you to say your first two words. “I’m sorry.” What are you apologizing for? You’re apologizing for the hurt that you caused. You’re apologizing for the offense that started this whole thing. You’re apologizing for whatever it is that you did or didn’t do that was identified by a person of color as racist. I want to note that you are not necessarily apologizing for “being a racist” or for “engaging in racist behavior.” We’re not there yet. You’re only apologizing for the hurt that you caused. And you can be clear about that by going further than two words:

"I'm sorry that I hurt you. My behavior has caused you pain, and worse, it's the same kind of pain that other people who identify as White have caused you in the past. It was never my intent to be associated with them. I will work harder to make sure that my behavior going forward is demonstrative of my intent to continue being an ally to people of color, generally, and to you, specifically."  -- A well-meaning White person kicking ass at apologizing

You don’t need to know exactly what you did or even why it was offensive right now. If these are mysteries to you, then don’t despair. There will always be time to talk later. Right now, your goal is to deescalate the situation that your behavior has created. You caused harm, and now you’re trying to make it better. This is how you start.

Step 5: Listen, Then Ask

An apology is the very first step of the restitution phase. After you’ve apologized—make it good!—the person of color whom you have offended will probably still be angry with you. They may be ready to accept that you are not a rabid racist, since you have demonstrated as much by not being defensive and by taking ownership of your behavior, but they may not be ready to let you off the hook. That’s OK.

Your first step is to understand what you did wrong. Once you’ve opened up a conversation by apologizing, they’ll probably be ready to talk to you about what you did wrong. Listen first. Ask questions that demonstrate that you have been listening.

Do not attempt to change the subject or make yourself look better—these are traps, and they will backfire on you. People of color have had many conversations with White people, and we have seen many White people go on about how “I’m the least racist person you know.” These people are often the worst racists we know. Do not attempt to convince a person of color that you are not racist by telling them that you have non-White friends. The majority of sexists are heterosexual men, so it is very possible to have intimate relationships with people who, as a group, one sees as subhuman. Many White slave owners had intimate relationships with their slaves, all the while buying and selling them like property. People of color are aware of this, and often those who claim that they have a “Black friend” are the worst offenders.

Instead, allow the person of color to lead the conversation. This will be a refreshing change from how these conversations usually go, and it will go a long way towards demonstrating that you are, indeed, an ally to people of color.

Step 6: Do Some of Your Own Research!

I promise you that if you did a thing that someone called “racist,” you are not alone. Others have done the exact same thing, and I bet people make fun of them online. Go do some research of your own!

It’s possible that you disagreed with the person of color completely. You probably wanted to tell them how much you disagreed with their opinions, but you knew better than to argue with someone who is angry with you because of hurt you have caused them. You kept quiet, and that was a great thing you did.

Because others have probably engaged in the same, or similar, behavior, people of color have probably written about it. They’ve already explained why it’s wrong and why you shouldn’t do it somewhere on the Internet. Do some searching and see if you can find some articles written by people of color about the things that upset us. For example, there is a term for the fact that White people struggle so hard to talk about matters of race; it’s called “White fragility.”

On the other hand, it is always possible that the person of color was wholly wrong in calling you a racist, and there was nothing wrong with what you did. That happens sometimes, too. If you’ve been empathetic and kind to the person of color, then the person of color may come back to you with an apology of their own. If they don’t, then you can at the very least be pleased that you behaved exceptionally well in a very difficult situation. The people of color around you will have noticed, and we might be less likely to respond to your behavior so strongly in the future.

[jackburgos]

New Year's Resolutions and Sunk Cost Fallacies

I feel like some reasons for doing things are better than other reasons. In principle, this has to be true. If I give a hundred dollar donation to a charity because I believe in the importance of their cause, am I equivalent to or better (in some way) than the individual who gives a hundred dollar donation to a charity because they are going to get a discount on their taxes? Does it matter?

I honestly don’t know what I need to do to get myself to write. I feel like I’ve tried so many things already, none leading to my developing good writing habits. So I’m making one last ditch effort using the sunk costs fallacy. In economic, a sunk cost is a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. The fact is that the more we invest emotionally in something, the more invested we become in seeing it through. Even if it is an endeavor that is doomed to failure, you’ll struggle to abandon it because of your sunk costs—once you’ve poured time, sweat, and effort into something, it’s impossible to get that back.

