Goodbye, Everyone!

This is my 229th post on a blog just over 2 years old.

I actually never thought it would last three months. My personality type isn't supposed to be capable of being consistent or following through with much of anything. It's part of my stereotyped charm. And sometimes it's true that I bounce back and forth with a dozen ideas without accomplishing much in any of them. I'm not entirely sure how this one was the exception.

But it was, and it had a good run.

Why do I say this? Because I'm saying goodbye to Just the Fiction, Ma'am, at least for now. I realized recently that the blog is supposed to be about writing. The word "fiction" is even in the title of the blog. And yet all of my favorite posts aren't about writing at all.

For the sake of rejecting false advertising, I'm starting a new blog, The Monday Heretic, where I'm planning to write about faith topics. There's going to be a Great and Powerful Whiteboard of Theology and pop culture commentary on the saints of the past and way more Calvin and Hobbes cartoons than you really care to read. I'm excited.

I'll probably continue my practice of linking to old posts on this blog. Probably I'll get wistful for the green background and writing tip posts. I can almost guarantee that in a decade I'll read some of what I read hear and shake my head at my twenty-something foolishness.

I hope you come find me at my new home. It's been fun...but I can't wait to see what happens next.

Speaking of Calvin and Hobbes overload (which really shouldn't be possible), I thought it would be appropriate to end with the final Calvin and Hobbes strip. Enjoy.

Seven Logical Fallacies of the Internet Age

The world of Internet debates can be a frightening thing. Whether it’s with strangers on a blog or with sorta “friends” on Facebook, it can be tricky to know how to proceed. If you want a real primer on logical fallacies, try this site. But I personally think some of the classical fallacies, around since the days of Plato and Socrates, need an update.

So here they are: seven ways to be really bad at logic on the Internet.

Ad Namecalling: “If I apply this negative label to you, people will stop listening to you and also like my comment because it’s fun to call people names.” You can dismiss almost any argument by calling someone “sheltered,” “radical,” or “ignorant.” This has the added benefit of making any debate more personal and emotional, so you’re much less likely to walk away thinking, “Hmm, I feel like I’ve learned something and broadened my perspective as a well-reasoned human being.”

Straw NarrowmindedArrogantBullyExtremistIdiot: “You are both stupid and a product of your culture and did not give any thought to your response. Therefore, I will assume what you meant was the most offensive and ridiculous extreme of your position and argue against that.” Similar to Ad Namecalling, but applies the negative assumptions to the actual statement the person is making. Both can be avoided by assuming that the person who disagrees with you is a relatively intelligent, somewhat-well-intentioned person. If you can’t manage that, then at least assume the person who disagrees with you is…a person. That way, you can avoid the same phenomenon that is behind racism, objectification, and genocide. (This is sort of a transition to the next fallacy. But really, now. It’s also kinda true.)

Slippery Thread: “If I don’t continue to reiterate my point whenever someone in this thread disagrees with me, I have lost, and then the world will not know the truth, and then everyone will die.” This one is more about the way arguments on the Internet work: everyone wants to have the last word. Even if that last word is repeating something they just said. Several times.

Twitter Is Not The Problem

 

I always thought Twitter was a terrible idea.

What could you possibly say in 140 characters or less that means anything? Why have we become a culture that collects tiny, vulnerable fragments of other people’s lives and judges them as worthy or unworthy based on how witty we think they are? How can we value questions without easy answers if we cater to attention spans that stopped reading this blog after the first sentence?

In some ways, I still have those concerns. But I also see the value in Twitter for several reasons I won’t get into here.

More importantly, though, I realized that my concerns about Twitter were completely hypocritical.

Let me explain.

Today, I started a Twitter account. (@mondayheretic after Be a Heretic Monday.)

Today, I also passed by hundreds of strangers in a big city, most of whom I will never see again. Some of them talked too loudly or smelled bad or didn’t do a good job of managing their children, and I resented them for this, or for the simple fact that they were in my way. I did not meet their eyes. I did not wonder what their stories were.

I smiled and said, “Have a nice day” to the sales clerk even though I really didn’t care if she had a nice day or not, and the smile barely flickered to my eyes before dying.

I experienced life in 140 characters or less, and I was okay with that.

Four Annoying Things About the Internet

You may have come to this post looking for a rant.

But you won’t find it here. Oh no.

You see, anyone can complain about the Internet. But not everyone can turn obnoxious uses of social media into something entertaining and educational. And that’s what I have for you today.

Here are four annoying things about the Internet, with suggestions for what to do about them other than complain. Because otherwise I would have had to list a fifth item to the list: “People Who Use Technology to Complain About Technology.” And that would be so many layers of irony that it would be like an irony lasagna.

One: Wrongly Attributed Quotes

I’m pretty sure that, according to the Internet, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and C.S. Lewis said everything deep, funny, or Christian (respectively) that has ever been said. We have an entire library’s worth of encyclopedia information at our fingertips, and somehow it’s still too much bother to look up whether that meme has cited its source correctly.

Instead of being frustrating, though, this should be inspiring. If anyone can be witty or profound just by attaching their name to a witty or profound bootlegged quote, why not you? Or just become the kind of person other people attribute quotes to at random. Elementary, my dear Watson. (Which, incidentally, Doyle’s Sherlock never said.­)

Two: Bad Spelling and Grammar

Blame autocorrect, blame instant sending of messages when you hit the enter key, blame that fact that spellcheck highlights every proper noun in existence so people start ignoring it. Blame whatever you want.

Or, instead of blaming people, you could make a delightful grammar guide like this one.

Also, you can screenshot all of the mistakes and put them together in a funny coffee table book.

