Guest Blogger: Celia Rivenbark

Question: Is it harder to make a reader laugh or cry?

My high school journalism teacher asked us that question a very long time ago and my hand shot up.
“Laugh,” I said. This question was a no-brainer. I’d always been the class clown for as long as I could remember. Never took anything too seriously, loved stupid puns, rolled “joints” full of oregano and sold them during study hall, the usual stuff, I guess.

The bar had been set high because the class clown the year before me was more about slapstick. His finest hour? A teacher who didn’t particularly like her job used to have the odd habit of stomping down her trash, right in the can, to make room for more. She did it every single day right before she started teaching. She’d pick up her roll book, walk around the side of her desk and stomp down the always-full trash. Then, and only then, could the lesson begin. One day, CC decided it would be funny to fill the can with water and then float a bunch of wadded up paper on top. You guessed it: She walked around her desk, like always, lifted her big, tree-stump leg high and put it down hard into the trash can. Ker-SPLASH! She was wet and screaming and furious and everybody got a “Zero” for the day.

My humor tended to be more subtle but it still came fairly easy so, yes, “make ‘em laugh” I said with irritating confidence that day in class.
“

No,” said the teacher. “It’s much easier to make them cry.”

For some reason, this has stuck with me like nothing else in the 30 some years I’ve written for newspapers.
I’m not sure I even believed it til I wrote a column about the death of my 15-year-old cat. Mail flooded in, along with photos of other people’s beloved pets. It had only taken about 18 minutes to write that column. Compared to how I labored over the humor columns every week, it was a shock.

Not long after that, I wrote about my miscarriage for a Mother’s Day column. Again, more mail than I’d ever received poured in and, reading it, I learned just how long and hard I could cry reading someone else’s words. That column had taken no more than 20 minutes. It was raw and true and, well, easy to write.

Making them laugh every week, 52 weeks a year, for nearly 20 years? Oh, yes, much harder.

In my fifth book, “You Can’t Drink All Day If You Don’t Start in the Mornin’ ’’, there are two essays that might make a reader cry a little. And, yes, they were written quickly and easily. They will generate the most mail and probably the most response at readings. This is the way it goes. When I’m on a book tour and doing a reading, there is nothing more gratifying than having something I wrote make people laugh out loud. If they cry, it’s more of a “we’re all in this together” moment. Either way, connecting with readers is a privilege I don’t take for granted. It’s the best feeling in the world. And that’s no joke.

Celia Rivenbark is the author of the award-winning bestsellers Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank, We’re Just Like You, Only Prettier, and Bless Your Heart, Tramp. She lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. Visit www.celiarivenbark.com. Her newest release is You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning: Surviving the South with Sweet Tea-Flavored Vodka, Chicken Salad, and Jesus

Girls Gone Wild and Crazy

It's not every day that small town Southern girls get the opportunity to participate in pornography — especially the kind viewed by millions of people around the world.

So when "Girls Gone Wild" pulled into Sumter, South Carolina recently, to film at a bar on U.S. 76/378, several readers contacted The Item, where I am a reporter. And, since that's not the sort of coverage male reporters can handle — at least with any credibility — I offered to go.

Before the festivities got under way, I drove toward Shaw Air Force Base to scope out the terrain. As I pulled into the parking lot behind the colorful "Girls Gone Wild" bus, my 3-year-old shouted, "Look, Mama! A princess bus!" I laughed. But then it occurred to me that somewhere, each of these girls was indeed someone's princess.

When I went back about 10 p.m. (without my daughter), bouncers were checking IDs and handing out plastic bracelets: colored for 21 and older; black for the underage bar-goers, 18 to 21. My male "body guard" paid the $10 cover charge required for men. Women were free. We scribbled our names on an attendance sheet and opened the door, where a "Girls Gone Wild" crew member had just taped a legal notice."By entering these premises," it said, "you consent to be filmed and have your image distributed in print, on video and on the Internet, at the discretion of 'Girls Gone Wild.'"

