Okay, so I'm a bit late getting this week's mail answered. There was only one note this week that for better or worse needed a reply so this won't be the longest thing I've ever written, but it's a reply nonetheless.
... I've noticed that you state you are of the Christian faith and yet your books and your blog seem to be anything but... Hypocrisy is an ugly slope. I hope you'll correct your path....
Under normal circumstances I may not have even considered replying to this note. It should be pretty obvious that I edited it down considerably. The writer of this epic felt it necessary to make the same point repetitively nearly to the point of the comic and to then back up their thoughts with fairly well detailed, if not slightly obscure, Bible quotations. It's been a long time since I even thought about the books of Habakkuk and Zephaniah. Bravo and well played sir. The thing is, however, that this gentleman brings up a point or two that I think may be worth talking about as others may find them applicable.
I don't want to wander too far down the ol' garden path here but I feel like I need to express this point pretty clearly. I have a problem with those who accept every single tenant of their given faith without any examination or introspection. I am primarily Christian in my personal beliefs, NOTE I SAID PRIMARILY, but I don't buy its dogma by the bucket wholesale. In my own little opinion not everything preached from a pulpit or gleaned from chapter and verse is applicable today nor has stood the test of time and analysis. Organized religion and faith are two very different things: one is a belief and one is a control mechanism. I'll leave it to you to decipher the whole which is which thing. Do I consider myself a Christian? Yes. Do I think swearing or telling someone to take a sugar frosted fuck off my taint because they're being a moron means I'm going to hell? Not hardly, but if I'm wrong I guess I'm in line for a management position by this point. I simply refuse to see profanity as a "sin" because, as I've said before, it's just words. I tend to believe sins are universal, such as murder, and not a cultural thing. Jobo the African Bushman understands murder just like we do in this country but I doubt any random slur you choose to sling his way in English will alter his day whatsoever. So, as far as hypocrisy goes, I think this gentleman may be off base. Hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing another, at least at its most basic definition. I tend to express myself verbally, in writing, and in deed at about the same level and usually within the same paradigm. Granted then again so does a poo-flinging howler monkey...
The other point that I felt bore a tad of discussion is the notion of commitment when you create a public persona. I've learned that since I began my "literary career" that random people have a notion of me built before they ever meet me. Granted it's in microcosm for the most part as I don't exactly have a national audience to speak of, but I not only find it interesting but kind of cool to see what people who read my work expect from me when they meet me. Suffice it to say that some have been pretty close to home and I would almost swear that some have thought I was a good portion of one of my characters. It's almost mind blowing to think what it's like for highly popular mainstream authors. I've had maybe fifty of these experiences. I can't imagine what thousands would be like.
The reason I mention the idea of commitment to a public persona is that, as a writer, I think you have to make a decision about how much of yourself you're going to put out there for the public. For the most part I have allowed myself to be who I am on paper to be who I am in person, but within limitations. There are certain things I feel are private and don't belong in the public venue. I am a little more forthcoming than some others in my field with what I do discuss on the blog, but at the same time I also try to limit myself to things that aren't going to drive off ye olde audience as well. I also think that if you are considering putting yourself out there creatively you also have to be willing to back up what you say and be willing to stand by it regardless of the outcome sometimes. My most recent example of this came up a few days ago. A young man working at Cleveland Library came up to me and told me he had read the entirety of the blog since meeting me a few weeks earlier. It turns out that he works at the same McDonald's that I lampoon on occasion because of horrific service or the antics of its staff. Back in January of this year I wrote a post in which I mentioned a very predatory young woman making fun of some poor kid she was controlling based on her sexual hold on him. It turns out that her little victim is actually the best friend of the kid I was speaking with. Long story short, both the victim and the girl have now been shown the blog post and thankfully thought it was cool to be immortalized. I haven't even thought about that incident in six months and it very well could have created a situation had someone been upset by it. As I said earlier, if you're willing to say it in a public forum you'd best be ready to be reminded of it if not called on it later. In a nutshell, that's primarily why I'm not taking this individual who wrote this note to task and lambasting him into a fine mist over the surface of the blog-o-sphere. He felt I was shovelling the wrong flavor of b.s. and decided to call me on it.
Well, since that's all the mail for this week, I guess I'll call it an evening. Have a great weekend and look for new guest blog posts as well as my random spewings coming in the next week!
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