Here's a better idea for releasing alternate endings or bonus chapters for your readers.

Instead of doing a different book for each ending/chapter, release them on a subscription service like Ream (or Patreon, Ko-fi, etc).

I'm planning on doing something like this on my Ream. #ReamStories

Currently zhuzhing up my first book, Chosen of Kore, in prep for its relaunch. I'll be releasing chapters serially to my Ream before final relaunch phase (book to retailers).

The text edit doesn't change anything substantial; just adds some flavour and tightens up some loose writing.

(It's my 1st book, first released in 2011. It could use a zhuzhing.) #ChosenOfKore

However, I want to do something special for my supporters. Something that says, Hey, thanks for being part of my community. Here's something just for you, as a thanks.

Enter: extra scenes.

I haven't written them yet and have no idea what they'll consist of, but at the end of the book there will be bonus scenes for my followers.

The scenes won't be available to the general public, but readers won't have to buy 6 copies of the book to get them.

Honestly, I really don't like this trend out of the trad pub sphere & it makes me glad--again--I'm not trad pubbed.

Publishing multiple copies of a book so readers need to pay again & again just to have one extra chapter? Feels gross.

No one wants to feel like a faceless wallet to someone, and I think this trend only solidifies that unhealthy relationship between reader & author.

Readers already feel that authors are distant/removed from them. This enforces that.

I'd much prefer to see authors approach bonus chapters or scenes in different ways -- like the subscription model, or newsletter exclusives (called "cookies" or "reader magnets").

Something that doesn't just turn the reader into a dollar sign.

You may argue the subscription model does turn the reader into a dollar sign.

If it does, you're doing it wrong.

It is still primarily about fostering relationships and community --& should be.

Anyway, that's my hot take on current industry shenanigans. Thanks for listening to my ramble.

What are your thoughts? How would you handle bonus scenes, chapters, or alternate endings?

BTW, I love @ReamStories (even if they're never on Twitter. ;P)

The platform is built by fiction authors, for fiction authors. They are committed to excellence for authors and readers.

Oh, and they won't censor you for steamy content. Big win there.

If you're a writer interested in setting up a Ream account, I'd love it if you used my link: https://reamstories.com/create/monstrouswords

(Ream pays Author Partners out of their cut. You don't lose anything.)

Subscription Services and Bonus Chapters

Husband & I caught up on Dumpster Fire recently and @BridgetPhetasy said something that I really liked.

Paraphrasing here: "Gender identity has as much scientific basis as the concept of the soul."

I like this a lot because it's absolutely true, and I think also touches on the fact that Gender Ideology has now become a secular religion (with its adherents pushing to make it a theocracy).

But I also like it because it dovetails neatly with my own experience of my gender.

I believe I have a soul. I often view it as a three-part thing, but I don't know if that's accurate. All I know about it is based on my feelings & experiences of a numinous thing.

I also believe I am nonbinary. I don't know if gender identity is a thing, or if it's total bunk -- scientifically, there isn't really any basis for it.

But there's no scientific basis for the soul, either.

The only way we have to interact with these concepts is totally in our heads. There's no empiric evidence here. Just personal inner experience.

Belief in a soul could just as easily be chalked up to lunacy or narcissism as belief in being nonbinary could be.

I remain a steadfast believer in the inner life, so I don't find it hard to accept that one's inner identity might not match one's outer expression.

I also believe in the astral plane & astral bodies appearing differently than physical bodies. Woo ain't new to me.

Several years ago I wrote a post I called "Gender Agnostic". The post is no longer up, but I think about that term a lot. Especially now that Gender Ideology is the hot new religion in town.

If Gender Ideology is the religion, I'm a heretic -- but I still hold the idea of the soul (gender) to be true.

Even if I'm agnostic about the rest of what the theocracy tells me is Sacred Law.

I don't know what gender is or where it comes from. I do know it's not sex, and (human) sex is real and binary and not going to change. I've said that before.

There was an absolutely fantastic short story a while back that really explored what gender was or could be, and unfortunately the author got harassed for it because people called it transphobic.