Hardly the sort of "waiver" that would hold up in court. Then again, I don't think anyone is suing. As the evening would prove, they're actually chasing the attention.

A very intoxicated 40-something woman entertained us for hours as we waited for the party to start. She made interesting use of a pole planted centerstage on the dance floor, showing off moves that could have only been learned in a strip club — including, at one point, licking that pole. By 11 p.m., the same woman was wearing nothing but a bra and thong, and gracing the laps of the bikers and military members who had coughed up the $1 bills now adorning her undergarments.

Three young women sitting next to us made fun of her. One hour later, they would be gyrating for the cameras, using similar moves.

At midnight, people were wall-to-wall, next to the dance floor, waiting for the action. The smoke was thick, and hours of alcohol consumption had dulled everyone's senses. A few people stumbled. Most sat smoking and drinking, staring wildy, their eyes raking up and down the bodies of any women who passed.

Good thing I had dressed like Grandma Moses.

Finally, with a series of triumphant announcements and a ramped-up rap song, three crew members strutted to the front, where they were swarmed. Video cameras perched on shoulders, lights blazing, the men pointed the cameras at various women.

Like television anchors being cued, the women swung into action. They bumped. They grinded. They simulated sex acts. More than a few lifted their tops, fondling themselves for posterity in the tell-tale moves that make "Girls Gone Wild" so notorious.

I followed the crew as they filmed, zooming and tilting their lenses to make the shots more interesting. After about 30 minutes, the crew member had exhausted most of the willing women. Bored, they began walking around, trying to convince more women to do things for the camera.

"You only live once," cooed one camerman. "This is your chance to be in the spotlight, do your thing, have your moment, girl." Some fell for it. Others merely shook their heads.

Later, the cameraman told me he had graduated from journalism school at a prestigious West Coast university. Media jobs paid little, he explained. This paid well. And he got to travel throughout the United States. What more could anyone want?

What more, indeed.

"The guy in the back told me I could have a T-shirt if I flashed him," said a heavy brunette, shoving her way toward us. "I did, but he said I had to talk to you."

"Will you show them to me?" asked the cameraman. The woman obliged.

"Hold on, let me turn on the camera," he said.

Before he had even flipped the switch, the brunette was flashing her wares once again, fondling herself for added effect. She looked at him, one eyebrow cocked. He tossed her a pink tank top with nary a second glance.

"They do that for a T-shirt?" I asked, incredulous."Yeah, a $3 T-shirt," said the cameraman with a smirk, shaking his head. "Can you believe it? We don't ever pay anybody – ever."

Not only does "Girls Gone Wild" not pay anyone, but bar owners actually pay them to come. Employees said this bar's owner shelled out a $1,500 fee to the organization, in addition to paying for hotel rooms, gas, meals and drinks for the crew. That didn't include the $5-per-head cover fee that he also had to hand over at the end of the evening. With at least 300 in attendance, the bar's bill for the evening would amount to well over $3,000, possibly close to $4,000.

Asked if it was worth it, the bar owner said he was making plenty of money on drinks. "Our parking lot has never been this full on a Thursday — never," he said.

Few expenses, pure profit. Apparently, "Girls Gone Wild" is a money-making operation all the way around.

"Congratulations," I said to one of the waitresses, who had performed a girl-on-girl "dance" with one of her colleagues. "The producer told me you two would definitely make the final cut."

"Oh!" she giggled, covering her face with her hand. "What will my mother say?"

I kid you not.

I pursed my lips. "Does your mother buy 'Girls Gone Wild' videos?"

"No," she said with a laugh.

"I guess you're OK then," I replied, trying to keep the sarcasm from my voice.

OK, assuming you don't mind millions of people watching you simulate sex with another woman. To the cheers of a drunken crowd.

