Social Media Gaffes

In honor of Mother's Day, I think this photo says it all. Also, I kind of love that the book my mom is showing me is Dr. Suess and how rapt my expression is. There's a reason the dedication in THE TALON OF THE HAWK says what it does.

I have to write an acceptance speech for the awards ceremony at the RT Convention this week, for the Seal of Excellence for THE MARK OF THE TALA. In a minute or less I have to thank everyone who brought me to this point. A daunting prospect. My primary goal is to get through it without weeping. You know I'll be mentioning my mom.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Speaking of the RT Convention, I'll give a little shout out to the other woman who raised me, my grandmother, who I still miss. This photo also says it all about my formative influences.

Yes, my grandmother is giving me beer. She even wrote on the back that "she sure likes her ale - isn't this cute?" No, you can't prosecute her, as she's long since passed away. It was a different era and there's truth to the adage that ale is like mother's milk to the Irish!

Now you know why I'm always in the bar. Though you'll see me with Jameson or martinis, not ale these days. I get my vanity from my mother and grandmother, too.

This week's ACTUAL topic in the Bordello, following on last week's digital networking theme, is "social media gaffes – worst things anyone has done to you."

It's an interestingly phrased question - not how we ourselves have screwed up, but what someone else has done to annoy us. I'm pretty lucky in that not much of this has happened to me. I also block people pretty quickly if they step over my lines. One guy was trying to get me to post more pics of my over-the-knee socks. I said that wasn't my schtick. He persisted. I blocked.

Boom.

Several of the Word Whores were generous in their mentions of me in their posts, and how I've helped them network. I'm really happy to help people network and I don't mind the "coattailing," as Marcella calls it. But there are limits to that. First, let me say that none of the Word Whores have ever done this to me. There was this one gal, however...

We were on Twitter, as I am a lot of the time, and a book blogger was tweeting to me about loving my book. She and I were going back and forth, talking about my hero and what she loved about him. And another writer jumped in and started talking about HER hero and her upcoming book. She totally redirected the conversation.

It annoyed the hell out of me. Thought I did ask a couple of my friends to look, to do a crazy check to confirm that I wasn't overreacting. They agreed that it was rude.

The thing is, I know a lot of people hesitate to convo intrude on Twitter and I always tell them to go ahead. That's what Twitter is for. If people get annoyed that you jumped in on a conversation, screw them because then they shouldn't have been having the convo on open Twitter in the first place. The caution here, however, is don't be so socially tone deaf, so madly focused on self-promotion, that you jump on stage and wrench the spotlight from shining on someone else to focus it on yourself.

It's rude in real life. It's rude on social media.

What about you all - got any social media horror stories?

You all have a great week and hope to see you at RT!!

Love and Hate for Made Up Holidays

By Kerry Schafer

I must begin at the beginning with a question: What precisely is a Made Up Holiday? The phrase would imply that certain holidays exist which are implicit in the natural realm, brought into existence at the very dawn of time - rather like gravity or two plus two equals four. The closest we would ever come to that would be Sabbath days, and that is a can of worms I am not about to open. I think we'd probably have to agree that all holidays are made up, to some extent or another. And for the most part I have no problem with holidays. In fact, I kind of like them. They are a way to mark the seasons, to celebrate transitions. Take Christmas for example - in the middle of cold and snow and darkness, I look forward to the brightly colored lights, the traditional baked goodies that I only get once a year, the decorating of the tree. This is only natural. I grew up in a family where one year we actually delivered gifts to the neighbors by horse and sleigh. These were gifts that my mother made, and we rode through the dark, starry night with antique sleighbells jingling on our dappled grey. You don't experience that sort of idyllic event without it making an impression. I have very little against most of the holidays - I figure it's my responsibility to set boundaries and not engage in whatever things I don't want to do. The one I actually hate? Mother's Day. Yep, I'm evil. It seems to me that this is a day of totally unnecessary guilt and sadness. People like me, the disorganized type with no sense of time, are always scrambling at the last minute to send something that may or may not get to its destination in time. This is a small thing, and it's probably good for me. I keep thinking one year I will learn my lesson and get with the program nice and early. Fortunately, my mother knows better and accepts me just the way I am. But a lot of mothers who don't hear from their kids on mother's day dissolve into grief and despair. I see them on crisis calls, sometimes outright suicidal. "Obviously my kids don't love me. I didn't get flowers. I didn't get a card. They didn't even call." Sometimes there is guilt attached to this of the "I was a bad mother" variety. But more often this mantra gets relayed to said child, with a twist of expertly applied mother guilt. It gets worse. The probability that at some point in your life you won't have a mother to honor on this day is high. For those who have lost a beloved mother, the holiday only serves to rub salt into that wound. And then there are those who experienced abusive or neglectful mothers, who now feel guilt because they are supposed to honor their mother on this day, but they frankly just don't want to make contact ever again. Or what about the people who never knew their mother at all? Yeah. The list goes on. If you have a mother and she has been good to you, I say love her on every possible opportunity. Call her, send her cards just because. Tell her you love her. The Obligatory Holiday? It kinda sucks.