IWSG—A defamatory review and a swamped writing schedule

Welcome back to the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. The IWSG convenes the first Wednesday of every month to commiserate over worries, fears, doubts, and struggles.

Last month, I became aware of a downright nasty, defamatory, off-topic 1-star review of my alternative history And Aleksey Lived on Goodreads. My issues with this review aren’t so much about it being 1-star as they are with her personally attacking me and every single choice I made to give the story original angles and dramatic tension.

While I was going through old photos on my phone, I came across an Instagram screenshot which really tingled my Spidey sense. I’d bet money on that girl being the one who wrote the novella-length vitriolic rant with no paragraph breaks. When I encountered her a few years ago, her nastiness and anger towards someone with a different theory of what might’ve been really unnerved me.

It’s really creepy, disturbing, and chutzpahdik for a total stranger I only had the briefest of interactions with on Instagram to speak for my motivations and beliefs. Shockingly, Goodreads doesn’t think calling someone an evil, shameless murder apologist who believes murder is okay as long as you’re a leftist is against their TOS. All they did was remove the word “evil” and reword that sentence.

She accused me of that because six real-life Bolsheviks, Lenin included, are genuinely reformed during their eleven years in prison, pardoned, and given high-ranking positions in Aleksey’s government. Has this child never heard of people toning down their radical politics over time and changing for the better in prison, let alone forgiveness?

She thinks the seven-year age difference between Aleksey and Arkadiya is creepy, gross, and would be condemned by “everyone,” and that no 25-year-old man would want a 32-year-old woman who’s “almost past her expiration date” and therefore automatically not as attractive as a 20-year-old. That makes me think she’s either very young and sheltered, or has sadly bought into the ugly double standard.

It’s particularly creepy how she’s convinced Arkadiya is a self-insert and too perfect. That’s sure news to me! She has the perfect characteristics for her role as Empress and Aleksey’s wife, but she’s never intended as perfect altogether.

It’s too bad if this troll doesn’t buy my explanation of why I created this match and felt it would’ve been too cliché and expected to match Aleksey with Princess Ileana of Romania. My story, my rules.

This comparison never occurred to me until just recently, but Arkadiya does seem to have parallels with Princess Diana. Though Diana had a much more privileged upbringing than Arkadiya (to say nothing of the much less happy marriage!), they were both born into non-royal families, unexpectedly landed the role of a lifetime, and endeared themselves to their subjects as a long-overdue breath of fresh air who cared about the common people on a really deep level.

And what about all the modern royals who marry not just morganatic spouses, but people with zero connection to any royal, princely, or even aristocratic families? Does this troll condemn them all too?

I’m thinking of writing an author review (obviously without a star rating) to explain some of the story behind the story and correct all these insulting accusations.

It seems safe to say at this point that I’ll miss the deadline for the free IngramSpark title setup for winning NaNo 2022, but I’d rather take my time finishing the rewrite of the book formerly known as The Very Last than rush through and submit a file that has to spend months in further editing and proofing. I did start the title setup, though.

I could insert a bunch of blank pages and submit that, but the cover file would need redone to reflect a different spine size if the file were more than eight pages above or below the original number.

I lost some time writing posts for both of my blogs, plus all the research I’ve done for the chapters in what’s now Part II. It made more sense to split the chapters about Long Island, Coney Island, the World’s Fair, and NYC into their own section, and for the first two NYC chapters to be further split by each day’s activities. The original Part II is now Part III.

Since I’m so superstitious about numbers, I had to add in two new chapters for an even total of 60, and made the original final chapter into an epilogue. As per my initial intentions, I’m able to write chapters about Orthodox Pentecost and Cinni and Sparky sitting in on a day at a progressive school in Wilmington after all.

And I still have to write my A to Z posts for both of my blogs!

I got a bizarre, defamatory 1-star review!

I’ve only had a handful of reviews for my dozen books published to date (since I’m terrible at marketing and self-promotion), so imagine my shock to see a 1-star review of And Aleksey Lived at Goodreads recently. This reviewer didn’t just fail to click with my story, she went on a long, rambling, vitriolic rant full of personal attacks, including several updates she made while reading. She assigned all these bizarre motivations to me, and even called me a shameless murder apologist.