Her being trans didn't seem to matter much.

It was I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter, by Isabel Fall. Pubbed in Clarkesworld. Unfortunately she pulled the story after being harassed, so I don't know if it's up anymore.

But it was truly great. I think of it often, of the way it made me think about gender.

I wish we could have conversations about these things -- about what gender is, what the soul is, about our human predilection for religion constantly bringing us to new faiths when we try to leave old ones behind.

That story could have started a great conversation on all this, if we weren't in the The Worst Timeline(TM).

I hate how polarized everything has become.

I am hardline on some stances -- no medical transition for minors, and keep women's sex-based rights and spaces safe -- but I still prefer nuanced conversation over polarized rhetoric.

I do think that a theocracy of any sort is a dangerous thing, and I don't want Gender Ideology to gain that power. I'm glad there's pushback.

Unfortunately, the side that's pushing back also seems not to care about nuance all that much.

The lack of nuance on either side leaves folks like me in the middle.

Politically homeless.

Or actually, at this point I think I'm a hermit -- not homeless, just choosing to make my home up in the mountains, FAR away from everyone else.

Oh well. These things take time, I guess.

In the meantime, I'll be here in the middle, pondering ideas like gender and souls and existence, how we came to be, what we look like on other planes, and hopefully at some point we can have these conversations without going nuclear on each other.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/amoebakat/9hjm2Qf

Gender and the Soul

Being nonbinary, I get accused of ignoring reality a lot. Specifically, biological reality.

I get why people may think that, but I'm pretty clear-headed about the reality of my body.

It's female.

My sex is female. Nothing changes that.

My realization I'm nonbinary comes from much time spent in meditation, in asking my deeper self questions about who and what I am.

This is a practice I have been engaged in for decades: sitting in stillness, & listening to my inner voice.

My inner voice consistently tells me I am neither man nor woman.

I am some ubiquitous "other". The third option, unquantifiable. Perhaps in between yet a part of, perhaps apart from.

Who knows? Certainly not me.

But it doesn't change my sex.

Nothing can.

Strangely, it took *realizing* I was nonbinary & going through a period of transition from thinking of myself as a woman to thinking of myself as nonbinary in a female body that helped me *be okay* with being female.

Before I realized I was nonbinary, my gender dysphoria was terrible.

By going through that process and ultimately coming to terms with the physical reality of my existence, I was able to mitigate it.

I mitigated my gender dysphoria solely through "social transition" measures & continual work on myself using tools from therapy.

There was no need for any medical procedures, or anything more drastic than hairstyle changes, different outfits, &, briefly, neopronouns.

Gender dysphoria is really terrible. It was for me, at least.

If it had been something I had 100% of the time, I would have considered medical options to mitigate it, certainly.

I had it only half the time, roughly, so it made no sense to pursue physical/medical transition.

I would get to the other end and still be dysphoric half the time, just from the other direction. + all the issues with medical transition.

I was lucky I came to realize my nonbinary-ness & gender dysphoria in my 20s--over 10 years ago.

Back then, NBs were still rare enough I had to explain it...a lot. I never got pushed to medically transition by anyone in a position of power over me.

I was never told that medical transition would be the only thing that saved me--a magic bullet to solve my depression, dysphoria, and self-hatred.

And as a child, I was told by various adults that my body was mine, & it was perfect & whole the way it was.

I think all those things helped protect me from a potentially horrific outcome (medical transition).

I'm not saying medical transition is horrific for everyone. For some folks it really is the answer.

Those folks are far rarer than you may have been led to believe. Most of us can get through our gender dysphoria with other methods.

Above all, if you just give us some *time* to work through it, we can.

It's disturbing to me that nowadays the immediate first step is to prescribe dangerous drugs (puberty blockers), hormone replacement therapy, and surgery to kids with gender dysphoria.

These should be last steps. I've said this before.

https://twitter.com/amoebakat/status/1677093889604485127

Because in the end, you cannot change your sex.

