What you should read today

I mean, if you want. Obviously I’m not going to FORCE you to read anything. Though I’d secretly like to.* I’m just going to gently suggest the following books I’ve read (some as recently as this week, some as long ago as last year) which you should totally go out and read immediately.

I do mean to do proper reviews of these books, because I believe in doing that to support authors (if you like a book, please do leave a review. It really makes a difference), but my crappy RSI skeleton-clawhands only have so many keystrokes in them each day and I’ve been spending a lot of them writing query letters and plotting a new book, and occasionally trying to bore you all with my cheese-related adventures on this blog, so I’ve fallen behind on other tasks. Anyway, I thought at the least I would put a few things here which I think are awesome, and hopefully you will give them a try. And then I’ll nag myself to turn these snippets into proper reviews and join Goodreads or something. Future Sam can sort that out.

For something tense and scary and compelling

I let you go  – Clare MacKintosh

I gulped this one down in one day, snatching chapters while the kids were distracted and then sitting up later than I meant to at night. Saw it recommended on twitter and I was in the mood for a thriller so bought it on a whim. WOW. It was really, really great. Beautifully written and really compelling, and one of those books that really turns you on your head part-way through – reminded me of Code Name Verity in that way (see below, now that I think of it!). Clever and surprising, an excellent thriller.

However… I found it equal parts impossible to put down, and impossible to read, because the crime the focus of the book is the hit and run of a 5 year old boy. A few times I actually had to stop, and frankly I would never have read it if I’d known what it was about, because the subject matter is too much for me. Since I became a parent I have been unable to deal very well with the broad category of ‘Bad Stuff Happening to Kids’ in general, but this one in particular I found SO HARD. Just too close to home. I have a four year old son and I walk with him near roads all the time, and I know how easy it is for kids that age to pull their little hands out of yours or to get distracted and dart away. I felt sick and threatened and raw reading this book, as it dealt with the aftermath of that horrible moment. The ease with which the author got her empathetic hooks in me was both impressive and traumatic. I was not at all surprised when I read the author’s note at the end and learned the writer had been a police officer who had dealt with a hit and run of a little boy early in her career, and that she had also lost her own son. Visceral, painful, wonderful writing, both emotionally and intellectually satisfying.

This is both a pro and a con for I let you go – I recommend it highly, but I warn you that if you have trouble dealing with things that force you to imagine (and then feel, over and over) what it would be like to lose your child, then maybe give this one a miss.

For something funny that makes you wish you were friends with the author

Back Story and Thinking about it only makes it worse by David Mitchell

Back Story is the memoir (though that makes it sound poncier than it is) and TAAOMIW** is a collection of his articles from the Guardian. They’re both awesome, but since I’d read most of the Guardian articles as they came out, Back Story was more fun to read because it was all new laughs.*** Essentially it’s a sort of life story hanging off the frame of a narrated walk around London, and it’s funny and lighthearted and occasionally poignant and insightful. His anecdotes about childhood resonated very well with my own 80s middle class nice-but-boring sort of childhood and I share a lot of his stupid neuroses so it made me keep thinking YES I WOULD TOTALLY HAVE BEEN FRIENDS WITH YOU which is an excellent feeling to have about a comedian of whom you’re very fond.

Maybe if you don’t love him quite as much as I do then TAAOMIW might be the more accessible read, because all the columns are pretty self contained. If you don’t enjoy his particular brand of angry-rant-but-actually-rather-polite-because-politeness-holds-society-together then you won’t enjoy this, and you probably don’t like ice cream or beer or the warmth of a dog at your feet either, you heathen. Now go watch seasons of Would I lie to you on youtube until he can make you laugh just by his inflection when he reads out the notecards. GO ON I’LL WAIT.

Oh and also:

Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Which is another entertaining memoir sort of thing by a comedian who I wish desperately was my close pal because seriously, who wouldn’t want her as their pal? This one is a kind of mix of life story and life advice, I guess? She’s one of the coolest women in showbusiness – so smart and funny. In my head she’s basically just Leslie Knope walking around in the real world, just with harder edges and a lot more swearing. I love her. Although the book, like (the also awesome) Tina Fey’s Bossypants from a few years ago, isn’t truly a memoir in that it jumps around a fair bit and avoids a few personal areas of her life, you do still get enough of a flavour of her life. She’s very open about her shortcomings – there’s a couple of anecdotes included about mistakes she made in which she does not come off well – but it’s apparent that she knows how to use mistakes to change and grow. Verdict: OK she’s not really Leslie Knope but she’s totally brilliant and I still wish she was my friend.

