Twitter, Mastodon, TikTok and all that other nonsense #twitterexodus #mastodon #tiktok

I confess, I’m a bit fed up with social media right now.

I don’t spend much time on Facebook unless I am participating in a specific group event or checking in with a particular community. I mostly cross-post to it, and have had some moderate success with Facebook ads.

But this past week, several of my ads have been rejected (won on appeal, but still) for no discernable reason, and in 7 days I’ve spent almost $50 without a single sale. I keep getting notices that my ads might not deliver because they haven’t been optimized, and yet the description of how to do this makes no sense whatsoever. As much as I was loathe to give FB any money, my ads there seemed to have a greater ROI than my ads elsewhere. Not any longer. I don’t know what’s changed, and I am exhausted by the notion that I either have to figure it out or pay someone else to teach me how to appease the new algorithms.

There’s a big #TwitterExodus afoot now in the advent of Elon Musk purchasing the site. Rumors of this event occurred back in April, but then he backed out, but was forced to honor his agreement. EM’s reason for purchasing the platform was to make it a private company and easier for people to speak more freely… which means that much of the ugliness and rampant misinformation found on such right-wing sites as Parler has gained ground almost immediately on the bird platform. For a list of all the massive proposed changes in just the last week, check out this list here.

Additional concerns about the chaos of misinformation flooding Twitter before the mid-term elections is here. Many big companies have paused advertising to see what direction Twitter will ultimately take, but EM himself cited a widely discredited website in a Tweet that implied the brutal attack on Paul Pelosi was not carried out by a far-right wing blogger but was related instead to an anti-LGBTQ “theory” about a skirmish at a local bar. The Tweet was eventually deleted, but there you are.

This kind of behavior, both by EM and on Twitter, has resulted in large numbers of the people I follow and interact with choosing to leave Twitter. Most are migrating to a site called Mastodon, which claims to be a decentralized platform that can’t be bought or sold at the whim of a single entity. Jack Dorsey, the original founder of Twitter, is planning a similar decentralized platform called BlueSky. Decentralized platforms mean you don’t just jump in and have content/people pushed toward you. You have to decide what toe you want to dip in where.

Most older people say this is much how the internet used to be–and they are embracing the chaos. To me, it feels like making the jump from cable to streaming: if I want to watch a particular show, I have to figure out what channel it’s on and whether I want access to it. The problem with Mastodon, is the search engine is VERY different. You have to know what server to join, and what “instances” to join (which are kind of like clubs on Discord, it’s all very confusing). The phone app sucks, and I’m not keen on given my information to a third party app such as Tusky (which is being recommended) to use Mastodon on my phone.

Then there’s the problem that while Twitter is an established platform like Facebook or Pinterest, and sharing buttons on media have evolved to include them, there is no such thing for Mastodon as it stands. Where I (or anyone else) used to be able to easily share information from this blog or other sites, it will take extra steps to share things to Mastodon. But if you want a primer on making the move, read this post here.

The important thing to remember is it is NOT Twitter. It’s been likened to entering a high school cafeteria with your tray and looking for a place to sit down with like-minded people, and I suppose that’s why my knee-jerk reaction to Mastodon hasn’t been good. I LOATHED high school and the clique-y mentality. I’m also at a point in my life where I don’t have a lot of time and I hate wasting it on learning things I may or may not use.

Many people are touting Discord instead, but instead of a high school cafeteria, Discord feels to me like a gated community, and you can only gain entrance if you know the password. Long, threaded conversations like you have on WhatsApp and in chat rooms have never appealed to me because I’m invariably late to the party and the thing I wanted to comment on was 50 entries back and everyone has moved off of it onto something else. Don’t get me started on Tumbler, which feels like a place where someone scribbles graffiti on a wall and others come by and add their own scribblings. The end result can be interesting, but it’s hard to have a conversation there.

At the moment, I’m spending most of my time on TikTok, which I never, ever said I’d do. I admit to having spent the last eleven months having a ridiculous amount of fun there but… and you knew there was going to be a “but” right?

I’ve scarcely written a word since joining TT. I’m spending most of my writing time drafting videos. I’ve learned how to do transitions, use filters, lip sync, and have bought a crazy amount of wigs and costumes. Somehow the learning curve it took to master TT has not brought me to teeth-grinding rage the way learning other social media–it was a lot more like discovering fandom and then teaching myself all the tools I needed to know in order to play in it.

At first, TT was a BLAST. I’m still having fun with it, but ever since publishing deemed TT was THE place to be (and truthfully, that was the only reason I made the leap), there has been a lot of pressure to be young, thin, attractive, and the kind of TT presence publishers deem valuable. There have been rumors that one of the big trad pubs told an author they couldn’t offer her a contract because she wasn’t young enough (she was in her forties…). There is also talk of publishers signing up hot young women and then pairing them with older women who ghostwrite their books for similar reasons–the youth and hotness are prime selling points on this platform.

Honestly, that doesn’t bother me that much. That kind of thing has been going on as long as youth and sex have been selling factors. But what does bother me is the rumors that TT is going to move to a paid subscription model. What bothers me is that I used to routinely get 300-400 views and now they’ve dropped to less than 100. TT is HUGE for making constant changes to the algorithm, and now the word is they want to be more like YouTube by offering longer formats (up to ten minutes) and you have to make your content searchable now with captions. It’s all about SEO to increase visibility and I get so darned tired of having to change something every time I think I have a handle on it. TT has been good to me in terms of sales. But it’s a time sink, I blame it for the bulk of the drop off in my writing production, and I’m not there in order to manipulate the ins and outs of algorithm changes. I’m there to have fun.

If it turns into another pay-to-play site, I’m gone.

I had a bit of a meltdown this morning, and my husband said something to me that made me do a double-take. I mentioned that I was so angry all the time, and he said that if I were an old white man, he’d say it was because I’d been watching FOX News. It took me aback because I’m about as far from that demographic as you can get… and yet I AM stoking my rage machine all the time over things I have very little control over.

Democracy is going to live or die one way or another. Same with our civil rights, climate change, the hope of a future for our children in a world running out of resources and becoming increasingly polarized and violent, and so on. My ANGER ALONE will not prevent these things from happening. I tell myself staying informed is the best I can do because I’m working so hard on every other front to keep my head above water I can’t spare any more energy for anything else. I’ve donated where I thought it would help the most, and I only get more begging letters and emails. I can’t stop what’s coming.

But I can stop adding fuel to a furnace already about to meltdown.

They say we can’t survive as authors or creators of any kind without social media. But I think I need to consider surviving as a person for a little while with less of it.

The Remington Steele Syndrome: The Bias Against Women

I was a huge Remington Steele fan back in the day. It was the one show I had to watch each week.

