Walk That Line, Just Don't Fall

  Robert Mills' article, Finding Your Tone of Voice, was a bit of a snooze for me, but it did offer up a couple of points that could be applicable to my life as a writer.
  Mills notes that, "There's a fine line between coming across as fun and quirky and coming across as unprofessional and snarky."
  Indeed, there is a fine line and I have no doubt that I often walk that fine line and (gasp) often fail to walk it, which is to say that I step right on over it into snarksville.

  Usually, this happens when I send out pieces of my writing to journals. I find myself habitually writing some funny/slightly sarcastic remarks in the comments box and hitting send before thinking too hard about it. What compels me to do this is my awareness of how many submissions they receive. I often wonder whether they even read them all, and I think that I've convinced myself, perhaps unwisely, that I need to make and impression in order to stand out amongst the masses.
  I'm not completely willy-nilly about these remarks. If a journal seems super serious or uptight, I leave the comment section blank, but if they are more laid back and loose, like say The Rumpus, I might tend to put a little something something in there that would make them scratch their head or howl with laughter. Interestingly, this has everything to do with what Mills writes about in his article. I am interpreting the tone of each site, although perhaps I should spend a few more seconds considering how the people who read my comments might interpret or misinterpret me.
  Being a smart  ass has its risks, but there is supposed to be a certain risk/reward ratio, right? Then again, there's probably a similar correlation between risk/failure. Mills has definitely given me something to consider and I'll certainly be more mindful after reading his article, but I don't think that it's humanly possible for me to go cold turkey on my smart ass-edness. I mean, I've got to be me and this is part of me. Here's to hoping that I find a way to walk the line more than I cross it.

 

  

If I'm Selling Books, Am I Selling Sex?

 Cathy Day's piece about the life of a novel was both inspiring and incredibly dispiriting. Let's begin with the dispiriting aspects so that we can end on a positive note, shall we? Cathy Day called attention to a whole host of things that I already suspected. Things like the way that marketing, luck and chance play into the degree of "success" that a book can have. (Here we are defining success by sales, the way that her piece seems to do at least initially).
     Incredibly, Day points out that a portion of the population (in her example men) will only consider reading a book if it might increase their odds of getting a woman in bed. She purports a situation where a man sees a woman reading "your book" and then considering whether he should acquire "your book" so he can then have something to talk to the woman about. It's all very interesting to ponder, and I have no doubt that this scenario plays out all across the country, but as a writer it makes the effort--the  agonizing over every word and sentence--seem somehow futile or at the very least, cheap.
     All that time and thought spent pouring over pages and at the end of the day, "your book" is being used as a tool to get into someone's pants? Does this make me a matchmaker or a madame? Who knows, but it's definitely a new way of thinking about the way that my words could change a person's life.
     But at least after running "your book" and the reaction to "your book" and the feelings that you might have over the worlds reaction to "your book" through the spectrum of depressing possibilities, Day gives us writers hope, or at least she gave this writer hope.
     The beauty of writing, like any art, is that it outlives us. While the chances of my work winding up in obscurity are much higher than any other outcome, there is also the chance that my writing might touch people I have never met, that it might change their minds or change their souls. It is this chance that keeps me writing, this possibility that lifts me up.
 

Author Web Sites

Well, as we were supposed to do for this week, I've checked out some of the websites of my favorite writers. (Note: I couldn't remember what we were supposed to look up for our favorite writers who are dead so I stuck with ones who are still alive.) Here are my brief summaries of each.

Cheryl Strayed's page: Her site is pretty expansive, with lots of stuff to click on and check out. She has links to her column on The Rumpus, to her tumblr blog. She also has a lot of pictures of herself, a long bio, and a trailer for her most recent book. I like how interactive Strayed's site is and the fact that it feels like it is a place that she maintains herself, but I'm into keeping things a bit more simple, methinks.

Joan Didion's site: Didion's site definitely lacks the personal feel. It's definitely maintained by a publicist, which is no great surprise given Didion's famous stature. Even the link to Didion's twitter account reveals that her tweets are written by "Ariel and Zach", huh? Boring. On the plus side, at the top of her home page, there's a drawing/caricature of Didion that is very cute and makes the site seem more homey, if only slightly.

David Sedaris: I expected more from this funny man's site. Like Didion, it's not very personal (it seems that the level of personalization corresponds with one's fame as a writer). What is cool about his site is that the home page has five things at the bottom (I don't know what they are called) that you can hover over and hear Sedaris reading one of his essays to a live audience. You can also link to interviews with him and appearances, etc. I also love that he has a downloadable app called David's Diary.

Dave Eggers nonexistent site: Dave Eggers doesn't even have a personal site. This link goes to McSweeney's, which has lots of great stuff on it, but is a product of Eggers and not about Eggers. Or is it? Maybe this is the best way to represent yourself.

I also looked at Lorrie Moore, who only had a Facebook page that was maintained by her publisher. All of this got me thinking about one thing more than any other. What's the point of having a website? For the more established writers, (if they even have one) it seems that they use it as a mere marketing tool--a place to sell books and showcase what they've written or where they might currently be writing. What struck me was that, I don't think that I'd have a reason to go to any of their sites more than one time.

As a less established writer, the goals of my website are different. I'd like for it to be a place where people can read my writing (crazy, I know), where they can get to know who I am as a writer. I'd like for the site to be interesting enough that they would feel compelled to check back from time to time to see what's new. For now, it seems that the best way to do this is by putting up good content, but I realize that I'm going to need to figure out a way to attract some web traffic since there are millions of blogs.

My friend David Carr

  I recently read My Dinner With Clay Shirky, and What I Learned About Friendship by my good friend David Carr. Well, to be honest, I don't actually know David Carr but I know some of his writing. New York Times stuff, of course, as well as The Night of the Gun, in which he explores the limits of memory by reporting on the events of his very screwed up, drug addicted life. He does this by going back and interviewing people who were present during particular instances in his life and comparing his memories with the memories of the people he interviews. Brilliant concept, even if it is completely narcissistic in the execution, but hey it's David Carr, what do you expect?

     

     In this particular piece, Carr contemplates the pros and cons of digital interaction. This is nothing new. We've all pondered the way that we can feel so damn lonely after spending hours on social media and "interacting" with all our digital friends. I'm reminded of the commercial where a teenager pityingly looks at her parents' Facebook pages and verbally laments the fact that they have so few friends. While she is reveling in her own Facebook popularity, the ad cuts to her parents who are out biking and living life with actual friends. I don't even know what the ad is supposed to be selling, but I always find myself chuckling at the absurdity of the teenager. 

     These days, I'm trying to be less of a digital curmudgeon, but I do agree with Carr's rather obvious conclusion when he says "...you can follow someone on Twitter, friend them on Facebook, quote or be quoted by them in a newspaper article, but until you taste their bread, you don't really know them." 

    So I will end this post by saying, great point my friend. Wait, we are friends, aren't we? Dave?