OK, assuming this is the legacy you want to leave for your children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

And OK, assuming you don't give a whit what the women's movement has fought so hard to obtain – the right to be viewed by men as equals, just for starters, and to be treated with respect.

All of which is being slowly obliterated by a generation that has seized a pro-choice slogan ("It's my body, and I'll do what I want with it") and crammed it into a justification for stripper-style, peep-show entertainment that can only take us back to the dark ages in terms of male perception.

Because no matter how much these young women cry "freedom," their performances — which they stubbornly insist are just "dancing" — are stripping a generation of dignity, one bar at a time. Protests notwithstanding, these women are eroding their own self-esteem, and transforming themselves into objects for sexual gratification. And, they are confirming that nagging suspicion which so many men carry — some secretly, some not so secretly — that women really are good for just one thing.

I can hear the demons cackling.

All the way to the bank.

Annabelle Robertson is an award-winning journalist and reporter who writes for The Item newspaper in Sumter, South Carolina. She is the author of The Southern Girl's Guide to Surviving the Newlywed Years: How to Stay Sane Once You've Caught Your Man.

Live From Perry, Georgia

I live in Perry, Georgia, a small town in the middle of the state. I have lived here since my second child was born and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I like the people here and the way of life. I love my church where my son is the preacher and I like seeing friends and neighbors when I go to the grocery store. I am just a small town guy and always will be.

Over the years people have told me that if I wanted a career in entertainment I would have to move to a bigger place such as Atlanta. They have said my dreams of being a famous writer couldn’t happen as long as I stayed in Perry. Ah, but they didn’t count on the power of the Internet.

As soon as I had my first book published it was put up on Amazon.com for sale. That made me an international author so to speak because anyone with access to a computer could log on to the Amazon site and buy my book. I don’t know how many books I have sold around the world but I have gotten e-mails from people around the globe saying they read my book(s).

The same thing happened after I put up my website www.jackiekcooper.com. Now anyone with internet access could read my reviews of movies, books, etc. It was as easy as A-B-C and I didn’t have to leave Perry to do any of it. I just sat at my keyboard in my home and typed away.

A few years ago I became a critic for rottentomatoes.com. This is a website that specializes in movie reviews. I generally post two or three a week and all can be seen on that site. I usually get some comments good and bad and some e-mails good and bad.

The big surprise came last week when my agent for speaking engagements forwarded me an e-mail supposedly from “The Huffington Post.” Even in Perry people are aware of political commentator Arianna Huffington, and to a large extent are aware of her blog www.huffingtonpost.com.

The e-mail asked him to query me as to whether or not I would like to become a reviewer for the Huffington post blog. It gave me a number to call to talk about this offer. As I read the e-mail I decided it was a joke. I told my agent he could call them but I wasn’t, and he agreed he would. A few minutes later he called back and told me it was legitimate.

So I called the number and talked to a guy who said that yes they would like to have me post my reviews on their website/blog. He said for me to send him a picture and a bio and he in turn would send me the password and rules for blogging there. I did and he did.

My reviews have started appearing on the site and I write and submit them all from Perry, Georgia. I don’t have to go to LA, New York or Atlanta; I can do it all from the comfort of my home. I can still live here and work here.

Now have I been extraordinarily lucky? Yes! My dreams have been met and exceeded. What is even greater is that I don’t know what tomorrow holds. It could be something beyond my wildest dreams. The fact is anything and everything could happen. Keep that in mind!

Jackie K Cooper is enjoying the good life in Perry, Georgia where he continues his writing career.

JKC

Guest Blogger: Lynn Coulter

The firemen are coming tomorrow. That's why we're hunched over the kitchen table on a school night, trying to wrestle a raw egg into a nest of bubble wrap and tape. My son, who's nine, adds some newspaper around his egg, named "Bob," for extra protection.

And protection is the name of this game. Every year, each kid in my son's fourth-grade class is supposed to pad an egg so it won't shatter when dropped from a height of thirty feet. I can’t say it’s a tradition everywhere below the Mason-Dixon Line, but it is here in our little Southern town.