I loved the premise: a woman trying to make it as a private detective figures out that she’ll be more successful if she creates an imaginary boss–a decidedly masculine boss. She cobbles the name together out of things in her office and Remington Steele is born. In many ways, it’s a sheer stroke of genius. Young, pretty, and female, Laura Holt probably didn’t inspire confidence in the sort of people who needed an private investigator. By creating an imaginary boss, she could present herself as his representative, could defer unpleasant decisions until she could speak with the boss; she could even make the boss the bad guy if the situation warranted it. It was a great plan, right until the time a con artist walks into her life and takes Steele’s identity. Laura is in the uncomfortable situation of not being able to out him without outing herself as well–and the con man needs a place to cool his heels. As premises for romantic dramedies go, this one was more clever than most.

I wanted to be Laura Holt. I admired her gumption, her classic sense of style. I wanted her shoes. I had a crush on Remington Steele. I loved Brosnan’s accent, I loved the banter between the characters. In fact, I think it was this show that made me fall in love with banter. It was like watching Nick and Nora from The Thin Man movies, which was appropriate, given Steele’s ability to find similarities in each case to old movies that he loved to watch.

I enjoyed the show so much that I was delighted to run across it on DVD. But watching it again proved to be a big mistake. With hindsight, I remembered that Brosnan wanted out of his contract to play Bond (though really, he was far too young at the time–his is the kind of attractiveness that gets better with age) and was upset when they wouldn’t let him go. Despite being good actors, this situation strained the working relationship between Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan, and it clearly shows in their romantic scenes together, at least to my more mature eyes. The banter feels more like bickering, and the plots, meant to reflect some of the screwball comedies of the 30’s and 40’s, seem dated and cheesy now.

And then there’s the premise itself. Laura Holt can’t be taken seriously in a man’s profession without pretending to have a male boss. Despite having trained and apprenticed for her career (as she said in the opening narrative each week), it was usually Steele who solved the case, by recalling an old movie with a similar set up. So not only does Steele move in lock, stock and barrel into the identity she created, he’s better at solving crimes than she is, too.

handwriting_flickrI’ve been thinking a lot about this kind of thing lately. A while back I came across a NYT post by Fay Weldon, titled “Writer of a Certain Age.” She spoke of her long experience in television and the theater, as well as that of a writer. It was an extremely well-written and eye-opening essay.

It was also bloody depressing. In it, Weldon spoke of truisms in the various entertainment industries in which she’s worked–and in nearly all cases, the only time a women was considered important and worth listening to–be it in television, theater, or novels–is when she is young, pretty, and the love interest for a male lead.

Worse, Weldon seems to imply in her post that if you are so unfortunate as to be ‘a writer of a certain age’ and female, that you should really take advantage of the internet to lie to your fans and create a false persona like Remington Steele. Take a gender neutral pen name. Or if you acknowledge that you are, in fact, a woman, take this opportunity to pretend to be younger, thinner, prettier than you really are. Ouch.

ink pen_wikipedia_orgDiscussion at the time of this post among my friends led to whether or not we thought bias still existed against women writers in this day and age. I laugh now when I think about the fact we even questioned this. In light of recent events here in the U.S. to strip people of their bodily autonomy, to grant guns more rights than I have now, it seems particularly ironic.

There’s a blog post titled Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants, which seemed to parallel Laura Holt’s dilemma: she couldn’t be taken seriously as a woman. It wasn’t until she took the pen name James Chartrand that her freelance writing business took off–and she was able to pay off her mortgage. The discussion among my friends turned inevitably to gender neutral pen names. In the thriller/mystery genre, a gender neutral pen name is almost mandatory–just look at J.D. Robb versus Nora Roberts. I argued that this was more about branding, about allowing your audience to know by your pen name what kind of story to expect. However, it is definitely the convention to take a gender-neutral pen name in the mystery genre, even in the cozy division, which is written and consumed largely by women.

It’s one of the reasons, when I decided to branch into cozy mysteries, I also took a gender-neutral name. In part to distinguish the mysteries from the paranormal romances in a manner the average reader could spot at a glance, but also because that was simply the norm.

You will hear people say as long as the story is written well, they don’t give a hoot about the gender of the author, and since I feel that way myself, I believe people when they say this. But I have to wonder, especially in light of Weldon’s post. Of her recommendation to be anything other than what I actually am. Believe me, that post made me wonder if I’d made a serious mistake by going with a feminine pen name, and whether I should delete all my previous posts on aging and sexuality. Whether I should be someone other than who I really am. Because writing isn’t just a little hobby for me. I need it to help pay the bills.

I’d always assumed that the romance genre got the least respect in the publishing world because by and large, it is considered a woman-centric genre. Lord knows, romance writers in general are considered the lowest of the low when it comes to ‘real’ writing. Turns out sci-fi and mystery writers also come pretty low on the ‘respect’ list, compared to the literary giants of the fiction world, which is sad because on any given day I’ll take a good mystery or sci-fi story over any self-indulgent, introspective Grand Literature novel. But I digress.

One of my friends pointed out this 2013 article to me on Literary Sexism: Still Pervasive and Real. It bears reading. While the beginning is about a critical review and the author’s response to it (which may not make a ton of sense if you aren’t familiar with Mary Gaitskill‘s essays and fiction), read it all the way through. There are some links to some searing examples of ongoing bias toward women. It’s enlightening as well as disheartening. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the pie chart graphs of the number of books reviewed by male versus female authors.

It seems to me that we should have come farther than Remington Steele by now. I’d like to point to one of my favorite television heroines, Kate Beckett from Castle, and say we have come a long way, baby. But then I recall how much Stana Katic’s appearance changed over the seasons of Castle and how little she resembled a NYPD homicide detective by the end of the series. The character was remade into a fashion model instead. And Castle usually solves the crime, too.

It is tempting here to say that Remington Steele was a bad, wrong message to send to impressionable young women. But that would be only partly true. I recall not all that long ago getting very angry over someone lambasting Star Trek: The Original Series on Twitter–commenting on how sexist, nationalist, racist, etc. the show was. I tried to point out that for its time, it was groundbreaking stuff. That yes, the women wore mini-skirts and go-go boots, but it was the first show that depicted a black woman in a role other than that of a maid or a cook. That it tackled big issues. That it envisioned a future in which we’d solved so many of our problems by working together instead of trying to kill each other. The Twitter Hater wouldn’t listen and I had to drop her from my feed. She couldn’t understand that it took those very baby steps taken in Star Trek fifty-six years ago to bring us forward to the kinds of diversity and equality we see in roles for characters today. Especially in the Star Trek universe itself. I’m loving Strange New Worlds. It has the classic Star Trek vibe and the writing and acting are outstanding. But the thing that struck me from the beginning was how many female characters there were. They aren’t just there for window dressing or to bring the Captain coffee, either. They have positions of power and play important roles on the ship and in the stories being told. I’m seeing a greater representation across the board as well. Not every actor has a chiseled jawline or perfect waist. Characters are differently abled and across the gender spectrum. Number One wears freaking nail polish (you know that’s my thing!!). The irony is now many of the Star Trek bros were livid when Discovery featured a Black, female lead and that now the franchise is somehow too woke for them now. Um, did they ever really watch the shows they claim to love?

