You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your enemies, or, it would seem, your audience.

[greygirlbeast]

Rain came in at some point last night. I awoke at eight or so and lay listening to the downpour. As I type this, the sun is coming through the clouds, glinting off the water on the new leaves. I feel sort of giddy, sort of absurdly relieved at this particular spring, as though some part of me truly thought it would never come. The world's awake again. The trees are green, flowers are everywhere, as are bees (both bumble and honey). And red wasps. And yellow jackets. And hornets. A very determined hornet tried for about an hour to get in through my office window yesterday.

I sort of hate to come back after three days away from LJ/Blogger and cause a ruckus right off the bat, or right out of the gate, or whatever, but something's been bothering me for some time now. I resolved yesterday to deal with it, as tactfully as possible (which probably won't be very). It concerns a question which I've raised here before, in passing, regarding, well, realizing that one has readers that one would just as soon not have. And that's an inherently strange thing to say, I know. On the one hand, I need all the readers I can get. But on the other, I must admit that sometimes I wish readers who find me distasteful (or whatever) would spend their time elsewise. But...I'm being vague, and I have something specific in mind. A couple or three weeks back, I was checking who's reading the blog (I do this via Joule, because it's often helpful to see who's interested in what's being said here). Anyway, I have acquired one reader who, on or about the day she "friended" me, wrote of my fiction:

Too dark (see above) – I don’t know if I ever should read her work again. I haven’t since I’ve become a Christian – no light and hardly any air is a bad intellectual and spiritual diet.

and

would be ambrosia if she would breathe and create from heaven’s breath – as is, pretty amazing, but inhaling her work was always being filled with such a dark and dank cloud, a bad humor.

I found it very odd that this individual (who I'm not naming, but who will surely recognise her words) would feel this way about my writing and yet "friend" me. I mean, isn't that just sort of odd? Anyway, I checked her journal again a couple of weeks later and found the following, which she wrote after having seen V for Vendetta:

I mean that as a writer. I don’t want to enshrine and glorify darkness, I want to focus and craft form for light, give people something to see through.

It was a film with a very political agenda. It was bloody and pathological, too, and it twisted and blurred goodness, and made sexual perversion morally equivalent to married, heterosexual love, which bugged me not because I don’t love people involved in those lifestyles, but because (I’ve been in them, and) it’s not so, and so it’s not fair to sell people a bright lie while you draw them deeper into bondage.

To which I must reply that it's one thing if you don't want to read what I write, if you cannot see that, almost always, I am writing about the light, if only from very dark places, but it's quite another thing to be a homophobic zealot using Xtianity as your shield. To put it bluntly, I really don't want this person, or anyone who would sympathize with the vile things this person has written, the bits I've quoted, reading my stories or novels or even this journal. Indeed, this upset me so badly I have considered making the journal "friends only." But that rather defeats the purpose, as this journal is not my private journal and is being written for my readers. I regret that LJ does not permit me to block LJ users from reading as well as from posting. Am I being unreasonable? I'm emphatically not saying that this person should be forbidden from publicly saying the things she's said, though I find them loathsome and hateful, striking at the very heart of who and what I am. I merely wish she did not read this journal. Frankly, it gives me the creeps, knowing that she's reviewing my thoughts and judging them by the narrow yardstick of her fundamentalist religious beliefs. It is my hope that she will read this and "unfriend" me at once. Of course, that doesn't mean she might not still be reading, but at least she will not be doing so disguised as a "friend." I feel that I only need tolerate intolerance just so far.

After all that, the details of yesterday seem somewhat overshadowed, so I'll make a shorter entry later in the day, an entry about writing and other geeky stuff. I will remind you, though, that only 1 day and 8 hours remain on the "choose your own letter" Frog Toes and Tentacles auction. And that this auction will remove yet another letter from those available. Bid, kiddos, bid. Thank you.

Comments

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

(I do this via Joule, because it's often helpful to see who's interested in what's being said here)

That's an interesting device. I'm not sure it's completely accurate, though--I don't think so many people friended me on April 28, 2005.

Or maybe they did, hmm...My goodness, what an auspicious day for me...

but it's quite another thing to be a homophobic zealot using Xtianity as your shield.

It's been quite a while since someone like that has stuck their nose in my business. It never had the same effect on me as it's had on you, though; however arrogant they are, their arrogance never seems to approach mine, so I have trouble taking them seriously, and in fact am greatly amused by them. To the point of playing games with them I probably oughtn't to be very proud of.

But like I said, it's been a while, so I've probably matured since then...probably...

Am I being unreasonable?

No, I think it's a side effect of your basic regard for the sentient mind. No matter what a blithering fool she is, you can't regard her as the equivalent of a video game villain.

I hope you can digest the existence of such a person--to continue to care about the basic, intelligent mind, while still not caring about the manifestly stupid thoughts it produces. But I've caught myself reflexively clinging to the "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" idea, and I'm not altogether sure it's helpful...Maybe you ought to dismiss her as a bot or something.

[westlinwind.livejournal.com]

My first experience of you was at a reading during Fiddler's Green. I had never read any of your work, including the Sandman-related material. But I am glad I went; it was a wonderful reading, and I found myself caught up in the way you brought your characters to life. It struck me as terribly beautiful how you were able to touch the "light" in the darkest places imaginable. I "friended" your blog soon after. It has been very interesting to read this account of your writing process and how it weaves its way through your daily life.

I subscribe to Sirenia Digest, which I have thoroughly enjoyed....so much so that I pre-ordered Alabaster from Sub Press. When it arrives, it will be the first of your books I will have read. Had this been a locked, friends-only journal, I never would have been prompted to read either Sirenia Digest or any of your books.

Once you let your characters out of that place where they tug at your brain, to exist in the larger world, it can be very hard to step back and let them go, especially when people feel free to judge you based on the stories of those characters. But they mean to get out, inna? So just trust that you have done them justice by telling their stories with your unique and powerful voice, and that each story will impact each reader differently.

You canna hide from the bullshit and intolerance that exist in this world, unfortunately. But I hope you realize that, "dark" as it may be, you canna hide your light, either. It would be a great loss to many people.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

I should be able to recall the Nietzsche, put it isn't coming to me, either.

I think what I'm remembering comes from the beginning of Beyond Good and Evil, I'm not sure...

Egads..

[chaoticvenus.livejournal.com]

"Too dark (see above) – I don’t know if I ever should read her work again. I haven’t since I’ve become a Christian – no light and hardly any air is a bad intellectual and spiritual diet."
I read the posts backwards sometimes , so now I see how this started. Perhaps she is reading into your writing, it seeming she has gone to the wrong place to facilitate her new found Christain identity. What will she do when she reads the Old Testement?
Stay true to yourself Cait and don't let the bastards or confused,get you down. Her views have changed as she has someting in herself that she needs working on. Keyword: herself.Not you. If you somehow, in a very odd route, helped her toward her personal enlightment, more power to you for helping someone find themselves. She may not have found her path through your writing but, she has because of it.

I am religious too, but not in a "traditional" way. While I hope that people can except both the yin & the yang, they may need more time ie: have to repeat a grade aka lifetime.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

I use the term "E-quaintance" for several of the people I know on-line (starting with your past phorum back in early '03, by the way and thank you; I was lured there by the siren song of you mentioning you'd reviewed Star Trek Nemesis over there). I consider a few of them friends now, especially some fellow phorum vets and another person I've met in real life, but "E-quaintance" often seems to fit better than "friend."

So if you like the term, use it and use it well.

Chris "Language Pimp" Walsh