For more excitement---and what egg-based activity doesn't beg for bling? - - a local fireman is coming to help. The entire elementary school will turn out to see him climb onto the roof and drop one egg after another to the sidewalk below. To win, an egg has to survive the fall.

The kids are actually doing a science project on velocity, but as a freelance writer, I can't resist looking for a life lesson in this experiment. To me, the whole exercise feels a lot like writing. A writer spends her imagination and energy hurling her best ideas out into space every day: the space of other people's opinions.

Her fragile ego (which is only one letter of the alphabet away from the word "egg," if you think about it) goes along for the ride. Will an editor accept my proposal? Will a publisher offer a contract? Every time I send out new work, I'm flinging my hopes and dreams into the unknown, praying they won't end up shattered.

When Egg Drop day finally arrives, my son thinks Bob looks good. The only other egg to beat is Sexy Beast, a competitor named for a catch phrase in the popular "Austin Powers" movies starring Mike Myers.

We all stand on the ground watching, hardly daring to breath, as the fireman tosses each child’s padded, boxed, or packaged egg from the school roof. The crowd groans as parachutes fail, balloons burst, and beach balls explode. So far, it's omelets, all the way.

Sexy Beast makes a successful descent. Isn't that always the case? Those kinds of writers score, too, with plum assignments and fat checks.

ood old, ordinary Bob is up next. If Bob makes it, I tell myself, so can I. My writing isn't exotic, just grounded in the ordinary stuff of life. But if Bob survives, maybe I will, too. Maybe my work won't end up splattered on the sidewalks of the publishing world, instead of rising to the top like a glorious soufflé for hungry readers.

Maybe I need to stop seeing myself as an egg and find a therapist.

Bob is launched. He lands.
We peel away his packing. He's cracked, but unbroken. No yellow streak of yolk betrays his ordeal.

I take it as a sign for writers everywhere.
May the good eggs always win.
###

Lynn Coulter is the author of Mustard Seeds: Thoughts on the Nature of God and Faith, which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and Gardening with Heirloom Seeds, praised by Publishers Weekly as “a welcome addition to every gardener’s bookshelf.” She is also a journalist whose work has appeared in Delta Air Lines’ Sky, Family Circle, Southern Living, Progressive Farmer, Toyota Connections, AAA Travel, the Atlanta newspapers, and many other publications.
Coulter’s debut book, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds: Tried-and-True Flowers, Fruits, and Vegetables for a New Generation (University of North Carolina Press, 2006), describes fifty treasured heirloom species and is filled with growing tips and practical advice from gardeners. It includes 130 color photos and beautiful artwork reproduced from antique seed catalogs.
Her most recent book, Mustard Seeds: Thoughts on the Nature of God and Faith, was released by B&H Books in September 2008. Its fifteen personal essays chronicle the daily markers of God’s love and care that emerged during a long period of hardship.
Coulter graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Journalism from Georgia State University and has received an individual artist grant in literature from the Georgia Council for the Arts. She lives with her husband and son near Atlanta, where she is at work on her third title, Little Mercies (B&H Books).

Please visit Lynn’s websites at www.LynnCoulter.com and www.MustardSeedsBook.com . Her books are available wherever books are sold, or online from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

THIS WRITERS LIFE by Jackie Lee Miles

This month’s assignment is to write about my process as a writer. Oh, boy—that’s a hard one. I’m sort of an organic writer in that I first hear my protagonist’s voice in my head and it’s always very loud so I listen closely to it. My family thinks I’m totally crazy because I’m hearing voices and they don’t pay me any attention other than to inquire now and then if I am seeking therapy. I pay them no attention, either. I keep listening to my voices.

