And besides, if you are running with a guild, you can just be -you- … if you are Ms Insane Omg Gotta Write, and never say who you are, guildmates just accept it. Good guilds realize RL comes first… and are happy to see you on whenever you are able to.

If, as I suspect from an older blog post, your first 80 is a hunter… may I suggest either Druid or Paladin as your next character? I’ve found both to be very, very fun. YMMV.

You are one of my favorite authors, and reading your blog keeps me amused, nodding… and balanced between a number of WoW-related blogs.

Thanks for writing, and again… Grats on 80!

p.s. I’ve had you as a “Note” Worthy addition to my bloglist for a while.

It’s like saying you’ll meet a friend every weekend for brunch and only showing up when it’s convenient. Things come up, people get sick, are tired, cranky, etc…that is ok, but it shouldn’t happen everytime.

So basically, if you say you’re going to do something, then do it. If at later date you realize you can’t keep that commitment you made, ok, just tell those that follow you.

Further to this, don’t promise more than you can deliver. If you do this, then you likely won’t end up breaking a ‘contract’ with your followers.

Thanks!

And congrats on hitting 80. If it’s not too personal, can I ask what class you play? I’m a mage girl all the way.

There are shifting barriers, for me. The whole thing about privacy on the net is just that: that it’s illusive. Whatever you send out creates echoes and it will stay out there as long as someone is interested in searching for it. Therefore, one shouldn’t put out something one isn’t comfortable with EVERYONE knowing. It requires care and thought, not the least of which is the idea of pseudonyms and anonymity as a screen for privacy. (The flip side of this is that anonymity on the Web also leads people to think the consequences of nasty behavior are nil.)

There are some things I’d break the wall of (illusory) privacy for, like major life changes that have a bearing on my career, or parts of my past I think have a bearing on something. I think one has to weigh the potential cost of the information being used against you against the good it will do. In most cases, five minutes worth of thought about that wall of privacy and if you want to break it in this way will give you an answer, and it’s different for each person. It’s a complex set of social and personal costs and benefits to be weighed.

Cheers,

-M

As to the substance of your post, I think there’s one detail a lot of people also forget: once you post someone on the ‘net, it’s not going to disappear tomorrow. As soon as it’s been spidered, fed, or sent, it’s sitting on a half-dozen servers or more, and whatever you wrote is out there, permanently, and ain’t nothing you can do about it. You can delete, but someone will still be able to find echoes of your stupidity. (Heh.)

When it comes to authors on the ‘net, enough exposure has led me to a position of feeling that it’s perfectly alright for an author to simply say, “thank you for reading my book,” or “I’m glad you enjoyed my work” without starting an entire best-friends-forever discussion. It is a public venue, and to ignore someone’s comment is somewhat akin, in my mind, to being spoken to at a gathering and just brushing the person off. Thus, I end up avoiding (or ditching quickly) writerly blogs and similar media where either comments are turned off, or the author never replies. (Worse, replies only to the same two or three people and no one else.) To send out a statement and never interact kinda defeats the entire, well, interaction-aspect of the internet.

As for the rest, in terms of public and private, I know you’ve mentioned this before and it’s something I’m still pondering. So perhaps I’ll throw this question back at you, then: at what point do you think it becomes important to break the wall of (illusory) privacy? If ever? And for what might you break it, or for what do you think it’s acceptable to break it?

– Rachel

I have a comment that might be a question, although I don’t think it will have a question mark. I’ve noticed with some writers/celebs who use Twitter and Facebook that they have a social group, a posse, a set of people to whom they do talk — in public. It’s nothing to see it in FB status comments or by hunting a tag or two in Twitter. I wonder if this is a fuzzy line where unintentional words might be spoken, or if it’s a good way for fans to feel a little connection of sorts — even though most fans who send a public reply will never be seen or known. Can that work against an author, too, by making some fans feel ignored while others (relationship offline unknown) are not? Can you see a danger or problem there?

Wow, I did manage an interrogative.