To that end, I have paid for a very (reasonably) expensive course with a very competent teacher and writer named Richard Thomas. For all of 2019, I will be engaged in writing a novel, and I will occasionally be posting about my progress. The course will take me through the process of planning, outlining, writing, and editing a full-length novel. I’ve tried to do a full-length novel in the past, but now I’ve paid a lot of money to have a very skilled professional show me how. Because of my sunk cost, I must engage with the course and do my best. I have no other choice. I’ve given myself no other choice.

Truthfully, a sunk cost only becomes a fallacy if the investment is a bad one. In this case, I feel like I made a good one. Richard Thomas is an accomplished writer. He even has a Wikipedia page! No, the only variable here is me. So, if I want my sunk cost to give fruit, I have to sow something. Here I am. Sowing away. Because if I don’t, if I stop, then I will have made a bad investment. I desperately don’t want that.

Through this all, I’ll still be working on The Knave and the Fool, which will not be out for a while longer, I’m afraid. Commitment is something that’s hard for me to make, and I think I’m struggling with the long-term commitment of the Stormborn series. What have I done? What I’ve always wanted to do. That’s the answer. I just need to remind myself of that instead of freaking out. Here’s to a fabulous 2019 for us all.

[missmentelle]

Health insurance is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client who can’t afford to see me.  Housing is a mental health issue. I can’t use therapy to help a client whose depression and anxiety come directly from sleeping in the streets.  Food insecurity is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client who isn’t taking their medication because their pills say “take with food” and they have nothing to eat. Healthcare is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client whose “depression” is actually a thyroid condition they can’t afford to get treated.  Wages are a mental health issue. I can’t help a client whose anxiety comes from the fact that they are one missed shift away from not being able to make rent.

Child care is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client who works 80 hours per week to afford daycare, and doesn’t have the time or energy left to come see me. 

Drug policing is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client who ended up in prison because they got caught self-medicating with illegal substances. 

Police brutality is a mental health issue. I can’t help a client whose ‘anxiety’ is a very real and justified fear of ending up as a hashtag. 

If you’re going to make a stand for improving mental health, you have to understand that addressing mental health goes way beyond hiring more therapists and talking about mental health on social media. If we’re really serious about tackling this mental health problem as a country, it means rolling up our sleeves and taking down the barriers that prevent people from getting the help they need - even if those people are different than us, lead different lives, and make choices we don’t agree with.  We aren’t “fixing” mental health unless we’re fixing it for everybody. 

[jackburgos]

Everything about resonates fully with the work I do.

[jackburgos]

Present and Near Future Thoughts

This year, for my birthday, I got a new job. It was a bit of a gift to myself to be able to get a job working for the same agency that helped me out when I was a young, broke graduate student.

The Day Job

A little background. My first time doing counseling was in 2013. During the summer of that year, I served as an intern, helping to run men's groups and occasionally doing individual therapy with some of the guys who participated in the groups. I started counseling professionally in 2015, after qualifying for the LPC (licensed professional counselor) candidacy. For the next three years, I served as a home-based counselor for youth on juvenile probation. In April 2018 I earned my full license to practice as an LPC, and by June 2018 I decided I was done with the whole home-based gig. I wanted a salaried position with an office. Other benefits would be cool.

So I applied to a bunch of places. After a setback or two, I was finally offered a position as an intake therapist. An eight-to-five job, with benefits, a salary, and an office. I started at this job in July, and I've been thriving in my career as a counselor.

The Hobby

I took a few months off from Crimson Tinsel because I'd been so busy, so I hadn't made any videos for what felt like a long time. Then GISH, an annual scavenger hunt that a friends of mine and I participate in, comes along. GISH definitely requires me to do video editing. Not as much as I actually do, but enough that I have to pull out the old, dusty video editing software and get to rendering. I've loved doing this since I was a little kid, and I love doing it now for fun.

We have a long list of videos we've made over the years as Team Lunasea. Some of them include me, but many of them are videos of others doing their GISH thing; all I did in these cases was editing. Here's my favorite video from this year's collection:

It's always one thing that inspires another. As soon as GISH was over, I was ready to edit more videos. And that's what I've been doing. I've done a few projects for friends, which will be uploaded at some point, I'm sure. I've also started up on Crimson Tinsel again. We released our entry for August on the 13th, and we'll release September's entry on the 13th of that month.

