| Nov. 6th, 2009 @ 11:31 am Mild Annoyance |
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Current Mood: annoyed
OK...if this is not you, don't get your knickers in a knot. Nobody's pointing at you innocents.
If it is you, get your knickers out of the knot they're already in, and realize that you don't own the world and nobody owes you a damn thing. Yes, Auntie E- is pointing directly at you.
There's a perception (which, from some emails and other messages, I suspect is more accurate than not) that a lot of people are convinced they have a right to be fed whatever information they want whenever they want by their favorite device. They don't want to have to do anything themselves...they want it to flow to them automatically. (Ads feed this belief, of course...saw one last night on TV showing how all these streams of information would pour into someone's cellphone and produce the perfect girlfriend...yes, that's what it looked like...)
But--these people don't want any duplication. They'll complain like a kicked anthill if they find that someone has posted the same thing on different venues (because some people on each venue refuse to use any of the others, this is necessary if you want to be sure all your "friends" or "followers" or "fans" or whatever you want to call them get the info they claim to want, but can't be bothered to come to your own site to find.)
If someone posts only on sites that allow longer communications, they'll complain that a) it's not on Twitter and b) it's not frequent enough. If someone posts on Twitter and has it fed to another site, they'll complain that it's just a re-feed of the same old Twitter they already saw and it's not as interesting as longer posts. At one point, LJ was considered the hot! new! best thing EVAR!! and then the focus shifted to MySpace and FaceBook and Twitter, and the same enthusiasts for A ran off to B, and then to C and D. Ghu knows what's next (which of the other social networking tools will suddenly become the hot! new! best thing EVAR! that if you aren't on, you're just so, so out of it. It's like junior high cliques.)
Let's be clear: There is no way for the person posting information to win. Specifically, and bringing it into the personal, there's no way for me, a full-time novelist, to write separate (different enough for some people) posts on every possible social networking venue every day covering the same basic information at exactly the length each person reading it wants, whatever length that is. A well-written blog post takes time, and a badly-written one reflects badly on me as a professional writer. I need to put 2000-3000 words down on the book every day. Another 500-1500 words online is about the limit before the arthritis kicks in. And, for the sake of personal health, I've been advised to do other things that take up a couple of hours a day, plus the usual work--laundry, cooking, even minimal housework.
No, I don't post at LJ every day. I have three other online venues where I do post almost every day...and where some of the people reading and enjoying those don't want to bother with LJ. Can't do four a day every day. Cannot. Nobody who's making a living at something other than blogging online can spend hours a day blogging online. Yes, there's the need to develop a "platform" as it's now called, but
So: if you're feeling annoyed with me about what I do and don't post, how often I do and don't post, where I do and don't post, and on what schedule...tough. If you're interested in me, then pick one or two of the places where I hang out online (all easily found from my website) that are most of interest to you, know that the data I think important for everyone will be there, and you may have a taste of something not served in the other dining room, and be happy. Or, get mad and storm away.
The basics: For those who are interested in biology, nature stuff, wildlife management, prairie restoration, etc., the best place to hang out with me is the 80 Acres blog. I usually post there several times a week, often with photos of our land project, most recently a photo of a new fly for our species list (cute: white spots, gold wings.) You can also find my images on BugGuide.net (including lots from before I had the 80 acres blog.)
For those who are interested in the current book project or the Paksenarrion books, including some writing about writing and the process of constructing such books, the best place to hang out is the Paksworld blog. I usually post there several times a week (currently aiming for 5x week) and the most recent posts discuss the use of whiny characters and details of the revision process.
Posts in both these are noted here, in LJ, usually with a little description, as above. This LiveJournal is getting fewer posts since the above two blogs got busier (if I spend time and wordage on answering comments there, I don't have it to spend here) but I still post here at least every 3-4 days. As I've peeled off the major special-interest/project posts to other sites, LJ posts will be "general interest" topics for the most part and will only very rarely contain images. (It's a lot easier to upload images at my own blogs.)
Then there's my sff.net newsgroup. Can be read by guests via WebNews or with a newsreader such as Thunderbird; my newsgroup is under People and then Elizabeth Moon in the news hierarchy of topics. This is the virtual "fishing cabin on a Hill Country river." Wandering topics, friendly bunch of familiar faces. Zero tolerance for some kinds of disturbances. Some people hate newsgroups. Your loss.
If your primary interest is autism, there's the Speed of Dark blog. I post there less often than I'd like to, thanks to a) writing books, b) LifeStuff, c) keeping up blogs for current projects, d) more LifeStuff.
Then there's Twitter. Twitter posts will appear here once daily. If you feel you need up-to-the-instant access to my Twitter posts, then look for emoontx. If the daily Twitter-post digest annoys you...skip it. It was created in response to a request from one of you...go be annoyed at him/her. I'm doing my best to cover all the bases I've been told to cover.
Now for the irritated persons (I'm sure there are some) with their knickers still in a knot who want to scold me for wasting time writing this when I could have been satisfying their every want...Go do something interesting and your knickers will un-knot themselves. I suggest beginning a serious study of beetles. Studying beetles will fill up hours in anyone's life that might otherwise be used to heckle me. Someday you'll have your revenge on me when you're the only person in the world who can ID the beetle image I send in to BugGuide and you sneeringly inform me it's named for you (because you found it) or for me (because it's butt-ugly and you wanted to insult me.) You can be thinking which of those would give you the most satisfaction.
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