For the best fantasy of the year*** (and also some from earlier I missed)

This is my most-read category so I’m going to narrow it down to a few things I read last year even though there is a stack.

City of Stairs – Robert J Bennett

RJB is my new author-crush. I’d never heard of him until I finally gave in and joined twitter last year, and quickly stumbled on his feed because he spends a lot of time having a great deal of fun with a bunch of other authors I like. He’s hilarious. If you enjoy silliness on twitter (and why wouldn’t you) then you should be following him – and Sam Sykes, Wes Chu, Myke Cole, Joe Abercrombie, Chuck Wendig and Brian McClellan for that matter. This entire post is starting to turn into a list of people I wish I was friends with…

Anyway, I was looking forward to City of Stairs because he’d mentioned it was ostensibly fantasy but really a mystery, and since that’s what I’d written and was shortly to start shopping, I was desperately searching for appropriate comp titles. Hurray for a nice timely one falling in my lap! Also: PRAISE SANTA IT IS GOOD. Like, really good. Book-of-the-year good. It’s a spy thriller/mystery in fantasy clothes, and seriously those clothes are fucking fabulous. No pseudo Western European medieval periods in this. It’s completely fresh, blazingly original, tense, clever and compelling.

These are mini reviews so I won’t try to summarise the plot – but the general premise is that the MC Shara and her show-stealing sidekick Sigrud are sent to investigate the murder of a scholar in a colonial outpost city. The half-collapsed, struggling city of Bulikov once relied on the power of Gods to function, but Shara’s ancestors killed the Gods and left the once dominant culture subjugated to her own. The cultural clashes that come from colonisation, the reversal of fortunes of the different groups and the attempts to suppress cultural identity form a rich backdrop to the evolving mystery.

Characters, world building, pacing and prose are all top notch. Go read this.

The Gentleman Bastard books – Scott Lynch

This one’s a cheat because the Lies of Locke Lamora came out in like 2008 or something and it’s only the third one that came out last year. I was a latecomer to these books. I don’t know how I missed them. But I finished TLoLL in one sitting and then had a massive sulk about how anyone could have written a debut that good, that young. It’s pretty much everything there is to like about classic epic fantasy. Do you like a good heist? I love a good heist, and all 3 books have that flavour – they’re fast paced, whip-smart, stuffed full of witty banter between the cast of loveable rogues. I’m using a lot of clichés here and the book does use a number of classic fantasy tropes. It just uses them how they’re meant to be used, with the best possible effect.

Locke Lamora is a member of the Gentlemen Bastards, a secret group of thieves/conmen masquerading as priests, running complicated scams on the upper classes. The books are mostly told with dual storylines – one in the past, exploring Locke’s early days with the group and their (mostly fun and successful) heists, and the other in the present, basically following Locke as everything gets fucked up, then fucked up some more, then some fuck ups follow him across the world, fucking up all the way. In this way there’s a balance between the light and the dark, and it’s sometimes a disconcerting one, because while these books are a LOT of fun, they’re also emotionally wrenching in places.

Like Robert Bennett, Scott Lynch is a great writer and world builder, and he’s created memorable characters I’d be happy to follow for plenty more books. I love the layered and complex friendship between Locke and his best mate Jean. And I love that although they’re both men, the books are actually jam-packed**** with women in every role, almost like women make up half of the population, or something crazy like that. Shocking, I know.

Fool’s Assassin – Robin Hobb

And of course, you’re utterly mad if you haven’t read everything Robin Hobb puts out, so you should already know why her Farseer books are the greatest books out there, period. If you haven’t read them, go out and do so immediately. *waits for you to read around 14 books. Gets a few snacks and a cup of tea. Read faster! OK, you’re back.*

Now you get to experience the same longing and dread that I felt returning came back to the world and the characters that I’ve always loved the best of all. Although I always knew the story hadn’t quite ended, I was also sure Robin didn’t have kind things in store for poor Fitz. I can’t really say too much without spoilers, but I will say that Fitz remains the most real of characters to me, perhaps because I don’t think I have ever loved a character so much and yet gotten so constantly angry and frustrated at him for his decision-making. (For God’s sake, Fitz, don’t do [redacted]! Don’t ignore that! Listen to me!).