And rejoice that you will get better scores in Scrabble or Words With Friends than any of these people. Unless by making a spelling mistake they actually spell another word you didn’t know about…

Any of those reactions are better than being “that guy” who constantly corrects people’s grammar, on the Internet and in real life. If your friend is about to make a mistake in a research paper or a tattoo, tell him. If it’s a Facebook status, let it go.

Because as soon as you become “that guy,” you are no longer entitled to make any grammar or spelling mistakes. Ever. And that’s just too much pressure.

Facebook Has Made Us All Busybodies

So, for the sake of not being a hypocrite and not making everyone angry with me, I’ll start out with the obvious fact that I use Facebook (sometimes too much). I think there are a lot of great things about it.

But, now that the disclaimer is over, here’s something else to think about: we have instant easy access to a whole lot of information about others makes it easier for us to nose around where we aren’t wanted.

You know the old stereotype of the old woman who sits on her porch knitting, bespeckled eyes trained on the small town goings-on so she can always be ready with the latest gossip? (I’m thinking of Rachel Lynde, for all you Anne of Green Gables fans.) That old lady was the only one in town who really could be an effective busybody because she was the only one with the time to sit around eavesdropping, people-watching, and information-gathering.

Thanks to the Internet, all of us can do that with just a few clicks. Chances are, if I wander over to your Facebook profile, I can know an awful lot about you: what movies you’ve watched, how you vote, what events you’ve been to recently, who would be on your zombie apocalypse team, and what stupid chain letter things you participated in during high school.

And, if I’m feeling like a stalker, I can find out all those things about your mom, your siblings, your roommate, and your boyfriend/girlfriend too.

Thanks to social media, we have an incredible amount of information about people. Sometimes that’s good—Facebook is great for sharing pictures, keeping up with friends who moved away, planning events, etc. But I’d like to claim that Facebook is also really good at making us busybodies.

A Blog About Blogging

This Friday, I’m going to talk to the freshman writing class about blogging. Since I know myself, I am fairly certain that I’ll have too much to say and not enough time. Therefore, I’m going to say almost everything here and just tell them all to read it. (As my fellow writing major put it, “How technologically impersonal of you.”)

I like lists of seven. Seriously, sometimes when I’m writing a To-Do list, I combine two items, add an extra one, or decided I really don’t need to do a few of them just so it can be a list of seven. This year, the orientation group I led was Yellow 7, the first (and so far, only) 7 group in the history of Taylor. So that was a big deal.

But next to seven, three is the next best, and since I didn’t want to add too much unnecessary information, I’m going with three lists of three that will pretty much sum up everything I know about blogging, since I’ve only been at it for a year now.

Three Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Blog

• 76,221 Words and Counting: It’s hard work. I’ve written a novel’s worth of words in all of my posts combined (although the posts are shorter now than when I started). Consistency is especially hard—coming up with stuff to say twice a week can stretch my creativity, which is the excuse I’ll use if you think one of my posts is terrible.

•  The Ugly Truth: You will find weaknesses and self-deceptions you didn’t know existed. And I’m not even talking about the content of the blog, although I wrote a whole post about that on Saturday. The process itself teaches you things about yourself, such as when I had to stop myself from constantly checking stats for personal validation, or the months when I didn’t have a computer and was stressed because I couldn’t follow through with posting twice a week. Once, I started a series of posts making fun of certain writing attitudes, but it was so sarcastic-borderline-mean that I withdrew the idea.

•  Hypocrite Alert: You can be held to a higher standard. Especially because I write about my faith, I am very aware that I should be living up to the kinds of things I’m telling other people to do. Thankfully, that doesn’t mean I have to be perfect. But I do know that a lot of the people who read this blog are also watching my everyday life, and they’ll notice if things don’t match up.

The New Book Marketing

This summer, I learned that all those clichés that made me afraid of marketing were way off.

The following myths can be true, if you want them to be. They are valid perspectives to take, and some of them aren’t bad at all. I just happen to not like them. Because of my personality, they won’t describe my approach to marketing.

The alternatives I explain after each aren’t the only way to do things either. They’re just the ways that I want to do things.

Obviously, all of this is easier said than done . . . but if I’m determined enough to get them done, I think I can follow through. The strategy behind marketing is just as important as the various methods you use. This is mine.

Myth 1: Sell yourself.

This implies that it’s all about me, that I’m going to focus all the attention on myself and what I’m writing so everyone can make me famous.

When, actually, really good marketing is about other people and what their needs and wants are. It’s about having more opportunities for me to deliver on those needs and wants. When you choose to look at it that way, it’s less about promoting yourself and more about serving others.

Everyone I’ve talked to about marketing mentions that with the rise of social media, readers want to feel a personal connection to the authors they love. Writers who think it’s all about them will post irrelevant, self-focused ramblings and will probably come off as arrogant. Writers who understand the relationship aspect will be much more successful.

I Didn't Want To Write This Stupid Blog Post

I’ve been avoiding writing this for months.

Even now, here are my thoughts: Why can’t I be the expert for once, the one who teaches lessons from someone else’s dumb mistakes, the kind of person you’d want to look up to? Why do I always write posts like this?

I’ll tell you why, self. Because it needs to be done. So there.

One day, I was on Facebook and I accidentally clicked the little history button at the bottom of my browser. It showed me how many times I had visited the site. I can’t remember now what the number was, but it was excessively, ridiculously huge. Like national-debt, I-can’t-believe-that’s-right, has-someone-been-hacking-my-computer-five-times-a-day-for-a-year huge.

You know how some people stress eat? Well, I think I stress Facebook.