Shiver with antici..........pation.

There's definitely excitement in the air this week (which is a pleasant change, for me anyway, after last week's whingefest) as we count down the days to Eroticon 2014. Maybe it's because I feel like I've finally got the hang of Twitter, or at least finally seem to be able to participate in an ongoing discussion without confusing the crap out of myself, but I'm bouncing around in a way I haven't done for years. It's not quite like kid-revving-up-for-Xmas, more the chattering, buttonholing-people, spreading-the-word vibes I've had before going to particularly good gigs or parties.

I don't think I ever got this worked up before the Guild Of Erotic Writers conferences. Runup to one of those was generally a matter of deciding what butties to make and how many boxes of wine to buy from Tescos, and how to make whatever damp community centre we'd booked for the event look a little more cheerful.

Even though our conferences were generally enjoyable once they were actually happening and usually ended with me getting to sleep with yet another of the editors from a particular arthouse publisher I don't recall quite such feverish anticipation beforehand.

It could be just another example of How It's All Changed These Days. We ran the Guild via photocopied newsletters and (in the independent part of its existence) a PO box that letters had to be fetched from once a week. While there was an Internet, it was still rather esoteric and not many people knew how to use it: there was no Twitter to whip up a feeding frenzy, no Facebook to create a group and invite everyone you could think of. I think I like things better the modern way. Better outreach, more fun, faster access and all the rest of it. So I'm counting the number of sleeps till Eroticon. And if I get to sleep with any publishers over the course of the weekend, well, I'll probably keep that to myself, if you don't mind.

Feminists are not all the same. Get the fuck over it.

Feminists disagree with each other. Oh noes! Some feminists focus on particular aspects of feminism and ignore others. Boohoo, I'm telling! Some feminists go batshit on Twitter and some other feminists either run off crying or go even more batshit in return. Well, what is the world coming to?

From the position of someone who's getting on a bit, here's the first truth I can impart: any kind of movement for social change is going to attract a percentage of people who are fucking difficult to deal with. Egotists, bullies, people whose own insecurity takes the form of high-volume self-righteousness and those who are so focussed on the main goal that they bash into everyone else on the way there - along with a well-meaning herd of waa-ing, baa-ing sheep. Sometimes it's better to take a deep breath, accept the good things such people bring and try to ignore their less desirable attributes, sometimes it's better to ignore them. Of course, sometimes laughing at them is a useful option, as well - one current threat apparently peddled by the officious is to 'unfollow you on Twitter and tell everyone else to do so.' Well goodness me, that hurts a lot. Don't let the metaphorical door clout you square in your twitching sphincter on your way out, will you?

 

Also from a purely personal viewpoint: the fact that no one has threatened to shoot me or burn my house down for a couple of years tends to make me think that I might be losing my touch. I rather miss Usenet, and Fidonet echoes, where you could always find a good fight if you fancied one.

 

But what I do find irritating about the current bout of wailing, bedwetting and handwringing is that it's another version of the same old Feminism Is Awful! It Hurts! It Will Make You Ill! Radical movements led by men have always featured fights, flounces, furious denunciations and people running off crying, whether that's religious schisms or the kind of demented squawkfests and group-rearranging that's always been such a big part of student socialism. If you think about it, Marx, Lenin and Trotsky all had their rucks, backed up by assorted acolytes, over fairly minor differences of opinion. Unfortunately these factional disagreements tended to lead to an awful lot of people actually dying, not just having to switch off their computers for a bit.

 

As yet, the warring feminist viewpoints on Twitter haven't escalated as far as executions for ideological unsoundness or questionable doctrine. Being called privileged or anti-intersectionalist might be a bit upsetting but it's hardly life-threatening. Plenty of people who broadly agree on the need for more social justice but disagree hugely on certain specific aspects of the worst problems facing the world, particularly  the women of the world, are able to get along fine and even be friends.

 

Disagreeing with some feminists, or having them disagree with you, doesn't mean that feminism is itself broken, wrong, unnecessary or a Bad Idea. It just means that feminists are people, too.

Feeding the ever-hungry monsters and not letting them bite you.

I first heard the phrase at the London Bloggers Meetup in April, and while it was being discussed with regard to musicians, it applies equally well to writers (and artists, and photographers and jewellers, and probably people who make balloon animals as well). Maybe if you're under 21 and have grown up with social media as part of your landscape, it comes more easily to you - or maybe it's a question of how much of your self you are offering up with your work.

I got a little fright, and then I got a little surprise, last week. I'm not a total newcomer to the public eye - back in the 90s I did quite a bit of TV but (again) it was all a bit different. I could go and make a total willy of myself on some live-broadcast regional chatshow feeling quite comfortably secure that my mum wouldn't see it and that those of my mates who lived in the relevant area would be in the pub when it was on. These days, if you get pissed and depart from the official line on even some obscure late night satellite channel filler show, some bastard will have it up on YouTube before you've recovered from your hangover. So I was Googling myself, as you do, and to my horror found a link offering Pictures. Of me. Once I'd finished shrieking, I found that it wasn't actually that bad - it consisted of a couple of perfectly reasonable headshots and portraits that I had given someone permission to use when I was interviewed for their website a few years ago. Along with the current profile pic from my Facebook profile, which I hadn't given anyone any permissions about - or so I thought - as it was a gurny unflattering photo I'd chucked up there to show off a drastic hair restyle and not bothered to change.

No it wasn't this one

I still wouldn't have bothered, if not for a cheery, chatty email from someone organising an event I'm going to be involved in, which had attached a poster for that event. Which featured the gurny, unflattering Facebook photo that some clever little sod had merrily downloaded. I used to think that people who kept their Facebook profile photo as a cartoon character or a picture of a piece of cheese were being a bit twee - well, consider that a lesson learned. Naturally I immediately changed mine to a shot of the old badge tray, and then emailed the organiser a quickly-shot selfie which is probably only slightly less horrible than the one that was originally used but at least doesn't have my actual road where I live in the background.

random picture of public transport...

But the monsters still need feeding. I set up a Facebook page for the book, thinking oh well, OK, that's my book, hello adoring public, and then found that my own Facebook page, which had been a merry melting pot of old pals, former work colleagues and new acquaintances, was getting horribly unbalanced. I'm still totally defeated by Twitter, which remains in my mind the equivalent of shouting at passing cars. And now I'm thinking that my 'other identity' probably needs Facebook and Twitter accounts as well given that 'her' books are a bit different to a lot of 'mine' and therefore published under another name. For a while, I had another blog about my day job, a clean cute fluffy one, which ended up being more of a general rant thing so I started this one for More Rants as well as More Smut and meant to make the other one more cute and fluffy.

And then I remain amazed that I don't get a lot of sleep.