What I think was so particularly wonderful about this return to their world was the new surprises – a new POV, a new phase of Fitz’s life which resonated with me, a new setting. I also loved how contained this story was, showing that fantasy can be told in smaller, more intimate settings and not just across continents. Robin Hobb stories never shy away from the difficult aspects of life that get avoided or glossed over in many stories. The inconveniences of growing old, the compromises and choices people make, the experiences that change and scar us and can’t be shaken off…

And through all that, the writing was, as always, just beautiful.

So. Although sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes generating dread, and cursed with a tormenting cliffhanger, it was a wonderful read, a beautiful return to the Six Duchies, and a treat that was worth the wait.

This is getting long, so I will pause and return to it later with more excellent things I’ve been reading, including some non-fiction and some out of my usual genre boxes. You’ve got a few days to get on this pile first. Happy reading!

*  Other things I’d secretly like to force you to do include: follow Adnan Syed’s case obsessively so that we can discuss new developments every day in intense and excruciating detail (unless you’re sure he’s guilty, in which case you’re dead to me); bake me all the things that I see pictures of in Delicious magazine but which I never get around to cooking; burn all of my music off my useless CDs and transfer it to my computer for me. OK this is just turning into a list of chores now. Sorry. I hate chores.

** If you say that out loud it sounds a bit like a cat. Go on, try it. Hope someone looked at you funny.

*** By which I mean 2014, because I’m timely.

*** I threw up a little in my mouth after writing that because I then immediately heard it in TV announcer’s voice like ‘Coming up next, all new laughs with [something incredibly unfunny]’. But as punishment for having written it in the first place I am leaving it there to serve as an embarrassing self-warning.

**** Why jam-packed? Why is jam packed tighter than other things? I mean sure there’s no gaps in jam. You don’t open the jar and find it’s like a chip packet and only 1/3 full. But it’s not bursting out either. Is it more packed than, like, a bottle of juice? Or mustard? Or any other viscous substance? I’ve thought about this too much now. This is why the skeleton-claws.

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Tips for defeating a cheese hangover

This title is a lie. I don’t have any tips, I don’t know if there are any tips, there’s no fucking way to defeat this hangover and I think it’s possible I might die. I’m writing to you from near the grave, or at least from a self piteous half-slump on the couch while I hide from my children (who are being distracted with chicken nuggets because parenting). All I can give you is my advice:

Don’t eat a kilo of cheese* and a bottle of champagne. Even between 2 people. You’re an idiot and you deserve this suffering.

Oh ho, you say, but I am able to eat your fondue, all melty and celebratory and delightful. Sure, it will be a little rich but I definitely won’t be up 5 times overnight with a mouth like someone left that mini dentist vacuum thing running in (because SALT). Nor will I spend the next day theatrically moaning and lying facedown on the rug due to seediness levels approximating some kind of insane bucks/hens party at the end of a week of dehydration. I will cope!

Listen my friends, for I too was that foolish a mere day ago.

I have no tips for how to recover. I have tried the following with zero success:

  • A lot of water. My stomach is pissed off at my dry hideous mouth and the more mouth wants water the worse he makes it feel for me. Can’t you guys settle your differences and not drag me down in your turf war?
  • Bacon. Fuck you internet and your pretence that bacon solves everything. More salt is not the answer.
  • Getting up at 5.15am to go see hot air balloons. Self explanatory.
  • BBQ pork buns. I suspected this might be a shit idea but I was desperate at that point.
  • 2 year old jumping on your stomach. Because science.
  • Electrolyte drink. Tasted like the cloying disappointment of broken dreams, and purple.
  • Coffee. I trusted you and you let me down. My bathroom isn’t thanking you for your contribution and neither am I.

At this point I’ll take whatever insane witchdoctor remedy is offered me. I typed ‘how to cure a cheese hangover’ into google and I swear to god the second fucking result that comes up is ‘Cheese is your hangover’s best friend’ which just seems like a giant sign that the universe hates me and everything I stand for.

So next time you think you can defeat the laws of dietary good sense, remember my shrivelled piteous corpse lying abandoned in a cheese mine somewhere and make better decisions than I did.

*  I spent this morning relaying my predicament with an understanding that I was exaggerating, because duh, obviously I didn’t eat an actual kilo of cheese. Only then K tells me it was 960g plus we had that different variety on the side with the muscatels so actually screw you, stomach, it was more than that.

