WordVixen.com

A few days ago, I watched the entire 5 or so hours of the A&E Pride & Prejudice (so awesome). You know how Mr. Collins is always talking about how condescending Lady Catherine is?

Granted, in truth Lady Catherine meets our current understanding of the word, but at the time, condescension wasn’t an offensive description. Quite the opposite.

In America and most of the modern world, the term condescension is quite an insult. It means that the condescending person seems to think so highly of themselves that they have to lower themselves to our level. And that’s offensive to suggest that we’re at a lower level.

But think of when there was such a thing as rank. A social system where your rank dictated what you could wear, what you could do, your power in society, how you could marry, and so on. In a social system such as that, for a powerful person to condescend to the lower level was the utmost in gentility, kindness, thoughtfulness of those in a lower status than they. Not that it could never be considered an insult- a person of equal or lower rank behaving as though they were condescending from a higher rank would be the ultimate of fools. Which is why we use it exclusively as an insult today- after all, no one is higher than anyone else now. Even the President is the servant of the people- perhaps we should condescend to him?

But the truth of the matter is, we are still impressed by those who seem to truly condescend to us, even if we don’t call it by that word. Now we say “S/he’s just like a regular person” or “They’re so normal!” or “They’re just like us” and count it a compliment. Think of all the stories you hear of someone meeting a really pleasant Hollywood star, a rock god, or famous politician? How about when you work at a company where the boss is just “one of the boys”?

Rank still exists, condescension in the original still exists, but we’ve used it so much as an insult that it can no longer be considered a compliment. It’s just a shame that unless you write historical fiction, even writers are constrained by modern society’s norms. Oh well.

Hey everyone. I’ve been too busy playing games on Facebook to actually get any work done. But, I figured that while I’m waiting for my energy to regenerate, I could at least work on my agent query. Here’s what I have so far…

Dear Agent,

Sorry, I’d address you personally but I don’t actually know your name. But that’s ok, because once you hear my idea for a book, I’m sure you’ll forget about absolutely everything else!

I’m currently researching a book about SkyDiving Elephants and the Pineapples Who Love Them. The working title is “You Forgot To Pack My Trunk!”. My 10 year old is a really good drawer, and I thought she could do the illustrations. I think that would be really good for promotion too, because then kids will want to buy the book as much as adults, because someone their own age did the drawings!

I know that platform is everything, and so I’ve started a hugely successful blog. I have a lot of people coming to visit it, sometimes as many as 50 in a day. I know that 5 of them are foaming at the mouth just waiting for me to get published. I know this, because one is my mother, two of them are my best friends, one’s my brother’s girlfriend (we get along really, really well), and the other one is a stalker. I think if I tell him I’ll give him my phone number if he buys 5000 copies, we’ll have a really good start on sales.

And don’t worry, I’m totally not a noob. I’ve already found a publisher that wants me, and it’ll only cost $5000 for the first run of 250 books.

So, email me right back and we’ll get started!

Sincerely,
XOXO

P.S. Don’t try to steal my idea because I’ve copyrighted it.

(To anyone who isn’t familiar with me or my blog, please don’t flame me. This is a joke. Everyone knows that pineapples don’t love elephants, and if they did, they wouldn’t go on record about it.)

Remember a while back when I said that I was putting together a list of my freelance writer friends to pass out to my site-building friends?

Well, one of those site building friends told me to build a freelance writer directory. I mentioned this to another site building friend who also said that I should build it “right now”. Er, that was over a month ago. I’m really good at keeping up with demand.  Can you tell?

I was told that I should make it a paid membership site, and I’m sure that would be a good business model. However, I started this whole thing to give some of my freelance writer friends business, and to give my site building friends a list of good freelance writers. And, since I’m lazy and cheap, I didn’t want to pay for automatic membership software and then spend weeks learning it. I’d rather blog about Disney.

So, I found an awesome domain, bought it, and eventually actually put content on it. I have a few of my friends already listed, and you know who you are. So, if you know you’re on the list, please check it out, find your profile, and let me know if you want anything added or changed.

If you’re not on the list, send me an email at WordVixen {at} gmail [dot] com and tell me what you want on your profile. Name and method of contact is absolutely necessary- either an email address or website/blog.  Information on what you write on, specialties, special education, etc is great.

So, for whoever’s interested, you’ll want to go straight to the freelance writer directory to find your name if you’re listed, or email me to get on the list.

BTW- Anyone who’s on the site and has a few articles sitting around that you still have the rights to and can use as samples- I wouldn’t mind putting up a few. Or, if you have some good samples on your own site or hosted elsewhere, feel free to include the URLs and I can add them as links to your profiles.

Also, if you want to help me out, links to the site with the anchors “hire a freelance writer” “freelance writer for hire” or “freelance writer directory” would be great. Or, maybe a little social lovin’?