Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

I began this blog because my daughter told me to. She was redesigning my website (some of you may remember the Medea site that came before the current one) and she said, “You need new content and a blog is a good way to get that.” I said, “I don’t know anything about blogs,” and she said, “You’ll learn.” Then I found out that blogs were a chance to say anything I wanted and I was hooked. For awhile, everything was lovely, and then I posted something a lot of people didn’t like. I can’t remember what it was now, but it was the first time somebody said to me, “You know, you should stop blogging, it’s going to hurt your career.” I said, “How is that possible?” and she said, “If they don’t like what you say on your blog, they’ll stop buying your books.” That was incomprehensible to me then, and it’s still puzzling to me now. P.G. Wodehouse did broadcasts for the Nazis, but I’m not giving up Bertie and Jeeves. Georgette Heyer made disparaging comments about her readers but they’ll get my copy of The Grand Sophy when they pry my cold, dead, chocolate-stained fingers from around it. Robert Frost was one of the biggest bastards who ever lived, but “Two Tramps at Mudtime” is still the most beautiful evocation of work and love that I’ve ever read. I don’t want to have lunch with these people, I just want their words. So I shrugged off my friend’s comment and went on blogging.

Then I tripped again, this time because I was thoughtless (this happens a lot). One of my friends got a ludicrous letter from a reader and I posted it with her first name on it. That was flat out wrong of me, and I did apologize and take the name off the blog but basically, I screwed up. First lesson: Never blog when you’re really angry but not admitting it to yourself. Practical application: Wait twenty-four hours before you post something you’ve written.

Then while I was being careful on Argh–well, careful for me–I lost my temper on somebody else’s blog and became The Author Who Is Pro-Plagiarism (because that was more fun for people to get upset about than The Author Who Thinks This Is Being Handled Badly and People Should Stop Author-Bashing Until They Know the Facts). This annoyed some people so much that they’re still mad at me; some of them cornered Bob at Thrillerfest to tell them just how awful I am, as if he didn’t know the black depths of my heart already. And of course, they’re never going to read me again. (Actually my fave comment about the whole mess was on another blog: a reader said she was never going to read me again and then followed it up by saying she’d never read me before either. I kept thinking of the old “Doctor, will I be able to play the piano after my broken arm heals?”/”Of course”/”Funny, I couldn’t play it before” joke, but that’s probably just more evidence of how depraved I am.) After that, I quit the romance blogosphere. There was no point in explaining that I had never said plagiarism was all right since nobody would listen anyway. My words were there if anybody wanted to go back and see what I really said. Life is short and mine is good and that whole mess was just toxic for everybody. Moving on . . .

Then somebody e-mailed me and said, “They’re after X now.” X is a friend of mine. She writes superb books and she had a terrific blog and beyond that, she’s just good people. So I went to see if she needed somebody to hold her coat, and it turned out that she hadn’t caused the kerfluffle, she’d commented on it with a joke and people created a new kerflufle because they were appalled that she’d joke about anything so serious and she must be a horrible person if she thought that was funny and they were, yes, never going to read her books again. So my pal quit blogging, not because she was intimidated by the threats–this is one tough lady–but because life was too short and she didn’t need to blog, it had just been her way of giving back to the writing community. Of course, after that some people said she was wimpy for not staying around so they could kick her again, evidently missing the point that sticking around to get insulted by a bunch of people with no sense of humor had no upside for her.

Which made me think: Who are these people and why are they so upset? I’m not talking about people who disagree with her; people did that without getting personal. In fact, it was the people who thoughtfully disagreed with me on that rabid-reader-criticism post that made me cool my jets and realized I’d gone over the line. I’m talking about the people who said she was malicious, the people who posted they were so disappointed in her, the people who were downright abusive in their reactions. The people who will never read her again, in fact. I’ve been thinking about this for quite awhile, and I think blogging may be at the bottom of all the rage. If you read a lot of an author’s books, you begin to feel that you know him or her (Jane Austen and I would be BFFs, I’m sure of it), but there’s still some distance there. But when an author starts to blog, the distance disappears. She’s putting her thoughts out there, she’s not acting as a character or an authorial voice, she’s saying, “Look, here’s the dog I just adopted” or “Here’s how I write my books,” so she becomes an internet pal, somebody her blog readers know. I think there’s a sense of comradeship there, especially if the author responds in the comments (or as Mollie always says, “WILL YOU STOP COMMENTING ON YOUR OWN BLOG PLEASE”). Which means when the blogger says something that conflicts with the blog reader’s idea of who that author is, there’s real disappointment. Hence all the “I’m so disappointed in you” flack I got from the people who decided I was pro-plagiarism and my pal got from all the people who thought that her joke wasn’t funny. They thought we were better than that.

