100 Followers!!! Call to Fight Audism from the AFF!

Hello to everyone,

This is just an in-between reviews post. Today marks a milestone for me, as The Fraser File now has 100 followers! I'd say that's pretty good in less than a year's time. I want to thanks every one of you who have decided to follow the blog. Not sure how many continually read it, but that's ok. I'm getting enough comments from time to time to make this a worthwhile venture.

I guess the next question is, how do I celebrate this? Well, back when I reached either 20 or 25 followers, I held a giveaway of my ebook, Allesandra's Bequest, to five people. The only thing I have done this far is send messages to vintage books and KindleMom, who are my 99th and 100th followers. I have no way of knowing who was number 100, but as a thank you to them I have offered free copies of the same book.

So for the rest of you, I want to do something a little more interactive. You see the AFF logo on the right hand side of the blog? Previously I had stated that if anyone finds an Audism related ad on my page and reports it to me, I would make them the latest Superstar on the AFF roster, proving your worth as an Audism Fighter. It's a take-off of my a guilty pleasure of mine - professional wrestling. Also, check out The Frog's (his album cover at the bottom of the page is a link) album, T3RD, and hear his song "Professional Wrestling".

Ok, got off track there for a second. What I have noticed is that I have yet to see an Audism related ad since I started blocking them. I assume that so far, no one else has seen one. I could be wrong, but I go with what I have in front of me.

So here's the deal. If you find an act of Audism anywhere on the internet (should't be difficult if you are actively looking for it), leave a comment with a link to the website. I will break down all the horrible Audist aspects within it, and place you on the AFF roster, complete with cool wrestling nickname! This is also in addition to finding an Audism related ad on this site. As an additional thank you and in celebration of reaching 100 followers, the first 5 Superstars added to the AFF roster will also receive a copy of Allesandra's Bequest for free!

Again, thanks for following the blog everyone! I want to make one last comment about the petition from change.org that you can see on the right hand side of this page. The petition is intended to help stop St. Martin's Press from publishing Kristin Henson's Super Smutty Sign Language book. I have posted on this before, and it's Audist for sure! The petition needs 10,000 signatures to go forward. Initially this petition got a lot of signatures, but has slowed down immensely over the last few weeks. If you haven't done so, please sign it. If you have any friends that would like to help the cause, get them to sign it to. Clicking the ad on this page will link you to where you can sign the petition for yourself. The more signatures means the louder the voice will be telling St. Martin's Press and Kristin Henson herself that this book is offensive to culturally Deaf people everywhere. As CEO of the AFF, I urge you to sign the petition! Hahaha!

Until next time,

R. M.

Allesandra's Bequest Gets Reviewed / Lea Ryan Interview coming March 12!

Hello to everyone. I am very excited that Allesandra's Bequest was reviewed by Charina SM on her blog. I am very encouraged to see such a positive review, and it reassures me that creating this short story narrative wrap around the lyrics was the correct way to go. Here's what she wrote;

BITTERSWEET SURPRISE

Allesandra is a woman that takes her own life at a very desperate moment. Throughout the book we get to see what drove her to that point and the struggles that she and her husband went through. We also get to see what happens to the ones left behind after a tragedy. This book deals with a lot of strong topics. It talks about child abuse, domestic violence, rape, depression, and suicide.

        When I first started reading this book I didn’t know what to expect. I was very nervous because not only was I stepping away from my reading comfort zone; I also never read anything by R. M. Fraser before. I had a bittersweet surprise. Bitter, because the book was so sad that it made me cry near the end. Sweet, because I loved the way it was written. To be honest I didn’t expected to like it this much.

        The book has very little dialogue. You can probably find about five lines or less during the whole book. But to make up for the missing dialogue, the book has these beautiful lyrics in between the paragraphs on each chapter. I never read anything like it before. I was very surprise that I understood every word without problem. I usually have a hard time with poems when they are in English.

