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Read a few items worth keeping in mind...
Fan: How do you manage to keep a thick skin with all of the criticism and negative attacks you get on Social Media?
Headwriter/Editor in Chief: nothing that happens online really matters. There are creators and editors who never engage with social media at all, and whose books sell fine. Others of us choose to engage with this audience. And it’s a fan audience, a hardcore audience, and that means that each individual communicator is going to be more dedicated to their position and feelings than the average. But it also means that those folks are no different from the majority who simply buy their work, read them and enjoy them. So the threats and the vitriol and the calls for editors to be fired or disciplined or whatever—it’s all theater, it’s a tempest in a teapot. Once you realize that, it’s impossible to take a lot of that seriously. Like anyone, every once in a while some random comment will get under my skin. But for the most part, I’m here for the people who generally like what we’ve been doing and who want to interact and have a more full experience. And that means sometimes answering questions and talking down fans who may be upset about something. But as long as we all treat one another with basic human respect, that’s all good. I don’t need you to agree with me, but I do need you to be civil, to myself and to your fellow fans.
And..
"Some people who have trained themselves to have their emotional catharsis through sophisticated art get annoyed at untrained people having an emotional catharsis through unsophisticated art.”
Mother: You know that Emma movie...what was it?
Me: Poor Things?
Mother: Your brother tried it and hated it, couldn't get through it.
Me: Well, it's not for everybody. It's a weird movie. And kind of in your face with stuff. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to you. Has some interesting videos. People either seem to love it or hate it. There's things you and my brother like that I don't and that's okay.
Seriously. Mother can be annoying when it comes to my brother. Considering he was overhearing the conversation and laughing during it, he probably realizes Mother and I have an interesting relationship. We banter.
Off to bed. I'm considering trying Acolyte on Disney + - it looks good and makes me want to dive back into the Star Wars franchise.
Oh, on another note? I loved Dot Bubble - although I was focusing on different things than some folks were. I was focused on the clever satire of social media. The device because sentient and decides it can't stand it's users/creators/data inputters to the point in which it has to take them out, one by one, in alphabetical order no less. It does it by creating bug like slugs to devour them - get it? Bugs in the system...devour the data inputters who are driving it crazy.
Classic. The more I think about that the more amused I am by it. We should make various folks on social media watch Dot Bubble on repeat for a few days. Then if they still don't get it - we can send bug like slugs to devour them.
That was my focus. I get that it had a lot of other themes going on, but damn, that's clever.
Fan: How do you manage to keep a thick skin with all of the criticism and negative attacks you get on Social Media?
Headwriter/Editor in Chief: nothing that happens online really matters. There are creators and editors who never engage with social media at all, and whose books sell fine. Others of us choose to engage with this audience. And it’s a fan audience, a hardcore audience, and that means that each individual communicator is going to be more dedicated to their position and feelings than the average. But it also means that those folks are no different from the majority who simply buy their work, read them and enjoy them. So the threats and the vitriol and the calls for editors to be fired or disciplined or whatever—it’s all theater, it’s a tempest in a teapot. Once you realize that, it’s impossible to take a lot of that seriously. Like anyone, every once in a while some random comment will get under my skin. But for the most part, I’m here for the people who generally like what we’ve been doing and who want to interact and have a more full experience. And that means sometimes answering questions and talking down fans who may be upset about something. But as long as we all treat one another with basic human respect, that’s all good. I don’t need you to agree with me, but I do need you to be civil, to myself and to your fellow fans.
And..
"Some people who have trained themselves to have their emotional catharsis through sophisticated art get annoyed at untrained people having an emotional catharsis through unsophisticated art.”
Mother: You know that Emma movie...what was it?
Me: Poor Things?
Mother: Your brother tried it and hated it, couldn't get through it.
Me: Well, it's not for everybody. It's a weird movie. And kind of in your face with stuff. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to you. Has some interesting videos. People either seem to love it or hate it. There's things you and my brother like that I don't and that's okay.
Seriously. Mother can be annoying when it comes to my brother. Considering he was overhearing the conversation and laughing during it, he probably realizes Mother and I have an interesting relationship. We banter.
Off to bed. I'm considering trying Acolyte on Disney + - it looks good and makes me want to dive back into the Star Wars franchise.
Oh, on another note? I loved Dot Bubble - although I was focusing on different things than some folks were. I was focused on the clever satire of social media. The device because sentient and decides it can't stand it's users/creators/data inputters to the point in which it has to take them out, one by one, in alphabetical order no less. It does it by creating bug like slugs to devour them - get it? Bugs in the system...devour the data inputters who are driving it crazy.
Classic. The more I think about that the more amused I am by it. We should make various folks on social media watch Dot Bubble on repeat for a few days. Then if they still don't get it - we can send bug like slugs to devour them.
That was my focus. I get that it had a lot of other themes going on, but damn, that's clever.