I totally understand that not everyone will like all of our characters or books. Some people in my writing groups have really been rubbed the wrong way by feisty Cinnimin, but everyone else who’s ever met her over the years has loved her and thought she’s an awesome character.

But there’s a huge difference between not being a book’s target audience and going on a rant that’s thousands of words long, where you constantly speak for the author’s beliefs and motivations.

This person has only reviewed a few books at Goodreads, and they’re all Romanov books, which she also hates. God forbid anyone imagine a radically different alternative historical scenario than they would! If it angers them so much, they should write their own books.

Mine is the third book she’s read that matches Aleksey with an older woman, which just makes her apoplectic. Is it that unthinkable that a grown man would fall in love with an older woman? I had absolutely zero political or feminist motivations for making Arkadiya seven years older and morganatic. I explicitly explained my reasons in “The Story Behind the Story.”

This person didn’t understand why I couldn’t marry him to an equally-ranked princess close to his own age, like Princess Astrid of Sweden. If you love that match so much, you can write a story where it happens! Writers have the right to choose the direction they take their own stories in, you know.

I wanted one major fictional character instead of only working with real-life people. Absolutely bizarre how this reviewer thinks Arkadiya is unrealistically perfect and a self-insert, and that Aleksey only changes his mind about avoiding marriage because of “magic vagina.” Since when?!

She takes issue with how Aleksey doesn’t like his sisters and grandmother still calling him Sunbeam and Baby even into adulthood. He never lashes out at them in rage when he asks not to be called by his baby nicknames! It’s hardly unusual for people to reject a childish nickname as they get older.

And since when are Aleksey and his sisters ever disrespectful of their late parents? They say multiple times that they’ll always love and miss their parents, despite coming to realize what a mess they made of the Russian Empire and how it wasn’t healthy to be kept so cloistered and babied their entire lives.

I also stand by my decision to keep Nicholas and Aleksandra murdered. That was what the story needed.

She hates my dialogue and character development, and thinks relevant dialogue about Aleksey’s past is too much telling. Odd how everyone who read excerpts on my blog over all the years I wrote this book, and the people in my writing group back in Albany, had the exact opposite reaction. I’m not some 12-year-old writing fanfiction!

I’ve always been extremely honest about how emotionally difficult it was to write this book when I couldn’t stop thinking about how Aleksey and his sisters were murdered in real life, never had these happy endings. That necessarily gave some of it a more distant POV, and my old-fashioned writing style was more pronounced.

She thinks it’s inexcusable how Aleksey “lets” his uncle and Regent Grand Duke Mikhail continue his pogroms and martial law resulting in thousands upon thousands of deaths and untold suffering, instead of taking power and ending it all. BUT…

The core conflict of Part II is Aleksey feeling insecure about his inexperience, and wanting to learn these skills by studying at the Sorbonne, living independently in Paris, and having an apprenticeship with Mikhail when he returns home. Without that, there’s no compelling storyline!

Of course Aleksey’s sisters don’t rush to hug him when he’s confessing his irrational grudge against them for not comforting him when they were in front of the firing squad. He’s lying in bed with a serious injury and can’t exactly move around at ease!

And speaking of the firing squad and captivity, that changed the five of them forever. They couldn’t just go back to their old lives as though nothing happened. Since Aleksey was only thirteen, his brain was much more malleable and open to a radically different way of doing things.

I also CHOSE not to feature Aleksey’s sisters very heavily once they’re married because the story isn’t about them, and they’re already so overrepresented in Romanov fiction.

She thinks I’m an evil, shameless murder apologist who believes murder is okay as long as you’re a leftist. When the HELL did I ever even remotely imply such a vile thing! Just because some of the leading Bolsheviks are genuinely rehabilitated in prison, pardoned, and given high-ranking positions in Aleksey’s new government? Redemption is a thing, you know!

Stalin is never released, since he’s mentally unwell and too much of a security risk.

There would have been NO interesting story if Nicholas and Aleksandra had been rescued as well and Aleksey had continued with the 18th century arch-conservative policies and rigid House Laws that caused so much trouble before.