When my protagonist first speaks, I listen carefully to what she is saying and try to determine where she’s at in her life. From there I hit the keyboard and keep going until I come to a complete stop and then I usually say, “Oh, shi—now what? That’s when I start a sort of outline. By sort of, I mean I think of events that would naturally occur in this particular protagonist’s life and then try to think of ways to expound upon them that will have relevance to the story arc, which I have yet to determine, but am working on. Basically, I’m a total mess and get depressed and walk around the house in circles until I come up with something. Then I sit back down to the keyboard and pound out some more words and low and behold some days it’s pretty good, which gets me going and then I keep going until I hit another pothole and then I start walking around in circles again.

Once I get to the halfway mark I start thinking about what the climax to this story should be and why, and then I take a hammer and kill myself if I can’t come up with something really good. If I am still alive in the morning I continue on and write down what the climax should definitely be and head to the resolution. Sometimes it works out pretty good. Then I discard the hammer and open a bottle of wine and sort of celebrate because I’m almost there.

Right now I am NOT almost there. I’m just beginning. I have started a new novel, SUMMER CREEK. In this novel, twelve-year-old Mary Alice Munford struggles with the knowledge that her mother plans to marry her father, a man who abandoned them before she was born. I love the opening:

When I was very little my mother would tell me stories about why my father wasn’t with us. First she said he was away in the war going on in Asia. Vietnam. Then she said he was trying to heal from the wounds in his head that made him forget us. Later she said he was on assignment with the Secret Service. “Hogwash,” Granny Ruth said. “She’s filling your head with garbage.”

Granny never agrees with my mother. She is also convinced she has a bad heart and is busy planning her funeral. Ours is not a happy household. There is me, my mother, Granny Ruth, and Aunt Josie, whose husband, my Uncle Earnest fell under a combine so I never met him. Aunt Josie believes in reincarnation and thinks Uncle Earnest could turn up in any form. “You never know,” she says.

So, mostly my family is crazy. My mother thinks marrying my father, even though he abandoned her when she was pregnant with me and never looked back, is the answer to her prayers; my grandmother thinks she’s dying every other hour, and my Aunt Josie is convinced Uncle Earnest could come back as a frog or some stranger who will bring home a paycheck. I’m right in the middle of this. You tell me how I am to survive this and be okay.

So now I have the opening and am walking in circles with the hammer close by. Hopefully I will get some ideas before I have to use it.

In the interim I have some good news to celebrate. Sourcebooks has bought my latest project: ALL THAT’S TRUE. They call it “an authentic coming-of-age novel with a terrific takeaway.” It follows Andrea St. James, Andi for short, whose privileged life is interrupted in the summer of 1991 during the first Desert Storm, when she discovers her father is having an affair with her best friend’s sexy new step-mother. With an equal mix of joy and sorrow, it follows Andi’s poignant and sometime laughable journey to young adulthood where she struggles with the elusive nature of truth and the devastating consequences of deception. Look for it in 2010.

In the meantime I’m back at the keyboard. I have an idea on how to continue SUMMER CREEK, so for today I’ve set the hammer aside. This is good news. I have enough dents in my head.

Jackie Lee Miles is the author of Roseflower Creek, Cold Rock River and Divorcing Dwayne. Look for the release of ALL THAT’S TRUE in 2010. Visit the website at http://www.jlmiles.com/. Write to the author at Jackie@jlmiles.com.

If I Only Knew . . . by Patricia Sprinkle

I understand that people out there want to know about the creative process, and that I'm supposed to know how it works. To date I have published twenty-nine books and I don't have a clue.

Books, like children, get conceived in the oddest places. A taxidermists' convention, a writers' conference, forty feet below the ocean's surface, sitting in a prayer meeting listening to people gripe before they pray. Like with babies, conception is usually a surprise.

Also like babies, a book develops in stillness and darkness. I know it is down there. Sometimes I feel it stirring. I may even get a name for it or an idea about what kind of personality a character's going to have. I jot down notes like I wrote letters to my sons before they were born. Just as I stored baby clothes in a dresser, I store notes in one of a set of plastic boxes I keep on my shelf, each labeled with the name of a book awaiting the birthing process.

