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raekerrangatang · 2 years
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ANTI SOCIALS - hello obscurity my old friend
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So I am now a published author. This year I decided to swallow my pride and pay to self-publish with Kindle Direct. A steal at just £800! And what did I get for this fee?
Firstly, a glowing review from one of their agents, telling me this book can “legitimately appear in at least two sub-categories of fiction, doubling its potential appeal and readership” – music to my ears, but enough of money talk, what about my craft?… “the style has a rich, contemporary feel and the emotional narrative hooks the reader instantly. It is notoriously difficult to write a novel with as many fascinating layers as this, but you have made it look simple. This fact alone places the book head and shoulders above others of the same type” oh please – you’re too kind. Surely there has to be a but? She sums up, “particularly strong in the Kindle marketplace simply because it is difficult to find fault with.” After 15 years of rejections, this is catnip to my author ego. I fall for it hook line and sinker. I am told the process will take ‘up to 8 weeks’ and cough up half the fee in advance. Ten weeks later I receive my cover design and formatted text. The graphic designer must have been working to a brief to ‘sex it up’ because my perfectly good version that I got as part of a package deal on fivrr has been changed beyond recognition and beyond any relationship to the narrative. While my actual story is set in a small British town, this cover seems to depict an exotic shoreline; while my protagonist’s abode is a mobile caravan, this cover features a Miami beach house; and while my protagonist is non-binary and pushing 50, this cover has a silhouette of a cheerleader cycling in a push up bra. To add insult to injury, I am sent the formatted, edited manuscript to proof read and find 20 mistakes. After editing!
Anyway, the big day arrives and I finally see my first ever novel in print. I run from my desk to find someone, anyone, to tell. After a few excited exchanges and my first sale, I return to my classroom and reality to teach my Year 10’s.
I spend the next six days trying to gain some traction online: I follow Kindle’s ’12 Tips How To Promote Your Book’; I update my website to include the Amazon link; I shamelessly contact old aquiantances I haven’t seen or heard from in years asking them to share posts with their friends and followers. It was bad enough when I only had to endure the NO-tifications on Twitter and being ghosted by my boss on email. Now I’m supposed to use every platform known to man to self-promote; the lack of response is limitless. Not to mention having access to my Amazon ‘report’ page which seems to have frozen on eleven copies. Surely, this must be a mistake for a book so well placed to take the Kindle marketplace by storm, I tell the dog, logging back in to my account, despite promising to spare myself the humiliation just yesterday.
When I do get the occasional reply, it will be to tell me that I am basically ‘unclean’; I have condemned myself to the Amazon Colonies by selling out to the corporate behomoth. It’s a catch 22 situation – the independent publishers won’t take a chance on a complete unknown writer, they then stand in judgement when said writer decides to self-publish and don’t even think about asking for shares / RT’s.
I recently borrowed my dad’s laptop and was horrified by the amount of bookmarked links he had – 126! Clearly he has no clue what the function is really for; he seemed to have saved every single song he’d played guitar along to in the last five years. Still, compared to my mother, who HAS NEVER BEEN ON THE INTERNET! he’s a bona fide silver surfer. I iike to think I’m so much more advanced, but in truth, when it comes to socials, I’m flailing about from platform to platform – I have no ticket, my train’s about to leave, and the tannoy announcements are in Malbolge. Does your social life online reflect your personal life? I can’t help but wonder. I spend my evenings and weekends talking to the dog, the walls, the TV; I am just not equipped to network and connect online. I’ve been on Twitter for 5 years and have only managed to gain twenty-something followers. One of who, despite his entire online persona being about kindness and paying it forward, just will not give my book a simple RT. Why are you following me then? You double-barrel bullshit merchant.
The problem with Twitter is that I cannot figure how to send a post to my followers. It seems to want me to search them all up individually. Surely the likes of Stephen King aren’t individually searching every one of their millions of followers every time they post. And on Facebook I’m basically posting in a vaccuum because I have no friends. Story. Of. My. Life. There were suggestions a plenty when I first set up the account. And I deliberated over whether or not I should accept them. How did this machine know that I know or knew all these people? And wasn’t it different for an author account? I only set the page up to promote my writing; the last thing I wanted was to be bombarded with ‘stories’ about what so-and-so who I took a spinning class with seven years ago had for their tea last night.
Then there’s Good Reads. No, it’s not enough to hold down a full time job, write novels in my spare time and then find more time to promote them. Now I’m supposed to post reviews of other people’s books as well!
So, I’ve come up with a few marketing strategies of my own. Please do leave a comment below and let me know your favourite.