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My neighbor and I realized last week that we both had a pile of books, that we were going to take and donate somewhere. So he suggested that we look at each others piles and take what we wanted. Good enough idea. We did and both politely took some of the other fellow's books to read. I doubt we'll ever do it again.
My books were mostly hard-core history (that I had read once and didn't think were worth keeping). His were all mass market 'thrillers,' a genre I had no idea even existed. I think he passed everything he kept from me on to his wife, who he said likes history.
Had I been asked to critique the book I've started reading from him, I'd be pretty scathing. But it's far from the the worst thing I ever read. The last mass market things I read were The Da Vinci Code and some other books from Dan Brown, that I read mostly for laughs, and those were worse in my eyes than this book, I'm reading now. Like Brown's books, it's a best seller and like Brown's books I have a hard time reading more than a few pages of this deadly serious book without bursting out laughing.
Let's face it. My reading tastes are on a different (not necessarily better) plane of existence than a lot of peoples'. I should keep my mouth shut when you talk about romance novels. I don't know quite what to say if my neighbor asks what I thought of the book I'm reading. I know the more I say the worse it will sound. But honestly I do think people ought to be encouraged to read what they enjoy. Not everything written needs to be worthy of eternal admiration by everyone in the world.
I believe authors these days have to trust their publishers and their sales. Going on line to see what everyone says about your work is just asking for heartaches and headaches.
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"Some people who have trained themselves to have their emotional catharsis through sophisticated art get annoyed at untrained people having an emotional catharsis through unsophisticated art.”
But the truth of it is? One person's sophisticated art is another's pulp and vice versa - folks don't necessarily agree on that. I've learned not to comment any longer on video and role-playing games for example? Or the Twilight novels? Just because I don't get the appeal, doesn't mean it's not there or it isn't rewarding? What works for one - doesn't always work for another. We all think differently. It would be nice if everyone thought the same way I did, but also incredibly boring. (shrugs).
I believe authors these days have to trust their publishers and their sales. Going on line to see what everyone says about your work is just asking for heartaches and headaches.
Or if independently publishing? Themselves, and stay away from online reviews. Most folks won't leave reviews. And the reviews for the most part are unreliable - because it's hard to understand a stranger's tastes, I'm not entirely sure a lot of folks understand their own.
Education questions
Re: Education questions
1. Having written a book, what do you think of high school literature classes now?
I've no clue what they are like now? My niece wasn't very informative on the topic, outside of the fact that their idea of genre isn't ours. It's basically: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and I can't remember the fourth one? She did read a broader range than most. But how much of that was on her own and how much was course work - I've no idea. She also went to a private school.
The English Lit courses that I was in in the 1980s were actually pretty good for a public-school education. Broad reading choices. I did a report on Advise and Consent, and read Chaucer, over 100 plays, Shakespeare, Brave New World, Ethan Fromm, A Separate Peace, Old Man and the Sea, Pride and Prejudice, and various others. I read Dune on my own in high school. There was no banning, no censorship, at all. And we read a lot of short stories.
Do you think it's okay to steer everyone toward 'literary' works or is it somewhat of a waste of time?
Depends on various factors?
How are we defining literary? People define it differently (some define it to just include European fictional works, specifically British, British + Northern European (French & Russian) or works of fiction published pre-20th Century or early 20th and 19th Century American, which is kind of silly and limiting if you think about it. I mean, who's to say Dickens is a better writer than James Joyce, Fitzgerald, Chandler, Hammett, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, George RR Martin, Stephen King or Margaret Atwood, etc? Also, there's a lot of post-19th Century works that are informative and worth reading. I'd personally steer people towards mid to late 20th Century works over earlier works or the 19th, which I'm not a fan of. And suffer from antiquated and somewhat flowery formalistic writing style, which are nearly impossible for the uninspired modern reader to wrap their brain around let alone relate to, that's not to say they shouldn't read it - from a historical perspective if nothing else, but not be the central focal point.)
Everyone thinks differently? I know people who just can't figure out a metaphorical plot to save their lives, but complex mathematical formulas - they can do in their heads. For that person, reading Brave New World is a waste of time, so too is Huck Finn for that matter. They may be better suited to essays? Or non-fiction?
Also there's a tendency to dismiss a lot of fiction - due to medium, such as graphic novels or plays.
And/or genre/subject matter - Frank Herbert's Dune and JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit have about as much literary merit as say Shakespeare or Dickens, who were at their time prolific popular writers. Dashielle Hammett, Patricia Highsmith and Raymond Chandler also have just as much merit as say an Edgar Allen Poe or Hemingway.
And more voices should be allowed into the mix. Such as Alice Walker's The Color Purple (which I read in high school at the prodding of a Drama teacher), Toni Morrison's Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, or say Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, and Garcia Marquez's A Hundred Years of Solitude.
I think I have issues with placing limitations on what is considered literary? And what should be read in school? I had a lot of freedom and with it - access to a wide variety of works. In Elementary school - I was more limited, when I wasn't? My world opened up. Everyone should have that opportunity provided to them.