You can only take steps to alter your body in order to mitigate gender dysphoria. Puberty blockers, hormone replacement, and surgery do not change your sex.

Even if I had medically transitioned, in 1,000 years when anthropologists dig up my body they'll see I'm female.

That truth is in my bones.

If it weren't true, that sex can't be changed, then my gender dysphoria wouldn't make much sense, would it?

How would it even exist if we could just change our sex?

Maybe someday we'll have some super-cool, futuristic, sci-fi medical tech that does allow us to truly change our sex.

I'm a SFF writer, so impossible things? Surely they'll someday be possible.

But part of being a SFF writer is knowing what is reality NOW, so you know how to write about what isn't reality YET.

Reality now is you can't change your sex, and the medical technology we've applied to try is mediocre at best, butchery at worst.

I do hope that someday that changes. If trying on the opposite sex were as easy as trying on their clothes, maybe we'd learn to have more empathy for each other. Maybe we could find ourselves easier. Maybe we could all be a little less uptight.

In the meantime, we're stuck with what's real in the physical plane. And while in the astral plane, my body may be some ineffable form of in-between, something indescribable, in the physical plane my body is female.

No amount of wishing, magic, or otherwise will change that.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/amoebakat/0wRGkUq

Identity & Reality

Yes, this. 

Gender dysphoria doesn't always need to be treated with medical interventions. 

Medical interventions should be last resort -- because they have major side effects that can seriously damage quality of life. https://twitter.com/BuckAngel/status/1677018917410332672

When it comes to minors, medical intervention should be completely off the table.

If you truly want to help trans kids, you won't let them make irreversible decisions about their bodies before they can vote.

We don't have the medical technology to make transition easy, reversible, safe, or even -- in many cases -- non-sterilizing.

This is why for the longest time in order to get medical transition you had to spend years in therapy &amp; socially transitioning.

Gatekeeping wasn't transphobia; it was done for patient safety reasons. It was medical ethics.

But now we throw medical ethics out the window. For profit. For virtue signalling.

Medical ethics would say, before administering something life-altering, irreversible, &amp; dangerous to a patient, be completely sure it is the right course of action, and do so only after obtaining true consent.

True consent, of course, is not coerced, and it doesn't come from a patient who may not be in their right mind.

If you are treating something that shows up with depression, anxiety, and various mental illness, then the burden of obtaining true consent is larger.

When I was in the depths of depression I would have "consented" to all manner of things that horrify me now, when I'm better.

Because in that state, I had no regard for my own life. I was not in my right mind.

Most people with gender dysphoria present with other mental illnesses. (Yes, gender dysphoria is a mental illness.)

Medical transition *can* ease gender dysphoria, but it may worsen other mental illnesses.

Very often, going through medical transition will prevent you from having kids (or make it much more difficult). It is, in many cases, sterilizing.

Tell me how jumping to a treatment that has a high chance of sterilizing the patient is ethical for mental illness?

When it comes to minors, the interventions they are performing are even more likely to sterilize &amp; cause lifelong damage.

Tattoos are safer (&amp; less permanent) than transition, yet you have to be 18 to get one of those.

We need to stop medicalizing gender issues. Especially in kids.

There are ways to support &amp; affirm your kid's gender explorations that don't involve surgery, hormonal treatment, &amp; a lifetime of medical interventions.

Stop Medicalizing Kids

We are coming up to the day I created, & I've been very busy dealing with real life crises so I've not had much chance to write my thoughts about it.

I am in a very different place than I was a decade ago when I created International Non-Binary People's Day.

I'm sure my current thoughts on nonbinary gender, gender ideology, and trans rights activism will get me labeled a heretic and burned at the stake.

However, I feel this summer is time for me to really break my silence on these matters. I will be writing more about my thoughts on all of this in the coming days and weeks.

Some will be posted here, on Twitter, and others likely on my much-neglected Substack. (Where I have posted 1 article that touches on these topics, but doesn't fully explore them.)

https://ofmonstrouswords.substack.com/

I will also be making liberal use of the block + mute buttons.