The entire book is also leading up to Part IV, when Aleksey saves nine million Jews from the Nazis in the greatest act of his life. It would just be a generic WWII story otherwise.

My story, my rules! 

A Sad Anniversary

Because 17 and 18 July are the 104th anniversary of the murder of Russia’s last Imperial Family, I’m sharing Chapter 15, “A Sad Anniversary,” of my alternative history And Aleksey Lived. It closes Part I, “The Boy Tsar.”

A gallery of pictures follows the chapter.

In the middle of the night on 17 July, Aleksey awoke with a sharp, bitter feeling crushing his entire being. When he turned on the bedside lamp and looked at the little clock Mikhail had gotten him for his name-day in October, he saw it was a bit after one in the morning, about the same time he’d been awoken exactly a year ago today. A year ago, he’d still had parents, a complete family, somewhat more of a sense of innocence. The shattered innocence of captivity was preferable to the completely destroyed innocence which had descended in the cellar. Now he had no choice but to forever live with the images of his parents being murdered in front of him, and being shot at himself.

He threw off the covers and stood up, almost forgetting there were calipers encasing his legs. After taking a few minutes to adjust to the darkness, so he wouldn’t trip or bang into anything, he carefully walked around the room and turned on every light. He also lit a few candles, though they were only supposed to be used for emergencies or religious purposes. Even after the entire room had become flooded with light, the nightmarish images wouldn’t be chased away as easily as the light had chased away the darkness. He still saw his father picking him up and carrying him out of their bedroom, out of the house, through the courtyard, down the stairs, and into the cellar, with his mother and sisters following behind, along with their servants. Even his sisters’ two dogs had come into the cellar. Only Joy had been spared that cataclysm, though had Aleksey been able to walk, he would’ve brought his dog there too.

Aleksey clomped over to the easel and uncapped a container of black paint, not caring which particular type of paint it were. Paint was paint, even if his new art tutor was trying to teach him the differences between each medium. He then found the largest brush in the tin can stuffed full of brushes, plunged it into the paint, and frantically moved it around the canvas. After filling about half the canvas with black swirls and streaks, he opened a canister of dark grey paint, found a new brush, and added that slightly different color to the painting. A little bit of space was still left, so he found the darkest red possible and maniacally jabbed the brush into the white spaces. As he shoved the dripping brush all along the bottom of the canvas, his throat tightened and he began hyperventilating.

Hoping to open the windows for fresh air, he went to stand up, but was paralyzed in place. He could feel his legs, but couldn’t compel them to move. His hands shook as he rolled up his pajama pant legs and fumbled for the buckles on the right caliper. This wasn’t successful either, as his fingers were shaking too badly to perform any fine motor operation.

“What’s happening in here?” Mikhail asked. “Why are there so many lights on in the middle of the night? I heard odd noises and went to investigate, thinking there might be a rodent.”

Aleksey opened his mouth to respond, but his throat was too dry to speak, and his tongue was just as paralyzed as his legs. He struggled to raise his arm and point at the calendar.

Mikhail’s eyes softened. “It’s been a year since you lost your parents, hasn’t it?”

Aleksey could only nod.

“What are you painting? That’s a lot darker and more abstract than anything I’ve ever seen you draw.” Mikhail looked down and saw his nephew’s rolled-up pant legs. “Were you trying to remove your calipers? You’ve made too much progress to suddenly reverse it all now.”

“It’s the cellar.” He barely managed to utter these words. “If I put it on paper, it might leave my mind forever.”

Mikhail strode over to his nephew, knelt by him, and enfolded him in his arms. “Those memories will live as long as you do. You can’t compel them out of your brain by painting them, drawing them, sculpting them, or writing about them. If I could, I’d put all your bad memories in a sealed iron box and throw it into the bottom of the ocean, but memory doesn’t work like that. We have to live with all our memories, both good and bad, our entire lives. We can’t just remember the happy times. Ugly memories are part of who we are, and shape us into the people we become.”

“But I have more bad memories than most people. Not just the cellar, but all those times when I almost died before that. Why couldn’t I die with my parents in the cellar, or any number of times before that? I was never destined for a long life. God should’ve taken me long before then, so I wouldn’t have to become a prisoner and be shot at so many times.”