1.       Stalking Paris Lees: obsessively check for anything posted on her account and reply to it asking her to RT link to my book on the grounds that a) she’s from a small Midlands town near where I live, and b) we’re both trans.
Pro’s – she has 80+K followers / Cons – she probably doesn’t even manage her own account.
2.       Kidnap Richard & Judy: hold them to ransom with one simple demand – that they get me a proper book deal with Penguin or Faber, non of this Amazon exclusive shite.
Pro’s – the Richard and Judy book club is the biggest in the UK and if you make their list you have basically made it / Cons – the crime of kidnapping carries a maximum sentence of 12 years.
3.       Hold up my local library: think Dog Day Afternoon, but replace Al Pacino and John Cazale    with me and my dog.
Pro’s – it would get me out of the house and I could take back my overdue loans without paying the fines / Cons – my dog gets very over stimulated when she meets new people and might do an excitement induced wee on the library carpet which would incur cleaning costs that would cut into the already meagre budget.
4.       Paste doors of WHS and Waterstones in posters: wait until dark and sticker bomb the entrances preventing staff and customers access at opening time.
Pro’s: the temporary market disruption may divert shoppers to alternative book buying options / Cons: I don’t have any posters or resources to make any.
5.       Controversy: find a woke post and reply to it with a deliberately offensive comment or just post an ambiguous Tweet using bomb / kill / death hashtags.
Pro’s – they say no publicity is bad publicity; Katie Hopkins has made a career of this / Cons – Katie Hopkins has made a career of this.
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Search Me
What does my search history say about me?
Certain aspects of my life require me to Google some pretty unsavory stuff: in a teaching capacity, I have found myself searching for far right extremist groups, trans hate groups, most sexualised video games, racist adverts, peadophile front pages, legal highs, TikTok Rape Day, Only Fans scams, 5G conspiracy theories and perhaps most controversially of all, international day of balloon sculpture.
Recently I worked with a graphic designer on fivrr to create book jackets for my novels. This involved sending him Google images of various elements to work from. Hands down the weirdest thing I have probably ever searched for is, ‘guy impaled on long spike’ (the deuteragonist of my coming of age novella meets his end harpooned by a narwhal statue’s tusk). Believe it or not, Google actually delivered a pretty accurate depiction of how I envisaged this picture. When I asked for a simple ‘school kid tie round head’, well, apparently this is like the most obscure idea ever. What I got was lots and lots of school children wearing ties. In the intended way: neatly around their necks. I tried ‘school tie head band’ and got every single colour and stripe of headband under the sun: silk ones, lace ones, gingham ones by the dozen, bow-on-top ones, polka dotted ones, tartan ones, velvet ones, Pudsey Bear ones, ones with face masks attached (because, let’s face it, post Covid, you can’t search anything without a face mask getting a cameo appearance). Maybe that had something to do with the fact that in my head, school ties actually need to be tied, when in reality, the modern variant clips on – and therefore cannot be worn around the head to signify a Lord Of The Flies style revolt.
So, I suppose if I disappeared or died in suspicious circumstances tomorrow and my laptop got siezed by detectives (pause while I savour this post-mortem-imaginary attention) they would find these searches pretty eccentric and maybe conclude that I had some ‘issues’ that needed working out.
But it’s thinking about the searches I undertake when actually writing my fiction content that really makes me uneasy. And I know it’s just for the book! Recently I watched a John Irving documentary on YouTube, in which he spoke about visiting prostitutes in Amsterdam as part of the research stage of his novel, ‘A Widow For One Year’ (which, by the way you should totally read). He took his wife along, so you know, it couldn’t have been more respectable. I can only dream of one day having the luxury to conduct actual field trips in the name of fiction (pause while I ponder writing these off as expenses on my tax returns). For us writers struggling in the garret of our two bed end terrace, it’s Google journalism, not Gonzo journalism that informs our prose.