I can’t find the article but I remember reading once that if there were more than a certain (very low) percentage of women on a television show, male viewers falsely exaggerated the numbers in their head, assuming there were more female characters than there actually were. Let’s not forget, either, the outrage that occurred when Ghostbusters was remade with a female-led cast (people howled about having their childhood ruined, utterly ruined, I say) or the hate the most recent Star Wars trilogy received for daring to make a female character the main focus of the story, and casting both Black and Asian actors to play significant roles. (My issues with the latest Star Wars trilogy have nothing to do with Rey being the lead and more to do offering last minute redemption through an act of love for an–in my eyes–irredeemable character. But that’s a discussion for another day…)

I have to give that same kind of credit to Remington Steele. It was groundbreaking in its way as well, giving us a strong unmarried female heroine who had an interesting career and did exciting things. Laura Holt was smart and independent and I wanted to be her. She was one of the first characters I can recall to influence me that way. That’s exactly the sort of baby step that was needed back then. It gave us Kate Beckett, Brenda Leigh Johnson (The Closer), Rizzoli and Isles, Captain Sharon Raydor (Major Crimes), and Peggy Carter (Captain America). I could go on. It’s getting better. We’re seeing better roles for women, more older women in good roles. But the numbers are still pretty small compared to the good parts for men. The fact that men got all the best parts and best lines was one of the reasons I’ve been drawn to male characters my entire life. Men still outnumber women 2:1 in movie roles.

Growing up in a world of Laura Holts, I expected to not be taken seriously at first. To have to work twice as hard to earn less money. To have to cleverly work around the system to get what I want. To be passed over for promotions, not the least of which is because it was assumed I wouldn’t be dedicated to my career because of the mythical children I never intended to have. But that’s not really the worst of it, is it? The roots of misogyny run deep, thriving on racism, ableism, homophobia, and Christian Nationalism–I’ve yet to see one stand without the others–and while we were busily pruning off the heads visible in the light, the patriarchal plant was sending runners out in all directions. We are being stripped of our rights as human beings with each passing day.

It’s tempting to give up. To bow my head meekly and put on the robe. But I refuse to do that. And I have Laura Holt to thank for it.

 

 

Am I TikTok Famous Yet?

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

I first heard about TikTok in 2020. It seemed to be a place where people made short videos (not in my skill set) where they danced (so not me!) or make-up tutorials (interesting but how many can you watch?). I had ZERO interest to start an account or even watch more than one or two cute animal videos that friends sent to me.

I had a lot of concerns about the format:

  1. Did I REALLY need to be on yet another social media platform?? Especially one that seemed to rely heavily on putting your face out there? Sure there are accounts where people managed to make entertaining content while not showing their face, but did they get the same following? Probably not.
  2. Did you see the part about “entertaining content”? I’m a writer, not an actress, producer, or sound editor. There’s a reason I live mostly behind a keyboard.
  3. The format seemed to be similar to tumblr, which I hated. A constant flow of bite sized posts with little way of tracking the ones you liked (or so I thought). 
  4. I have a LOT of reasons for not wanting my face on social media. I’ve had a stalker. I’m concerned my place of employment would take exception to the fact I’ve written a few racy romances (even though most of mine are fairly tame).
  5. I kept hearing concerns about the security of your information, given that TT is a subsidiary of a Chinese-based company.
  6. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to come up with more than 1-2 videos before running out of ideas.
  7. Almost everyone I saw on TikTok was gorgeous, and I’m not. I’m old, frumpy, and at least 40 pounds overweight. I grew up hearing how homely I was, and that the worst thing a woman could do was show her age and gain weight, so naturally, I did both. I absolutely loathe looking in the mirror. I’m not kidding. 

So I resisted the urge to join. I kept hearing what a great place BookTok was, however, and the FOMO was strong. Then too, I kept seeing these hysterically funny videos by Alisha Rai showing up on my Twitter and Instagram feeds, where she depicts little conversations between Satan and one of his minions. They are utterly brilliant. Still, I held out. TikTok wasn’t for me.

But then authors kept saying what an AMAZING place TikTok was for discoverability, especially for smaller authors or your backlist. And I was mightily tempted. Maybe I could make some vids without showing my face? Mark Dawson did a five day challenge in his Self-Publishing Formula group, and I decided to create an account and make a few videos. Shabby efforts at first. I had no idea what I was doing.

But then I got snowed in for a 3-day weekend, and I watched a LOT of TikTok. I tried out recipes, started Tai Chi, laughed over cute animal vids, considered side hustles that would let me quit the day job, began watching makeup tutorials aimed at my age group (so frustrating that makeup tends to look TERRIBLE on me now), and got really, really frustrated with the poor quality of my videos. It reminded me of when I first joined livejournal and I didn’t know how to code or embed images and I wanted to play SO BADLY that I taught myself.

So I began watching a crap-ton of TT tutorials. And then I discovered that Canva had a mobile app that allowed you to upload your creations directly to TT! I learned out to change the font, color, and size of my text, and how to make it appear at exactly the right time in the video.

And then, God help me. I discovered the filters. I began playing with filters, wigs, makeup, and transitions  I saved sound clips to use, got ideas from watching others, and became the queen of lip-syncing. I learned how to do the clever transitions, and have had a blast making short vids. Me, who rarely took videos and hadn’t the foggiest idea how to edit ANYTHING before TT. I was doing something I haven’t done in a very long time–probably not since the beginning of the pandemic–I was having fun. Okay, so not TikTok famous, and haven’t make a single sale as far as I can tell. And my friends were quick to point out that the filters and wigs weren’t disguising me–anyone who knew me would recognize me. I discovered then that I’d truly run out of f*cks to give. I didn’t care. Might my coworkers run across my videos? Yeah. Could I get fired? Maybe. But the thought of that doesn’t terrify me as much as it used to. I used to believe I was trapped, that I didn’t have the skill set to do much of anything else if I lost my job and jobs in this area are few and far between. A few weeks on TikTok, and suddenly I’m not afraid of that anymore.

BUT….

 

I haven’t written more than 100 words in the last two weeks. I’ve drafted over 30 TikTok videos, however. Sounds good, right? Only that’s about 10 days worth of content, according to the algorithms for getting notice on TT. I had the day off yesterday, and instead of writing, I made TT videos all morning long. I wasn’t sleeping well before I joined TT, but I was at least attempting to go to bed at a reasonable time. Now I’m often up past 1 am when I have work the next day. I’m hearing 15 second sound clips in my head all the time. My ability to focus, a little shaky already, has gone in the GUTTER. I also find myself picking up my phone and checking TT every couple of minutes. It feels like an addiction, peeps.

I suspect it’s like anything else when I first discover it–I dive in headfirst and become completely absorbed until I master the skills I want to use, and then my obsession will settle down. Moving forward, I’ll have to practice a little self-control. I’m doing a lot of things wrong, too. My posts don’t have any call to action, and I’m not staying in my niche/lane. I probably have more writers following me than readers. I’ve gained over 700 followers in 2 weeks, but at least half (if not more) of those are bots or men looking for a good time (seriously, you think TT is a dating app??). And sadly, I am not TikTok famous. Yet.

But that’s okay because, for now, I’m having fun.