“We can’t understand God’s reasoning for keeping you alive so long, in spite of your disease. Maybe it means God really wants you to become Tsar, and has destined you for great things beyond your imagining.” Mikhail released his nephew and stood up. “If you want, I’ll spend the rest of the night here, so you’ll feel better if you have another nightmare. There’s a special memorial service for your parents in the morning.”

“In the Palace Chapel?”

“It’s in Saint Catherine’s Cathedral, since we’re expecting a very large crowd. You can walk there and back without crutches, can’t you? Thank God you’re no longer a shadow of yourself as you were when all this madness happened. Maybe taking a longer walk than usual will help to restore more of your strength.”

“I guess I can walk that far, though I prefer to pray in the Palace Chapel and Fyodorovskiy Cathedral, if I have to leave palace grounds.”

“I wouldn’t make you walk that distance if I didn’t think you could do it. We never really understand what we’re capable of till we’re right there in the moment. The bounds of a human being are something we can never comprehend, no matter how much we’re astounded by them.”

Aleksey clomped back to bed as Mikhail went around turning off all the lights and extinguishing the candles. Before Mikhail put off all the lights, he turned the easel around, just in case that image might frighten his nephew even more upon awaking.

“You’re my favorite uncle, Dyadya Misha,” Aleksey said after Mikhail shut the door and got into bed. “I bet my other uncles would think I were a baby if I asked them to spend the rest of the night with me. I’m almost fifteen.”

“You can’t know for sure unless you ask them, but I can’t imagine anyone, family or not, volunteering for that duty.” Mikhail patted his nephew’s shoulder. “Now try to go back to sleep, and conserve all your strength and emotion for the memorial service.”

2

Mercifully, Mikhail decided to go to St. Catherine’s Cathedral in one of his luxurious automobiles instead of walking all the way there. No one wanted to walk when they could drive, particularly considering this church wasn’t as close as Fyodorovskiy Cathedral, so Mikhail took out his dark green Chalmers and two Peugeots. Aleksey’s sisters and their husbands would take the Peugeots, and everyone else would ride in the exquisite Chalmers.

“Your uncle’s always falling asleep at the wheel,” Natalya said as she climbed into the car. “If I don’t poke him in the ribs when he nods off, he’d land in a ditch or roll over in the middle of the road.”

“I won’t nod off when my own nephew is a passenger,” Mikhail said. “How could I risk the life of our only hope for the future? That would be so hypocritical, after I’ve been so strict about the management of his health.”

“You nod off no matter who’s in the car or where you’re going. Actions speak louder than words.” Natalya reached for her almost-three-month-old baby Vera as she was handed over by an English governess.

During the brief drive to the church, Aleksey sat between his cousins and looked at the passing scenery. He’d always loved riding in cars, and driving his toy Mercedes Benz and his father’s cars. It was horrid to be forbidden from driving again, but at least Mikhail hadn’t barred him from being a passenger. So long as he was in a car, he could try to live vicariously through the driver and pretend he were the one driving. When he was older, he might have a nice collection of cars like Mikhail, from faraway places like Italy, France, England, and America. Perhaps when a few more years had passed, he could acquire German cars. The taboo against anything and anyone German would have to eventually dissipate.

Mikhail brought the car to a stop near the church, and let Natalya out before opening the passenger doors. The usual crowd milled around, waiting for a glimpse of their ruling family. Aleksey took his uncle’s other arm and stayed close to his side as they walked through the crowd into the church, though people still reached out to touch them and pronounced blessings.

“Behave yourselves,” Mikhail barked inside the church. “My nephew and I aren’t circus animals to be gawked at. We’re normal people, not just the Regent and Tsar.”

While the crowd was distracted with looking at Aleksey’s three obviously expecting sisters, Mikhail found his nephew a chair close to the ikonostasis. By the time everyone moved into the church, Mikhail, Natalya, and Vladimir blocked the view of the seated boy Tsar, and no one was any the wiser.

The priest began chanting the prayers for the dead and swinging a censer. As always, Aleksey couldn’t bring himself to follow along or respond. As much as he still believed in God, the God he’d believed in had died in the cellar along with his parents. It was impossible to go back to that innocent, overly pious faith. He knew too much, and couldn’t pretend everything was the same. Even his nun aunt Ella hadn’t resumed exactly the type of faith she’d had before her captivity.