When a book feels ready to birth, I sit down at the computer and get exactly the same utter conviction I faced each time I entered a delivery room: I cannot do this!

Then, like the crowning of a baby, a scene breaks through, or a plot ending, and I start to jot down real notes. That can take two days, as in the case of WHO LET THAT KILLER IN THE HOUSE?, or twenty-three years, as in the current novel I'm writing, HOLD UP THE SKY. That novel has gone through two titles, two themes, and several revisions, and now only faintly resembles the book I intended to write, the one I scribbled notes for on somebody else's telephone paper. Since the paper was on a roll, long and skinny, I wrote the notes from the bottom up. I should have taken that as symbolic of the writing process for this one.

I don't have a writing schedule. When I'm working on a book, writing for me is like studying at college: what I am supposed to be doing whenever I'm doing something else. But just as I tried to order my children's lives to some extent, I order my plots. I was once on a panel with a poet who said anybody who outlines has an anal personality. I was next on the panel, so I started with, "Now that we know what kind of personality I am . . ." I do outline. I hate to waste time rambling through chapters I'll throw away. I don't always stick to the outline, but it gives structure to the book. And if I don't feel like writing the next chapter in order, I can skip ahead and write a scene that comes later.

Like any new mom, I also spend time getting to know my characters. I ask them questions like "What teacher do you best remember, and why?" "What do you treasure from the past?" "What do you keep in the trunk of the car?" I may not tell a reader any of those things, but I like to know.

Also like motherhood, authorhood has joys and parts nobody mentions. Once in a while a book moves so well I forget I'm alive until my feet fall asleep. Other times I slog through mud up to my chest, dragging a character after me. Sometimes I watch the characters do their own things. Sometimes I rein them in and insist they do it my way. I talk to people who are not there. I wake up in the morning muttering, "But she wouldn't use that word." I once read a chapter one to a writer's group two days before deadline and half-way through announced, "This chapter is awful. I have to rewrite it." They panicked, but I knew it was simply a matter of reversing the action. Writers begin to get a feel for those things.

So how does the creative process happen? Differently for every writer. Why do I keep doing it? Because it's unpredictable, often impossible, and fun.

Two of my Sheila Travis mysteries, MURDER ON PEACHTREE STREET and SOMEBODY'S DEAD IN SNELLVILLE ought to be reissued this fall. I hope you'll check them out.

Writing a Book the Mafia Wars Way by Kristy Kiernan

I've enjoyed reading about book signings this month. Everyone has their own take on them, everyone has their own reasons to do, or not do, them. Most of us have had a mortifying one or two, and have also had had the delightful one or two in which we sold out of books.

But I'm going to write about our alternate topic today, Your Writing Process, because I have a fairly singular view of book signings: I do them because there is no better way to thank the booksellers for what they do than to arrive on time, respectfully dressed, interact with their customers, and express my appreciation in person.

So, on to Your (My) Writing Process. This, too, is so individual, and I have all kinds of different processes for each stage of the book. Because I've gotten a fair amount of flak in the past couple of weeks over one of them, that's what I'm going to concentrate on in this post.

It has to do with...Facebook. Also known in some circles as The Most Evil Social Networking Site Ever Invented. Everyone seems to have strong feelings about Facebook. Despite the fact that I've been on it incessantly for the past several weeks, I don't. I can take it or leave it. Right now, I'm taking it. But I'm mostly using it for Mafia Wars.

Mafia Wars is a game application in which the player pushes buttons that say things like "Fight" and "Loot" and "Rob an Electronics Store." Depending upon how well you do those things, you're awarded various weapons, armor, prizes, cash, and titles, such as "Street Thug" and "Enforcer" and (my current title) "Consiglere."

It's silly. It's pointless. It takes little to no thought.

And that's why I'm playing it.

You see, I'm writing a new book.