 

What to Do When the Spirit of Christmas Ghosts You

I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time getting into the spirit of Christmas this year.

Oh, who am I kidding? It’s not just this year, though for some reason, it feels even worse than usual. Normally by this time of year, I’m happily working my way through holiday romances and mysteries on the e-reader, as well as indulging in my love of cheesy Christmas movies on Hallmark and Netflix. I’ve picked a night to do my annual re-watch of the Muppet Christmas Carol, and I’ve decided which of my other beloved favorites to add to the list. Will it be Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer or How the Grinch Stole Christmas? It’s a Wonderful Life or Christmas in Connecticut? I rotate these favorite classics to keep them fresh but also to make room for new movies, like A Cinderella Story: A Christmas Wish or Last Holiday with Queen Latifah.

I normally hide presents all over the house (sometimes to the point of forgetting to recover and wrap them in time for Christmas), though we’ve begun to scale back on that too. Most years I become possessed by a seasonally driven urge to bake. Completely ignoring my lack of skill in the kitchen (oh boy, do I have a post to share with you about THAT at some future date), I try my hand at dozens of different kinds of cookies, filling the house with the scent of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Co-workers and neighbors are the recipients of anything edible that my family can’t finish, though I eat far too many of them myself.

We haven’t done the elaborate holiday dinner for some time now. The family is smaller, its members scattered. Most of us have so little time off from work that travel isn’t feasible, even if the pandemic hadn’t made it impossible or unwise. We’ve never been big on outdoor decorations, either, and when you have pets, Christmas trees with ornaments can be problematic.

So we’ve been scaling back on Christmas a little each year for a while now.

Last year, while the pandemic still raged and vaccination wasn’t on the horizon yet, there was a desperation to my attempts to get into the holiday mood. This year, there is just apathy. I haven’t been able to muster the enthusiasm to watch more than one or two of the new holidays movies out there, and haven’t watched any of my old favorites. I have dozens of holiday books on the reader, and keep scrolling past to read something else. The weather isn’t helping, either. It’s been a balmy 70 degrees here recently with nary a snowflake in sight.

But in a conversation with one of my friends this morning, she said that though she and her husband feel the same, they put up a few decorations, and were glad they did. She planned to watch a cheesy movie and drink some hot cocoa, and suggested I should do likewise.

You know what? I’m going to take her advice.

Scaling back doesn’t mean going all out Grinch. Maybe finding the Christmas spirit is a little like writing when the Muse has left you. 

Sometimes you just need to sit down and do it. Don’t wait for the feeling to come. Go out and grab it.

Or put another way, if you open your heart to the spirit of Christmas, it will come.

Tonight we took a chance on a new holiday movie, Single All the Way. Lately the newer holiday movies have been a little hit-or-miss with me, but this movie was one of the best, most satisfying holiday movies I’ve seen in some time. It perfectly nailed the goofy, strange dynamics of a loving family. The writing and acting was top-notch. It took the fake boyfriend trope and turned it on its head. Best of all, there were no bad guys, unless you count demanding bosses who expect you to work over the holidays. Highly recommend.

Holiday Gift Guide for the Writer in Your Life

Photo by Monstera from Pexels

It’s that time of year again–when we start thinking about holiday shopping and what the writer in our lives might want as a gift. Okay, that writer is me. Just kidding! Okay, maybe I’m only kidding a little.

See, most non-writers don’t have a clue what kind of gift to give to the authors in their lives. They want to show their support! They want to give something useful. But if you’re not a writer yourself, it’s hard to know what to get. That’s why I’m going to recommend a few things myself but I’m also opening the door for YOUR suggestions. Tell me what you’ve been longing for, what you have on your wish list, what you’d dearly love the most. I want to know about it! Who knows, someone you love might stumble across this list and get you the one thing YOU’VE been hoping for!

Let’s start with the easiest kinds of gifts to shop for: books on craft! There are SO many out there, and many are targeted to genre as well. I know a lot of people who recommend Anne Lamont’s Bird by Bird and Stephen King’s On Writing. For romance writers, many consider Romancing the Beat an invaluable tool. I’m also a big fan of The Emotion Thesaurus (and the other books in that line).

But as a mystery writer, I also love books on forensics and police procedure, as well toxicology, poisons and the other means by which you can kill someone. Keep in mind, books on craft aren’t necessarily about writing per se; they can also include books and courses on marketing, advertising, and so on. 

What about planners? I would be lost without my Author’s Planner by Audrey Hughey!

It’s more than just another notebook or calendar. SO MUCH MORE. You can track your daily and weekly goals, your expenditures (to make doing your taxes so much easier!), plan your marketing and social media campaigns, newsletters, you name it! What I love about it is it’s large enough for me to work in without cramming tiny notes everywhere, and the coil-bound cover allows it to lay flat while you’re working on it. It’s a bit like having an organizer, an accountability partner, a cheerleader, and a coach all rolled up into one.
 
The 2021 Author’s Planner is designed to be your all-in-one day planner and writing-career coach, helping you organize your writing life and get on a clear path to reach your goals.
 
Have you thought about editing software? I bet you haven’t! But there are some great programs out there. I like ProWritingAid the best, but there are lots of services out there. Right now, PWA is having a Black Friday sale until 11/30/21 so you can get a year’s subscription up to 50% off!
 
Online courses are also wonderful! There are all kinds of courses on mastering Amazon ads, writing blurbs, or just writing in general. I got a lot out of Inkers Con last year, and the best part is you have access to the materials for three years after the conference! I’m toying with attending live versus digital in 2022, but to be honest, it’s FAR more economic for me to attend digitally–no airfare, no hotel, no boarding the dogs… and I can attend in my PJs if I want! You can still get access to the 2021 Conference if you want to start there. I believe it’s discounted right now!
 
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been toying with looking into such software as Scrivener, Vellum, and Atticus for formatting to take my self-published books to the next level. Unfortunately, Vellum is for Macs, but sometimes I’m tempted. I’m very tempted…. 
 
Likewise, the author in your life might be jonesing for some graphics programs, such as the premium services offered by Canva or Bookbrush. Sure, we can use the free versions, but the paid services allow us to take our publications and social media graphics to that coveted next level of professional design.
 
If all else fails, offer to gift your writer the funds to cover the purchase of cover art or professional editing! Those two items right there represent a huge chunk of investment, and something most indie authors would love a little help with.
 
So what about you? What’s on your wish list? What have you been eyeing for yourself or someone else?

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year: I Need Your Holiday Movie and Book Recommendations!

Okay, so those who know me know I am a SUCKER for holiday-themed romance stories and movies. I got hooked on them as a teenager when I discovered an anthology of Regency Holiday Romances. I devoured it, and have looked for more every holiday season.

For me, that “holiday season” starts in November, and some years lasts until March. I crave romances that take place in snowy venues, mysteries in snow-bound country homes, average girls who find their prince in a fictional kingdom in the snow-covered Alps.