        I really like this book. It is a very sad, very strong book, from the beginning. But I loved the way the lyrics told the story so well. I made me think of what music is really about. Music tells a story. Music shows someone’s feelings. If the author made a CD with all the songs from the book, I’ll buy it. I can honestly say that R. M. Fraser just won a new fan.

 

Well there you have it. I read through some of her other reviews, and she is a very good critic. Charina isn't afraid to say what needs to be said. I think that's a service to every writer out there because honesty can only make us better writers. If you would like to read her reviews, or follow her blog for yourself, here is the link;

http://thebookkeepersblog.blogspot.com/

In more news, I am happy to announce that Lea Ryan, author of Lair of the White Wyrm, will be the subject of my next blog post on Monday, March 12 (Will be posted either late that Sunday night, or Monday evening). I have reviewed the book, and will give that along with an interview with Lea Ryan herself. This is all part of her blog tour, and I am happy to be a part of it myself. Until then, everyone have a good week. And please don't forget to go to Smashwords.com during "Read an E-Book Week" (March 4-10). There are some great deals to be had. So far, I think I have downloaded 13 new ebooks that I can't wait to get into.

R. M.

Read an E-Book Week Coming Up!

Hello to all,


I just wanted to take a minute to let everyone know that March 4-10 is "Read an E-Book Week". Many ebook authors are putting up their ebooks for free or at discounts with coupon codes. I can't wait to check them out and see what I can find. I am challenging all of you readers out there to do the same. Go to Smashwords.com for discounted and free ebooks. My ebooks will be there as well, and you can find them at these links:

Free:
One Way Out, Always (Allesandra's Bequest - Chapter One) http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/123500
...
Free with code RE100 :
Shadow Boxerhttp://www.smashwords.com/books/view/114915

$1.00 with code REW50 :
Allesandra's Bequesthttp://www.smashwords.com/books/view/134808


If you don't have an ereader, you can still use your pc by downloading Adobe Digital Editions, a free ereader app that will allow you to read .epub and .pdf files. It's a great app and works well on the pc. I hope you take the time to look at Smashwords.com next week. There are many great authors there who are fairly unknown in the book world, and they deserve some recognition. The best way to do that is to get some fans, so take some time and check it out. Happy hunting, all!


R. M.

Allesandra's Bequest Giveaway Winners Announced!

The winners of the Allesandra's Bequest Giveaway have been selected! The 5 winners are:

Melinda Clarkson

Bridget Bowers

Jennifer Allen

jabeard

Tina Jo Breindel

Congratulations! Private messages will be sent to all of you. Please respond with the information requested.

I hope you enjoy the read, and please feel free to leave reviews, good or bad. Honest feedback is always appreciated.

R. M.

Allesandra's Bequest on Smashwords Giveaway

Hello all, this post will be brief and will not postpone when "Thank You, Anonymous, Part 2" will be posted.

I have completed Allesandr'a Bequest and it is now available on Smashwords. Here is the link to view for yourself;

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/134808

Having said that, I would like to announce a giveaway for Allesandra's Bequest. I would like to give away 5 copies to followers of this blog, and another 5 to my facebook fans. When my facebook fan total reaches 20 people, I will hold a random drawing for the 5 winners, and it will be overseen by ELF to make sure it's all fair. I will then notify each winner privately for further details on how to proceed. She will also oversee the random drawing for you blog followers here. I will privately message the 5 blog winners to notify you of winning, and will then give you more details to proceed.

This book is an ebook only. There are none in print. It's not a feasible avenue for me right now.

I am very excited to have this ebook finished, and it also means I can get to work on my next ebook. More details to come as they happen. Thank you to all for following and good luck to all of you in the drawing!

R. M.

My Son is Deaf, Finally!

Well, I have completed writing Allesandra's Bequest, and it is now in the editing process. A big thank you, Froggy Dilinger.

