Why seanan_mcguire doesn't count

[msagara]

When I say things tongue-in-cheek, I usually forget where my tongue is and almost bite it off. I wrote:

Balancing the social with the promotional is hard. If LJ were my only on-line presence, it would be very close to impossible because putting up notices every few days in the month before a book's on sale date doesn't work for me as a reader - so I've no expectation that it will work for anyone else who's here as part of the LJ community. (Seanan McGuire doesn't count. If you ask me why, I'll explain later).

mtlawson, in his infinite mercy, asked me why seanan_mcguire didn't count. Yes, when I say infinite, I mean infinitely small.

But, it's a reasonable question, and actually, someone in real life did ask me what I thought the difference was, because seanan_mcguire does do this.

My answer to her was: Seanan is dialled up to eleven on a slow day. She is superwoman. She has cats who steal her underwear when she reaches for her suitcase, and bite her hand when she reaches for the TV remote if they happen to be watching the show she wants to surf away from. She paints, she sings, she writes songs, she writes novels -- she probably writes poetry on the side. She reads comics, watches horror movies, watches television, hatches crazy ideas for signings and launches, and thinks book book book with every other breath she takes.

Apparently this wasn't an explanation.

So. Seanan is so much Seanan on-line there's no sense at all of public persona. If you meet her off-line, you'll see what I mean. Ask her a question, she'll answer it. If she has a question, she'll ask. If the question seems odd, well. She'll still ask ("Who is Robert Jordan?"). And while she's there, she'll talk about her works in progress, her upcoming book days, her cats, her house, her background, the comics she loves, the horror movies, her book giveaways, her mother, her sister -- and nothing about any of this feels disingenuous, because none of it is.

No one wants to be disliked. I'd guess that everyone would like people to think well of them. But sometimes, in an attempt to be liked, we shove away parts of ourselves, or we remain silent about things, or we fall into personas the way normal business people fall into suits. We don't relax enough to be ourselves because we don't want to offend people we can't even see, and as a result, we're not entirely ourselves on-line.. There is nothing wrong with this. If you show up at work in cargo shorts and a polo shirt, and work is a stuffy fortune 500 business, you will probably not be working there for much longer.

But…Seanan would show up in a pumpkin orange dress, with a few ARCs of her book in her bag, and she would be so much herself that after a few minutes no one would blink, and the person in charge of the company would probably wander by and we would all discover that he's secretly a huge zombie horror movie fan, and in the end, he would take a copy of her ARC away with him, not having noticed the lack of a suit.

Okay, that was clumsy. Let me try it again with less hyperbole (although it's hard to keep hyperbole down when talking about Seanan; I'm not sure why).

Seanan is entirely herself on-line. There's a lot of stuff she doesn't post about, but that's not the point; what she does post is imbued with that self. She's written some of the best writing advice I think I've read on-line, and she comes up with useful and helpful posts that are also funny in that vein.

She'll rant when annoyed at stupid things. She'll practically sing when she's excited. She writes up to 4k words a day, which makes me feel lazy and unproductive, but that's a byproduct of me, not an intent on her part.

So, when she posts about her book day or her book reviews or her new sales, it folds into the rest of it because all of those posts are also exactly Seanan; I can practically hear her talk. She posts frequently; I think the only time there are gaps are when she's at a convention or in NYC. And even if she did post every three days about her upcoming publication date, she posts so much in the intervening times between notifications that it doesn't feel like endless title spam.

Not all of her content is spam. Not all of her interactions are about sales. She does interact with people on her LJ.

But if she failed to notice or mark her publication date? I'd probably really be worried about her.


Sigh. @=/=lj user tag.

Comments

[yuki-onna.livejournal.com]

Yep, this is pretty much how I do it--or how I like to think I do.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

::snicker::

I deserved that.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

Ah.

She is comfortable in her own skin. Not just among friends, but among strangers. Or online. It's not calculated, it is just her personality bubbling forth. She makes it look effortless, because for her it is.

[(Anonymous)]

My opinion, which seems to be the minority one at times, is that no one should feel obligated to share more of themselves than they feel comfortable with, including public figures. I am uneasy with the gossip mags who relentlessly follow celebs and with the people who read them. Some people thrive on the attention, and that is great, but its wrong to expect it of everyone.

I've stopped doing many of the things I used to because of other's expectations of my entertaining them. I just can't be 'on' all the time and the pressure to be was just too much.

That was my entirely wordy way of saying, you are liked and respected as you are, please don't feel you need to change, especially to conform to stranger's expectations.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I think some publishers may be getting the message. Mine is doing actual promo. And making a book trailer. I am flabbergasted.

Personally I find that when I blog about writing, nobody wants to hear it (though they will happily hire me to teach them about it), but if I blog about horses, they get very excited. So if I talk about my horse book, they also get excited.

It's being you, yes. And being the you that's not like everybody else.

Also, not coming across as the sweaty guy with the cart full of self-published books, you remember him? There was always one (or two or three) at the conventions back when self-pubbing was not the done thing, trundling around and cornering people and trying to hard-sell them his book. People felt sorry for him and bought it, or else ran and hid when they saw him coming.

That's happening online now. It's a serious dilemma for authors whose publishers are expecting them to Do Something Online.

[beccastareyes]

I see what you mean. When I read Seanan's posts about, say, a new Toby book, I get the impression that it's about the same as any of my friends who has had something cool happen to them -- 'you guys, I wrote a book, and they're publishing it, and it comes out next month!'.

(I've seen a few other authors do this, but it helps that their blogs are also prolific so it's very much a window on their lives, or the portion they lives they like talking about with strangers. Which means, they talk about writing/their books, but also about their pets and hobbies and the crazy conversations they have with friends or sharing interesting links.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

It's called charisma, and yep, most of us (well, me) don't have it. But charismatic people can write about their daily minutae and people want to read it because it's about them.

[trektone.livejournal.com]

I figured someone else would ask about Seanan not counting, so I waited for your response. Hee! And having known her for a ... while I knew I'd be amused by your follow-up.

[kittikins.livejournal.com]

I found this a very interesting and thoughtful post, especially with regards to the subtext of the role of online communities and authorship. I've read your works for over a decade and Seanan's since days after the first Toby publication. I think, in addition to all of the above, Seanan genuinely enjoys the medium of LJ for interaction with people who are excited about her creations.

As a reader I appreciate authors who share what they are comfortable with- because it is genuine. Whether it is a 800 page book every year year and advice for writers interspersed on a LJ, or full-tilt narrated jungle boogie life (book!music!cupcakes!pumpkins!plagues!).

[slweippert.livejournal.com]

...it's hard to keep hyperbole down when talking about Seanan; I'm not sure why...

I don't know why either, but at point I knew exactly what you were talking about. She comes north to the Seattle area often for filk purposes, so i've met her a few times.

We love Seanan in Seattle; she's a law unto herself. :D

[gothicsparrow.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask about Seanan as well, but apart from that I didn't have anything else to say.

I met Seanan at Worldcon this year (it was down the highway from my house, how could I not go?) and I kind of noticed that she's mostly like her blog, but in person. Which is pretty insane, really, because her blog posts seem a bit persona-ish. But she really is like her blog. (I was at her kaffeklatsch, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been able to say much.)