I think most people just file the disappointment away under Things I Know About That Author without going after her as someone unclean who must be eradicated from publishing blogs or books. But there are some whose disappointment is so great, whose sense of betrayal is so strong, that they stoop to name-calling and vituperation and cornering innocent writing partners at conferences and telling him that he’s guilty by association. These people, I would argue, need to take a step back. I feel strongly that anybody who evaluates the rest of the people in the world by how closely their attitudes and statements agree with her worldview is in danger of structuring a life much like the Alberto Gonzales Justice Department. We don’t learn from the people who agree with us, we learn from the people who make us say, “Wait a minute,” and that learning goes both ways. I learn a lot from the critics who intelligently analyze my books and find them wanting; I’ve also learned a lot from the people who have thoughfully and calmly disagreed with me on this blog. Haven’t learned a thing from the shriekers and condemners, though. And the only thing my pal learned was that blogging was just too expensive a hobby in the balance of her life. I think a lot of people miss her blog; I doubt that she does.

So as my life shifts (and it’s shifting a lot right now), this blog is one of the things I’m looking at because I’m not sure how valuable it is anymore to me or to you, definitely not sure if it’s valuable enough to put up with the hassles. (This is not an attempt to get “No, you’re so PRETTY” comments, by the way. I know I’m darling. The ego is in fine shape here.) I like Bob’s plan of blogging every Tuesday, it gives some shape to the blog, but what if I don’t have anything to say on Tuesday? I like doing the “Twelve Days Of” focused writing series and the blog keeps me honest on those, but I don’t see how they’re valuable to other people. (The Twelve Days of Cleaning My Office, however, I’m very proud of, not only for the offices that got cleaned from inspiration, but for all the people who looked at their offices and felt immensely better.) I’ve thought about writing about the things I’m researching now–alternate fictional structures, amusement parks, the tarot, collaboration, romantic comedy–or reviewing movies and books or anything else that has purpose and possible value for a reader, but I always end up posting rambles about road trips or pictures of the dogs. I seem to have lost my blogging POV which means that Argh is sinking into the Not Really Very Interesting category. Which probably explains why nobody’s told me she’s disappointed in me lately which is another reason to stop blogging: If I’m not doing anything interesting enough for people to disagree with me, why should I waste the virtual ink?

Thus the double-edged sword: If your blogging pleases everybody, you’re probably not adding much to the world. If your blogging pisses people off, they rant about you to everybody who will listen, damaging your rep. It really comes down to how much time, energy, and ego you’re willing to put into something that takes away from your writing time and disrupts your peace of mind, to how much pleasure and usefulness you and the blog readers gain from the effort. Right now, I don’t see me adding much to the world with Argh. So I either need to revamp this blog so it has some shape and content, or retire it for awhile until I get some direction for it.

I’m thinking, I’m thinking.

It really is lovely to be home again. I have a hellacious amount of work to do, but it’s all work I want to do, so life is good. I was going to write On The Road blogs, but the days were just packed, as Calvin would say, so I didn’t. And now I can’t remember much. Except:

Kennywood is the perfect model for our park in Wild Ride. I took many pictures, but for some reason the iPhone didn’t record the last forty or so which is annoying. Of course it did record the first 170, which I now have to catalog and label for Bob, so maybe it’s not annoying.

I ended up in West Virginia and Maryland at one point because my car’s GPS took me there. I was on my way to Gaffney’s house, which is not in West Virginia or Maryland, and I kept calling her and saying, “Why the hell am I in Maryland?” and she’d say, “I have no idea,” and then I’d go down into a valley and the cell service would cut out, and I’d have to call her again at the top of the next hill and say, “I’m not dead.” She finally said, “I know you’re not dead. Why are you in Maryland?” Anyway, somewhere in there I saw a sign for the Forks of Cheat Winery. I thought, “WTF?” and puzzled on it for about ten miles until I hit this bridge over Cheat Lake at which point it all became clear. Is that a great name for a winery or what?

There is no cell service at Gaffney’s and she doesn’t have wireless and I was too lazy to go find a USB cord so I was without cellphone or internet for quite a while. When you consider how peaceful it is at Gaffney’s–no noise except for the dogs and the bear who broke her birdfeeder the night before I left–it really was a vacation.

Then there was visiting The Most Beautiful Baby in the World, and the time really flew. Meg took the train down from New York to meet the new kid in the dynasty and it turns out that she’s a Baby Whisperer: Callie cooed and smiled and waved her arms whenever Meg smiled at her. Explains why she’s so good with authors.

