What.

The.

Heck.

The Featured New Book Spotlight is empty AGAIN this week.

It’s a one-question interview. Yes, it’s not a particularly slam-dunk easy question, but that’s what makes it fun. And it combines a few of our favorite things: books and music.

Because I know there’s a lot of authors who create playlists for their books. One song on those lists has to represent their book. It just has to.

So send your friends. Spread the word. I want to feature YOU. I want YOUR book highlighted here on my pages. I want my readers to learn about YOU.

It’s free (unless you want to reserve a specific date) and one of the most fun, challenging, and cost-effective ways to promote yourself and your book.

Over at the West of Mars Facebook Page, I’ve started running Book Questions of the Week. I’d love it if you’d drop in and leave some suggestions and links there, but if you’d like to leave ’em here, too, go for it.

After all, one can never have too many suggestions for great books to read.

This week’s theme: Women Sleuths, contemporary age. This is, of course, to celebrate Women’s History Month, and don’t ask how contemporary women sleuths make up Women’s History, except women are making history, maybe. It’s a bit of a stretch, but too bad.

Leave suggestions and/or links here or there. You can suggest your own books, you can suggest a friend’s books, you can suggest a book (or series) you love… it’s all good! And, of course, along with your links, feel free to actually (shocker alert:) talk to each other about your suggestions.

You just might make some new friends.

I love new friends. Especially book friends.

So let’s hear it. Women sleuths, licensed or not. Contemporary age.

Who are your faves?

And don’t forget that we’ve got the Featured New Book Spotlight and Lines of Distinction for your promotional needs. Take advantage: they cost you NOTHING!

And hey, if you’re still reading… if you’re a new client and your manuscript IS the BQOTW, speak up before the next one gets posted and you’ll get a discount on your editing needs!

I’m extra excited to bring today’s Spotlight book to you. It’s written by my friend Anne-Marie Klein, and it’s part of her Behind Blue Eyes series. This one’s called Love Reign O’er Me, and you may recognize that lyric. I hope you do, anyway!

Let’s get to it. Anne-Marie, what song makes you think of your book?

A question tailor-made for me and for my book series, at least, and one that is answered by looking at the front cover. The music of The Who captured me as a teenager in the late 70s, so much so that I began to imagine a narrative of who the bad man, sad man Pete Townshend had so famously written about might be: many pages later, the Behind Blue Eyes series of rock novels was born. My four books follow a troubled young rock musician from his arrival in Toronto from London in 1978 to 1994, and readers will see how the lyrics echo his difficult path to success amidst family drama and great love stories in rock and rock and fashion settings on both sides of the pond.

This might be the first time EVER that an entire band’s work inspired a novel. I linked to the Song “Behind Blue Eyes” but I know Anne-Marie well enough to know that the entire band is this lady’s muse. And honestly, I admire her fandom.

Ready for the entire description? Here goes:

Son of a wealthy, successful, and famous British designer, Ian was born into the world of the rich and shameless. He blames himself, and his father, for his mother’s death, and has run far away to start a new life. Beautifully blond, musically talented, but emotionally troubled, he hides his pain behind pale blue eyes and drinks to numb the guilt that has followed him across the ocean. When he meets Sarah, the fiery-haired singer with all the connections to make his dreams come true, will the burdens of his past destroy their love and everything they’ve ever wanted?

Behind Blue Eyes is a new four-part series following a young musician’s turbulent life as he makes his rock and roll dreams come true in a city far from where he grew up. Equal parts family saga, love story, and rock and roll circus, this first novel will take you back to the late 70s in Toronto for a dramatic roller-coaster ride through the world of music. Inspired by the Pete Townshend song made famous by The Who, the series is at once a nostalgic love letter to the author’s hometown and to the music she listened to while growing up there.

Ready for your own copy? I sure am.

Here’s some links:

Amazon
iTunes
B&N

And connect with Anne-Marie. You’ll be glad you did because she is awesome.
Website
Facebook author page
Twitter: @badmansadman

It’s March, and that means one thing: Time for Read an E-Book Week at Smashwords!