Have you heard about Crimson Tinsel? It's a project that Adrean Messmer and I have been working on. She reads a flash fiction or a short horror story. Then she records herself doing something creepy. I record it and put it together into a creepy video. Our latest video is the fourth in the series: "Fish in the Sea." Check it out below, or check out our YouTube channel for more videos.

The Writing Job

Because this has been a busy summer, my writing career has not been as successful. I have done little to no writing or editing in the past couple of months, which has put me uncomfortably on schedule. That is to say that if I focus—unabashedly and completely focus—on what I need to get done over the next two months, I will achieve my deadlines in the nick of time. I wasn't even able to get a piece edited and turned in to A Murder of Storytellers's new anthology Sorry, We're Closed.

This is a low release year for me. That's a problem for a little-known writer. Those of you who don't already know me must have forgotten about me by now. As long as The Knave and the Fool makes it to bookshelves by October, I'll be OK with the way things have gone, but I want to improve my productivity next year.

So I spent money on it. Next year, I'm going to be partaking in Richard Thomas's Novel in a Year writing course. The course is not inexpensive, which I hope will make me more motivated to actually do the work. The hope—nay, the expectation—is that I will complete a novel in 2019 and have it ready for publication by 2020. This novel's name is, tentatively, Phyrric. Edits could change that. Who knows? Anything could change in a year.

I'm doing well overall, but I do need to focus. There's precious little time, and The Knave and the Fool must be out by October. I want to be done with Book 2 and working on Book 3 of Stormborn by the time 2019 rolls around. This is the week that I pull it together. This is the week that I make things happen.

Until we meet again, enjoy the song I wrote on my whiteboard.

[jackburgos]

I Should Blog More

I should blog more. That's what I keep telling myself, but I've been either very busy or very distracted. Either way, I've allowed far too much time to pass in between posts, and that's upsetting. What better time to get started again than Pride Month? After all, this was supposed to be a big month. The second book in the Stormborn series, The Knave and the Fool, was going to be released for sure. I had a plan. But that plan went to shit.

My depression has made a severe comeback this month. Partly, it has to do with what's happening in my country, where the persecution of Hispanics has become a favorite pastime of the American government. Well, more than partly. I hate learning that people I used to like are actually xenophobes and nationalists who are more than happy to watch children traumatized and gathered up in concentration camps as a deterrent against immigration. I hate learning how many people I used to like voted for the monster who wears a human-like face and lives in the White House.

When the world is shit, it's hard for me to focus on fictional stories. As much as I want to sit down and write, I can't. All I can think about is that other people need my help, and it makes me want to put more hours into my day job. There's less time for writing when I do this, but it's hard for me to sit with a story and get it ready for publication.

All of this is to say that The Knave and the Fool is done, but it needs to be edited. I have to sit with it. I just want the fires burning all over the world to quiet down for a little bit. Just long enough for me to get some fiction work done. Maybe that'll never happen. Maybe I just have to work through the horror and the shame that I feel at what my country has become. I don't know.

I wish a lot of things right now, but I know that none of them are coming true anytime soon, and I definitely want this book to be out by October at the latest. Honestly, I want this book out by my birthday, which is coming up in July. I want to see it in print. Meanwhile, thousands of Hispanic children just want to hug their parents.

Fuck.

[jackburgos]

The Tale of the Broken Hand

One Sunday in early November, someone in Tulsa was driving downtown when he saw a yellow light. The same question crossed his mind as crosses mine when I encounter a yellow traffic light: Do I stop or do I go? He chose to speed up. The light turned red before he hit the intersection. He had misjudged the light's timing. A blue Honda barrelled towards him.

Maybe I'm giving the guy too much credit, but I want to believe that he did what he believed was best at the time, even if his desire to get to where he wanted to go fast screwed us both in the end. 

My car was the blue Honda, and it was totaled in the accident. As indicated by the picture above, it had to be towed out of the street. The man in the other car argued that his light was yellow; I argued that this was impossible. With fault up in the air, my best friend Adrean came to pick me up and take me home, where I'd be stuck until I could get a rental in the morning.

aramedics had come after I reported that I was experiencing some pain in my left hand and foot. I can't tell you how I was injured. I don't remember. All I know is that I was driving, then I wasn't, and smoke was pouring out through the vents. Then I was outside and approaching the other car, trying to make sure he was OK. I still hadn't felt my injuries.

