Feb 01 2008
Sigh
HOTM will be delayed due to mandatory overtime at the day job consuming my soul.
I have time for a short rant, though.
It’s renewal time, and I had decided to give RWA another year of my money and this time get involved in at least one chapter (semi-recovered from my outrage at discovering the national membership doesn’t do a lot other than provide the opportunity to join chapters, which is where all the benefit appears to lie…), but then I read the most recent issue of RWR. It wasn’t just the letter to the editor declaring modern romance heroines “sluts,” but also the article by the language police (sorry, but I prefer a more conversational tone in my reading material, even in the narrative, and if Strunk & White have to become double-jointed to bend around that style, I have some yoga exercises to limber them up) and… there was something else I can’t or don’t want to think of right now.
At any rate, there was nothing in this issue I wanted to save or even take a second look at. (OMFG! I ended a sentence with a preposition on purpose! Change it to “at which I wanted to take a second look.” On second thought, that’s clunky and pedantic, so don’t.) And (now I’m just being rebellious) I was again left wondering if it’s worth my while to remain a member of an organization where I obviously don’t fit in. (Oopsie.)
And Furthermore, I’m not judging the entire organization based upon its monthly publication, although one would assume an organization’s monthly publication would be representative of its membership. The in-the-flesh RWA encounters in which I have participated have similarly thrust me into a crowd that seems rigidly (after much consideration of an appropriate term) traditional. There’s nothing wrong with tradition itself, but expecting others to conform to your traditions is the stuff wars are made of. (Dammit, and I was trying so hard.)
Have I just not found “my people”? Would an expedition into chapter territory lead me to a tribe of sexually-liberated-heroine-writing misfits dancing naked in the moonlight around a cauldron in which The Elements of Style are being boiled to mash?
Maybe I’ll renew, ask them not to send me the magazine that makes me angry on a monthly basis (I realize I don’t have to read it, but there’s no point wasting the paper and postage to send it to me in that case, is there?), and try my luck with an online chapter. Then, if I feel this same frustration next year, I’ll know for sure it’s impossible for me to get anything from the membership and call it quits.
(For the record, my copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is my first go-to book when a grammar or punctuation issue arises, the Chicago Manual of Style when more in-depth clarification is necessary. I appreciate these valuable reference materials, but I will never adhere to them like it’s a matter of life and death. One of the beauties of language is its flexibility.)
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