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Rules about writing are about keeping people out

You can spend a lot of time on the internet reading articles by people – some earnest, some I can only assume are malicious – telling you the rules you must obey to write or to be a writer. Some of it is framed like advice, some more like a warning: don’t do this, or else!* They’re both equally useful, which is to say, completely without use other than to waste your time and cause you unnecessary anxiety.

Today this one is doing the rounds: http://www.thestranger.com/books/features/2015/02/27/21792750/things-i-can-say-about-mfa-writing-programs-now-that-i-no-longer-teach-in-one

There is so much wrong with this I don’t even know where to start. Others have already more eloquently torn it to the bloody ribbons it deserves, but for mine, some of the best gems include:

  • Writers are born with talent.Either you have a propensity for creative expression or you don’t…The [master of fine arts] student who is the Real Deal is exceedingly rare…
    • Ah, the classic combo – both cop out (so you can blame ‘lack of talent’ for not putting the hard work in and getting anything done, or for not succeeding) and insult (reducing the creative works of others to some magic inherent talent instead of recognising the effort that goes into good writing). Here’s the thing: writing is like pretty much anything – you can and do get better at it the more you practise and work at it (including by reading and analysing other people’s work).
  • If you didn’t decide to take writing seriously by the time you were a teenager, you’re probably not going to make it.There are notable exceptions to this rule, Haruki Murakami being one.** But for most people, deciding to begin pursuing creative writing in one’s 30s or 40s is probably too late.
    • You’re right, dude. When you only have around 60 years of life left, best to just give up now. I mean no-one’s ever learned a new skill after age 30, right? Everyone knows the best wisdom and clear thinking and performance in every area of life peaks in your teenage years. FFS. Hang on though, I thought talent was something you either had or not? Surely if you’re the Real Deal according to his magic Real Deal Detector (TM), you’ve got the skillz no matter what time you start. Whereas your ordinary schmuck can’t learn them no matter how pretentiously overzealous they are about literature as an eleven year old.
  • That’s why I advise anyone serious about writing books to spend at least a few years keeping it secret.
    • Just…wow. Keep it a secret? WTF are you supposed to tell your friends and family you’re doing when you’re writing? Again, this is part of this whole mystic talented genius mess he’s peddling and it’s just bunk. Tell people if you want to. Don’t tell them if you don’t want to. Try not to let your partner assume you have an online porn or gambling addiction because you won’t let them near your laptop or explain why you’re muttering at your monitor in the wee hours of the morning. What you share about your hobby/career is, like any other personal decision, entirely up to you, and has nothing to do with your abilities as a writer.

I could go on, but the whole article has this nasty bitter taste to it and it’s making me want a TimTam, and I’ve already eaten an entire packet of those Zumbo raspberry ones this week. The point is, this sort of stuff is designed to keep people away from creative writing programs and writing generally, by perpetuating stupid myths and trying to make up reasons why only the article’s author’s chosen few are ‘worthy’ of succeeding as writers. Guess what – no one, not this guy or anyone else, gets to decide who is ‘worthy’ to write. I don’t even understand why there’s this stupid bullshit culture of ‘worthiness’ around books anyway, like there is any objective measure of what is Good Art and what is Bad Art as opposed to a bunch of vastly different storytellers trying to communicate with vastly different people in vastly different ways.

Actually I do understand: it’s about certain groups trying to dictate who they can let in and keep out of their little clubs.  This guy’s all about keeping out of his precious field people who don’t take creative writing courses, or don’t write a particular type of literature, or who are different from him. Oh, you didn’t have the time, money, security and support to spend hours of free time studying the classics in your early teens? Sorry chump, you’re out. Guess how diverse a field that leaves? Yep, just about as diverse as he wants it to be.

Seriously, don’t listen to this shit. Don’t be kept away from something you want to do by the words of a stranger – or even by the words of people you know, for that matter – dictating some arbitrary steps or qualities you must have. There are no rules to writing. There may be tips, there may be help, there are certainly other people’s processes you can consider (and adopt, or refine, or ignore). But you don’t need anyone’s permission and you don’t need to meet anyone else’s criteria to be a writer. Write, read, write and read some more. Everything else is your business.

* Or else what, it’s not entirely clear. The writing police will come and find you? Tear down your handcrafted placards calling yourself a writer?

