Is a rodent up the ass "stomach-turning" in a romance novel?

And other complicated publishing matters I won't get into here. I should be proofing my manuscript and many other things on my to do list, but this intrigued me:

Alison Kent ponders whether writing a scathing review of a fellow romance author's novel on Amazon skewers your chances of ever publishing with the editor of said novel.

She also posts an excerpt from the novel, Jennifer LaBrecque's Highland Fling, about a patient with a rodent up his ass. LaBrecque responds to the review by saying "I Swear I Didn't Pay Her," and offers a cash refund to the reviewer as well as claiming the review has helped spike sales.

I think there's one thing to be mindful of what you write and obviously know that anyone can read it and quote from it so you really should be happy with what you've written and able to stand by it and own it (I will be posting soon about seeing Dawn Eden at the Gawker party and what I'm thinking about her forthcoming book The Thrill of the Chaste and casual sex and other topics - am reminded of that because I found out she quotes me in it, but that's all I'll say for the moment - my point was, I'm quoted in her book, which I just found out.) I think it's fine for this author to have said what she truly thinks about another author's book, but by doing so on Amazon, of course the author and her fans and anyone else may read it and form judgments about the person writing it, as with anything.

I don't think one should be inhibited from commenting on books you've liked or disliked; certainly, in my situation, I've criticized books very recently by publishers I tremendously respect and admire (and even aspire to publish with someday), but it's unrealistic to think I'd like every single book they publish. That being said, going out of your way to write an ad hominem attack probably isn't ever going to be all that productive. I do try to keep that in mind, even when I write about books or articles I truly hated. Having been on the other side plenty of times, I know it's all too easy to make many assumptions about people based on a single piece of writing. The challenge for me as a writer is to say what I have to say in a given amount of space and hope I get my point across. Sometimes, I find out later that I haven't. That what I intended in my head is not what's being perceived, and then I have to figure out how to ameliorate that.

I think, too, though, that blogging is so immediate and I'm quite enthralled by it because it gives me a chance, in real time, to sort out my thoughts and write about current events. I don't have to wait for some interminable lead time, and don't have to wait until my writing sounds stale and dated even to me. That's not to say I don't have many goals in the writing arena, but I realize upon rereading some older work, especially lately, that the writer I've become even in the last two years is far different than the writer or thinker I used to be. Yet, those words still exist and are pretty much immutable. Some are online or in books or magazines or whatever, but life moves too quickly to stay stuck in that, which is why the bulk of my research for Sexual Freedom for All is coming from more modern sources. More once I manage to catch up a bit. For those like me who make endless to do lists, submit them to Sasha Cagen (Quirkyalone) for her book on to do lists: See Todolistblog.com