“Don’t clutch the sides of the chair too tightly,” Mikhail whispered. “You don’t want to bruise your hands or fingers.”

Aleksey called to mind images of his parents in happier days, on Shtandart, at Livadiya, watching films and slideshows on Saturday evenings at home, as they appeared in the picture inside his Fabergé egg. Then the ugly, hateful images returned, of his parents’ shocked expressions right after the evil ringleader had pronounced the death sentence on his father, how they’d looked as enemy bullets entered their bodies and killed them instantly, their lifeless, bloody bodies lying on the cellar floor as a thick haze of gunsmoke drifted through the room and his sisters screamed. No one came to comfort him during the mêlée, as his sisters had comforted one another. He’d been all alone in that armchair, his father’s lifeless body slumped in front of him, his mother’s lifeless body off to the side, no one to hold him during his threatened final moments. Only a last-minute reprieve from the Angel of Death had saved him from the grave.

Aleksey stood up from the chair and put his arms around his uncle, as the final words of the prayer for the dead filled the air. He shut his eyes to try to stave off the thick grey clouds threatening to rupture, but to no avail. They still trickled from behind his eyelids, so copiously his uncle’s shirt had to be getting drenched.

“Why couldn’t the last year have been a nightmare? I wasn’t supposed to lose my parents like that, and I don’t want to be the Tsar when I’m so young.”

“You’ll be okay, no matter what’s going on in your mind and heart now,” Mikhail reassured him. “I’ll always have your back and give you all the love, protection, and normalcy your parents can no longer provide. You’ve got me and your sisters to grieve with, and we’ll never abandon you.”

“My sisters abandoned me in the cellar. None of them came to hold my hand, hug me, or anything. They knew I was too sick to move, and they only cared about themselves.”

“Don’t be upset at them for that. Who could think straight in such a terrible situation? You probably weren’t thinking straight either.”

“I was too scared to do anything. At least I never screamed or cried. I wish I hadn’t let myself get so emotional now. You must think I’m really babyish.”

Mikhail patted his nephew’s auburn hair. “I’ve told you, there’s nothing to be ashamed about. This is a sad anniversary, and even if it were just another day, men are allowed to cry.”

“You really think of me as a man?”

“No matter how young you are, I don’t think anyone can deny you’ve become a man in your heart. The people might consider you their boy Tsar, but as far as I and everyone in our family are concerned, you’re more of a real man than other people your age. Your heart has a special maturity and sensitivity that don’t come to just anyone, and those precious characteristics will help make you into a great Tsar, just as they made you into such a special young man.”

*************************************

Murdered on 17 July 1918:

Tsar Nicholas II (Nikolay Aleksandrovich), born 6/18 May 1868

Empress Aleksandra Fyodorovna, née Princess Viktoria Alix Helena Luise Beatrice of Hesse and by Rhine, born 6 June 1872

Grand Duchess Olga Nikolayevna, born 3/15 November 1895

Grand Duchess Tatyana Nikolayevna, born 29 May/11 June 1897

Grand Duchess Mariya Nikolayevna, born 14/27 June 1899

Grand Duchess Anastasiya Nikolayevna, born 5/18 June 1901

Tsesarevich Aleksey Nikolayevich, born 30 July/12 August 1904

Dr. Yevgeniy Sergeyevich Botkin, born 27 May/8 June 1865

Anna Stepanovna Demidova (lady-in-waiting), born 14/26 January 1878

Ivan Mikhaylovich Kharitonov (cook), born 2/14 June 1870

Aloiziy Yegorovich Trupp (footman), born 5 April 1856

Murdered on 18 July 1918 (though most took several days to die):

Grand Duke Sergey Mikhaylovich, born 25 September/7 October 1869

Sister (formerly Grand Duchess) Yelizaveta Fyodorovna, née Princess Elisabeth Alexandra Luise Alice of Hesse and by Rhine, born 1 November 1864

Sister Varvara Alekseyevna Yakovleva, born circa 1850

Prince (né Grand Duke) Ioann Konstantinovich, born 23 June/5 July 1886

Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich the younger, born 20 December 1890/1 January 1891