The pain in my left hand was the worst. The paramedic touched it and asked me where it hurt, if I could move all my fingers, make a fist, etc. I passed all her tests. I generally test well.​ She asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. ​For a sprained hand? The wait will take forever.​

"No," I said, and she let me go. As I posted about what happened on Facebook, all of my friends wanted me to go to the hospital. Adrean argued hardest of all, but I'm a stubborn negotiator, so I agreed to see the doctor first thing in the morning on Monday.

It was after noon when I made time to see the doctor; I had many important things to do in the morning, and the pain was as bad as I would expect for a sprain. Maybe it was worse, but I didn't think so at the time. I assured the doctor that it was probably nothing, and she told me that we'd better check anyway. A few X-rays later, I'm having my arm wrapped in a splint.​

I fractured the metacarpal of my second finger. It was a clean break: no displacement. If there had been displacement, the injury may have required surgery. As it is, it just needed to be kept still. 

One caveat: no typing. I could die.

"No typing at all?" 

"None." 

"What about a little?" 

She gave me a look that I understood. No typing, and I had to understand what that meant. Fast. 

By Wednesday I was freaking out, and in a lot of pain. I went back to the doctor, we took some more X-rays, and I got a new splint. My hand was covered in bruises along my joints and on my palm. It looked beautiful, in a macabre way. 

I was really, at this point, appalled at myself. I hadn't planned on going to the doctor. On Monday, when I'd arrived and seen the check-in line at the doctor's office, I'd considered walking out and coming back another day—maybe. What fate might have befallen my injured hand? In all likelihood, it would've been fine, but I would've been taking an unnecessary risk thanks to my wonderful insurance company (not an advertisement). If I hadn't had insurance, I would've had to pay out-of-pocket for all of these medical costs while fault was officially established. Thanks to full coverage, I was able to see the doctor when I needed to, even if the other party never even answered his phone.

The following week I had another check-in at the doctor's office. More X-rays. No displacement. No typing. And I'm gonna need that cast. They resent the referral, this time marked Urgent, and sent me home to wait for the phone call. Meanwhile I pondered what color my cast would be and if I would ask people to sign it. Could I fight them off if I didn't want it signed? Did I have a choice in the matter? I probably didn't.

At Tulsa Bone & Joint I was given a choice.: cast or removable brace? I was confused at first, but once I realized what she was saying, I eagerly accepted the removable brace. No more days without showering. No more awkwardly secured trash bags attached to my arm. I was free to take off the brace for showers and showers only. And I could type again!

During this time, I was also working on finding myself a new car. Ash is irreplaceable in my heart of hearts, but the car I wound up buying at Nelson Mazda turns out to be pretty sweet.

It's a Fiat 500 Abarth. I don't know what any of that means, but it's cute, and it has a moonroof! And its price was very reasonable. I wasn't certain I'd get a loan—my credit isn't great—but Jim and James were able to hook me up. Altogether, I walked away with a wonderful car at a very good price.

Part of the reason for the price is the fact that Lex is a standard. I've driven cars with manual transmissions through some pretty treacherous terrain, but I've never owned one before. With my broken hand, the thought of driving around in a standard seemed daunting. Adrean didn't have to do that much convincing, but her word definitely gave me the extra push I needed to go ahead with the purchase. Turns out, it's kind of fun. I'm not sure it's for me in the long run, but I can handle this in the short-term. We'll see.

I have more to say, but this post has gotten long. Instead of making my posts extended essays, I'll try to post more often.

[jackburgos]

Become a Published Writer: From Concept to Under Contract

Today, there are even more ways to enter the world of books and publishing, but where should one start? Find out what really makes a page-turning story so gripping and what avenue is right for you! How do you wrangle a writing contract, snag an agent, or gain the interest of a publishing house or film studio? Genese Davis (The Holder's Dominion), Lara Bernhardt (The Wantland Files) and Jack Burgos (13 Hearts to Start a Storm) will divulge how to best navigate the often confusing waters of the writing and publishing world. Panelists will share their insider experiences for their genres including tips and tricks for creating stories that captivate!