See, the key ingredient for me is snow. It’s a rarity here, and cause for celebration because Snow Day! Am I right? When you live in the hot, humid, sweltering South, you pine for ice skating parties, sledding down monster hills, and drinking hot cocoa by a crackling fire in the hearth. I love stories where the girl returns or arrives in a small town and falls in love–probably because I am not a city girl myself. I love wreaths on the doors, and baking snickerdoodles, and at this time of year, I want holiday stories and movies.

Mostly because the message of these stories is guaranteed to be uplifting. There is joy, hope, love and a little bit of magic to be had in these stories, and we could all use a little bit more of that these days.

This is the first of a series of Holiday-Themed Posts asking for your recommendations.

This post is for story and movie recommendations. This time, Monday Nov 8, I’d like very much if you’d sell me on YOUR favorite holiday movie or novel. This post is for you to recommend something you love, but not your own work, please. Next week, Monday Nov 15th, I’ll ask for links to YOUR holiday stories–and I want to hear about them ALL. There are 12 holidays of all nationalities and religions celebrated in December alone–if you’ve written a story set during one of these times, I want to hear about it! It does not have to be a new release, either! The post after that, Monday Nov 22, I’m going to be asking for your gift-giving recommendations, with special focus on those for writers.

I have some current favorite movies to share with you here. Yes, I love It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas in Connecticut, Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, and not a single Christmas goes by without a re-watch of The Muppet Christmas Carol. But I also love The Holiday, with Jack Black, Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, and Jude Law. A fun, heartwarming movie about finding your place with the right people. I also adore Last Holiday with Queen Latifah–I adore how she finds her inner lioness when she thinks she is about to die. I’m also a sucker for The Princess Switch movies–how many characters can Vanessa Hudgens play in one movie? Can they possibly add a 4th character? We’ll have to see! Because I also love musicals, I make a point of re-watching A Cinderella Story: A Christmas Wish. Just love this one! I’m also fond of A Princess for Christmas, in part because I really like Katie McGrath as an actress and she brings her skill to this movie.

As for stories, there are almost too many to share! I have on tap to read On Christmas Tree Cove by Sarah Vance-Tompkins, Holiday Ever After by Jill Shalvis, The Holiday Switch by Tif Marcelo, and Jenny Holiday’s A Princess for Christmas. In the past, I’ve enjoyed A Timeless Christmas by Alexis Stanton, It Happened One Christmas (Anthology), Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory, A Wallflower Christmas by Lisa Kleypas, and SO MANY MORE. It’s embarrassing how many of these stories I have on my Kindle, and I’m looking for more!

So share with me YOUR favorite holiday movies and stories! I want them all! Tell me where I can find them, but more importantly, why do you love it so? Why should I love it too?? I can’t wait to indulge!

Teaching Yourself New Tricks: Advice from an Old Dog Trainer

The other day I was complaining to a group of friends how frustrated I was with my journey to better health. That I was so frazzled and stressed that even the smallest things seemed impossible. That I was so angry at how much I’d had sacrificed and given up in the last few years that I resisted like hell when asked to give up anything else. How exhausted I was all the time, and how this impacted my ability to make good personal decisions when all my energy for good decision-making was reserved for work.

I begged for their support. I was hoping for some other bit of miraculous advice, the perfect diet plan that would allow me to shed twenty pounds in two days, feel AMAZING with just some small tweaks in my routine, and take at least twenty years off my appearance. Okay, not really. But certainly that’s the expectation we have when starting any new ‘clean up your act’ plan. Miracles in 21 days or your money back.

The response I got startled me.

One of my friends said, “You wouldn’t expect a reactive dog to make huge improvements overnight. Why do you expect the same for yourself?”

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a reactive dog is one who over-reacts to things in its environment. This kind of behavior can be hard-wired into the dog through genetics (certain breeds, especially the working and herding dogs, have been bred to respond to certain situations and stimuli, and can be more reactive as a result), through poor socialization (not having seen enough different things as a young pup, which makes the whole world an intense place), or from a terrifying incident–like getting attacked.

Reactive dogs are tough to live with because almost everything sets them off: movement, sound, certain situations. They lunge and bark in public spaces, making them difficult to walk. The tendency is to keep them home, which makes the problem worse, especially if you stop having people come over. The risk of a reactive dog biting someone is high because their displays are often fear-based, and if you can’t calm them down, their response is disproportionate to the stimuli.

I’ve had two reactive dogs, so I’ve had to learn a lot about managing them.

The first was Abbey, a female German Shepherd that came from bloodlines that featured a lot of Schutzhund champions. Schutzhund is a dog sport that tests a dog’s performance during tracking, obedience, and protection work. That is not to say that a Schutzhund dog can’t make a great family pet, but the sport does prize drive as a characteristic, and reactivity can be a consequence of high drive.

Abbey would have probably been a tough-but-manageable dog had she not had a horrific experience. When she was about three years old, we were out walking after a heavy snowstorm. My neighbors had a litter of adult mixed-breed shepherds that lived in a pen with little human interaction. On this day for the first time ever, they decided to let their unsocialized, untrained dogs loose to play in the snow. Four dogs all about Abbey’s size jumped us as a pack with the intent of killing her.

Had it not been for the excessive snow, they probably would have. Abbey dove under the snow pack while I waded into the mass of dogs, screeching like a banshee, grabbing dogs by the scruff and slinging them across the yard. Their owners came charging out of the house to collect their dogs–with never a word of apology or to see if me or my dog had been injured, mind you.

And after that, if Abbey saw a dog even 100 yards away, she went into an impressive display of barking and growling, pawing the air while I held her back by the collar. Going for a walk was no longer fun. We were like victims of assault, constantly looking over our shoulders for another attack. Abbey thought a good offense was the best defense. She even reacted on garbage days when people set their trash cans on the curb. Whatever was new and different in her environment was grounds for being defensive.

Over the next three or four years I worked on her behavior, taking “aggressive” dog classes, working with trainers and behaviorists. It wasn’t until one such trainer helped me to see that she was over-reacting out of fear that I was able to start managing her better. In the end, we were able to safely introduce her to strange dogs, and pass another dog-walker on a six-foot-wide trail without her blinking an eye.

But it didn’t happen overnight.

When I got my next reactive dog, Sampson, I had a better handle on what to do. I’d made sure Sampson had been well-socialized as a puppy, but his problem was he had a strong prey drive. If it moved, it lit him up. I could always tell when he wasn’t getting enough exercise because he’d flinch if a car or a jogger passed us while we were out walking. I’d have to take him to the side of the trail if we met someone on a hike and ask him to sit while I fed him treats. This required me to be hyper-vigilant, always scanning our environment for something he might react to and heading off that reaction before it occurred. Fortunately, he was very food-motivated, and eventually it got to the point when he saw the jogger, the cyclist, the car, etc, he’d flip around, plant himself in front of me, and stare at me while drool streamed out of his mouth.

A wonderful dog, but not easy to live with.

I bring this up because much like all worthwhile things in life, retraining a reactive dog is a marathon, not a sprint. It requires patience, dedication, and consistency to see results. You can’t decide that this time, you won’t reinforce the behavior you want while discouraging the behavior you don’t want. The results matter because not following through will lead to a lifetime of trying to prevent your hysterical dog from hurting himself or someone else. Not to mention it is horrible to live in a state of such anxiety all the time.

