A few days ago, Simon Larter used my blog as an example on his, Constant Revision, encouraging readers to take a walk on the wild and snarky side. It started a fabulous discussion on the topic of snark and made me think a lot about how much I love making people laugh—what fun it is to get so many comments about uncontrollable laughter on my most insane posts—plus Medeia Sharif used my new favorite participle about my blog: “entranced.”
Thank you so much, Medeia! And thank you, Simon, for pushing people to live courageously in their crazy, heartfelt, secretly terrified-and-terrifying worlds and take some virtual risks (which are way the heck safer than real ones, both for you and for others out there on the road). Thank you, everyone, for a truly scintillating conversation. . .particularly you people (Michelle) who were so intensely kind. Aw. You warm the cockles of my fuzzy little editorial heart.
(I would thank Violet, too, but she’s just about to see me descend on her doorstep tonight beladen with tequila and triple sec, so we’ll wait until the fireworks subside before we ask her how she feels about me then.)
And today, just to liven things up even more, Simon’s interviewed me. God love the man, he’s a brave soul.
It was a lot of fun, and I showed my compassionate and supportive editorial side rather than “dangerous” black humor side. Mostly. In the end I wound up getting emotional over my brilliant clients and readers, telling Simon and the whole world how appreciative I am of everything good and profound and beautiful you all have brought into my life.
And I mean every word of it, you guys. You’re a joy.
Victoria,
I swear. I don’t know what all this talk is about you being occasionally snarky. As I said on Simon’s blog, perhaps I’ve been so overwhelmed by your attention to my little stories and so caught up in your enthusiasm to make them better that, if you were ever snarky, it didn’t register.
If anything, you’re a Dale Carnegie course.
Thanks, Kathryn!
I’m never snarky to clients. Ever. I would never aim any kind of negativity at an individual, particularly not someone who shares my love for this wonderful craft. (Except maybe Mary Higgins Clark, who is not a client of mine but is a public figure by legal definition, and, I’m pretty sure, couldn’t care less what I think. If I honestly thought it would hurt her, I would never say it. Party on, Mary.) I have an ethical code, which is reflected pretty succinctly in the Bloggess’ code: “Offending people is fine. Hurting them? Not cool.”
But of course the blogosphere does harbor a few trolls, and they do make it their mission to interfere with other people having any kind of fun by which They Are Not Amused. They’re out there busy cleaning up the blogosphere in their own image.
One of my husband’s favorite cartoons is of someone typing furiously at their keyboard, yelling over their shoulder, “I can’t come to bed now. Someone on the Internet is wrong!”