** Oh, how generous of you to think of one lone example. I’m glad you’ve checked up on the intensity of every successful writer in history as a teenager, because fuck me, I sure wouldn’t know how anyone could possibly assess that.

In defence of U2 – or, why cool isn’t so great

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Last year, as you know unless you were on a remote island without phone or internet, U2 released their new album by partnering with Apple to give it free to all Apple users. The album appeared in your iTunes account as if you’d paid for it. This caused a brouhaha* and I’m not going to get into how fucking ridiculous it was for people to publicly rant about this gift as though it was the most offensive betrayal they’d ever suffered.** What I was interested in was the weeks that followed during which it was very very important for every article about the subject to quickly establish its credibility by stating that U2 was Not Cool (this was also the theme of ten million virtually identical twitter jokes). The release was a desperate stunt by a band that was Uncool. Irrelevant. Nothing was as important online as showing that you were cool because you knew that Bono wasn’t.

Obviously Bono bashing has been a sneering sport of choice for many for a number of years, on account of his irritating habit of attempting to use his massive international platform to speak about issues that matter to him – chiefly the war in Ireland, drug abuse and, in the last few decades, the fate of the continent of Africa. I mean, shut up, man. Songs (at least songs post 2000) are only allowed to be about sexy chicks or sexy bitches or that jerk who dumped you or why it’s so great to party. Attempting social change through songs is SO 1980s. Or, OK, 1970s. Or 1960s. You know, all those irrelevant decades in the music industry. And FFS, people who come to your concerts don’t want to hear you speak for even a second about anything except the name of their city. Amnest-what? Shut up and sing Pride, won’t you?***

I will leave aside the obvious fact that U2 are, and remain, immensely popular, and that people who go to U2 concerts know perfectly well that Bono will, just as he has been doing for 3 decades, speak about social issues during the concert and that many of the songs will be about those issues, so it is hardly a shocking disappointment when he does. What I would argue is that U2 are not cool, and that they have never been cool. Popular, obviously; for the 80s and 90s, and even again in the early noughties, one of the biggest bands in the world. But I don’t think they’ve ever really been cool.

And so what?

Cool is called cool for a reason. It’s desirable but unattainable. It’s remote. It’s people who are better than you who don’t want (or don’t want to admit) they want your regard. It’s a one sided, cold, and fickle.

U2 have never been cool because they’ve always wanted your regard. They’ve fought for it with consistent, earnest, enthusiasm; they’re your overzealous pet spaniel, not the beautiful Siamese cat in the window down the road. They’ve tried new things – some have worked, some haven’t, but even the most ardent U2 hater has to admit that they are always experimenting – because they’re always trying to connect to people. This album release was something new too, and at its heart was the desire, once again, to find new ways to connect.

I suppose what I’m saying (besides, obviously, that I like U2, and I like Bono, and I don’t give a shit that that’s currently the pop cultural equivalent of going outside in your underwear and jiggling your fat bits at people in the street) is that cool is overrated. Not just in music, though the obsession with cool and ‘relevance’ in music is particularly frustrating. In everything creative or artistic that overlaps with popular culture. In TV: if a show’s cool you’ve got to be watching it or you’re lame. But watch out, once it gets TOO popular you’re just a sheep in the masses and it’s not OK anymore. In books: liking fantasy – writing fantasy – is as uncool as it gets, particularly if it dares to be the fun kind and not the grim, serious, it’s-not-embarrassing-because-lots-of-people-get-murdered-and-look-there-are-barely-any-dragons kind. And Santa help you if you like YA, because that’s immature and probably melting your brain, or romance because EW GIRL GERMS AMMIRIGHT or crime novels because they’re so unrealistic and formulaic, or OK just any genre really because it is already established that Worthy Writing was written by white dudes most of whom are dead and is about despair and is about Internal Struggle and alcoholism. There’s a certain percentage of writing on the internet which basically just consists of: what I like is better and more worthy than that harmless thing you like and you should always, always feel bad and ashamed of that.

I’ll take art with earnestness and enthusiasm, rooted in a need to connect with people, over aloof intellectualism or condescension any day of the year. I’ll take the warmth of someone who wants and values my affection over the slippery battle of winning attention from someone who makes me feel  inferior. I’ll take the joy of enjoying the books and movies and TV shows I like no matter how many smug articles tell me how stupid I am to like those things. And you can take your art how you like it, and no-one should make you feel crap about liking it that way.