I suppose now would be a good time to announce that I am a judge in the 2012 Global eBook Awards. I am very excited about this, and will be judging ebooks in a few different categories. We shall see how it goes, and I will probably review every decent book I come across while judging. Let's see how it goes. If you want to know more about it, click on the badge to the right of the blog screen to see the website.

With that out of the way, I want to talk a bit about somethign more specific. But before I do, I need you to invest about ten minutes of time watching a youtube video. It is imperative, and I mean imperative, that if you start watching the video, you must see it through to the end. If you don't, please do not leave a comment, or even bother reading the rest of this blog. I don't mean to come off as harsh in asking this, but it is very necessary, and those of you who do watch through to the end will understand why. Here is the link,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YN5Fdz1En0

Ok, for those of you who decided to stick it out, thanks. If you have seen this before, more power to you. I just found this video yesterday thanks to a facebook friend (Ladd, thank you for posting it).

When I watched this yesterday, I couldn't believe what I was watching. It blew my mind that something like this could have actually happened. I know many Deaf people who wish their children to be deaf as well, and the truth is that about 90% of Deaf parents have hearing children, you know, like me. Conversely, 90% of deaf children have hearing parents. I know my parents would have been overwhelmed with joy had either myself or one of my sisters had been born deaf, but that wasn't in the cards for them.

To be totally honest, I hope for a deaf child of my own. ELF and I have no children now, but that would be a wonderful gift to us when we do start a family.  I suppose thats just something that many a CODA feels given the experiences we have in the worlds of Deaf and hearing. A big part of me wants that so that ASL and Deaf will not die out in my family. Thats all I will say on that personally for now.

Back to the video, when I got to the end, I was relieved, and then I realized just a moment before it was brought up what this story was all about. When he said it, I felt that this was a very impactful way to get the message across.

So many hearing people and nearly all medical professionals view deafness as something to be fixed. Honestly, this physical disability has no impact on intelligence, so why do they fight it so much with hearing aids, cochlear implants, and speech therapy?

Deaf people are proud of who they are and what they can do. The truth is, they can do anything that we can do, even be doctors. Imagine that. A Deaf doctor. How cool would that be? Maybe I will meet one before I am dead. I certainly hope so. The truth in this youtube video comes down to that point. The people who suggest/recommend cochlear implants (doctors and audiologists) and the people who make the decisions to implant them (parents of deaf children) most often do so with little to no regard to the Deaf community. They do this either for the reason that they do not really know about Deaf people and culture, or they believe the myths that Deaf people are less than the rest of us, and who would want that for their child?

It is vitally important that deaf children have a chance to meet and become familiar with the Deaf community. I know from personal experiences and from so many Deaf friends who never feel more confident, proud, and normal than they do within their own circle of Deaf friends, where everyone is signing and just being themselves. When deaf children are implanted for the sake of being fixed, where they end up is uncertain. Many Deaf adults worry that these children will never have an opportunity to become Deaf and miss out on it, and that will weaken the Deaf community. They feel it is their right to have full access to their natural, and fully accessible langauge (ASL) from the moment they are diagnosed. An implant and everything that surrounds it pretty much guarantees that this will not happen for that deaf child while their hearing parents make these decisions, and if they are lucky they will find the Deaf community when they are old enough to decide things for themselves, and hopefully embrace it. I hope I have explained this adequately for you.

The real problem is that many deaf children who found the Deaf community later in life really do regret that they were never exposed during their childhood. They feel they were cheated out of this opportunity, and that it was their right to be exposed. I want to take that one step further and say that it is also the right of the parents to have equal time and access to explore all options before making such a decision for their child. So many hearing parents never really get that access because those advocating implants are only telling their side of the story, and no one is notifying Deaf advocates when a child is diagnosed as being deaf. Much of the time when the option is mentioned, it is cast in a negative light that makes it seem undesireable. I can say Audism. So when you get down to it, most hearing parents are being cheated, too.