And at no point did I tell either of my dogs they were fat, lazy, or stupid for behaving the way they did. I didn’t scream at them. I didn’t tell them they were ugly. I didn’t set them up to fail. I didn’t ask them to do something not very much fun without providing some kind of reward to make it worth their while. I didn’t expect them to get it right 100% of the time, either. I accepted anything that moved in the right direction until it became a consistent habit and I could ask for a little bit more. I acknowledged that if they got it wrong, I was usually to blame because I wasn’t paying attention.

Why would I treat myself–and the changes I want to make in my life–with any less patience and compassion?

I shouldn’t. And neither should you.

So remember the tenants of dog training when it comes to yourself and the changes you want to make in your life:

  1. Set yourself up to succeed. Look ahead for the triggers and plan redirects around them.
  2. Calmly and firmly tell yourself no when faced with a decision that isn’t good for you (like walking into the break room and discovering boxes of doughnuts from the best bakery in town). Be sure to reward yourself for making the right decision. This is critical! You’ll have to figure out what your “high-value treats” are. Try not to trade one bad habit for another (i.e. you’re trying to quit smoking so you’re eating lots of cookies, or you’re spending too much money shopping online).
  3. Be patient. You’re in this for the long-haul. Getting ten little things right can be set back by getting one major thing wrong, but getting something wrong isn’t the end of the world. Just do better next time.
  4. Remember that you’re making changes for a reason. Failure to stick with it has consequences. Failing to train your reactive dog may result in your dog biting someone or getting into a serious dogfight with injuries. Failure to make needed changes in your life may result in further damage to your mental and physical health.
  5. Remember that some of the behaviors you’re dealing with may have their roots in past trauma. I never blamed Abbey for over-reacting to the sight of strange dogs–we both could have died on that snowy day! Be kind to your wounded self too.
  6. Learn from your mistakes. Failure to plan is planning to fail. I wouldn’t leave the house without a treat bag full of high-value tidbits to distract my dog in certain situations. I also learned to recognize which situations were too overwhelming for her to start, and adjusted our interactions as a result. Identify your triggers and challenging situations and plan accordingly.
  7. Accept that it is up to you to affect the changes you want to see, and that you can’t necessarily expect help from others. When you’re out walking a reactive dog, you have zero control over what other people are doing with their dogs, or on skateboards, or with kids in strollers, etc. It is up to YOU to take yourself and your dog out of a situation that you suspect will be triggering. Same if you’re trying to alter your habits (be it food, alcohol, drugs, swearing, or a pervasive need to sing Disney songs, whatever). You cannot expect others around you to create a safe zone for you. Accept responsibility for your own life.
  8. Ask for help and support. Wait, what? Doesn’t that contradict the last rule? No, not really. Training a reactive dog will fail if some members of the house refuse to support the training efforts. It isn’t reasonable or fair to expect the world at large to cooperate with your efforts to make change, but it is reasonable to ask for help from those in your immediate circle. It’s okay to admit that a house full of cookies (or alcohol or Chez Doodles, whatever your poison) proves to be too hard to resist. You can sit your family down and explain that you have to make changes in order to improve the quality of your life, and while you’re not asking that everyone follow the same strictures you might be making for your personal health (for example, going dairy-free), you are going to need to set limits on how much of the high-temptation food is in the house, and that when choosing to eat out, preference be given to a restaurant that has more options than pizza or burgers. It isn’t wrong to ask for this kind of support, particularly in the early stages of change when you are trying to get a handle on it. You wouldn’t take a reactive dog to a dog park until you’d learned how to manage their reactivity in public. A dog park is too much for many dogs, not just reactive ones! You start out with smaller, quieter walks until you know how to manage your dog in more stimulating situations. So if you’re trying to affect change in eating habits, perhaps eating out with the family isn’t the best choice at first.
  9. Consider professional help. Sure, you’ve been training dogs (or feeding yourself, or dealing with your own issues) all your life. But sometimes you need the help of a trained professional to manage a specific issue. Sometimes that reactive dog needs medication to calm down to the point it can listen appropriately to your training. You might need therapy to deal with old wounds. Perhaps your current methods of coping, which come with consequences, have their roots in previous trauma, and you won’t really effect change until you figure out how to heal from that.
  10. Give yourself credit for the changes and improvements you make. They may not seem like much at first, but don’t discount them! A baby step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction. Eventually, you will no longer be satisfied with baby steps, and you’ll be able to continue pushing forward. Six months or a year from now, you’ll look back in astonishment at how far you’ve come.

So there you have it: why training yourself is no different from training your dog. If your dog slips its collar and runs off, you wouldn’t beat your dog for finally coming to you when you called it, would you? No, you wouldn’t–or you shouldn’t, at any rate.

Then stop beating yourself up for returning to the path you want after briefly straying from it. You can teach an old dog new tricks.

DYI Salon Nails at Home

First, I need to start this post off by saying I am NOT affiliated with any of the companies whose products are mentioned here today. I’m just a gal who loves nail polish and thought I’d share my experiences with different brands.

But you could sum up my love of nail polish–and horses–in this OPI commercial.

 

I’m not one of these people who is supremely talented with nail art. I’m also hard on my hands, and the day job prevents me from wearing my nails too long. To be honest, it’s hard for me to grow my nails out very long these days, which is probably just as well for a writer as well as a horsewoman.

But that means I need nail polish that lasts.

If you’re interested in what I do for nail health, I’ve posted about it here. In that post, I mention that when the pandemic struck, I stopped going for my monthly manicure at the nail salon. (I stopped everything: haircuts, doctor’s appointments, going to the grocery store… I got everything I needed online and if I couldn’t get it that way, I did without.)

After a year of going nail-polish free, I realized I’d broken my nail salon addiction. I no longer felt I could afford either the time or the cost of getting my nails professionally done. And to be honest, of all the things I gave up in 2020, going to get my nails done was the least traumatic to lose. Besides, you can’t check your O2 levels with a finger pulse oximeter while wearing most nail polishes.

But gradually, the urge to paint my nails returned. Painting my nails is a form of self-care. In times when we’ve had to sacrifice so much for so long, I’m not going to apologize for a little self-indulgence.

I went back to my old standby, Live Love Polish first. Sadly, after over a year of abandoning my shades for salon manis, most of my LLP colors were too old and tacky to be revived. I discovered that the site has moved away from selling any polish but their own brand, which is understandable, but I missed the variety they used to offer, particularly when it came to thermal nail polishes. I adore Rothko Red, and was sad to see LLP no longer carried it, but fortunately, I was able to find it elsewhere online. Thermal nail polishes are so much fun! They are color sensitive, like mood rings, so the tips of your nails are often darker than the beds. The color changes dependent on temperature, so I’ve seen my nails go from one shade on a cold morning walk to another after washing your hands in hot water. So much fun!