If you read e-books but don’t already have an account at Smashwords, what are you waiting for? They truly offer the best royalty rate around, which helps authors immensely. Yes, you can download to your Kindle, folks! For us authors, they distribute our books to retailers and libraries for us. I’ve used them as long as I’ve been publishing, and we’re coming up on the 10-year anniversary mark for that.

Those of you who haven’t read my Trevolution books yet, grab them. Read them. Realize how old they are, and cut me a break. I’ve learned a lot since then, as a writer, as an editor, and as a person. Life is, after all, a journey. Books are moments on that timeline, which is what makes them fun when you know the author well.

Yes, I’m working on new stuff. No, I don’t know when they’ll be out; hopefully soon. My accident knocked me off schedule (go figure!) and even after all this time, my stamina’s not quite back yet. So for now, enjoy the old stuff — I usually manage a couple hundred downloads every year, and I’m hoping this year won’t be any different. Why should it be? If you’ve read the books, help spread the word!

Finally, remember that the best way to say thanks for a free read is to write a review. Heck, the way to say thanks to an author for any book you read is to write a review. It can be as simple as “I liked this because…” or “I didn’t like…” — negative reviews are helpful and good things, believe it or not!

If you are struggling to write a review, do your best and drop me a line. For a whopping $5 — yes, five bucks! — I’ll help you master the art of the review and create something that helps make you, the reader, look good. (Remember that a couple years ago, I was working as a pro book reviewer, so you’re in good hands.)

So go. Download, read, and enjoy. And holler if you need help.

You know you’re up for this one!

(Okay, I’ve been scheduling posts for a couple weeks now, so I’ve got one or two up on you… but that doesn’t mean this challenge is insurmountable!)

I first became aware of the A to Z Challenge a couple of years ago. I kept vowing to team up with Jett and do it over at The Rock of Pages “next year,” and then 2016 was going to be our year. We were going to take the plunge.

And then I took a plunge of another kind.

So now that it’s 2017 and I’m picking up the pieces that got left behind in a pool of eye goop (charming, huh? I’ll fess up: there was no pool of eye goop. I’m taking an author’s liberties), and the A to Z Challenge is one of them. Only… I’m going to do it over here, not at The Rock of Pages. Jett is busy and I’d rather put the time in here. I’ve been absent for too long.

Here’s how the challenge works: You blog about something starting with a certain letter of the alphabet every day during April, usually taking Sundays off. Because of the way the calendar worked this year, there’s a Sunday or two that you have to blog on, but… that’s what the scheduling feature is for!

You can read the rest of the details over here, at the post announcing this year’s challenge.

This is a great way to widen your circle of networking contacts, make new friends, and push yourself to accomplish something new. Come join me during April. It’s going to be a lot of fun — and if not, hopefully thought-provoking.

I always tell people that when they see the Orange S on the Red Background, they know it’s me.

But sometimes, when I have given an interview or a quote and it appears on other sites, or it’s not proper to use, you can’t see the Orange S on the Red Background. And you may not know it’s me. Or you may not know to look.

I’ve got two such links for you today.

One’s from, of all places, Huggies.com — yes, the diaper people! (And yes, when my kids weren’t in cloth, they were in Huggies. Hard to believe, as I look at them now, but there it is.) The question of the day was “The Best Job in the World: Inspirational Quotes for Moms and Dads.” Click on through to see my words of inspiration.

The second one is more political, so if you’re dead set on the need to get rid of the ACA and don’t want to listen to reasons why it’s been good for people, don’t click through. This one’s on Rewire, and it talks about how the ACA has allowed me to be the amazing editor you guys know and love — and how it saved my hide during the saga of my eye. My medical totals have gone up since I gave this interview, and let how much money is involved boggle your mind. It sure boggles mine.

I’m at work on other spots to spread the gospel of Susan, such as it is. Know of anyone who’d like to host an editor? Send ’em my way.

And like always, get your manuscripts in my queue!

Back before I got hurt, I was running the Featured New Book Spotlight pretty consistently. For years. YEARS.

