Dear old Blogspot,

Have I mentioned that Facebook has a thing for me? Facebook is constantly asking me what's on my mind, though it (he?) never offers to give me a penny--not one red cent--for what's on my mind. What's on my mind, Facebook? Twitter. Where I just discovered the following important information: 1.) Definitely not keeping up. Entirely missed until now that WaPo declared Hillary Clinton to be "style icon"; 2.) Had no idea there was also a Khloe K. until poet A.M. Juster kardashianized my mind. What is this obsession with the "K"? " 3.) And the thing seen first on Twitter this morning: rules for "your novel." Makes me want to (cheerfully) burn "your" book. Bonfire of the Inanities. Also, I am going to reread my friend Ashley's Facebook post about art and appropriation and see what people thought because that post lacked anything about a presidential candidate's upholstery or an important K, for that matter, and it also had that odd thing, substance, and did the good work of setting firecrackers under a few rules. Which is satisfying in a world where the number of rules for the arts appears to be on the increase. Yes, general corseting of the mind and the arts is as common as web pages, and those in turn are as common as particles of styrofoam in the seas.

And what, Facebook, is this magic thing where you turn small-f Facebook into large-F Facebook? Even on my blog. Here. Yes, exactly like that. You like it like that.

You (you-reader, not you-Facebook or you-blogspot) may possibly be able to tell from the above that I read Andrew Sullivan's "I Used to be a Human Being" yesterday. (Subtitle: An endless bombardment of news and gossip and images has rendered us manic information addicts. It broke me. It might break you, too. Clip: "There is no dark night of the soul anymore that isn’t lit with the flicker of the screen.") And so, human nature being a weathercock, I contemplate whether I should drop out of Facebook and twitter (and possibly blogging), or whether it is possible--wishing to be moderate in all things save those few in which I am genuinely and joyfully and purposefully immoderate--to be moderate with the 'Net.

The whimsical, whirligig wind blows; I turn about and decide that the world is billionated with human beings, and that it doesn't much matter if I talk to myself here and there or not. Except: time. So precious and falling through the hourglass. Must go meet some human beings face to face, and then put some words in the right order.

Update, or threat-tweet from A. M. Juster: You'll like my k-heavy Kardashian double dactyl in next year's Waywiser anthology. Evidently a double dactyl anthology is forthcoming! Better put it on your To Buy list. There may never be another one.

Facebook, twitter, words, us--

Wondering what Facebook and twitter and such places tell us about words, about ourselves... While terrible things can result from being part of such a community, my experience has been primarily positive. I've had the fun of getting letters and comments from readers, and I've met a jolly bunch of people. It's interesting to see characters emerge through brief snips of words. From time to time, friends from the past surface.

To my surprise, such sites have even been useful to me as a writer. Blog comments tend to appear more frequently on Facebook than at the site, so it widens the reach of the blog--good for a busy woman. I've been introduced to writers and critics I value, some of whom have gone on to be a help to my in-print books, and I've been able to help others in turn with advice or an introduction. Some readers have discovered my books through twitter and Facebook. That's community, and I like it, especially since I live in a remote place with few writers, no full-service bookstore, and little in the way of support for books.

The things I don't like are pretty clear. I very much dislike all forms of proselytizing in print, even when I care about the issue. And when compassion and humor are both missing, I feel deeply wary. Humorless proselytizing without a heart for other people is especially difficult.

I've noticed that people are quick to anger if the reality of someone on Facebook comes into question. Some of this is because of fears of various sorts of abuse. The curious thing is that a mob mentality comes into play quickly and leads to a sort of e-witchhunt, a version of Salem that may or may not be grounded in truth--didn't the Salem residents vary in their opinions as well? One ill leads to another, just as in off-screen life. Meanwhile, on twitter the fictional person tends to be in-your-face false, the moniker of a dead author or well-known figure, or some fantastic creation.

Friends with mental problems and personality disorders are on facebook, just like the rest of us. One good thing about that is the way they can form a community where they are not judged by appearances but are free from bodily constraints. I've been touched by the way some I know "in real life" (it's all real life, isn't it?) have built a little world for themselves.

Announcements of family deaths are tricky: on a blithe stage, a dark note can sound peculiar if handled awkwardly--and what death is not a break in the flow of life? There's a clash between the nature of most posts and death. And yet one has more of a daily sense of the wheeling nature of life as births and deaths scroll across the screen, and surely that is a good effect in a culture that tends to hide death from the living.

Where a thanks is due--

Thank you to Mercer University Press for deciding to nominate A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer. 

And thanks to the 75 people who visited and "liked" my newborn facebook page in its first seven hours of life and left such wonderful comments! If you'd like to join them, visit me here:

https://www.facebook.com/ADeathAtTheWhiteCamelliaOrphanage.

Please slide down to the next post if you'd like to see a new discount offer on The Throne of Psyche.