I'm happy to disagree with folks, but not if they're assholes to me. My mental health is more important than a debate.

I've mostly kept my silence for a long time because I've tried to remove myself from politics in my author life, and because I didn't feel like getting doxxed or death threats.

"Politics" keeps finding me, however.

Now that I'm no longer gainfully employed by anyone other than myself, I worry less about losing my job because of words I speak online.

Now that I've already spoken out against certain gov't things, I worry less about activists. It's the gov't goons I have to watch out for.

Life in Canada is getting worse by the day. It's only a matter of time before they revoke our access to the outside world completely -- so I may as well speak up now, such as I can in a country without free speech.

If you follow me for my fiction/poetry only & wish to avoid reading anything political from authors you follow (a completely valid choice for which I will not judge), I recommend following me on FB or Insta instead. I avoid these topics there completely.

FB: https://www.facebook.com/katjevanloon

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/amoebakat/

If you're happy to stay for my thoughts on all this...stuff, then welcome.

Pull up a chair, get a drink of choice, and pet a dog or cat. I know I need to whenever I dive into the morass.

Preparing to Break My Silence & Be Branded a Heretic

PRONOUNS DON'T MATTER

A thread on why I'm sick of this whole zeitgeist.

My best friend & I chat via FB voice messages.

In a recent message she mentioned me in the third person, then tried to correct pronouns. She wasn't sure which ones I was going by & "didn't want to be bad." (Direct quote.)

It was the "don't want to be bad" bit that got me ranting in my reply, in which I said many times IDGAF about pronouns anymore & also laid out all my issues with the LGBTQ subculture.

(Her reply: omg I unlocked a secret level.)

At some point on this hell timeline, the idea that you are a bad person if you don't use the correct pronouns -- even accidentally -- has been accepted as fact.

It's no longer an opinion held by some members of "the community"; it's now ingrained in social consciousness.

I admit, I used to hold that opinion myself. But opinions change as we grow.

They should never be mistaken for fact or reality.

Here's the reality about pronouns:

* it is hard to adjust usage
* the singular "they" muddies meaning more often than not
* using the "wrong" pronouns does not make you a bad person
* punishing people for making pronoun mistakes is ableist

It is hard to switch pronouns. This has always been true.

It's *especially* difficult for various types of neuroatypicality, too. Think about that the next time you yell at someone for messing up.

It was difficult for people to switch from "thou" to "you" for the singular (previously "you" was plural), and it only happened after a while and much protest.

We're currently seeing people push for "singular they" to have more widespread use.

I'm not a fan of the singular they, because I like clarity.

Example: I was reading a piece of fiction recently. Series I really liked. A few books in, a nonbinary character was introduced, with they/them pronouns.

Okay. Except it was also an ensemble cast, and the writer was not skilled enough to pull it off.

The book had many confusing passages that I had to reread several times to figure out who, exactly, was being talked about--the character or the group.

Multiple scenes with all the characters onscreen, including the nonbinary character. Pronoun madness.

I haven't picked up another book in the series. I'll eventually get back to it, probably, to see how things progress, but I'm less excited to pick up books where I have to re-read passages several times to figure things out.

Had the writer employed a neopronoun (not they/them) for this character, it wouldn't have been an issue.

I read fantasy. I can easily adapt to strange new words. I can't easily adapt to sentences in plain English making no damn sense.

"But we changed before, from thou to you!"

1. "But we did it before" is, generally, a terrible argument.
2. People were upset about that change too, including the sudden lack of clarity.

Maybe eventually singular they won't be confusing. It is now.

3. The thou/you change happened much more organically than what is happening currently.

What we're seeing now is people attempting to control the speech of others -- everything from punishments on people for "misgendering" to the current forced "pronouns in your bio" thing that's happening in many workplaces.

In Canada we even have a [completely redundant] law against "misgendering".

The people who spoke out against it have forever been cast into Bad Person status for trying to defend what little free speech there is in this country.

Our modern media machine has created a never-ending stream of what amounts to propaganda, aimed right at our brains.

