The Jane Game

Yesterday Carolyn lamented to me that there are no shades of grey in romancelandia and oh boy, did she get it right. The Jane Litte/Jen Frederick mess is perfect proof.

Let me say immediately that I don't believe that this affects anything in the DA/EC lawsuit and I hope that Jane kicks EC's butt. And if I had any spare income (I count my pennies here), I'd still donate to the DA fund to help. Because DA didn't defame EC, they reported truth and the right to speak out is the most important of all.

Ok, that's out of the way.

So look down a post or two and I'm there supporting the Jane/Jen disclosure and admitting to my mind numbing jealousy. And I made up my mind and was all bring on the hates, I'll go Ann Sommerville on their ass. Then I read Smart Bitches and all the comments and the grey seeped in.

Because Jane lied to individual people and created relationships that were false. Because other people are getting hurt now and it doesn't feel okay to support that.

The grey shades are still there for me. I'm just not able to get upset that a pen named author joined a group she might not have otherwise been able to join. She didn't create the pen name to deceive the group. And only if a criteria for joining the group is for everyone to disclose all pen names and real names then she probably didn't truly do anything that other pen named authors did.If everyone disclosed who they truly were and then Jane lied, well, that's one thing. But if other authors were there using only pen names without disclosure and that was okay, then I can't get my tits in a tizzy.

But there are people out there who are really bleeding over this. Willa is one and I don't know her story but I know my joy when she became a DA reviewer was great. Now she's left and that is such a huge disappointment for me because I know she hurt.

An author named Bree commented on Bitches and her hurt was palpable. The authors who have spoken up are not sour grapes kind of authors: Tessa Dare, Victoria Dahl, Courtney Milan. These are authors whose careers DA has supported.

And my view got greyer.

I don't know how I feel anymore. It's confusing and I'm going to sit back and see how things sort out. I'll be me and hope that it works out for Jane and DA and all the people involved. But I just don't know.

And once again: these are my views, not Carolyn's.