Since I got a message from GoodNovel on one of my Wattpad stories, I thought I would share this with everyone, just in case fanfic writers also get such a message and eagerly apply.

Whenever I get email, DMs, etc. from people who want to publish my stories, I do a deep-dive into them before replying. Writer Beware is an excellent source for finding out what your legal rights are with these groups and if they have loopholes to screw you out of money, or even out of your entire writing future!

In this case, GoodNovel will indeed pay you $150 for a "monthly attendance bonus"... if you sign their exclusive contract and write 50,000 words per month.

Anyone who has attempted Nanowrimo knows just how much of a challenge 50k a month is. To ONLY make $150 for 30 days of nonstop hard work... in my option, that's insane. If you're not making a MINIMUM of a penny a word, you're being cheated. (3 cents a word is the norm I've seen as the LOW end.)

The grant term extends "for the duration of Singapore copyright." Like the USA and most European countries, this means the author's lifetime plus 70 years. That means they own your copyright until you die, plus 70 years. It's unlikely that such a company will exist for 70 years after you die, but it still owns the copyright for as long as it remains in business.

If you want to break your contract, which is common, you first have to wait 36 months, and then according to the research by Writer Beware, "the writer must buy their freedom by paying back all the money they’ve received to date, plus either triple royalties (if total income is less than $200) or royalties times 20 (if total income is more than $200)."

I cannot emphasize how crazy that is. If you managed to make $1,000 in royalties and now a big firm wants to publish your book and turn it into a movie, you owe GoodNovel that $1000 back, plus another $20,000 to break free from their grip.

What is most terrifying to me as a published novelist in the process of writing a multi-book story is this part of the contract:

Writer Beware points out, "Taken literally, which contracts generally are, this requires the writer to submit anything they ever write to GoodNovel, forever."

If that's true, every other book I ever publish, even the 3rd novel I'm currently working on for the Ashby Chronicles, would have to be first submitted to them, although I'm already in the midst of publishing this series elsewhere.

That would be a nightmare!

I could also get into the issue of royalties, but that clause alone is enough to make me run away and never look back.

My point is this:

If you are a young writer, eager to make a living doing what you love, and you get a publishing offer, do your homework. Check Writer Beware, check Reddit writing forums, research into this group. Writers are good at writing about their experiences, so it isn't hard to find out if a publishing firm is legit or predatory.

I am not saying GoodNovel is predatory. Maybe it works for some casual writers who simply can't get published elsewhere.

I'm saying, for a writer like me with books on shelves and many more in progress, this is an offer I would need to refuse.

Thank you, next.

The new chapter of "Dangerous Territory" has been published.

It took forever to write this. I posted a video on YouTube explaining the lengthy delay. Very long and rambling story short: I was prepping what I thought was my Final Draft and went, "Hey, let's make a whole new draft and redo EEEEEVERYTHING!"

You can read it on AO3 in the link above.

Fanfiction.net

And on Wattpad.

Thanks for your patience.

And I will warn you... it gets emotionally intense. (I mean, when DOESN'T it in this story!)

Hmm... someone on Wattpad is going through and reporting my fanfics, different fandoms at that. One is for Dengeki Daisy, the other is a Fraxus fix for Fairy Tail.

Getting two from different fandoms in a single day is bizarre -- and a little concerning, considering the trouble I had over on AO3 with a racist troll attacking my fic. I can't even appeal these because, technically speaking, anything Rated MA (explicit content) does violate Wattpad guidelines.

This is yet another reason why I prefer AO3. They are fine with Explicit content.

These were minor fics, but still... it's annoying. The only reason I began to post on Wattpad is because people were stealing my fics, and every week I had to report more and more thieves. Now Wattpad just deletes my fics.

I can't win.

I started the camera thinking, "I'll quickly explain why the next chapter is delayed."

This is me, trying to explain anything in my life.

10 minutes of content, 20 minutes of rambling, tangents about my life, getting distracted, getting frustrated, breaking into giggles, getting WAY too excited about what I'm researching, and possibly a few spoilers.

(Don't worry, I edited out the major spoilers... and yes, I originally dropped a few big ones, stopped myself, and went "Crap, edit THAT out!")

I'm also sick right now, so forgive how I look.

How people think all American stores look like.

Not all, just the fun stores.

Me: "Ugh... Trump is selling Bibles to cover his legal bills? Is it just a special cover or does he sign it? Either way, that's... tacky? Worse. I'm not sure on the word. Sacrilegious?"

My conservative-never-Trumper Hubby: "Sacrilegious is if he changed the wording to make sexual assault okay so he wouldn't be guilty anymore. Tacky plus-plus? It's egotistical, that's for sure. Pander to the base."

Me: "There are people out there who would buy them. If he signs them, at least that's worth something, but still, signing the Bible... just selling Bibles to cover monetary compensation after sexual assault... There's probably an Italian or German word for this. Tacky plus egotistical..."

Hubby: "Tackytistical?"

Me: "That sounds like a medical condition."

Hubby (in commercial announcer voice): "Has being Tackytistical affected your love life? Please see your doctor."

Me: "Together, we can fight Tackytisticalitis and find a cure."

Hubby (grumbling): "Dump Trump, that's the cure."

