the cut

The weird thing about the internet is that it’s so easy to read totally wrong intentions into the mildest of actions. Especially if you’re as paranoid as me. (If there’s one thing I have in common with my heroine, it’s a healthy dose of paranoia.) If you don’t receive a response to an email then the person is giving you “the silent treatment.” If you don’t recieve a response in a day and a half, and the person is your agent, you’re about to get fired and your career is over. If a question you post gets lost in the shuffle of a busy message board, then they’re a bunch of cliquey bitches and you’re getting the heck out of their sandbox. If you post anonymously to a blog then you’re obviously the blogger’s ex-boyfriend and you’ve got an ax to grind. The list goes on and on.

So the upshot of all of this is, I try to be very careful before assigning agency to anyone with whom I carry on a conversation in a blog discussion, message board, or email loop. I’d hate to rush into a snap judgment that I was somehow receiving a cut when really the person’s DSL went down for a day or so, or my message never made it, or was utterly corrupted when it did, or so-and-so didn’t translate that I was the same person as I was somewhere else. )Which I am guilty of all the time! Hi, Charlene and Charlene.) There are just too many variables going on in this crazy online world.

And most of the people I’ve met online have seemed very nice, or at least, very interesting to talk to, and eager to discuss craft and industry and the weather. And I’m eager to discuss it right back. With anyone. Pubbed, unpubbed, agent, editor, bookseller, reader, writer, candlestick lighter… And no one has ever told me that I’m difficult to talk to. Unless they are saying that it’s difficult to get a word in edgewise. I do hear that upon occasion. In fact, I think the only person better at preventing edgewise words than me is Julie Leto. She’s a master, really. I never listen so much as when I’m on the phone with her. 😉

However, as the old saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t actually after you. I get very weirded out when I feel that I’ve made polite overtures of friendship, or even colleagueship, and am being rebuffed. Especially when the rebuffer has made it quite clear that I’m being singled out for said buffing. I wish my reflex was, “Ah well, their loss,” but it’s usually more along the lines of “Wait, what’s wrong with me?”, “What did I do to piss her off?”, and, worst of all, “What can I do to fix it?”

I’m writing a character right now who has that response to everything, so this is much on my mind. So perhaps I should be thankful that this has come up and that I can now explore this characterization on an intimate, method level.

Or maybe it’s symptomatic of something else. You know how some people get paranoid when they smoke pot? (Disclaimer: I’m not smoking pot.) However, I’ve found that periods of great paranoia usually come when I’m particularly under the weather, and right now, I’ve got a cold. (Again! DEATH TO ALL VIRUSES!!!!!!) So perhaps I am being paranoid.

Quoth Sailor Boy: It’s good that you have identified your unusual presentation.

The bottom line is that I need to stop expending energy wondering why this person dubbin’t wike me, and get back to work on… you know, work.

Seriously, though, what the fuck did I do wrong? I’m nice, dammit!!!! NIIIIIIICE!

Ahem. Right. Back to work.

(Achoo!)