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.

Dear Jane

Well, if you're a romancelandia devotee, then you know the announcement that sent the world on its ear: Jane Litte of Dear Author is a successful author named Jen Frederick. If you don't know then read AztecLady's summary here:  Grandmother of All Plot Twists

I'm not going to talk about disclosure of professionalism because DA has always supported pen names and has a strong anti-doxxing policy and there's no reason that Jane should have disclosed. I wanted to talk about how I feel about it. Just me. Lori. How I feel about Jane, my online girl crush, being a successful author.

I feel hurt.

A big part of it is jealousy, pure and simple. Jane is the master of time management and I have no doubt that she can be a mom, lawyer, blogger, defendant and best selling author with time to cook gourmet meals for her family as well as make all their clothes and solve world hunger. Hell, if anyone can, it would be Jane.

And I'm jealous because she only started writing a couple of years ago and has written more books and been more successful. Oh yeah, green eyed over that one.

Of course, Jane understand marketing because books and the publishing business are her passion. She used her knowledge to promote herself while keeping it separate from DA. And I noticed that Jane didn't use her connections as Jane for her career. If she had, she might have been published by Carina. Or well, anyone.

I think part of the hurt is the feeling that bloggers I enjoy become someone other than the blog and things change. The truth is that I stopped going to Smart Bitches because I felt the blog was a promotional tool for Sarah and I didn't want to be a part of that. It's like how Ree Drummond used The Pioneer Woman to get a Food Network career... the blog becomes the blogger and the big picture and no longer is about the community.

Do I think that Dear Author will follow the same path? Not necessarily. I think Jane is better at keeping her lives separate and will be diligent at not crossing the line. But it changes things and we'll see how as time goes by.

Again, I want to say these are my opinions alone and not shared by Carolyn. We had an argument about SB Sarah and she disagrees with me vehemently.

Anyway, I don't plan to read Jane's/Jen's books for quite awhile. If she's a good writer then my green eyes will flash and if she's not as good then I'd probably be disappointed for other reasons. And if I feel she's better than I am then I'll probably take to bed for a week sobbing my jealous, little fan girl heart out.

And I think something that's going to happen is we're about to see Goodreads and Amazon explode with some nasty one-star reviews with people gleefully declaring they're giving the mean girl a dose of her own medicine... which would be the funniest thing of all because if there's anyone who wouldn't be bothered by that, it's Jane.

Deep down, I know that lovers of romance novels are the writers of romance novels. And if Jane didn't love them so, then Dear Author wouldn't be so important to so many of us. And I'm proud of her and happy for her and truth is, I'd rather have a nap than be her. But it's going to take a few days before I calm my jealous heart down.

She's worth it though. There's a reason she's my online girl crush, you know.