Emptying

Photograph:  Jar with birds-of-paradise at Siem Reap, Cambodia, 2009

One thing I find very funny about online life is that if you post something personal and musing, people are not nearly as interested as if you say something ridiculous. After I posted the somewhat serious bit below, I rambled over to facebook and left the somewhat ridiculous status line, Had a music lesson today. I am as ignorant as a potato.  Immediately one has several dozen wonderfully funny and equally ridiculous comments from all sorts of people, artists and writers and my one businessman (who is also a writer) and others! Puns. Faux proverbs from either side of the Atlantic. Claims for the intellect of the potato. Tales of potato art (my contribution.) The intersection of music and potatoes (thank you, Gary and youtube.) And links. And "likes."

My distant cousin William Wallace Tabbot, who found me when I posted something about one of my ancestors (Sally Jo Hance, perhaps?), "likes" everything. He is giving my first cousins a run for their facebook money. I am almost as fond of him as of my cousin who writes me letters and tells me what's going on down South without me.

Must say that I don't really mind... I mean, I like being silly.  I like silly things. For example, I like chickens. I haven't had a post about chickens in a long time. Maybe I'll talk about chickens tomorrow.  Or maybe I won't.

* * *

While I was drinking tea this morning—meditative drink, tea is—I realized that the arc of my life as I approached my mid-thirties slowly turned away from everything valued by the world I grew up in.  It’s as if I had to undo everything that I had done and was “supposed” to do in order to be what I am.  Even though I began thinking of myself as a writer when I was still a child, I was distracted and absorbed by many things.

When I received tenure, I quit teaching. (I do sometimes do short-term events lasting up to a few weeks, so I still have an occasional toe in the reflecting pool near the ivory tower.)  Since I won my tenure two years early, I did not teach all that long.  My feeling was that teaching, while exciting and rewarding, was not the right place for me as a writer; I know others rely on it, and so I say nothing about whether it is good for writers in general—each must decide. But I gave up my promotion and a regular and increasing income.  I gave up a place in the world and the amount of power that goes with it.  I “wasted” my education. In the end, I emptied myself of a great deal in order to be filled up with something else.

(I suppose having three children is a somewhat analogous choice. One gives up a great deal in order to have that increase in life, an increase that has to be fed and clothed and educated. And one does, indeed, have more life—and many other things besides, some exhausting and some wonderful and renewing.)

It’s akin to a spiritual act, though not the same:  an emptying in order to be filled.

Looking back, I could be full of regret at what I gave up.  I could think that I had wasted life and substance, and certainly I would now be more solvent if I had clung to my job.  Luckily, I don’t feel that way.

 

Sometimes what you do seems to people like the worst possible thing you could do, and yet it turns out to be the best.  And that sounds to me like a religious idea as well. Yet I was simply groping about in darkness, not sure how to live my life differently and choosing in some degree of blindness.

The Throne Jacket, goodreads, etcetera

THE BEAUTEOUS JACKET

See that? That, my dear friends and well wishers and passers-by, is the design for the hardcover jacket and the paperback cover of The Throne of Psyche (Mercer University Press, April 2011.) The smashingly lovely image is by my friend (more about books with him in an upcoming post) Clive Hicks-Jenkins. The designers seem to have manipulated it--the image is flipped, which we suggested, but it also seems to have pulled the layers apart slightly to create more of a 3-D effect. In the process, the sunflowers go softer and the levels of image separate. Interesting. (Graphic design: Burt & Burt Studio of Macon, Georgia.)

GOODREADS

The paperback is already listed at Amazon, and I found the cover first at goodreads.com. Speaking of goodreads, I joined today because my friend, the bookstore manager extraordinaire and author Erica Eisdorfer. She twisted my arm (note arm-twisting motif continued from cover.) Not sure why I avoided it earlier. Fear of trolls? Fear of even more shredding of time? Don't know. But I shall try it. See you there, maybe.

YOUR SHOPPING LIST

Be sure and buy several (or several dozen or more!) copies if you wish to save me from anxiety! Six books forthcoming: I can't figure out if that's bad or that's good in terms of getting them out in the world. It's a little intimidating.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Speaking of social media and books . . . I had come to the conclusion that facebook was a place mostly for utter frivolity and silliness (and not so much for bookishness) when I asked a question of poets about 1:00 a.m. this morning. I was working on my galleys for The Throne of Psyche. Tiny question: 145 comments. So maybe facebook is more bookish than you would think. Than I would think! However, somehow a blue paisley garter belt and a pink slip crept in before we were done. So maybe it has an insane and irretrievable bent toward the frivolous

PODCASTS, ETC.

I am making some podcasts for six poems due out at The Flea and qarrtsiluni. And am wondering: to what degree is multi-media the way to market poetry books. I hate to be thinking so much about marketing . . . and yet three poetry books will need a certain amount of push to fly off into the world, won't they? My friend Paul Tree (who is not really a Tree) tells me that multi-media is the way to go.