And then I went and fell off my bike and spent the past year recovering and pretty much let anything but medical needs and paid editing gigs fall by the wayside. Makes sense, no?

But although there’s at least one more surgery ahead, it’s supposedly an easy, in-office zap with a laser. Minimal recovery time, and I say that as someone who had to fight with herself to honor the recovery time on the cataract surgery.

Which means it’s time to pick up the pieces that have been sitting on the sidelines, waiting for me. And one of them is the Featured New Book Spotlight.

It’s easy. It’s simple!

If you think you have a book that my readers aren’t familiar with (and there’s a clue in there, if you’re quick enough to catch it), stop in. The directions are on their own page here, or I’ll list them right here, right now for you.

1. Answer this question: What song makes you think of your book?
(Remember: this is your chance to hook your potential reader, so you may want to explain.)

2. Provide the YouTube link to it, just in case I dig up the one you didn’t intend anyone to ever associate with your book.

3. Provide the book description.

4. Provide buy links.

5. Provide social media links that you’d like to share.

And that’s it! I run them in the order they show up in my inbox, unless you want a specific date. Then I charge a $5 fee, and let me tell you, when I’ve been busy, that fee is necessary. At my heyday of the Featured New Book Spotlight, I was scheduling pretty far out. You guys were clawing for dates.

Let’s get back to that. Because if you’re willing to be flexible, I’m willing to give you space here. For free. (Oh, and once your post is scheduled, it can’t be bumped, either.)

Drop me a line. Let’s feature you in the Spotlight.

People have started coming up to me, asking how things are since I haven’t updated about my eye in… eons.

There’a reason for that. Multiple reasons, actually.

First is that leading up to the third surgery, I was a total basket case. It was either going to be a perfect operation, the sort of thing you write textbooks about. A walk in the park.

Or.

It was going to be an absolute disaster that would turn into an emergency and would necessitate a fourth surgery the Monday after Christmas. We even had my original surgeon standing by, just in case.

The original surgeon actually walked me from pre-op to right outside the operating room the cataract guy used. The cataract guy was standing outside, waiting, when the original surgeon and I arrived.

I have never felt more cared for.

Now, it didn’t go totally smoothly. I was all wrapped up, the anesthesiologist had started to do her thing, the staff was great about telling me exactly what they were doing, I was having a great conversation with the surgeon and his chief resident (who was only introduced to me by his first name and as the surgeon’s assistant, and who I don’t recall ever actually seeing because he stood at my head) about the size of the cataract — it was bigger than they’d anticipated — and the microscope, which was really cool. I was kinda fascinated by it, to be honest.

It looked nothing like I’d expected.

It was WAY cooler. But not blue.

I don’t think.

And then… the staff forgot to tell me they were bringing something toward my face, I had a flashback to a certain pink-taped handlebar and… next thing I remember was being wheeled out of the ER and into recovery and the surgeon walking out behind me and giving a whoop, a fist pump, and yelling, “That went GREAT!”

Thank you, Tony the Tiger.

But he was right. The filaments in my eye, which we’d been so worried had been wrecked by the impact, had survived, entirely intact. The entire cataract surgery had taken five minutes.

Five.

Five minutes.

And then the surgeon and his chief resident spent ten minutes cleaning up some of the inside of my eye. They weren’t entirely successful, since they didn’t want to risk ripping anything, which would have sent the whole thing south, so they proved my original surgeon’s maxim: Everyone talks about how good a surgeon’s hands are, but they forget that what makes a truly brilliant surgeon is the exercise of good judgement and knowing when to stop.

Christmas Eve morning, I woke up and… I could see better than I had in almost a year.

Now, things still aren’t perfect. They need to finish cleaning up that spot on my eye, and they’ll need to use another laser to do it. I’m already fascinated by how this works.

And… it seems my close vision is what it is. Any correction we’ve tried with it has only made it worse. So I’m pretty much going through life now with a left contact lens and a bionic, Frankenstein right eye. I have a pair of glasses that make my distance vision crystal clear, but… at the sacrifice of my close-up vision. And they make my face feel funny, too, which is a really weird sensation. It’s like it’s melting.