[jackburgos]

The Fox and the Hound

I remember the Disney movie, where—as the film poster says—"...two friends...didn't know they were supposed to be enemies." The novel is a different animal altogether. In the novel, the fox and the hound are never friends. The hound hunts the fox relentlessly until the latter dies from exhaustion. Then the hound gets shot.

Spoiler alert for a novel that came out in 1967.

I'd had a thought for the title of the next novella in the Stormborn series, but it turned out that the original material undermines the message of my book. You think you have your title, then you don't. Back to the drawing board. I still wanted to use the title in something, so why not this blog post?

Today's a special day! Today The Misbehaving Dead comes out in digital form! It's available in the A Murder of Storytellers store, on Amazon, and wherever else digital books are sold! The Misbehaving Dead is filled with some amazing authors from diverse backgrounds, and the stories are beautiful and grotesque. It's the horror you need in your digital stocking this Halloween.

You'll find many versions of undeath represented in this anthology, really expressing a sample of the breadth of the human imagination. As much work as it is, I love editing, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with this group of authors.

You should get this book. It's a good one.

For more information on The Misbehaving Dead, click here!

[jackburgos]

The Discomfiting Compliment

I love compliments. I crave them. So I usually go out of my way to get them. People call me an overachiever. I'm just trying to get you to say something nice to me.

I just got done submitting Chapter 1 of the second Stormborn book to Nevermore Edits, and I got generally positive reviews. So far, it's a good start. If I can stay on schedule, I might actually be able to finish this book with plenty of time to spare. A few extra weeks of editing couldn't hurt.

The first book has been getting good reviews, too! A fellow writer read the book and gave it an awesome review on Amazon and Goodreads, followed by a five-star rating. I can't wait to see what other people think, but it's nice to know that the first copies of the book have been well-received.

One reader decided to cut her hair in the same style as Theo. Objectively, she looks awesome.

I've been writing blog posts on A Murder of Storytellers! They're pretty cool posts.

As much as I like compliments, too many make me uncomfortable. Don't stop them coming, though! This is one anxiety I'd rather smother.

[jackburgos]

Don't You Love Your Mother?

Mother's Day has come and gone, but motherhood is forever. And forever is a long time. Long enough, surely, to drive some people crazy. Chances are your mother was pretty cool, generally speaking. Not everyone's so lucky. For us, celebrating Mother's Day with a list like this one is just what the counselor ordered. Here are...

The 5 Worst Mothers in Horror Film

#5 – The Babadook

I loved this movie. It creeped me out and made me laugh and annoyed the shit out of me—all of which I can appreciate in a film. The characters made me feel things. Sometimes angry things. There were so many times when I wanted to strangle Samuel—played by the very talented Noah Wiseman.

That having been said, I empathize with Amelia (Essie Davis) a bit. Enough to put her at Number 5 on my list. She loves her kid, and she's trying, but shit is hitting the fan, there's a crazy demon in the house, and people keep stressing her out.

Are we done empathizing? Good. Amelia is emotionally abusive, she's volatile, psychotically depressed, and all of this is deeply concerning to me. I was worried for Samuel long before the Babadook got involved, and that's saying something. Amelia needs to see a professional who's comfortable with her cohabitating with a demon. She obviously needs help, but the demon kinda happened. That wasn't her fault, and I'm not blaming her for it.

I give Amelia four rocking chairs out of ten.

#4 – Friday the 13th

I'm actually going to defend a mom for a second, because this poor woman gets both forgotten and shat upon far too often.

We can say a lot of things about Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer; Nana Visitor), including that she's a crazy knife-wielding killer, but we cannot say that she was a bad mom. Jason was born to Pamela when she was only 16. Mind you, this was in 1946. One imagines she was married in a shotgun wedding to her high school boyfriend, given the class ring that she wears on her left ring finger. The point is that Jason was born with a disability, and Pamela did not stay married.

Pamela was overprotective of Jason, but she wasn't domineering. This is evidenced by the fact that she trusted the other camp counselors at Camp Crystal Lake to do their jobs on the day that Jason drowned. The fact that Jason had the temerity to attempt to swim means that Pamela had done a good job making Jason feel empowered, despite his disability. Ironically, if Pamela had been as overbearing as Vera, Jason might have felt too nervous to approach the lake, and this long series of slasher films never would have happened.