LLP still has some other fun polishes–most notably, their magnetic series. You paint your nails in black for a base color, then paint the magnetic shade of your choice over it. (My personal favorite is Siamese, but I don’t see it on their site anymore). Before the polish dries, you hold a magnet over the nail, which aligns the metal flecks in the polish to cause a linear area of refraction. The effect is similar to a tiger’s eye stone, very cool!

But neither polish is great in the longevity department. I don’t know about you, but I resent spending a significant period of time painting nails, waiting for them to dry, doing a second or third coat, more drying time, and then a top coat as well… only to have the edges wear or chip within 24 hours. That’s no fun! Gel polishes seemed to last a little longer, but no where near the promised two weeks touted by the companies.

So I began exploring other options. You’ll see a lot of those on Facebook and Instagram! The two that appealed to me the most were ColorStreet and Nailboo

ColorStreet is a system that has you apply strips of real nail polish to your nails. (No, I don’t understand how they do that!)

What I like about ColorStreet is that I can create some of the fun nail art designs I’ve seen online by using their clear overlays on top of a base coat polish. I found the application a wee bit challenging at first, and I would strongly advise watching the videos for tips. Do NOT apply strips to your thumbnails until you’ve done the others because you need your thumbs to shape the color strip around your nails. And be absolutely sure to apply a top coat of clear polish!! I didn’t do that the first time and was disappointed at how quickly the color began to peel as a result. There are other useful tips to know as well–such as using a flat iron or other such device to reseal your packages once you open them to save for future use–I’m afraid I wasted quite a bit of my first package as a result of not knowing these things in advance.

The end result? I really like some of their patterned designs (and am saving them for special occasions, such as Halloween, or the next time I go to a book convention) and the color lasts longer than your standard nail polish (even premium brands such as OPI) but I didn’t find ColorStreet to be cost effective for me, and the application can be a little finickity. Don’t be in a hurry!

But this sheet color Dallas Darling (since discontinued) came out nicely, don’t you think?

But then I discovered Nailboo. I have to say, I am in LOVE. It’s basically the SNS powder system I enjoyed when I was getting my nails done at a salon and it’s SO EASY. I’m going to attempt a little video later today. If I am successful, I’ll link it here. But the short version is not only is the Nailboo system easy to use, but the nail polish is incredibly durable too. Cost-wise you are paying more for the system than the others, but the ease of use and the durability makes up for it, in my opinion. So far, I’ve maintained a shade for two weeks without major issues, aside from twice I’ve had the entire polish pop off the nail in one piece (much like a fake nail) when I hit my hand wrong about a week post polishing. No big deal. I just reapplied the powder and it matched the others like I’d just done them all.

A couple of tips:

  1. Apply the base coat carefully. This is the coat that you use for the building powder, as well as the color powders. If you’re messy when you apply it, you’ll wind up with powder adhering where you don’t want it. Once I’m applying the actual color, I don’t take the base coat to the side edges of my nails, as this can result in a ridge of buildup that needs to be filed down, or you can get too thick a coating.
  2. Use the little brush provided to dust off the powder between applications, but just lightly brush over the nail or you can smudge up the powder. Be sure to use the cleaner to clean the brush afterward or you’ll end up with clumps of polish gumming the whole thing together.
  3. When the instructions suggest waiting two minutes between applying the activator coat and any next steps, wait five instead. You’ll thank me for it later.
  4. After I apply the first coat of color powder, I don’t take any subsequent coats all the way to my nail bed. This tend to build up a thick edge that will catch on your hair and clothing a week or so later, and make it easier to pull the paint off. I try to taper the color application here as a result.
  5. When the instructions tell you to buff and file the nails before applying the top coat, DO IT. Don’t be shy about buffing that surface. If you don’t, you won’t get that highly desirable glossy shine with the top coat because the color coat will be too rough.

The whole thing takes about twenty minutes to do both hands, even with the wait times. Seriously, the more you do it, the faster you’ll get as well. Here’s Ocean Blue before the final buffing and top coat. There were some thick areas of powder buildup where more stuck to the nail than was supposed too–I suspect I put too much base coat on. But it filed down without issue.

And here’s the final result. Pretty snazzy, eh? Honestly, it’s like getting salon nails done for a fraction of the time and price. What I paid for a Nailboo starter kit was the equivalent to a single trip to the salon. I have no idea how long a jar of powder will last, but I suspect I’ll get at least four or five treatments from one jar. Maybe more. My only con for Nailboo is that so far, their color palette is somewhat limited. But I think that will expand as the product catches on!

 

I’m curious: what do you do as a form of self care? 

 

 

Compassion Fatigue: or Why I Didn’t Share Your Post

 

TW/CW for sad things tugging on your heartstrings.

 

 

 

The other day during work I got an email from an acquaintance. A shelter in the neighboring county had posted an urgent notice: they’d been inundated with puppies during the past week and if they didn’t find homes for them by the end of business hours that day, they would have to euthanize them.

Did I know of anyone who wanted a puppy? Like right now? Immediately.

I wracked my brains but couldn’t come up with anyone on the fly.

“Send me the link and I’ll share it when I can,” I offered as a stopgap before delving back into work.

But ultimately, I didn’t share the link. Let me tell you why.

You see, something about that urgent request to spend compassion currency that I have in dwindling supply broke me just a little.

I have to reiterate: it was puppies. Puppies that needed homes right away or they would die. But for the first time ever, getting hit with such a request rang the resentment buzzer instead of the compassion bell.

Whoa. Hold up there. Resenting an impassioned plea to help save at least one or two puppies? Doesn’t that make me some kind of Cruella de Vil?

Sure, I couldn’t do anything directly to save the puppies. But I could share the link, right? How much energy could that possibly take? How could I refuse to put out the word?

Well, there are a couple of reasons. For starters, there was the link itself, which felt very “click-baity” when I read it. “Help us! Puppies will die if you don’t come TODAY!”

Believe me, I know there is probably someone on the other end of that post, hoping against hope that they don’t have to perform the soul-destroying task of euthanizing healthy puppies because some irresponsible person let their dog have them without any intention of raising them and finding homes for them. And my heart breaks for that shelter worker. I know their pain is real, even if they couched their request like so many other posts begging for help.

But practically speaking, by the time I’d put out the half-a dozen or so fires at my job, which also requires a great deal of compassion, it was so late in the day that my sharing the post would have been too late for that litter of puppies. Perhaps it could have raised awareness for someone else out there looking for a puppy that they should check out the shelter, but the puppies in question? Too late.

And that’s when I realized that my compassion bank account was dangerously low.

Because every day we’re hit up with thousands of similar requests. GoFundMe accounts for medical or funeral expenses shared by our friends. Political organizations playing off our justifiable outrage over some restrictive measure that’s just been enacted, and if we don’t donate NOW, warning of the Bad Things coming our way. Just causes demanding we take action. Global catastrophes begging for our financial support. Legal funds for kids in cages, ripped from their families. Egregious acts of racism that deserve investigation and some kind of response. Missing children on milk cartons needing to be identified. And so on.

And yes, I realize that I’m speaking from a place of great privilege because I’m not the one begging for help paying my bills or needing someone to rescue me from having to perform a heartbreaking task.