Does this mean I’m disabled? My original surgeon says he doesn’t believe you’re ever disabled. He also doesn’t believe in concussions, but when I went to the concussion doc at the end of January, he used my own metrics to be pretty convincing: when I first saw him in August, my memory was in the 16th percentile. On January 31, it was in the 93rd.

But I can work. And I have been, pretty steadily, although of course I’ve got room in my roster for more. I’m starting to rebuild what I lost over the past year, bringing in new subcontractors so that we as a collective can turn out more of the quality work you’ve all come to associate with the West of Mars name. A bigger and better editing service is at your command.

Yet the question remains about how much I can see. And the answer is that it’s hard to answer. Yes, I can easily work. No, I can’t thread a needle, but that’s okay because I am less than domestic to begin with. I have trouble finding new places in the dark, even with a GPS or nav system–but I can read street signs. But I can see a Frisbee fly. And I can see the road in front of my bike. Can’t shop at my local Trader Joe’s, and florescent lighting is my worst enemy.

I may look into getting a funky pair of glasses that I can slip on without having to take out my contact, something so that I have that crystal clear(ish) vision when I go to the movies, to the theater, maybe to watch my beloved Thunderbirds. I’m not sure yet. I want that fourth surgery, with the laser, before I make any decisions.

But I’m here. And I can see you. Best of all, as I’ve been able to do all along, I can see my clients’ manuscripts.

So to those clients who stayed with me, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

And for those who didn’t stay by me over the past year… well, I hope you find someone as good as the editor you walked away from.

(A little reminder never hurts)

So. There’s a call for authors of time travel, paranormal, and ghost stories over at Wise Words Book Bloggers (aka, Louise Wise’s blog).

I’m still seeing a fair number of these subjects cross my desk, so if you’ve written one, here’s some free promo for you! Free is always good, especially if you’ve gotten active and donated your promo budget to worthwhile causes of late.

And if you’re a READER, a lover of ghost, paranormal, or time traveller stories, what are you waiting for? Add Wise Words to your feed reader, to your e-mail, however you like to read your favorite blogs, and find yourself some good new reads!

Don’t forget… reviews help authors more than words can say (pun intended). If you need help with a review, holler! I’ll fix you up, although, sadly, not for free. I do have a mortgage to pay!

And, of course, there’s free promo for you here at West of Mars. The Featured New Book Spotlight (and remember: it only has to be new to my readers) and Lines of Distinction.

Advocacy and #Resist is important. But so is taking time for self-care and escapism. Do it through a book!

Thanks to Ramona DeFelice Long for the amazing graphic.

And for you authors out there, remember that now that I’m healthy(ish) again, the Featured New Book Spotlight and Lines of Distinction are yours. Use them. They’re free, they’re simple, they’re easy.

Don’t merely spread the word about your book. Remind the world why reading matters.

SOMETHING MORE (The Three Graces Book Three) by Nia Farrell. Rachel Givens is supposed to be dead. She has post-rape PTSD and a three-year-old autistic daughter, father unknown. When her former lovers walk into the diner where she works, this single mother learns just how much more she can handle. Nominated for Best BDSM Book of the Year, Ménage Category, 2016 Golden Flogger Awards.

Buy links to SOMETHING MORE (a BSDM MFM ménage secret baby erotic romance):
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Allromance
Smashwords
Dark Hollows Press

Here’s a writing prompt for you!

It came to me the other morning, as I sat up to put my eyedrops in. (Sigh. Eyedrops.) I must have woken up in a super-creative mood because my thoughts were all over the place, but this one was worth passing along as a writing prompt.

Ready?

It’s the first night your character has spent with his/her lover. Up to now, one or the other has always crawled out of bed and toward their own home, but the relationship has changed. Deepened. The all-night commitment is happening.

Your character wakes in the morning, to be told by his/her lover that s/he snores. Loudly. Like… I got no sleep because of you!

How does your character react to this? What do they say? Do? Does it change the relationship between the two? If so, for better or for worse?

