#writerfail Redux

For all I adore technology, I’m not a first adopter. It took a couple of years before I finally bought a cell phone, and I was practically the last person I knew to start texting. Although I belong to several email loops, I was a Facebook holdout until recently. I’m still on the fence about Twitter. After reading Jennifer Weiner’s post about Alice Hoffman and how not to use Twitter at Huffington Post today, looks like I won’t purchase my tickets to the Twitterverse anytime soon.

The short version: well-known novelist Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic, Here on Earth, and many more titles) erm, disagreed with her hometown paper’s review of her latest novel, The Story Sisters. Maybe disagreed isn’t the word, for her response went way beyond mere disagreement. After unloading on the critic and the paper in a series of tweets, she finally tweeted the critic’s name and phone number and encouraged her readers to call up Mean Ms. Critic and complain. Vociferously. Then she nuked her Twitter account and sulked off for some pasta with a chocolate chaser. (I guess. Okay, I’m projecting here. That’s what I do when the mean girl hurts my feelings.)

The lesson to be learned from all this, writer friends, is that you don’t have to be unpublished to suffer from a classic #writerfail. Unlike the yet-to-be-published crowd I carped about in my earlier #writerfail post, Ms. Hoffman has “made it.” She’s a bestselling, multi-published author. A couple of her books have been made into movies. She’s allegedly reaping the glorious benefits of publication, yet her Twittersnit proves that on the inside, she’s no different from the rest of us when it comes to her work. She’s defensive, cranky, and willing to lash out to protect the baby.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? I marvel sometimes that I, and fellow writers, get so bent out of shape when faced with conclusive proof of our lack of universal acclaim (rejection, bad review, hack-and-slash critique session, etc.). As readers, we’re quick to reject and belittle writers and genres we just don’t care for, so why should we, as writers, take everything so freakin’ personally when faced with the fact that some reader out there just doesn’t like us? We can’t all be the popular girl at the dance. Right now, all the cute boys (NY publishers) are dancing with the hot goth chicks (the paranormal/urban fantasy writers) and the edgy techno boys (e-publishers) are making out with the erotica gals while we romantic comedies/chick lits/Western historicals sigh at the ceiling at the edges of the publishing gym. Our lack of dance partners doesn’t make us any less wonderful, just not the flavor of the month. And seriously, people who get all cranky about getting their coffee just so don’t have any business acting like spoiled brats when someone else expresses a preference.

Perhaps that kind of reaction is self-inflicted. We writers go on about how our current WIP is our “baby” and then react like tigresses when we realize someone thinks it looks like a lizard. Someone will. That’s the nature of the beast. The big question is, are you writer enough to write for yourself? If so, a bad review won’t be the end of the world, or the beginning of an online snit that will last into time and all eternity. If you’re writer enough, you’re already worrying about the next project.

So what have we learned today? Write what you know. Write what you love. Learn the Southern belle’s secret weapon: the indulgent smile. Practice saying, “Bless your heart” instead of “F you.” And for goodness’ sake, eat the pasta and chocolate before you tweet.