So, today I had taken the dog and my laptop to my parents’ house for the day because I’m having work done on the house; downstairs is basically a building site and the bedroom is packed with boxes of books and DVD’s, so it’s like I’ve barricaded myself into the 1980’s. And yes, I know that retrospectively we all heart the 80’s: in meme form, or an ironic leg warmer, maybe we’ll crimp our hair for that reunion thing. But when you are physically surrounded by obsolete artifacts that are materially all you have to show for three decades work - NOT so bodacious. Totally not bodacious at all. I had to get out of there; to get off the anxiety cycle that goes something like this: I’ll just bin all the DVD’s – but, no, wait, they’ll end up in landfill; I’ll take them to a charity shop – but that’s a lot of cycle rides (how many rucksacks does it take to move an entire film collection?); I’ll flog them online – but that would mean typing in every title (and then deliberating over it); do I know anyone who car boots? Does anyone still car boot? How much would anyone pay for a DVD? And then I look at the sheer amount of them and the space they take up and I contemplate the last time I even watched one, and the likelihood of me ever watching one again. I weigh all this up against the comforting familiarity of them sitting on the shelf. And what else would I fill the shelves with? Is it any less indulgent to hoard hundreds of film titles, just to look at, just to reflect my values, my identity and my cultural capital, than it would be to display a collection of ceramic frogs or superhero figures or framed photos?
Anyway, I digressed. And then I digressed some more. Back to searching. So today, while other members of my family were passing a regular Sunday afternoon eating lunch, drinking wine, watching sport on TV, napping in front of sport on TV, complaining about the weather, I was tackling a ‘difficult chapter’. I knew this episode had to feature somewhere in the tale I have to tell. I’ve known for some time. And today, I could put it off no longer. It was time to get on the adults only train to porno-ville. Full disclosure: yes I have; once; it confirmed to me that I am indeed asexual. No, I’m not answering that.
Today was the first time I had ‘done it in public’. Lots of writers do, don’t they? The Potter series was famously penned in Edinburgh coffee shops (or is that just part of the myth?) Imagine E.L. James knocking out a sex scene in a Tesco café; mind you, erotic fiction writers surely must be the doggers of the trade. These public spaces still offer anonymity though; I was sitting feet away from my Mum and Dad and constructing a narrative thread based on the porn habits of a church congregation. And my parents are born again Christians! Every time Dad approached the dining table where I’d set up my work space, I quickly shut down the last page I visited: ‘first online porn sites’, ‘pervert synonyms’, ‘stages of sex addiction’, ‘proper name for crabs’, chlamydia (that was just for the spelling).
The protagonist of my soon-to-be-published Kindle book, ‘Post Midnight Blues’, writes a ‘poem’ entitled: ‘An Ode To Porn In The Hedgerow’, recalling more innocent days, when a lorry driver might pull over on the hard shoulder for a quick wank and toss his used copy of Razzle into the bushes for teenage lads to find and take back to their hide-outs. I can’t help thinking a writing must have been simpler then too.
If you like this blog - please check out more on my website, here https://www.raetoonery.com 
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Check this out you blog and book lovers:
https://rtoon8.wixsite.com/raetobooks
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Ad Aspera Per Astra
With the invention of wings and flight
comes the tendency to get above 
ourselves; till the pilot checks the fuel
and notices we’re losing height.
he orders us to throw our luggage
overboard, so we each take our turn:
choosing a target and counting the bounces
before the explosion of beach towels.
Next go the first aid boxes, rolling out  
their bandages, and fire extinguishers,
spitting foam. A tin foil picnic
is dropped on an ideal spot, and carefully 
covered with parachutes. The cabin crew
empty their wares into the ocean,
then launch a cargo of messages in bottles.
Businessmen kiss their briefcases 
goodbye, and an administrative nightmare
unfolds before their eyes. A heated debate
over comfort verses legroom ends two to one
in favour of releasing the seating, and flattens
an entire shanty town. A couple over the 
left wing suggest we drop the pilot,
but he reminds us that he wrote the manual.
Clinging to the window frames
our view begins to cant
and so to counteract the nosedive
we clamber back towards the tail;
as the engine clears its throat
the fuselage begins to shake
and a deafening voice from beyond
the hold says: “KNEEL AND PRAY”.
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Dark Wood
consider the trees:
how they might tire of swaying poetically,
bearing fruit and blessing us with shade.
Of giving shelter to animals,
posing for the background of pictures,
and turning sunlight green.
Of always bearing the brunt of canine jokes,
wearing heart shaped scars, and filtering our dirty air.
Do trees dreams of chainsaws and axes?
Puffing themselves up above the saplings,
do they long for the day when the worms eat through
their oak veneer for the human sap inside?
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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what the world needs is
a kind sun in a godless sky, an unmade 
bed of earth, strange new forests
filled with singing trees, mines bursting
at the seams, a garden full of apple
blossom, freshly squeezed oceans, several
seas on ice, rainbows running in rivers
of oil, a multitude of unendangered 
life, fields of poppies springing from the
bones, and space to breathe
and      space    to     breathe
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Blog On #2 - the wrong rights?