I give Pamela two rocking chairs out of ten. She was a fine mom, but she did kill people.

#3 – Braindead (Dead Alive)

This movie had some amazing lines, amazing gore, and was hilarious through and through. If you like slapstick horror, and you haven't seen this movie...I think you might not exist. I'm so sorry.

There is nothing redeemable about the awful Vera Cosgrove (Elizabeth Moody). Everything goes wrong because of her, but she's the kind of person who would probably blame poor Paquita Maria Sanchez (Diana Peñalver) for the fact that she got herself bitten for being where she did not belong—snooping on her suffering son Lionel (Timothy Balme) during a date. Needless to say, the fact that Vera is Patient Zero is no coincidence. This entire film is about individuating from a domineering parent by cutting your way out of her gargantuan womb with a cross. It's a parable is what I'm saying.

I give Vera six rocking chairs out of ten.

#2 – Scream 2

Debbie Salt (Laurie Metcalf) is an awful woman. An awful, awful woman. She's hardly sympathetic when she's introduced to us as a reporter, and she does not become more so.

Debbie's failure as a mother falls largely in the category of neglect. When she learns that her husband has been cheating on her with Sydney Prescott's (Neve Campbell) mother, she leaves him, abandoning her son. Her neglect is a major contributing factor in Billy Loomis's psychosocial development, which leads him to don a ghost mask and start killing people.

Of course it's only after Billy has gotten himself justifiably killed during his murder spree that Debbie returns to town to avenge him. It's too little too late. It doesn't matter how many copycat murders you commit, you're never going to make up for those lost years. Debbie's failure as a mother was minor compared to what she did to make up for it, but neglect is still child abuse.

Debbie gets eight out of ten rocking chairs.

#1 – Carrie

This woman takes the cake. Of all of these mothers, she is the one I would want the least. The manipulative, insidious way in which Margaret White (Piper Laurie; Julianne Moore) commits to covert incest is jaw-dropping.

The religious nature of the abuse makes it especially bad. Margaret uses the Bible to make Carrie feel disgusting, even monstrous, for becoming a woman. Anyone who makes a girl feel bad about her period deserves to experience some excruciatingly gory punishment in a specially brutal ring of hell. A mother who does that deserves a punishment that's slightly worse. Mostly because, as a mother, you know what that's for. You shouldn't shame people about it.

Margaret eventually becomes so zealous in her religious fervor that she decides to save her daughter's soul by killing her. Being forced to become estranged from an abusive parent is bad enough. Being forced to kill your own parent in self-defense? I can't imagine how awful it must have been for Carrie to have been raised in a situation like that. I'm not sure I want to imagine it, to be entirely honest.

Margaret gets ten rocking chairs out of ten rocking chairs. Mama Bates would be proud.

[jackburgos]

Read, Write, Edit, Repeat

When I decided that I wanted to write, I was not at all sure what I was getting into. The world is a great deal more complicated once we step into it. After a few years of touring various conventions, speaking at panels, and doing book signings, I've realized that writing is a lot more complicated than putting words to paper.

Ironically, the hardest part of writing wasn't putting words to paper. In psychology, we call empathy a necessary but insufficient characteristic of a therapeutic relationship. In writing, the actual writing is necessary but insufficient.

Reading is an invaluable part of writing, and I've been doing a lot of that for Misbehaving Dead, the anthology that I'm presently editing for A Murder of Storytellers. We get such great entries—so many more than we can accept. It's such a pleasure to read the stories that we receive, and I learn a great deal from my authors. Not only that, but I get to put together a book full of stories that I love, and that's pretty sweet.

Then there's editing. I hated editing. I realize now that this is because I used to go without it. When I was in school, I would often leave work to the last minute, only reviewing it after my teacher had awarded a grade. This, I learned to my great dismay in graduate school, was a mistake. I had very little time to correct a lifetime of bad habits.

As I approached editing on 13 Hearts to Start a Storm, I felt paralyzed by anxiety. What if, in reading my own work, I discovered it to be shit? My editor was adamant that I had to continue if I was to meet my goals. With much difficulty, I trekked that awful terrain, and I came out on the other side much improved as a writer.

Editing is crucial. It's how you give yourself an opportunity to learn from and correct your mistakes. It's where you get to practice new skills you've learned. It's where you get to sit with your piece and really consume it in a way that you could not have done while you were writing. 13 Hearts to Start a Storm is a thousand times better because of the rounds of editing it went through.

