Dear Diary vs. Dear Blogosphere

If someone were to sneak onto my computer and start reading my journal, they might be mildly interested, or curious, or intrigued for, oh, maybe two posts, at which point they’d start withering with boredom and go watch Psych reruns. Mind you, I like my journal and find it interesting, but it tends to be extremely repetitive. Reason why: I often use my journal to vent.

I know. I’m not sure my posterity will find it very inspirational. But I’m a writer. When I’m feeling stressed about something, it helps me if I can pour words onto a computer screen. Thus I end up with stretches where, post after post, I’m wringing my hands over the same thing, over and over (maybe I can do a “best of” series and leave that for my descendants so they don’t have to wade through the whole record, bless them).

When I’m worried about something writing-related, I write about it. For instance, when I’m waiting to hear back on a manuscript, that’s prime journal venting--er, journal writing time. “They’ve had the book for (fill in the blank) amount of time . . . will I hear back soon . . . will they like it . . . what if they don’t like it . . . here’s my plan for what to do if they don’t like it . . . will they like it . . . what if they reject it . . . what if my sales numbers aren’t good enough . . .” repeat, ad nauseam. Well, nauseam for anyone else. I like to hear myself talk about it.

As any writer could tell you, worry is one of the occupational hazards of being an author. I write, therefore I worry. I seek to publish, therefore I worry. I check Goodreads too often, therefore I worry. I worry, therefore I vent—but I’m careful what I say in public. I can vent my stress in my journal to my heart’s content, but my angst-filled entries aren’t floating around out there for anyone to see. Say I’m stung and annoyed about something a reviewer said and think she missed the mark—but no way am I going to challenge her in public because that’s just plain dumb, and bad author manners to boot. Instead, I can dump some stress into my journal (and complain privately to people I trust, like my husband).

When I was dealing with a particularly painful rejection, two successful, established authors gave me the same advice: don’t advertise it. If I started talking publicly about how my book was rejected, it was going to give the wrong impression. People who didn’t understand the publishing industry would assume the book was rejected because it wasn’t good enough (in this particular case, that wasn’t the problem). I took their advice to heart and was careful about what I said publicly and how I said it.

Recently, an agent or editor—I’m sorry, I can’t remember who it was; if someone saw the post, can you remind me so I can link to them?—was advising authors to be careful about detailing their path-to-publication saga by posting things like rejection letters, rants about agents, or what have you. You don’t want a bunch of negative stuff sitting on your blog when a potential agent googles you. Save the vents for private venues—which is not to say you can never publicly express any frustration or disappointment. But I think we want to be careful to present ourselves online they way we want potential/current agents or editors to see us—and that includes being careful of what we say on social media sites such as Facebook. My editor mentioned to me once that things authors post on social media sites often get back to the publisher. So make sure when you say something publicly, you don't mind if your publisher/potential publisher hears it.

So be wise, and I promise to never make you read my journal.

(For an article from business columnist Evil HR Lady discussing Facebook in the business world, click here).