This will be the seventh novel I've written. By the time you've written six full-length books, you begin to notice that you have certain routines you fall into on every book. And I have found that while trying to re-train myself to sit at the computer for long periods of time, I need something mindless and enjoyable. Because after the initial rush of getting my first scene down, I find that I am continuously distracted.

I want to do laundry. I have a sudden need to trim the orchids in the jasmine trees. The grout looks distressingly dingy. Coconut noodle soup at Thai Star calls to me. I will do anything rather than sit in front of that computer.

And if you want to write a book? You have to sit in front of the computer.* For long periods of time.

So, with each book I've had some little obsession that I use to keep me there. Some of my time wasters over the years?

• Countless chatrooms and bulletin boards. Some were interesting, most were mindless chatter.
• Solitaire.
• Fiddling with website.
• Minesweeper.
• Gawker.com
• Free Cell.
• Webkinz. (Yeah, that's right, Webkinz. You got something to say?)
• Three Deck Spider Solitaire.
• Four Deck Spider Solitaire.

And now: Mafia Wars.

I keep my skimpy manuscript open in one window, and my mindless entertainment of choice open in another, and if I get stuck on my writing, I do not move from in front of my computer to rearrange my storage containers. I sit there. I play my stupid games. I slowly ascend the levels, or rack up the points, or beat a previous time, and then I go back to my ms and stare at it for a while. I bounce back and forth, hours and hours go by, back and forth, back and forth.

And eventually, starting around the 6,500 to 8,000 word range, I find myself drawn to my ms more. The balance starts to shift. And somewhere around the 10,000 word mark, I find myself sitting there, WRITING, the entire time. Nothing calls to me but the story. Not the grout. Not the soup.** Not the game. I post a little farewell (as I did recently on Twitter), letting everyone know that I'm off the grid for a while, and I write my book.

But this time, with Mafia Wars, I'm getting a good amount of sass back from random corners of my world. And for a while I couldn't figure out why. Why is everyone bugging me about My Process? Why am I getting inquiries about why I'm robbing cab drivers in Cuba rather than writing? This is MY Process. What do you care?

Then I realized what the difference is. It's Facebook. Every move I make is broadcast. Nobody ever saw the insanity of Minesweeper. The bug-eyed concentration of Free Cell. The mind-numbing repetition of Webkinz. Those were all done in the privacy of my own little world. But with Facebook it's not even Mafia Wars that everyone is seeing. Even when I'm out of energy (in the game), health (uh, in the game), and stamina (in th...you get the idea), I'm still ON Facebook, so I'm posting really fascinating*** status updates, and I'm replying to friends' really fascinating*** status updates. Suddenly, everyone can SEE, in up-close and disquieting detail, My Process.

And, apparently, some people don't approve.

So, here's what I have to say to them: It is, after all, MY process. Go enjoy YOUR process, and I will not bother you about it. I have written six full-length books in the past nine years. I can assure you, I'll do it again. And if you don't like my fascinating*** updates, make use of the "Hide" button and choose "Hide Kristy." If you don't like to see that I'm wishing for an Untraceable Cell Phone**** in Mafia Wars, then use the "Hide" button and choose "Hide Mafia Wars." If you just don't like me? Unfriend me.

Other than that, cut me some slack--I'm writing. It might not look like it to you, but it doesn't have to. Those books on the shelves didn't magically appear. I did actually produce them.

And I'm doing it again.


* No. Longhand won't work for me. If I wrote longhand I would just have to play tic tac toe, or sketch really bad profiles of women I don't know but who have perky noses and oddly swooping bangs. I actually have to sit in front of a computer.

** Okay, the soup always calls to me.

*** Fascinating is such a subjective term, isn't it?

**** Yeah, seriously, you got any extras?



Kristy Kiernan is the author of Catching Genius, Matters of Faith, and the upcoming Between Friends (April 2010). Feel free to friend her on Facebook and join her Mafia. You'll get a lot of writing done.