On a more personal note, this video's suggestion for not implanting a child and allowing them to decide for themselves when they are old enough is something I believe is fair. If being deaf does not affect one's intelligence or capabilities, why mess with it, especially when they may not want it when they are old enough to make their own decisions. Would you put a tattoo on your child? If you did, what if they hated it as they got older? What if your son or daughter was unmercifully picked on by his or her peers for that art you thought was cool or cute at the time? Pretty ridiculous to even think a parent would go there, right? And hey, kid, once you're 18, go get a tattoo if you want.

I end this blog entry on that point, and encourage any of you who agree with the video to share it with your friends and others you know. If nothing else it gets people thinking about it, and perhaps the more we think about something as a whole, the better chance we have as a society to make more responsible decisions, even if we think we already are.

R. M.

Feeling guilty your child is deaf? One CODA's advice...

I'll get the update out of the way first. The short story version of Allesandra's Bequest is a few short chapters from being completed. The editing is about 1/3 completed, which means that things are looking pretty good to have this published sometime in february. I am hoping for earlier than later.

Tonight I want to tell you about guilt. Guilt is a nasty feeling that nobody wants, and one that we try to get rid of as soon as it sets in. However, when it's in our faces everyday, we bow to its will.

Let's take that notion to hearing parents of deaf children. Most parents do feel guilty about their child being deaf, and blame themselves for it. It's in their face every time they look at their child and every time they think about it. It's oppressive, and many of these parents do bow to its will. They will do anything a doctor tells them to do to help their child be "normal", and if you know anything about Audism, that's the first time it affects a deaf child's life.

Audism feeds on guilt like a hunter feeds on prey. Once it has a person in its sights, it's game on. All the bad advice from people who are Audists twist the knife of guilt deeper into a parent, and they follow blindly in the hopes that the advice given will work. Many even believe the lie that they cannot communicate with their own child because their child can’t speak.

I have three words for any parent in this country who find themselves in this position - American Sign Language. Yea sure, it's visual and signed on the hands instead of auditory and spoken orally, but it's something your child CAN do.

My mother is the best example I can describe to you. She was born deaf, and doctors advised her parents to get hearing aids, as well as go to public school and just be "normal". They were even told by these doctors to never sign to her, as that would limit her ability to speak. The followed that advice faithfully until she was 13 years old. Nothing really improved significantly. Mom could understand written English at about a first grade level, and never developed speech. I talked about it often with my grandmother, and she told me every time that she regretted it. When she was 13, they sent her to a school for the deaf. The school taught everything orally in the classroom, but allowed signing in the residential dorms. Back then, about 99% of the students lived there. ASL was rampant, and all the children could  talk to each other. They couldn’t even do that with their families because they never learned to sign. Unfortunately for my mother, she didn't get this experience until she was 13. She missed so much opportunity for social activity and exposure to a fully accessible language. It has had profound effects on her personality and self-esteem that I'm afraid to admit are irreversible.

The really sad part about all of this is listening to my grandmother talk about it. Her guilt is even worse than it ever was, and though she has tried, she hasn't been able to make it better. There was one time when she was about 70 that she finally saw through me and my sisters what could have been with her own daughter. She saw us signing all the time and doing all the things she wished she could have done with her own daughter. That's when it finally hit her, and she signed up for a beginner ASL class. My sisters and I were thrilled, even though it was so late in life. She has never retained more than the manual alphabet since then, and her feelings of guilt have never left. While she was taking the class I witnessed the most impactful thing I ever saw between the two of them. We were visiting, and my grandmother just suddenly stood up face to face with my mother, and signing what few signs she knew and spelling the rest, she told her own daughter she was sorry for never signing with her and for not sending her the school for the deaf when she was 5. My mother just looked at her and told her it was okay, and that she wasn't mad, even though we all knew better. She just didn’t want her own mother to, even after all those years, feel any worse about it. It has been almost 20 years since that happened, and I have to fight back tears every time I think about it or mention it. I just had to stop typing to wipe off the keyboard. It was too little too late for my mother, but it doesn't have to be for others.