And… go!

Leave anything in the comments, or email me a Word file if you’d like direct and private feedback. Not sure you got what you wanted on the page? Send it along and your favorite editor here will take a look and share her thoughts. Because, you know, I have thoughts. Lots of them.

And we’re back! Thanks as always to the amazing and wonderful Magnolia Belle for creating really cool graphics for us. If you don’t know Belle, I suggest getting to know her. Pick up a copy of Lady Gwendolyn, why don’t you?

But we’re not here to talk much more about Belle, unfortunately. (But once she puts out a new book…)

Today’s brave soul is Michael C Bayer, and I might or might not have read an earlier draft of this one. And I am definitely dying to see how it turned out in the end!

Michael put The Absconded out back in November, and now that the holidays are over and we need some distraction, he’s decided to see how many West of Mars Fans he can entice to read his book. I know you guys won’t let him down…

Ready?

Here goes…

Michael, what song makes you think of your book?

That was a tough one, since I listened to a lot of music while writing The Absconded. But once I turned everything off and started thumbing through a couple of chapters, I realized that the song I listened to the most while writing it was Take Flight by Lindsey Sterling. Give it (and the rest of her songs) a listen. There’s an ebb and flow, highs, lows and struggles in the song that match the plights of three of my main characters – Kaliria, K’Pol and Scott. To varying degrees, each one finds themselves thrown off a cliff. They can either plummet or take flight (natch!), and some do it better than others. That, and when creating my characters, I always have a style of music in mind for each one. For one of the aliens, whenever she listens to music (from her world, not ours), to me it was always Lindsey Sterling. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which character enjoys her music. Lastly, since this is my first novel, I was taking flight myself. There you have it! If you take a chance on my novel, please feel free to leave feedback.

You guys know I’m all about leaving reviews… they are important things!

This is also the spot in which I confess that I’m a Lindsey Sterling fan. Not all of her stuff, but an awful lot of it. And her single with Lzzy Hale of Halestorm? One of those songs I just cannot ever get enough of. So I concur: she is an incredible artist to be inspired by.

So. What’s the book actually about? Here’s the back cover copy:

Unfortunately for Scott, aliens exist. Snatched from Earth, he finds himself added to their collection of creatures gathered from throughout the universe. His cage is a window to the wondrous varieties of life, and the atrocities that can be inflicted upon it. Atrocities that are clues of what awaits him.

Nearby is Kaliria, a furred being that’s equal parts wild and wily. A long, torturous captivity has filled her with a righteous rage. She spends her days alone, simmering in her cramped confinement, pining for the fields and forests of her world. Pining for companionship.

While happenstance makes Kaliria and Scott neighbors, it’s desperation that makes them allies. In order to survive, they must overcome each other’s language, culture and mistrust, all while keeping their interactions hidden from their captors. And if they succeed, there’s still one more obstacle to surmount — escaping an alien ship traveling through space.

Get your copy — but only if you’re a Kindle reader! (aargh, I know!)

Personal links!

My self-publishing imprint. It’s run by a very energetic corn snake.

My Amazon author page

My Facebook page is still a work in progress

Just a reminder: The Featured New Book Spotlight runs on Mondays, when I have submissions. So send them in! Send your friends over here, too. It’s free (unless you want to reserve a date) and it’s easy and it’s fun. What more can you ask for?

And another reminder: If you want to post a review but are squeamish about any typos or if you need help, I’m always glad to tip my editor’s pen in your direction, and for a super cheap amount, too. Reviews are important for authors, and there’s no need to feel insecure about yours. Not on my watch. Drop me a line and I’ll be glad to help you out.

This showed up in my inbox, and I thought I’d pass it along.

Here’s the thing: I love Madhu Wangu. If you haven’t read her fiction yet, what are you waiting for? I totally love her works, and I suspect if you like smart, woman-first fiction, you will, too.