The way we talk about gender and pronouns these days is akin to the way people talk about religious belief in an abusive religion.

You obey the Scripture, you say the Articles of Faith. There's no dissension, no debate. No questioning the Word.

You say the pronouns, or you're Bad. A bigot. A terrible person who will rot in Intersectional Nonbinary Hell.

(Intersectional Nonbinary Hell is my new band name.)

These are not the values of a society that values scientific inquiry, debate, or free speech.

These are the values of a theocracy.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a theocracy. No matter the religion being sold.

Gender Ideology has become a secular religion. Willing converts are the most zealous. Unwilling converts walk on eggshells, terrified of damnation.

This is what lead my normally-rational, actually-atheist bestie to say "I don't want to be bad!" about my pronouns.

She'd been converted--unwillingly, without her knowledge--to Gender Ideology.

And the scripture of this new, fearsome religion says that if she messed up & used the wrong pronoun for her nonbinary bestie, she would be Bad, and punished forever in Intersectional Nonbinary Hell.

What an awful world.

If this is what it means to "respect pronouns", then I can no longer get behind that idea.

"Respect pronouns" used to be a phrase about just generally trying to respect people.

Now it's about proscribed speech in service to Orthodox Gender Ideology, a draconian faith most of us don't want.

If you have free speech rights, use them before you lose them. Don't change your speech just because you've been told to. Do it only if you want to.

Use whatever pronouns you like for me. I don't care.

As I said recently: "If people are using pronouns to refer to me, 9 times out of 10 it's when I'm not around. Why do I care what people say when I'm not in the room?"

ADDENDUM: something interesting I've noticed is that since switching BACK from zie/zir to she/her, people are more likely to mess up my pronouns. Folks consistently use the neopronouns for me, even though I've said I'm back to using she/her several times.

It's almost as if it's not about *respecting pronouns* but *respecting when people do things we see as out of the ordinary*.

She/her pronouns are where I started and where I went back to. That's not respectable in Orthodox Gender Ideology.

Against New Theocracies

I try to avoid politics on this page. 

However, as I'm openly #Nonbinary &amp; the creator of #InternationalNonBinaryDay, &amp; I reside in BC, I feel I need to say something.

I hate this. https://twitter.com/mbabchuk_mla/status/1634594783028039681

This is a waste of taxpayer money. It is another virtue-signalling boondoggle from a province that has become a living hell to exist in.

I don't feel included in BC, and it has nothing to do with gendered language used by the gov't.

I don't feel included because the housing crisis means my husband &amp; I will never afford a place to live.

I don't feel included because our health system is in the toilet. Who gives a flying fornication about misgendering when you have to wait hours for an ambulance?

I don't feel included b/c thousands of BCers seemed absolutely fine with enforcing medical segregation across the province. 

If friends &amp; neighbours can turn on you for your private medical choices, what else will they turn on you for?

&amp; I don't feel included because of all the woke crap that's dictating what our speech should be.

More than anything else, I believe in freedom of speech. Freedom of opinions.

&amp; I believe in reality. Like the reality of being a *female-bodied* non-binary person.

When I say I am non-binary, I am saying my mental perception of my gender continually lands in the "other" section, rather than "man" or "woman."

But biologically speaking, I am female. Nothing will change that. Ever.

Certainly not words. They may be powerful. They are not THAT powerful.

Their little video above says they make this move to make sure that everyone can "access services".

What a load of poppycock. (Which, by the way, is NOT a gendered word. It comes from the Dutch word for "soft dung".)

The use of gendered language in laws is not preventing anyone from accessing services. The worst it's going to do is make you feel bad about yourself for a bit.

Well, that's life? Sometimes people use words that make you feel bad. You have to learn to deal with it.

However, what I can tell you, as the child of two lawyers -- changing laws from using he/she to they/them might have unintended consequences, making our already maze-like legislation even more of a treacherous swamp.

Y'all may find you regret this move within very short order.

&amp; you know why else I HATE this?

This is yet another move towards compelled speech, which I will never be okay with.