Prince Igor Konstantinovich, born 29 May/10 June 1894

Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley (really a Romanov), born 28 December 1896/9 January 1897

 

Second from left above and second from right below is Grand Duke Sergey’s secretary Fyodor Semyonovich Remez, birthdate unknown

WeWriWa—Painting away the pain

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

Because today, 17 July, is the 104th anniversary of the execution of Russia’s last Imperial Family, I’m taking a brief detour and sharing something from my alternative history And Aleksey Lived. The book was released four years ago today, on the 100th anniversary.

Chapter 15, “A Sad Anniversary,” concludes Part I. In the middle of the night, 14-year-old Aleksey wakes up and sees from his alarm clock that it’s exactly the time he was awoken by his would-be murderers one year ago. He tries to calm his fears and drive away the nightmarish images by turning on all the lights in his room and lighting a few candles, but he’s still tortured by these feelings and memories.

Aleksey clomped over to the easel and uncapped a container of black paint, not caring which particular type of paint it were. Paint was paint, even if his new art tutor was trying to teach him the differences between each medium. He then found the largest brush in the tin can stuffed full of brushes, plunged it into the paint, and frantically moved it around the canvas. After filling about half the canvas with black swirls and streaks, he opened a canister of dark grey paint, found a new brush, and added that slightly different color to the painting. A little bit of space was still left, so he found the darkest red possible and maniacally jabbed the brush into the white spaces. As he shoved the dripping brush all along the bottom of the canvas, his throat tightened and he began hyperventilating.

Hoping to open the windows for fresh air, he went to stand up, but was paralyzed in place. He could feel his legs, but couldn’t compel them to move. His hands shook as he rolled up his pajama pant legs and fumbled for the buckles on the right caliper. This wasn’t successful either, as his fingers were shaking too badly to perform any fine motor operation.

The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.

“What’s happening in here?” Mikhail asked. “Why are there so many lights on in the middle of the night? I heard odd noises and went to investigate, thinking there might be a rodent.”

Aleksey opened his mouth to respond, but his throat was too dry to speak, and his tongue was just as paralyzed as his legs. He struggled to raise his arm and point at the calendar.

Mikhail’s eyes softened. “It’s been a year since you lost your parents, hasn’t it?”

Aleksey could only nod.

“What are you painting? That’s a lot darker and more abstract than anything I’ve ever seen you draw.” Mikhail looked down and saw his nephew’s rolled-up pant legs. “Were you trying to remove your calipers? You’ve made too much progress to suddenly reverse it all now.”

“It’s the cellar.” He barely managed to utter these words. “If I put it on paper, it might leave my mind forever.”

Mikhail strode over to his nephew, knelt by him, and enfolded him in his arms. “Those memories will live as long as you do. You can’t compel them out of your brain by painting them, drawing them, sculpting them, or writing about them. If I could, I’d put all your bad memories in a sealed iron box and throw it into the bottom of the ocean, but memory doesn’t work like that. We have to live with all our memories, both good and bad, our entire lives. We can’t just remember the happy times. Ugly memories are part of who we are, and shape us into the people we become.”

WeWriWa—A poem for the birthday boy

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. I thought last week would be my last excerpt from my alternative history, And Aleksey Lived, for awhile, but I remembered today, 12 August, would’ve been my protagonist’s 114th birthday.

These are the concluding lines of the 530-word freeverse poem which opens the book. When I wrote it in November 2014, there were tears streaming down my face. That poem is quite possibly the most emotional thing I’ve ever written.

No one will ever know now what might’ve been.
No one ever does.
That’s what’s so haunting and heartbreaking about the death of anyone in the prime of life.
But in my beautiful dream,
he earned his place in history as Tsar Aleksey the Savior.
The forces of good and light defeated the forces of evil and darkness.
And in real life,
before Alyosha died,
Alyosha lived.
To the dead we owe honesty, respect, love, dignity,
for kindness to the dead can never be repaid
and could never have an ulterior motive.
Most of all,
we must remember the dead as they were in life,
for the fact that they lived,
not that they died.
And Aleksey lived.