To any hearing parents who have deaf children, is this guilt worth it? Please, whatever you do, let go of the guilt and learn ASL. Your child is deaf, just accept it and love your child unconditionally. You can still use hearing aids and other technology if you want, but don’t deny ASL to your child. Without it, they will likely miss out on so much, and you will only feel more guilt because of it. Please take this as advisement to explore all of your options, especially the ones that doctors don't mention. Find Deaf adults that sign and talk to them. Communicate with your child and give them every opportunity to learn about the world in a way they understand it - visually. You have eyes, too, and you can do it just as they can. You can show them, and if you do, I guarantee your guilt won't be so strong, and more likely gone. You won't regret it.

R. M.

One Way Out, Always?

Well, first off, I'd like to say that the first chapter of Allesandra's Bequest, One Way Out, Always, was published a few days ago on Smashwords. I put the book up for free to see what kind of interest it will draw. Three days is not very long, so it's a bit too early to tell.

 I tossed around the idea of my next blog post being about the book, and I didn't want to give away anything in the story beyond the first chapter. Needless to say it was a struggle, but something random just happened that might make this work. It will give away a little bit more of the story, but not enough to ruin it. Let me start with the random happening first.

I bumped into a friend earlier today who had mentioned to me that someone they grew up with in the neighborhood had just committed suicide not too long ago. My friend had just learned of this and was shocked, but wasn't very close to this person, so it became the topic of conversation for a bit. Apparently, the short version was this - there had been rumors of her battling depression. She had been missing for three days and was found deep in the woods where she had hung herself from a tree. She was in her early twenties. A terrible tragedy, obviously, and apparently ELF was acquainted with her, too. It was somewhat upsetting for her, too.

It made me think about how horrible these things really are. People everywhere suffer tragedies all the time, and who knows what this girl was really going though? I have a good friend that I sometimes refer to as "Mom". She might be the strongest person I know, for the simple reason that years ago, her son committed suicide, and she can talk about it openly with me. I find it amazing that she has the inner steel to do so. It's often said that the worst part of a suicide is not who left us, but the mess that person left behind. For myself, I believe that is a true statement more often than not, at least for all I have seen, I believe it to be so.

I've always been a "darker" person in my writing, regardless of what format it is. Not everything I write is, but you get the idea, I hope. This subject is really what Allesandra's Bequest is all about - suicide. Like so many people, Allesandra has her own demons to contend with, and how does she deal with it? I dare not say more without giving away the story. One Way Out, Always, gives you a brief look into Allesandra's past, and how PTSD can keep such a firm grip on someone, keeping them in darker places, even when thimgs seem like they're getting much brighter.

It's a subject that fascinates me, and perhaps only for the reason that I can;t always seem to wrap my head around it, and I think a lot of other people feel the same way. Logically, you can see the process and connect the dots, and everything else, but I don't always have the ability to really imagine how depressed, defeated, or otherwise one would have to be to go through with such an idea.

I've had bouts with severe anxiety for most of my adult life due to physical issues. I can honestly say that for myself, during those times, I would occasionally think about it. I even scared myself a couple of times when I found myself to be formulating a plan. There were spans when I would have very little of anything positive to look forward to, if I even had anything at all. And those were the moments when those thoughts crept in. Even then, though, it never was a solid and clear premonition that I could ever actually do it, and I suppose for me thats why I sometimes can't wrap my head around it. I don't think I could have been any worse at those points. Maybe there's something I was missing then, and if so, I am thankful.

 I don't know if Allesandra's Bequest will shed any light on the subject or not. I suppose that it's more or less my own personal take on what the effects of suicide are on the rest of us, and would anyone who has done so take it back if they could?

Lastly, I want to thank the eight people who have recently started following The Fraser File. Nice to know people are reading. Take care all, and I am fairly certain that the next post won't be so blackened.

R. M.