Authors like Stephen King recommend that you leave many details out of your first draft, including references or anything for which you'd have to pick up another book. Writing the first draft of anything is hard enough without having to focus on getting everything just right. So just write. When you come back to your piece to edit—that's when you'll fill out the details. That's when you'll see what your piece is truly about and be able to hone it for your audience.

Writing is necessary, but insufficient. Give reading and editing a try. You'll be a better writer for it.

[jackburgos]

13 Hearts Started the Storm

I haven't written on my blog in months, but there's a really good reason for that. You see, I was working on this book. Writing has always been a passion of mine, but writing a book has been a dream. Thanks to A Murder of Storytellers, that dream is now a reality.

To be honest, I still can't believe it.

I've also become an officially licensed professional counselor in the State of Oklahoma! That might be less interesting to those of you who are here for the books, but it's something I've been working towards since 2008. Nine years later, and I've finally achieved my goal.

I'm exhausted. This has been quite the month. So here's the update.

You can pre-order 13 Hearts to Start a Storm now! It drops May 1st, so be ready! There might be a quiz.

[jackburgos]

Second Drafting

I learned in graduate school that I had gotten by for years in school without ever attempting a second draft. My modus operandus was to write one, perfect first draft. Something complete and ready for submission. This isn't how it should work, but it's how I managed to survive through school and undergraduate college.

This process allows you to procrastinate. If you're only ever doing one draft, you never have to edit. You only have to do the readings, know what you're going to talk about, and paint it onto the page.

Nothing works this way, and the quality of my work probably suffered from it.

Since graduate school, I've learned how to edit research papers, and I've somewhat translated this skill to short story-writing. Novel-writing is another animal.

I may be anxious about reading my own work. Or I may be anxious about making it worse. Or maybe I'm anxious because I wasn't able to write well the first time. I'm not sure what's wrong, but I need to get over this. I've been doing more editing of my own work lately, and it's been a rough process. My stomach clenches like a fist just thinking about it. It's difficult to resist the urge to delete the entire document and start from scratch.

How do you get yourself to sit down and edit? How do you stop yourself from rewriting? What's your self-editing method? Are you a procrastinating first-drafter like myself? If you've managed to change, how'd you do it?

[jackburgos]

When You're Not Having Fun

There are habits that are hard to break, and there are lessons that are hard to take. If you struggle with writing at times, then you're like me. Maybe you haven't heard the lesson, maybe you're still internalizing it. Here it is in its most basic form.

If you're not having fun writing it, your reader won't have fun reading it.

For a long time after I heard those words, I still let myself get stuck in a scene. The main character would be doing something—making breakfast, preparing for an adventure, shopping—because that's what naturally followed in the story. The story demanded a shopping-for-supplies scene. I sat static, shuffling my feet through the torturous sequence of menial tasks and exposition. When I finished the scene, I knew it stunk.

I should've trusted myself from the beginning. I slouched through the scene because I wasn't having fun writing it. What fun could someone have reading something that it felt like work to write? If you can, try to add elements to the scene to make it more interesting. If you can't, write a different scene instead. The important thing is that you write, and if you're not having fun writing, you're going to get stuck. Your reader, luckily, has the option of skimming through that crap. You don't. You'll have to pour through it later when you edit the scene again and again, trying to add the elements that you would've had to add anyway, or cutting the scene altogether because it's boring and you know it.

If you're not having fun writing it, your reader won't have fun reading it.

Now that it's happened to me again this NaNoWriMo, I've given myself a moment to sit with those words and really work to internalize them. After this moment is over, I'm going to return to that scene and cut it altogether. Then I'm gonna move on to a scene that's a little more fun—the one that follows.

[jackburgos]

Valuing Your Time

When your schedule's as full as mine, it's really hard to stick to a writing everyday routine. This isn't an excuse, but it's a challenge to overcome. Most of us try to portion time out from activities we don't particularly enjoy to pad our writing time. Unfortunately, we must engage in those unpleasant activities for some reason. While we may not enjoy them, we value them.

value tr.v. val·ued, val·u·ing, val·ues

To determine or estimate the worth or value of; appraise.

To regard highly; esteem: I value your advice. See Synonyms at appreciate.