Gavin Williamson has spoken out this week for the right to free speech on university campuses. And while I'm sure the likes of Jordan Peterson, Selina Todd and Felix Ngole will welcome this defence of their right to offend, I can't help wondering why high profile individuals with suspect viewpoints and large followings are prioritised over humble students. Where is Gav's outrage at the education poverty being inflicted upon an entire generation? Why has he not been more outspoken on the right of uni students to live in halls they are paying good money for? Or their right to compensation for the expensive education they have been denied by the pandemic? Suicide rates among uni students are on the rise - what about the right for young people to live meaningful lives?
Many of the speakers who have been cancelled by universities hold incredibly intolerant views of the trans community - especially trans women. The Tories seem more interested in defending them than the marginalised and victimised trans people themselves. Liz Truss had the opportunity to improve the lives of trans people with promises of GRA Reform, but actually made no changes to support young people. Despite the consultation (over 100,000 responses) being 80% in favour of de-medicalising the process, she reneged on these promises, claiming that the legislation in place is adequate. Yes the process has moved online and is much cheaper, welcome changes, but the process remains overbearing.
Recently the Tories have spoken out against the coup in Myanmar - they have not been so outspoken on the rights of Rohingya Muslims. Likewise, Dominic Raab is 'deeply troubled' by the kidnapping of Princess Latifa; and yet calls for Richard Radcliffe to ease off in his social media campaigning lest he jeopardises her release. If Raab had done his job and fought for her rights in the first place (not to mention Hunt and Johnson's failures) she would have be back with her husband and daughter now.
Swift's Modest Proposal lampooned the then British government for its lack of empathy for their Irish neighbours. This satire is rewriting itself for the 21st C. Young people are being sacrificed to the growing appetite for online pornography. The latest company to profit from this is Only Fans - the platform offers quick and 'easy' money for cash strapped young women. For years the Tories has dithered over the regulation of big tech; it would seem free market capitalism is more important than the rights of children to be safe and for young people to seek meaningful employment.
I am not against free speech or freedom of expression. I am not against pornography. What I absolutely believe in though, is equal rights. And in such an unequal society, the rights of the marginalised and misrepresented need to be fought for by those in power MORE than the rights of the priveleged elite. That's why we have The Equalities Act.
But beware: now we have officially left the EU - this is under threat.
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Blog On
Is switching your radio station of choice tantamount to leaving your spouse for a younger 'model'; or is it more like giving a newly opened supermarket a try? Or swapping between 2 fabric softners, depending on which is cheaper? Is my deviation of late from Absolute a kind of Covid friendly mid-life crisis?
As a teen, I listened to Radio 1, because back then, I wasn't particularly discerning and probably didn't even know there were alternatives. At some point in my twenties, I recall a foolhardy forklift truck operator daring to tune the factory radio to some commercial station or other; I joined the protest and it wasn't long before normal service was resumed: we were ushered towards our 5 o'clock Mecca by the dulcet tones of Steve Wright, in character as Mr Angry or Pervy At The Window.
I can't recall exactly when I CHOSE my own radio station in any knowing, conscious way. I'm not sure when Absolute came on the scene to be honest. But I do know that I felt genuinely sad at the departures of Christian O'Connell and Geoff & Anabel. There were always those presenters that didn't quite hit the mark for me - Rock 'n' Roll Football was frankly too laddish and there was too much emphasis on the game. And there was that time Jason Manford called himself 'speccy 4 eyes'. Still my dial remained firmly fixed. When I purchased a new DAB radio, it TUNED ITSELF to Absolute. Really. Like I'd signed a contract. I put up with these irksome DJ's; allowed them into my home - not just my kitchen, either, I have a radio in the bedroom. Never did it occur to me to ... SWITCH...
Until Xmas day 2020. I was decorating. Another activity I discovered late in life - but that's another blog. And on a whim I loaded up the app for Kerrang. Gave it a go. Bit too thrashy. Perhaps that sowed the seeds of change. Because sometime during LD#3 I strayed again. This time to 6 Music. This is now the background to my waking hours. Up to 6pm when I switch to TV. Except, the afformentioned bedroom radio is stuck on Absolute. It's an old device - device! That makes it sound far too advanced. It has a CD player! Anyway, when I'm changing the bed or dusting or reading, if I turn it on, I get this uneasy feeling. Like I'm cheating with my ex.
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Young Adult Novella extract
If this was a movie, it would begin with an overhead shot of Justin impaled upon a spike, like they did to criminals in the middle ages.
Kneeling below, I wail uncontrollably, “Why? Why? Why?”
Justin can say nothing. His last word was uttered amidst the pandemonium moments ago. No one actually heard it, but for the record, it was: “Destiny.”