Then back on the road to spend more time with Gaffney and then home. Many adventures along the way, but I can’t remember any of them now. Oh, except that on I70 somewhere between Cincy and Columbus there are these two black billboards. Going north, they have the ten commandments on them, written in white. Going south they have some question on them like “Where will you go when you die?” followed by “HELL IS REAL.” I’ve seen these billboards a lot since I’m on that road a lot, but coming home this time I was really tired and I saw them and thought, “Dear God, help the people who have to live with that whack job.” Can you imagine the dinner table every night, with somebody who feels the need to harangue people on their way to the Jefferson Outlets?

Then I got home and I was really tired and didn’t move fast enough and Milton leapt up and frenched me. That’ll teach me to breathe through my mouth. And today I slept most of the day so I’m still groggy which is why this post rambles. I’d love to promise you a better post tomorrow, but I wouldn’t count on it. I think my brain is going to be tapioca for awhile. But I had a wonderful time, so it was all worth it.

Most beautiful baby in the world:

Blog will resume when visit is over. Must hold baby now.

I know, I know, I’m BEHIND. Well, things are hectic here. Not bad, my oral surgery isn’t probably for months yet so I’m happy plus I’m listening to John Hiatt which is always soul-lifting, plus he’s singing “What Love Can Do,” and my god, what a song, the dogs are happy, my contractor is happy, the Dish TV guy is probably pissed because I got the day wrong but I’m the one who’s been without TV for three weeks, so hey, if I’m still good, what’s his problem? Actually, he probably forgot the whole thing forty-five seconds after he put the “Sorry we missed you” tag on my door which I’m going to have to scrape off the glass since it appears to be real glue and not the nice sticky note stuff. Oh, well, that’s why I have a glass scraper. And John Hiatt on the iPod.

Damn, really, look at this lyric:

You Dream A Dream Then The Dream Comes True
Can You Imagine What Love Can Do?
You’re Alone In The Coffee Shop And Then She’s By Your Side
Love’s Picked Up The Tab And You’re Both Having Pie

I mean, damn.

Sorry, where was I?

Right, so I’m trying to eat healthier–you should have seen my grocery cart today, you’d have blushed with pride in me, no chocolate AT ALL unless you count those very few M&Ms in the trail mix. Well more than a few because I was at Sam’s Club where you can only buy things in Gigunda. Five gallons of mayo that’s going to go bad in October? I don’t think so. Plus they never have Lite anything it’s always full octane. OTOH, you can get five gallons of mayo for about forty-five cents so if you can get past throwing out food, you’re still saving money . . .

Okay, listen to this, and tell me your heart doesn’t lift:

It’s Like We’ve Laid In This River Bed For A Couple O’ Million Years
Shaped By The Waters ‘Till We’ve Nearly Disappeared
Two Little Grains Of Sand Locked In The Eternal Kiss
Don’t Wake Me Up Now, There’s Somethin’ That I Might Miss

I love John Hiatt. I would have his baby if I weren’t 58.

Where was I?

Right, so I’m trying to eat healthier, which is why I had a tenderloin at Frisch’s for lunch and a Steak N Shake blowout for dinner–I was on the road all day, people, did you want me to starve?–but I have standards, I do NOT go to MacDonalds except now it turns out that I must go because, well, read Wonkette (I love Wonkette, you should be reading Wonkette anyway, after you read TPM) and then go get a Big Mac.

My fave comment was “I recently saw two young teenagers making out. I figure McDonalds is no longer my kind of place. I think the sixteen year old worked there.” What is it with these people who do not realize that food and love belong together?

We Were Always Happiest When We Needed The Least
Who Knew This Love Would Turn Into Such A Feast
Breakfast, Lunch, And Dinner, And A Midnight Snack
I’m Full To The Brim, But I Keep Comin’ Back

Have the pie.

So I am slammed with work, but I’m e-mailing with Krissie anyway and she sends me this iVillage Makeover Link. Yeah, sure I’m going to try that. Except she sends me her makeover and it’s both funny and oddly attractive (she was playing around). So what the hell.

Except that first you have to slick your hair back and take a picture, which with a Mac and photo booth is fast but also depressing. Here’s the real me after a hell of a day with my hair slicked back and no make-up staring into a computer screen:

So first I made choices I might actually make:

I must get those glasses.

And then I got creative:

I’m thinking about getting that hat.

After that, it just got silly:

I must not get that hat.

Really, you should go play. Because why should Krissie and I be the only slackers?

NOTE: Krissie’s got hers up on the Drama Queen blog under “Channeling My Inner Barbie.” Go look at that, too.

And now Lani has hers up, too.