Stay In Your Lane

I spent several weeks in June helping my oldest son get all the practice he needed to take his driver’s license road test. And he discovered, as all of us who learn to drive do, that when driving on the highway, even small movements at the wheel can significantly change the trajectory of the vehicle when you’re traveling at 60 miles per hour.

The refrain he most often heard from me during those highway trips was, “Stay in your lane.”

So imagine the surprise and a certain amount of frustration when that became the refrain from my guides to me.

It went like this.

I was scrolling through Facebook, as one does, finding myself getting sucked into reading arguments about Covid-19, about masks, about the USPS, about racism, about the upcoming election, and about politics in general. People were doubling down on conspiracy theories, supplementing them with QAnon talking points. And my energy went from open and peaceful to fear and anger.

“You need to get off of Facebook,” Dresden, my primary guide, cautioned me.

“How are people believing some of this?” I asked. “Have you seen this?”

“What I’m seeing is you not getting off of Facebook.”

“This is just wrong!” I continued. “This isn’t true at all. Science debunked this years ago.”

“Don’t go there.”

“Here, look. Someone else posted a well-written rebuttal from a verified source. I should copy this source for use in the future.”

“Sheyna,” Dresden said in a tone I hadn’t heard in a while. “Stay in your lane.”

“What? I’m not driving.”

“You’re heading in a direction that will not take you where you want to go,” Dresden said. “Remind me what you uncovered as your mission.”

I remembered a kind of psychic download that I’d just recently received. “I connect you to your true self and your own kick-ass team of guides, who are ready to help you live a powerful life of love, joy, and freedom.”

“And what did you then discern was your mission on social media?” Dresden asked.

“I share what I've learned and experienced — both pleasant and unpleasant — in my journey to that powerful life of love, joy, and freedom.”

“And how is this,” Dresden waved toward my phone, “helping you stay true to your mission?”

“Um…”

“You think you’re just browsing posts,” Dresden said, “but is it taking you anywhere close to love, joy, or freedom?”

“I need to know where people are, where they’re coming from,” I argued, knowing already it wasn’t helpful.

“How is allowing yourself to get mired in anger and fear going to help you experience love, joy, or freedom, or for that matter, helping anyone else experience that?”

“It isn’t.”

“And what will?” Dresden prodded.

“The things I’m drawn to: meditation, time in nature, talking with you, laughter.”

“So…?”

“So, I don’t need that rebuttal? Or any other evidence that would support where I stand on these issues?”

“That isn’t your mission,” Dresden said. “Not this time.”

“I need to be very mindful of what I consume on social media,” I said. “Stay true to my mission. Stay in my lane.”

  

Still Active...Just Not Here (except now, and in the near future)

Guess what? I'm on Facebook. Yep, me and like five billion other souls all looking to connect over pokes and tweets and catching up while raising virtual livestock and growing cartoon plants. I've been very active out there in FB-land with my own author page, publisher page, and of course my profile where I can get caught up on the lives of my friends without ever having to talk to them.

In fact, I'd love it if you'd go to my author page (http://artist.to/sheynagalyan ) and click to "like" it. That way you can stay even more in touch with the book goings on, like a delightful review left just today that has me all happy inside and ready to tackle the next round of editing on Strength to Stand.

That doesn't mean I won't be back here. Despite my occasionally lengthy absences, I do consider this blog a sort of friend, and I treasure all four regular readers out there. I have some plans for this blog, too, like how does a fiction writer, with a niche genre, go about getting a publishing contract without, 1. Spending their own money to some person or company that may not know--or care--what they're doing; 2. Spending months or years looking for an agent (who may or may not know what they're doing) who will then spend months or years shopping your manuscript around to publishers who may wonder if the author knew what he or she was doing when writing the book. How does the new world of ebooks and Kindles and Nooks and book downloads and Just-in-Time manufacturing and Ingram's new "Espresso Book Machine" affect us as writers and readers. How can we best get what we want to say to those who want to hear it?

(If you figure out  the answer to that last question, let me know.)

Or topics like, What's scary about going with a small press? What's scary about going with a great big New York publisher? Is it ever okay to friend your publisher/editor/author/cover artist on Facebook? Why is the book business looking more like the music business and why does that bother a lot of book people?

It's just me and my opinions and observations, with a Jewish twist. Because that's what I do.

Write on...

Staying in Sync

I'm speaking tomorrow (Friday, August 14) at the MIPA/IBPA Regional Publishing University. In addition to working on my presentations, I'm setting it up so that right before I get up to speak, I can text a note from my phone and have it update here, as well as on Facebook and LinkedIn, among others. More to make a point than because I want to blast my status around the known universe.

So, we'll see if it works. Stay tuned!

The REAL Me

Along the lines of my previous post about being on Facebook, I've decided to stop hiding behind my avatar. Don't get me wrong -- I love my avatar. I even went so far as to take a printout of my avatar to my hair stylist and say, "My hair is really close to this, but what can you do so that it can look exactly like this?"

My stylist said she's had a lot of people bring a lot of different photographs in before and say, "I want my hair to look like that," but no one had ever before brought her a cartoon...

But I have decided that if I'm going to bare my face to the world on my Facebook page, I can afford to do it here, too. And so, a fond farewell to the avatar that served me so well.

This is the real me.

Not now, honey, I'm Facebooking

I've done it. I am now socially networked. And there must be something wrong, because I am having WAY too much fun with it.

Whoever thought that throwing a sheep at a shul friend or sending flair to Husby when I'm sitting four feet away could be so fun? Okay, more to the point, this takes the term "global community" to a whole new level.

I'm pretty much an introvert. This is why I write instead of the myriad other things I could be doing that would actually make money (that, and the voices in my head won't leave me alone). So putting myself "out there" seemed a little scary at first. I'm okay with it now. No stalkers have appeared outside my home, at least 50% of the email I get is still junk (I'm not interested in cheap meds, fake handbags, or lengthening my organ), and all of the readers who have identified themselves to me seem to be nice, stable folks.

I have a full profile for people whom I know (more or less); I have a page for those I don't. And if you're on Facebook, I'd love it if you'd swing by and become a fan. (Because we all need fans and it looks really sad otherwise.)

Meanwhile, I'll work really hard on my part and keep up with the blogging again. Deal?