But Madhu doesn’t just write. Oh, no! She’s way more versatile than that. She leads a local writer’s group at a restaurant near me. Why don’t I go, you ask? I wish I could! But it’s a many-hours-long enterprise and my clients, all of whom I love dearly, keep me busy enough that I can’t go routinely, and the meditation work is the sort of stuff that you need to do consistently in order to make progress. Plus, not being there consistently would lead to disruptions when I do put in an appearance, and who wants that? While the attention is nice, it’s the wrong time for the spotlight to be on me.

I wish I could go because I believe strongly in Madhu’s meditation guidance. Her practitioners say it makes them better writers, and they are certainly all — well, the ones I know — lovely people with amazing things to say. They have learned to find the stillness they need for their fiction in walks in the woods, in walks down city streets, at home at their desks… wherever they need to. And like most people with important things to say, Madhu wants to reach more writers — or even people looking to enhance their focus, their creativity, their… anything! — by producing a new CD with material that can be downloaded and accessed whenever you like. Perfect for people like me, who can’t be there in person.

Things like professional recordings cost money, though, so Madhu’s put up a Go Fund Me page. I know… there are a million Go Fund Me accounts, and all of them are for good causes, so why is this one different?

Because it benefits YOU. Need some help to stop screaming like a harpy at your kids? Trying to find the inner strength to do something new and difficult? This would work! And Madhu’s voice — I say this because I’ve met her in person — is hypnotic in the good, soothing way. I’d listen to her before some random YouTube person leading a meditation. Maybe that’s because I’ve met her and know how warm and caring she is.

Can you tell I’m a fan girl? Total and utterly.

Please. Take a new direction for your writing and/or your life. Even five bucks will help, and best of all, that’ll leave you money to get the CD when the recording is done and polished and ready to be listened to and absorbed. This is one of those Go Fund Me campaigns that will give directly back to you.

As Madhu says at the end of her Go Fund Me Page, “Thank you so much for helping me bring these meditations to the people who want focus, inner-depth, productivity and connectedness into their creative life.”

(and before you ask, nope, Madhu hasn’t paid me off to be her ad campaign. I’m doing this because I adore her and want good things for a really good person. Who can argue with that?)

Got a book you’re promoting? Looking for somewhere to do it?

Not only do I offer two options — and they’re free (unless you want to reserve your date) — but my buddy Susan Leigh Noble is booking for her 2017 spots.

Go on over. Check out what Susan’s doing. Drop her a line (yes, in that order!)

And, of course, send me your graphic teasers or your answer to the one-question interview. I miss hearing what you guys have to say, so look for more of these to pop up in 2017.

I’ve been chewing on this one, but hey, let’s go for it, shall we?

Here’s the deal. All Romance eBooks closed shop abruptly at the end of the year. I’ll let you Google and read the story behind it, but for many authors and readers, it wasn’t a good situation.

But some authors were able to get the rights to their books back. Some would like to revise them, have a new edit done, and put them up for sale on the indie market.

If you’re one, or you know of one, send them my way. I’m offering a discount to anyone who wants to reissue their books. If you’re nice but your books weren’t for sale through All Romance, maybe I’ll extend it to you, too. Probably. But you gotta be nice!

Good editing is expensive. That’s because editors like me are worth the money (and keep in mind that a lot of my friends yell at me for not charging enough!). So now I’m offering to work for you, and to help you save some money, too.

Tell your friends. Spread the word.

A long time ago, in what feels like a second lifetime, I wrote a bunch of short stories. Like, a ton. And I saved them on my hard drive.

Last summer, after I had to unpublish Mannequin, the girl rehomed that little short story of mine onto Wattpad. And then she took a stroll through my hard drive and my archives. She handed me a bunch of stories to edit and polish up, chose a few to publish immediately, and then… got involved in her own Wattpad activities. (No, you can’t have her names.)

Yesterday, she decided it was time to take one of the stories and get it up on Wattpad. And so New Management is now alive for your reading pleasure.

It’s a story of the Trevolution, and you long-time fans will recognize the characters. Maybe even the situation, although if you need a prompt, here are the two stories this builds on: Twirling and Game On. Neither are in a Demo Tapes collection yet… they’d be in #5, which if you’d like, you should speak up!