So don’t sweat it if you like U2 or Harry Potter or 50 Shades of Grey or 18th century poetry or the later seasons of TV shows that everyone agrees have jumped the shark.**** Fuck what’s cool, and go give that shark a bloody hug if you want to.

* (I’m not sure I’ve ever written that word down before. Or even said it out loud. It’s not a cool word, but that works for this blog post)

** OK a little. Jesus people. If you don’t like the album you delete it. Or don’t download it from your account into your playlist at all. FFS. Having FB and twitter clogged with people smugly congratulating each other on how outraged they could get about this insulting ‘attack on their privacy’ (ie the company they have a music account with adding music to that account) was pretty bloody annoying.

*** You know, that song about the Edge’s booty.

**** This is not to say that people can’t have legitimate criticism of these things – there may be plenty to criticise. But you shouldn’t have to feel bad about enjoying something just because other people tell you to.

Angel Dust is a real and actual thing!

The excellent Ian McHugh’s book of short stories is out and available! Buy it now, go on, you know you want to.

Ian McHugh

So, today I received some author copies of Angel Dust.

Hum.

There is a book. With my name on the front. That is a real and actual thing. Out in the world. And you can order it on Amazon. Golly.

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Table of contents below. It includes 4 new stories and 11 reprints. A couple of the reprints are available online, so I’ve linked those stories for anyone who might be interested in sampling.

The Beetle Road (new)
Angel Dust (first published in Clockwork Phoenix 2)
Sleepless in the House of Ye (first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction)
The Wishwriter’s Wife (free to read at Daily Science Fiction)
The Tax Collector of Rhuin (new)
Cold, Cold War (free to read at Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Once a Month, on a Sunday (first published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine)
Bitter Dreams (first published in Writers of the Future…

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I like talking to the TV

I’d like to say it’s because I’m getting old, but the truth is, I’ve always liked talking to (well, at) the TV. My fondest childhood TV memories are always tied in with the experience of watching shows with someone. Watching the Famous Five on our tiny black and white TV, where one loose collection of pixels might have been Timmy the dog, or just static, who knows. Our mum hated ‘You Can’t Do That on Television’ which made the illicit pleasure of watching it with my brother on the TV in Mum and Dad’s room (one of us nervously acting as lookout) all the greater. My sister and I stayed up on Saturday nights to watch 21 Jump St and sometimes Dad made us honey crumpets.* Even as adults, my siblings still drive to each other’s houses to binge-watch DVD boxsets when we get the chance, or text each other madly during Game of Thrones. Last year I watched an entire season of a really genuinely terrible reality show for the sake of texting 3 other friends with commentary.

I find the experience of watching TV alone to be oddly isolating. Maybe it’s because I’m susceptible to loneliness. My dogs are loving company when K is out but they don’t respond to my excellent witty comments or angry ranting with much gusto.*** As my poor TV-sharer K can attest, no TV viewing is complete without me pointing out all the things that annoy/interest/confuse me. It occurred to me the other day, as we were watching Veronica Mars (yes I know, we are 10 years later than everyone else, and yes I particularly know, all of you who have been telling me for those 10 years that we would love it. We do, just like you knew we would. OK, OK? Are you happy?), that while it’s not unusual for people to like talking at TVs (even 35 year olds) the things that I tend to obsess about might be weirder than the average.

For instance, I like****:

  • evaluating every item of furniture that appears regularly in a show for its perceived comfort level. That chair looks comfy. What do you reckon about that one? Too squishy? She has good taste in couches. Ooooh, those Chesterfield armchairs are classy. Who would buy that? God I want to sit on that one real bad. I love sitting. From the mightiest Pharaoh to the lowliest peasant, who doesn’t enjoy a good sit?
  • complaining about casting choices, including but not limited to (oh ho ho, never limited to) shar pei faced actors in their 30s playing teenagers, women with muppet arms playing semi-invincible super strong badasses, Channing Tatum playing anything but  an inanimate carbon rod
  • obsessing over who an actor looks like or reminds me of or what other show they were in (sure I COULD just IMDB it but even though I hate uncomfortable brain tickle it gives me there’s nothing like that delightful moment when you work it out)
  • getting worked up about inexplicable logical flaws in ads (this one is K’s favourite).