Especially not when they use my tax dollars to do it.

This change does nothing. It does not materially affect our lives. 

It might make some people feel better, for a short period of time, before the outrage cycle tells them to be mad about something else.

Meanwhile, it will muddy communication within every level of gov't and all our institutions, which will lead to materially *worse* outcomes.

Sometimes clarity means feelings get hurt, but that is far and above preferable to the alternative.

PS: maybe before you spend money on BS like this, you could try to fix our housing crisis, opioid epidemic, or any of several hundred other issues *actually hurting* British Columbians?

Just a thought.

How to Make Communication Worse with Virtue Signalling 

WORDS ARE NOT VIOLENCE

A 🧵 

Words are not violence. 

They are powerful. They can change worlds. 

That does not make them violence.

"The pen is mightier than the sword." 

It doesn't say "the pen is more violent than the sword." 

The word chosen is mightier.

It's natural that we equate "mightier" with "more violent".

Violence is committed by the strong upon the weak. Strength = might. Therefore, might = violence.

We even state so much with "Might makes right."

But there are other things that are mighty.

Grace. Love. Forgiveness. Compassion.

They are seen as "soft" qualities, but they are anything but.

It takes true strength -- true might -- to show someone grace. 

To choose love over fear. 

To forgive trespasses.

To have compassion for all beings.

The pen is mightier than the sword. 

That does not mean it is more violent. 

Or at all, unless you're going to pick up a pen and stab someone with it. (Don't do this.)

This does not mean we should discount the power of words. 

As a species we rely on our linguistic powers for everything. 

The language centres of our brains allowed us to form civilizations. 

We became most populous animal on this planet because of our words.

Words create empires as surely as they can destroy them.

Fiction transports readers across the universe -- to worlds so different, we can travel there only in our minds.

A heart may not change when it faces facts and figures, but poetry can melt the coldest ice.

Words create slogans that drive politicians to victory. 

Words create propaganda that divides and conquers nations.

But words are not violence -- any more than carpentry is violence.  

It's used as easily to build a house as it is a crucifix.

It's a tool: neutral until put into someone's hands.

To say words are violence is to remove our ability to think and reason from the equation. 

It is to remove our agency, to resign us to nothing but kneejerk reactions and seeing everything as an attack.

If we accept that words are violence, then we must also accept censorship. 

Violence must never be tolerated, after all.

Yet censorship itself often leads to true violence. 

It is not the words that are violence, but the very silencing of them.

Do people say hateful things? Yes. Censorship won't stop that (it will only drive it underground).

People also say things that are not hateful, but upsetting or offensive.

Nowadays people see no delineation between hateful speech and offensive speech.

So speech that is offensive is classed as hateful, and hateful speech is violence. 

Because violence must never be tolerated, the response is "words are violence and these words should be stopped."

No. 

The response to speech you don't like, whether or not it's truly hateful, should not be to cut out the offender's tongue. 

The response should be your own words to refute it.

The answer to hearing speech you do not like is not to restrict free speech. 

It is to fill the space with BETTER SPEECH. 

To refute, to dismantle, to shine a light on what you dislike and point out all its flaws.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. When you cover things up is when they fester. 

Let people say what they will of you. 

You know better, and you have the power to speak better.

WORDS ARE NOT VIOLENCE

Have we ever considered making Honey Don't lists?
https://blog.katjevanloon.com/2022/honey-dont/

Musings at 5 am. Can't sleep, drinking a potion for pain relief that I've only recently accepted my mom is right about. (Baking soda + apple cider vinegar + water.)

When you're a baby, your parents are your entire world. You are 100% reliant on them for survival; there is no question of their omniscience.

In childhood, you are learning things for yourself, but you heavily rely on your parents to guide and shape you.

In your teens you know everything and your parents are complete blithering idiots.

In your twenties, you realize your parents aren't complete lost causes, and ask them from advice sometimes.

In your thirties you realize they were right about everything and find yourself relying on their wisdom on a daily basis.

Blessed are the ones who figure this out before their parents are gone.