What a sorry scene. Hardly love’s young dream is it? Hardly what we’d planned for our third date.
Anyway, let me tear you away from this tragic ending. Let’s rewind, since fiction allows us the advantage of flashbacks, to Thursday and the beginning of our blossoming romance.
Like what you read? Ask me for more...
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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School Satire
The silver haired Head, Ros Wren, glared in the direction of the dissenters and cleared her throat. Ros Wren had been head at Samson Little for almost 10 years (celebrations were being planned for her tin anniversary). In her early days she’d coloured her hair a spectrum of colours from plum to auburn to honey blonde, perhaps in an attempt to seem more human. For the last few years though, she’d clearly decided to embrace her not-so-stainless steel superego and ditched the dye.
“OK crew,” Ros began. She always referred to her workforce in this way; she was their Captain and the school was her ship. No one knew where this seafaring analogy originated.
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Missing your local library?
“Either someone’s playing a practical joke on us, Cynthia, or this book has a life of its own.” Heather Stocks told her assistant, Cynthia Grudge. They both stared down at the offending article in Cynthia’s grasp.
There was something puzzling about the way that Good Book Keeping, the first and thankfully only, title by Livingston Sidebottom-Staines, kept cropping up all over Cruddington Library. That the book had never been checked out of the Library made it all the more bemusing.
“Please put Livingston back in Local Interest, Cynthia, and perhaps you could be extra vigilant over there for the next few days. See if we can’t get to the bottom of this.”
Cynthia felt her pulse quicken. She had never dreamed that the duties of a lowly Library assistant would stretch to surveillance, but already, in her first twelve months on the job, she had been given responsibility of tracking down the smoker on the steps and now, staking out Local Interest.
Want some more? Just gotta ask...
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Storykiller : Part 1
God if I was genius clever like the unibomber, I would really give it to them. Explode their smug, elitist world of words to a cyclone of letters, dots and dashes. And I’d film it too. So I could watch the fall out. See them sifting through the detritus of punctured phrases, severed metaphors and decapitated dialogue. Oh, how they would wail, like the Syrian mothers on the TV news. And I wouldn’t stop there; I’d move on to the libraries and book shops. Of course the Big One would be Amazon. But they’d get me before that. I’d end up inside with nothing to do but read. All those classics, reminding me I’d never be good enough. Or the mediocre book club favourites. They’re worse. They’re proof, aren’t they that really, it’s not such a holy grail. It’s just having connections. Or striking the right balance between ‘quirky’ and commercial. Anyone can be a writer now, can’t they? That’s the beauty of the digital age. The great democratisation of the media. If you can tweet, you can blog; if you can blog, you can ‘build your brand’. That’s how it’s done now, isn’t it? Got to market yourself.
Well, how am I doing?
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Novel Extract
I realised that I could get more mileage out of the investment through the idea of ‘rebirth’; any church will always have issues with retention. The sin of backsliding proliferates as this modern world throws ever-increasing temptations in the path of the laity: Hollywood ‘movies’ with their corporeal heroes, Pop music with its posturing pin-ups; Soap Operas with their melodramatic storylines; stand-up comedians with their socialist messages concealed in elaborate ‘jokes’; and the demon pornography – not just in glossy lurid top shelf magazines now, but living and breathing in living rooms, thanks to video tapes. Of course, the straight and narrow path can seem oh so dreary and dull compared to the decadent delights of the media. And so I turned the most ubiquitous sin to my advantage. For some of the congregation getting baptised of an Easter Sunday was as routine as their chocolate eggs. Of course I couldn’t charge for the service, but you know, the offering plates always did swell after a good baptism.
#evangelical cult memoir
#social satire
#unreliable narrator
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raekerrangatang · 3 years
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Novel Extract
She remembered how she spoke about two old dears that lived on their street when she was a teenager: it was unnatural that they didn’t have children at their age… they were fooling no one with their comfortable shoes… no wonder they’d never married – what man would want that. God knows what she’d make of all these new gender labels. She could hardly navigate the ever-evolving landscape herself. Sandeep had suggested she switch her pronouns. She could imagine her mum’s reaction to that! ‘Can you call me ‘they’, mum?’ She did think about it, but it didn’t feel right somehow. And she’d feel bad if people got it wrong. Not bad for herself; bad for them. Because it was a bit much, wasn’t it, at her age? To expect everyone to suddenly address her differently. It was different for Sandeep. He’d changed, so of course it followed that people would change what they called him. The whole gender thing is so wrapped up in what we see, isn’t it?
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