To rate according to relative estimate of worth or desirability; evaluate: valued health above money.

To assign a value to (a unit of currency, for example).

You can imagine value as expressing any of those four definitions. For example, consider your own time. No matter where you live, you have to clean it on occasion. You have to take out the trash, wash the dishes, sweep and mop, and you have to do your own laundry. How much would you pay yourself an hour for that kind of work? How much time would it take you to do the work, given your level of skill?

I'm not particularly efficient at cleaning, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist. If I tried to clean my entire home, I know that it would take me about four to six hours (depending on how much of the house I'm doing). Given how much I'm paid for my work as a counselor, I'd like to be paid at least $15 an hour for the work of house cleaning. That amounts to between $60 and $90.

Now that I know how much I value that cleaning time, I know whether I can afford to hire someone to do it for me. Because I share costs with my housemate, I spend about $59 a month to have people come to my house and clean it for me. That's a bargain, given that my fastest hypothetical time would have cost me $60.

Obviously, I value the time that I or someone else spends cleaning the house. I enjoy having a clean home. Who doesn't? I appraise a clean home highly. By spending money rather than time, I save four to six hours and $1 to $31. One unpleasant activity gone. So what do I do with all that extra time?

That's the question that I know have to answer. I want it to be writing, but the temptation to fill that time with other pleasurable activities is high. That's because, generally, we have a lot of things we enjoy doing--spending time with friends, watching television, surfing the Internet, etc. So we don't just have to find out what we value about the time we spend doing unpleasant activities, we must also find what we value about the time we spend doing pleasant ones.

What do you value about your time with friends? For me, they are my rock. My soul remains fixated to this earth because of the people around me. They are indispensable to me, and I think that this is the time that I value the most. Give that the cost of losing this time is too high, I prioritize this the most.

What do I value about my time watching television? I gotta have my shows. But maybe not all my shows? I could trim the amount of television I watch, since the marginal utility of television decreases quickly, especially when I let myself become trapped watching shows of mediocre quality or less. This is a pleasurable activity that I could manage to take some time out of to focus on other tasks that I also find pleasurable.

What do I value about browsing the Internet? Much of the same. I'm both educated and entertained by the Internet. There's no end to what I can do when I'm sitting in front of a computer with wifi capability. Because of the breadth of this activity, I think I need to spend more time cataloging exactly what I'm doing with my time on the Internet. Once I've figured out what I spend my time doing, I can look at each of those activities and appraise them accordingly.

All that time I save, once I've gone through these calculations, will be time I can use to engage in writing. To get those words done and beat NaNoWriMo's 50,000-word challenge. I thought I'd share some of the thoughts running through my head this morning. Now get out there, vote, and then get to somewhere comfortable and do some writing. If you're like me, it'll do you a world of good on this very stressful day.

[jackburgos]

Day Six and 5,000 In

It's Day 6, and I'm doing acceptably. I'm not where I should be, but I'm not too far behind. Here's the latest graph of my accomplishments in NaNoWriMo so far.

Yesterday was the first day that I made both my per Day and Scaled per Day goals. The per Day goal is always 1,667 words per day, which is 50,000 words divided by 30 days rounded up. This means that yesterday is the only day that I've been on track towards the goal of 50,000 words by November 30th. I'll have to make more time to write if I plan to win NaNoWriMo this year.

You'll notice that the Scaled per Day line curves upward. This is because the curve assumes that I write nothing over the course of the month. So if I took the rest of my time off from writing until November 15th, on that day, and every day after that until the 30th, I'd have to write 2785 words per day to win NaNoWriMo.

I really love graphs. And math. I've been a big nerd my whole life, and I'm not ashamed of it. In fact, I'm gonna show you my current overall graph:

This is the same idea, but using overall word count data rather than daily word count data. The Goal by Day is where I should be if I had successfully written 1,667 words per day, every single day. By midnight tonight, I should have broken the 10,000-word mark. More likely, I won't be there just yet. I would at least try to have my Scaled Goal by Day met by tonight: 6,904 words. Slow and easy wins this race, and I know that I don't have to kill myself to win NaNoWriMo. I only have to commit myself to having more productive days than not.

Being a writer is a matter of writing everyday, no matter what the subject matter. That's the lesson that I have found it hardest to learn, but it's the most important one.