And people think my hubby is just a stern, stoic guy. He's quite funny when he's around people he trusts.

Solving Homelessness Without the Government Getting Involved

There are 582,000 homeless people in America.

There are 344,894 religious congregations in America. (314,000 Protestant and Nondenominational, 24,000 Catholic and Orthodox, 12,000 non-Christian religions).

If every religious building in America opened its doors and took in just ONE homeless person per 100 seats, we would not have homelessness. Small churches under 100 seats could even be exempt. (And if you see that a church that has a max capacity of 99 seats, you know they are assholes.)

If a church holds 120 max capacity, like my childhood church did, then you take in just one person. If a megachurch holds 16,000 seats (ahem... Lakewood Church) you have to house 160 homeless people and care for their very basic survival needs: food, water, shelter, clothing, and warmth. (Air is a given because we live on planet Earth, so I'm not counting that.)

Give them a cot to sleep on in one of the back rooms. Provide them with a hot meal and access to the church restroom to pee and wash up. Church members could even give them hand-me-down clothes. (It's how I got 99% of the outfits I wore as a child.)

A few rules, though:

No forced conversions. No ultimatums. No limitations based on gender, race, religion, orientation, or ability (unless your church honestly is not wheelchair accessible, which I'm pretty sure is mandatory in most states these days).

If your religion believes it's a sin to be gay or Black or not circumcised or an unmarried mother, and you REALLY want to discriminate against them, then your church pays taxes. Because your church insists on discriminating, the government now has step in and find a non-hateful church to house that individual.

Your tax dollars go to help the person you refuse to help.

And let's make it a "sin tax." You know, a VERY HIGH tax for going against social morality customs. (I'm talking "buying alcohol in Washington State" level of taxation!)

Franciscan friars both in medieval times and today view helping the homeless as a sign of Christian charity. Yet today, we are seeing "medieval diseases" surging as unsanitary living conditions in homeless camps led to illnesses that belong in 1300s Europe, not 21st century Los Angeles or Houston.

Let's revive the concept of CHARITY again.

If every church in America did that, there would be no homelessness.

Instead, we have nearly 600,000 without shelter, and over 300,000 churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. that stay empty at night, locked, barred, with security alarms or armed guards patrolling the grounds.

Only 2% of churches open their doors to the homeless and those without heating during sub-freezing weather. Some churches require extreme social media pressure to open its doors to those in need during a natural disaster. (AHEM... LAKEWOOD CHURCH!!!)

Because in America, most religions are a joke.

No... not a joke... a business. A tax-exempt multi-billion dollar business.

Churches could end homelessness.

They choose not to.

Internment Camp vs Concentration Camp

This whole discussion started with me typing "concentration camp" into Wikipedia and being irked that it redirected me to the entry on Internment.

I was taught that internment camps and concentration camps were NOT the same thing, but I honestly was not sure what the difference was. Some places, like Wikipedia apparently, believe they are the same thing.

I decided to look into this and came across a fascinating Huffington Post article on WHY internment camp and concentration camp should never be used interchangeably, and why many Americans are twisting the English language to perpetuate a racist political spin that began in the 1940s.

First, let's find our baseline.

WHAT IS A CONCENTRATION CAMP?

According to the Britannica, concentration camps are centers for:

"political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order."

While some dictionaries include that concentration camps are "kept in extremely bad conditions," exactly how nice or how horrible conditions are is never taken into consideration. Although it should be noted that extermination camps are not considered to be concentration camps, as their goal is not to detain many people, but to kill many people. A 98-year-old Jew who escaped to America once told me, "It's like comparing a cow shed to a slaughter house."

A facility may hold more than it was designed for, those imprisoned may be sleeping in terrible conditions, and medical attention may be denied. While some involve forced labor that was not always the case, even with the Nazis. (There were labor camps, concentration camps, and extermination camps. Auschwitz-Birkenau had all three.)

Also, a nation does not have to be at war to create concentration camps. After all, the Nazis were never at war with a Jewish nation. (None existed at the time.) While Hitler may have seen his campaign against Jews as a holy war, that's not the same.

So there we go. Our baseline.

WHAT IS INTERNMENT?

Dangerous Territory: Brief Halt

I've gotten messages from people worried about Dangerous Territory since I posted one chapter after my "Grand Return" and then went silent. I'm fine, don't worry.

Here's the issue:

I changed ONE LITTLE THING, and it led to a complete meltdown of the next 12 chapters.

Okay, it wasn't a little thing... it was pretty massive: "Just how traumatized is Eren?"

Change that, and you change everything.

I knew this would have repercussions through half of Book Four, but I realized it was the right choice. If Levi was the one struggling, it's just a repeat of Book Two; however, if it's Eren who keeps pulling away, now Levi has to be the one to reach out, and he's not good at doing that.

I have to go back and storyboard from the beginning. I'm practically dissecting sentence by sentence.

That column to the left contains my individual scenes for Dangerous Territory: Ardennes, Chapter 2: "Guilt Pain." (That won't be the title in the final draft; it's just a description.)

A normal chapter may have 3-6 scenes. As you can see, I had to split this chapter into 23 parts.

(spoilers below the cut)