So here it is. New Management.

This one’s been largely ignored, and I’m glad of it. It’s not worth the brouhaha over it. Leave the fuss over word choice to us editors and the rest of you educate yourself on what your attention is trying to be diverted from, okay?

But before you go read (and it’s a fascinating article, beautifully written, and well worth your time), let’s talk about a couple of words. PERSON. MAN.

Used in fiction as a broad brushstroke, there’s nothing wrong with these words. They serve very specific purposes. Calling someone a person is, IN FICTION, a way to almost dehumanize or diminish them. Like they are not worth the time or energy to determine if they are a man or a woman. They’re probably going to flit across the page, never to be seen again.

Or maybe the intent is to create something ambiguous. To help create an air of mystery. There’s a person in that shadow. If it’s a man, maybe he’s the bad guy. If it’s a woman, maybe she’s a victim. Or maybe he’s a cowering sort of man, his collar flipped up so he can bury his chin in it and try to hide his fear. Maybe the woman is a kick-ass heroine.

But we don’t know. We don’t know anything, other than there’s a presence.

And maybe we’re even wrong. Maybe it’s not a person. Maybe it’s Bigfoot, an alien, a vampire, a robot.

And think about calling someone a man. There’s an immediate mental image there: chest hair, developed pecs, probably short hair on his head, a square jaw, broad hands, deep voice, muscles… I don’t need to tell you guys all the things that people in general conjure up when the word MAN comes into play. (And yes, I’ve quite probably been reading too many romances again, so send me some manuscripts that AREN’T romance for a bit, okay? Although if you’ve got a romance, clearly, I’m primed and ready, so send me that, too.)

So. Broad brushstrokes. They are helpful things. They cue the reader to subtexts and mental images. And even if those broad brushstrokes are then proven wrong later on — the person was, indeed, Bigfoot (hey, I’d like to read that one, so get busy!), or the man had a soft body, a flabby belly, a bad combover of four really long dark strands across an otherwise bald head — we at least have a place to begin from.

In fiction, those beginning places are necessary.

But in real life?

Well… hard to say. Oh, there are still suppositions that can be drawn with each term. And that’s where the political correctness comes in.

Because, let’s face it: phrases like “Man up” and “Throw/run/jump like a girl” and all the rest carry an awful lot of baggage. Negative baggage. And we’re in an era where many are struggling to erase that negativity. Where “throw like a girl” can be a compliment.* Where maybe “Be a man” means acting in ways that go contrary to a person’s (ha) nature.

We can argue the merit of eradicating these phrases until the sun comes up three days from now and we all drop over from exhaustion. I’m not interested in arguing. I’m interested in how we use words and what they say about us, about our view of each other, about the pictures we paint when we speak.

In the case of Man versus Person I’m actually referring to, and the article that accompanies it, there really isn’t a difference. The person chosen wasn’t chosen because of gender. The choice was made because of newsworthiness. Man or woman. Hell, one year, it was the entire planet.

I would argue here that gender truly doesn’t matter. You’re the person of the year — which is possibly better than being planet of the year. Doesn’t matter if you’re man enough, or if you throw like a girl. What matters is that the world was talking about you.

Like always, stop and think about your words. About the words of others. Is the argument justified? Does being a man mean a guy can’t cry? Does being girly really mean dolls and pink and lace?

Is the Man of the Year any sort of improvement over Person of the Year?

I don’t think so. In fact, I think that insisting we all use the gender-based language instead of the more generic term does exactly the opposite — it implies that there’s competition out there. You’re the Man of the Year. So bring on the Woman of the Year. The Athlete of the Year. The Rocket Scientist of the Year. Entertainer of the Year. Politician of the Year. Businessman of the Year. BusinessWOMAN of the year.

Move over, baby, because these categories can go on forever. And maybe, just maybe, one of them might be better than you.

(Forgive me if I lobby hard for my own choice of Doctor of the Year. I bet you long-time readers will know who I’d choose time and again to bestow that one on.)

Men versus person. I’ll let you decide.

*Old picture picked pretty randomly, awesome shot