{"id":550,"date":"2012-08-07T19:22:18","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T00:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/?p=550"},"modified":"2012-08-07T19:22:18","modified_gmt":"2012-08-08T00:22:18","slug":"if-you-cant-say-something-unpleasant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/?p=550","title":{"rendered":"If You Can’t Say Something Unpleasant…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This is an interesting article<\/a> about the epidemic of niceness among writers, specifically in regards to twitter and tumblr, but I think it applies to all sorts of places online.\u00a0 It is worth a read, but it is basically getting at the point that there are problems with writers getting all chummy and networky online.<\/p>\n

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Not to share in the lit world’s online slumber party can seem strange and mark a person as unlikable or (a worse offense in this age) unfollowable. This kind of rationalization might mostly take place in our lizard brains, but I’d argue that it’s the reason why the literary world\u2014a famously insular community to begin with\u2014has become mired in clubbiness and glad-handing.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And why not, you might say. Why shouldn\u2019t writers and lovers of literature construct an environment that’s wholly comfortable and safe? When your time comes, when your book is published or you finally land that big feature, don’t you want some applause too? But that constant applause is making it harder and harder to hear the voices of dissent\u2014the skeptical, cranky criticisms that may be painful for writers to experience but that make for a vibrant, useful literary culture.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s something to this, I think.\u00a0 Those who want to be writers these days are told that they need to do a lot of marketing themselves, whether they are publishing themselves or going the traditional route, and of course these days that involves websites and facebookery and so on.\u00a0 All of that leads to a lot of networking, and who better to network with than your peers, whether those are fellow established authors or fellow wanna-be writers?<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that seems to lead to corners of the web that are basically just mutual admiration societies, with writers giving each other sparkling reviews.\u00a0 That isn’t terribly informative, of course.\u00a0 But the other problem, as far as I’m concerned, is that it might naturally make folks suspicious of my genuinely-tendered admiration of other writers.\u00a0 Because after all, it is natural to run across other writers out there on the web, and I really do like a lot of them and their work.<\/p>\n

It’s hard out there for a writer, is what I’m saying.\u00a0 We’ve got to have a social media presence, and one hates to be unpleasant.\u00a0 Especially since one wrong word or slip of the keyboard out here can ruin your reputation with editors and agents (to any editors and agents who happen to be reading this – I don’t mean you’d be so hasty in your judgement, I’m talking about those other<\/em> editors and agents).\u00a0 But being too nice contributes to the dumbing down of the literary scene.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 It sure was easier when we could just hole up in cabins or third-floor garrets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an interesting article about the epidemic of niceness among writers, specifically in regards to twitter and tumblr, but I think it applies to all sorts of places online.\u00a0 It is worth a read, but it is basically getting at the point that there are problems with writers getting all chummy and networky online. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-writing-things"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluecandlesociety.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}