Ah, the irony….

Warning: this is a personal venting post–no hugging will be tolerated.

This is beyond ironic: A few months ago, my mom’s girlfriend laid down an edict as from On High that if I “trashed (my) mom in a book (I’d) have to dedicate one to her.”

Now, this is insulting for several reasons, chiefly because it assumes:

1. Harper is a Mary Sue
2. Harper’s Mom is a vicious caricature of my own mother*
3. I can’t create a character who isn’t based on someone I know
4. I would not otherwise dedicate a book to my mom**
5. I’d resort to working out personal issues by spilling ink***

My mom and I do have some problems–most child-parent relationships are prone to these–but I hope I’m a better, more mature person than to write a book just for revenge over things that happened when we were both younger and more stupid. No, I’d blog about that.

Now here’s the irony: Mom is sleeping on my bunk this minute because the same girlfriend hit her in the face a few days ago and mom fled the house (who’s trashing who here?) Meanwhile I’m trying to write a series of scenes for Book 4 in which Harper is dealing with her horrendous mother. Ah the “muse” is fuckin wid my widdle head….

If I were Harper I’d have thrown my mom overboard. But, no. She’s sleeping warm and dry and perfectly safe in my bunk. I wish I were the one sleeping in it, to be honest. I was up until 3 a.m. working on the ms last night and dragged my sorry ass out to take Mom’s phone call at 7 a.m. Blargh… zombie writer… arraagghhhh… grrr….

No, no. I wouldn’t trash my mom in a book. I’d trash her girlfriend.
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*Oh come on! Harper’s Mom is a riff on Rose Hovic; and I am not Gypsy Rose Lee.
**I haven’t dedicated a book to my dad, yet, either.
***OK, I am currently spilling electrons to work out this particular issue, but damn, woman. Don’t go smacking my mom!