I think of myself as a compassionate person. Professions that demand compassion tend to attract empathetic people, and I chose my career path years ago because I had compassion to spare. I donate generously to things I believe in because I usually don’t have the time to volunteer in person. I spent years serving as a caretaker to my father because it was my mother’s wish that he be able to stay at home rather than enter an advanced care facility. I trap, neuter, and vaccinate the stray cats that show up around my house on my own dime, finding homes for those that can be tamed and going to ridiculous lengths to take care of the remaining ones (see the expensive catio that I built for these furry freeloaders). I cried when the annoying trash panda, whom I caught three times before trapping the mean tom (who hisses and spits at me every day, despite being nursed back to health), got hit by a car.

I share things. The post about the homeless trans teen who needs help. The post from an internet acquaintance who needs help paying for her cat’s surgery. The posts about fundraisers, many of which I contribute to myself. The posts about organizations raising money to deal with the aftermaths of flooding, fires, hurricanes, and earthquakes. The posts where some mother is asking for likes to show her son or daughter how beautiful they are. I comment with sympathy on the posts of total strangers who have experienced a great loss.

My lack of willingness to share the post about the puppies, and the resentment the request generated, tells me I must draw the line somewhere. None of us are designed with endless wells of compassion. To mix metaphors, we can’t keep overdrawing our compassion accounts to spend on things out of our control. The constant withdrawal of coins to spend on people we don’t know will bankrupt us.

I’m not Cruella de Vil.

I have compassion fatigue.

Put another way, if I’d found a box of puppies myself, I would have taken them into my home. I would have had them vaccinated and dewormed, and tried my best to find homes for them all, while at the same time, trying to socialize them and instill some manners in order to make them the best possible candidates for adoption.

If the local shelter had a fundraiser, I’d volunteer my time, donate some money, and if I couldn’t do either of the above, I’d share the post about it. I’d probably share the post regardless, but in terms of doing something, sharing is the last on the list. I’ve said it before, but sharing posts without taking action is little more than virtue-signaling. It might make you feel good, but for the most part it accomplishes very little.

I wrote a bit about my struggles with social media in general a few weeks ago, and how I think SM breaks are necessary for our mental health. In that post, I mentioned this metafilter thread that my husband had shared with me: What’s Mine to care about and what’s NOT MINE to care about. The original post cited, as well as the discussion thread it generated, is well-worth reading. In the OP, If You Can’t Take In Anymore, There’s a Reason, the poster refers to the need for an emotional circuit breaker because our minds and hearts aren’t wired to care about everything that’s on fire all over the world at the same time, and if we don’t flip that breaker, our whole house will burn down.

I couldn’t agree more. So like the OP, I recommend you pick one fire to put out at a time, and you concentrate on the fire that threatens the things you care about the most. Battle that fire with all your heart and resources. Fight the fire you think you have the best chance of helping to contain, or the one that is the most pressing to you because it’s in your backyard. You can help fight a fire halfway across the world, if that’s the fire that’s important to you, but you can’t squander your limited resources on trying to fight them all.

Because if 101 Dalmatians show up at your doorstep looking for a ride home, you want to have enough compassion in the bank to get them there.

And perhaps if I wasn’t staring down at a compassion overdraft notice, I would have shared the post about the puppies after all. Because that is the sort of thing I care about.

Is it Time to kiss Social Media Goodbye?

Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels

More and more people I know are discussing leaving social media altogether. Divorcing themselves from Facebook, Twitter, and even the relatively happy place, Instagram.

I’m not surprised, to be honest. Social media has become a toxic swamp, weaponized by those forces wishing to polarize populations and bring countries to their knees. Think I’m exaggerating? Remember the huge hate the latest trilogy of Star Wars movies received from supposed fanboys who hated the fact none of the leads were young, white men?

Welp, a post by Wired in 2018 revealed that as much as half the negative tweets about the film were politically motivated or generated by bots (a storyline worthy of the franchise itself, if you ask me).

It’s not just polarizing people over issues such as diversity and inclusiveness. Social media has become the place most people get their information these days, and the amount of disinformation out there, aimed at creating divisiveness at best and destroying nations at worst, is scary. I don’t consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but when I see well-educated people in the medical profession or education supporting unverified, crazy theories over statistically-backed scientific reports, I’m concerned, let me tell you.

On a personal level, I find the damage it causes something else altogether. We’ve become addicted to doomscrolling, and because clicks are king, media outlets are creating provocative headlines designed to keep us in a perpetual state of outrage. My husband and I had a conversation about this the other day, and I think for many of us, we share these anger-inducing posts because it’s the bare minimum we can do. Most of us don’t have the time, energy, or resources to do anything other than share the outrage because we think people should be angry and upset over these important issues.

(Don’t get me started on the data mining these platforms do… how creepy is it that my husband and I talk about buying a new mattress and shortly thereafter, our feeds get flooded with mattress adverts??)

But the truth of the matter is not only is sharing bad news (and OMG, there’s SO much of it these days) completely worthless in terms of doing something about it, there may be great harm in doing so as well. It fosters a sense of hopelessness about our ability to change anything: from the impending climate disasters, to voter suppression and the march to invalidate any election results the opposition doesn’t like, from politicians who get vaccinated themselves, but tell their constituents Covid-19 is nothing to worry about, so don’t bother with vaccines and oh, by the way, get back to work, please. And when we get sucked into a state of despair and cynicism, then we stop trying to make a difference where we can.

My husband shared this great metafilter discussion thread with me, and I’m sharing it here with you: What’s MINE to care about and what’s NOT MINE to care about. It has some great things to say about limiting your anxiety over the things for which you have no control and what to do about the things you can affect. That you can’t fight all the battles in the world, but you can’t opt out of fighting any. And if all you’re doing is sharing outrage posts, how is that different from virtue signaling? The metafilter discussion was in reference to this post here, which points out we are not designed to handle all the suffering in the world, and that circuit breakers exist for a reason: to prevent electrical systems from overloading.

My friends, the majority of whom I met online, are moving off social media and onto other, smaller platforms, such as WhatsApp and Discord. The main reason? To keep up with each other during the day but avoid getting sucked into the mire of disinformation and ugly rhetoric out there. I can’t say as I blame them. I’ve taken Facebook off my phone. I’m considering eliminating Twitter next. Some of my friends have taken things one step further: they’ve deleted their accounts.

I confess, the idea of doing that fills me with a sense of dread. I’m a writer. I’ve been told over and over again that I must have a presence on social media. And without the backing of a Big Name Publisher, I suspect this is true. I need to keep hustling to remind people my stories exist, to build a newsletter following, to manage groups, to post regularly to all my platforms, to stand on the deck of the Ark amidst limitless seas, releasing doves again and again in the hopes of one of them eventually bringing back signs of dry land out there.

To consider eliminating my social media presence feels a bit like giving up. Like accepting that I’ll never be more than a small potatoes writer releasing a handful of French fries once a year. So maybe I won’t delete my accounts.

But I can be a better steward of them.

You want fries with that?

Photo by Dzenina Lukac from Pexels