I suppose I’m lucky the internet exists. Now when K isn’t around to hear me ranting about McDonalds advertising I’ll be able to live tweet it instead. This is probably for the best as otherwise I guess I’d eventually turn into an old angry person writing letters to the editor about why the chairs on TV don’t look as comfortable as they did in my day.

* My children, for whom ‘more crumpet please’** seems to have been among their first phrases, will never know the intense delight that came from receiving a crumpet 3-4 times a year.

** Loony would have said ‘more crumpet please’. He also said ‘one hundred thank yous’ to the waiter who made him a chocolate milkshake last week. Politeness runs deep in that one. Mischief, on the other hand, says something that starts out sounding like ‘more crumpet please’ but can easily degenerate into ‘cumpet. Cumpet. CUMPETCUMPETUMPET’ interspersed with either psychotic wails or bitter sobs, depending on the time of day.

*** K would doubtless have me say here that eye rolling, exasperated sighs and shushing are not generally considered high on the gusto scale, but honestly Brown Dog just farted when I asked her if she enjoyed me yelling at the Toyota ad and it’s like a chemical weapon, so I’ll take the (loving) eye rolls any day.

**** You may observe most of these things are things I actually DON’T like, but I like crapping on about them,

So, you want to use social media (or you really don’t, but you feel like you should) – Part 5

This is (finally) the last entry in a 5 part series about the excuses we make for not leaping into the slightly suspicious-smelling pool that is social media. You can find links to all 5 entries here in Part 1.

5. But I’m no good at it!

This is probably the kicker. Out of all the excuses this one’s the one that is the closest to my heart. You hear over and over how a bad internet presence is worse than no internet presence. It’s pretty hard to exist online — especially with any degree of fame — without offending people and getting trolled and losing readers or being boring or self promoting too much or not enough. Any number of things can go wrong. And it’s HARD (for most people, I reckon), and time consuming, to be good at it.

Obviously what constitutes ‘good’ is subjective, but I think having a ‘good’ social media presence means one that is regular and generally one or more of the following: funny, interesting, or helpful. Which is bloody hard, let’s face it. You essentially want everything you say online to be a greatest hits of your best wit and sparkle from your day to day life, and god some days that might seem like picking raisins out of baby poo.

But the good news is, it’s just like almost anything* else: you get better at it the more you practice. I tend to think that writing (and a lot of social media is just writing, albeit maybe a different kind to the type you’re used to) is one of those magic things that you really do improve at without doing anything else but putting words on the screen, over and over, until you eventually hate those words slightly less. Maybe you even regard them with some warmth. They might make your Christmas card list, but let’s not go crazy. That aside, you can also learn by observing. Read the twitter feeds of other people and see what works and what doesn’t. See what the people you know (or want to know) seem to respond to.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of options for easing into it. If you’re inclined, as I am, toward wordiness and rambling, facebook and blogging might be more your friends initially than twitter. If you’re an unselfconscious 20-something maybe you can communicate entirely through selfies on instagram or videos on YouTube. If you… OK I can’t think of anything that would make you use Google+. Anyway, you get the point. Options, baby. Start with the ones you don’t feel so awkward about and eventually start sidling up to the others and mumbling pleasantries. Alcohol might help.** Talk to people – comment on their posts, answer their questions, slowly start inserting yourself into discussions so you don’t have the pressure of showing up to the party and just shouting things in the corner til the nice man with the bow tie and vest asks you if you need a taxi.

I mean look at this – I’ve managed to keep this post down to a manageable length! Progress, yeah?

Happy social media-ing, guys.

Important addendum: It is possible that you actually are terrible at this. Like, you can’t get online without insulting people, being constantly inflammatory, trolling, spreading hateful messages or just otherwise being a all-purposes jerk. If this is the case, almost certainly because you are in fact a horrible person and you’re not even capable of masking how horrible you are for your own self interest, then please, stay offline. It will only hurt you.

* Skills I have failed to acquire despite repeating the activity over and over include ‘being able to read news articles without reading the comments’; ‘singing’; ‘being able to read the comments without getting angry’; ‘walking while swallowing’.

** Or it might really not. I tend to think things are a lot funnier than they are with a glass of wine in hand, and then all of a sudden I’m live tweeting a TV show that aired approximately 10 years ago. And being really overly interested in how comfortable the armchairs in the show look (just in case there had been any previous implication that I had any semblance of cool***).

*** If you haven’t yet picked up on this, I do not in fact have any semblance of cool.