Person and persona, and riding the line.

"Gosh, trees are nice, I like trees I WILL DESTROY ALL WHO THWART ME do you think maybe we should go back to Disneyland in October SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET IS WRONG RARRRRRHGHGHGHGH oh hey juice."

You made my nose accidentally snort sour cream when I read that line. LOL! I can relate to this but it would be more along the avenue of "Do you like my Wonder Woman chucks, aren't they cute, I got them for my birthday THIS TOOL OF A CLIENT IS A TOTAL DOUCHEBAG did anyone ever tell you that shirt makes you look like Dexter with blood splatter and it's very cool CONDESCENDING BITCH IS CONDESCENDING I WILL TEE PEE HER FUCKING CUBICLE GROOOOWWWWLLLLL HULK-SMASH oh look Donnettes."

When it comes to online "persona" I try to keep it simple: be myself, maintain integrity, and don't share things you wouldn't share in public no matter what the privacy settings are (somehow someway someone always finds out).

Whatever is the total opposite of grating, that's you in my eyes. :) From the time I read your 100 Surreal Things That Have Happened To Me list to this very moment, reading your lj and then your books have been nothing but pure enjoyment.

I've had the pleasure of meeting you at a few of Kate's many parties. Your online "persona" is ... well ... you.

I don't think I ever told you how much I totally adore you for your high energy and randomness. There was 4th of July party where we'd gotten some bad family news and the SO was leaving the next day for an unknown amount of time to deal with it. You were so awesome and actually made him smile and laugh. I'm sure you don't remember, but I will always love you for it.

I love Seanan in all ways and forms.

But I don't understand the liking to pee part. I'm TRYING to be more .... I'm trying to be better about peeing. I'm trying to honor the fact that my body is processing foods and liquids and eliminating waste properly--trying to have gratitude for that. I know it sounds hippy dippy, but it's helping.

Except... peeing just gets in the way of much more exciting things, and I'm often on the toilet going "Come on, get out, get out!" I really hate interrupting everything (especially sleeping) to pee, probably because I have to do it so often. Some days, I go every single hour. I haven't slept through the night since...well, I don't remember ever sleeping completely through the night because I always have to get up and pee at least three times.

I don't find your online persona "grating". You come across as a nice person--seriously--YOU DO.
I'm something of an authority on online trolls both big and small and I'm here to tell you that you are less trollish than many of the folks around here.

Here's a thought I think you might appreciate:
Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by @$$holes.
Random frogs??? LOL
:D

Having met you at AussieCon before becoming a regular reader, I find Seanan online to be a lot like Seanan in person, although, as you say, with less randomly shared stream of consciousness and with more paragraph breaks.

I'm okay with that. I like paragraph breaks.

who found my online persona "grating

I find it a very pleasing grating, very decorative and with swirls.. a work of art even. Made of Iron and installed correctly even.

I continue to treasure the memory of you vigorously explaining what happens when you encounter a flock of Arizona grackles early in the morning.

This is just too silly. The Oracle would rather play with his own 6 kitties and re read Verity than pay attention to someone who is prolly just jealous of his friend.

This?

Peeing. I love peeing! I mean, I don't pee on trees or anything, but I really like it when I go into the bathroom feeling uncomfortable, and come out feeling a-okay. Plus it's an excuse to sit and read, and who doesn't love that?

is so ME! I have a book that resides in my bathroom specifically for reading while peeing (and other things).

As for the person that found your online persona grating? Well it is their loss if they chose not to read your LJ. I find it delightfully random, quirky, informative, thoughtful, passionate, funny and just plain great. It may be more filtered than the RL you but that is a function of the internet. We have a chance to stop and measure our words. Contemplate them and hit the backspace key if they don't come out sounding the way we want. In real life, most people do have some kind of internal filter to some extent but even those with a good filter can blurt out things they wish unsaid.

I follow your journal because it's a joy to read, and your books are on my acquisition list at least in part because I like your voice and the way you think. (Also I read all your Sparrow Hill Road and Velveteen stories, and love them both).

Persona comment: yes, it boggles me somewhat because to be as enthusiastic as you are on here would be utterly exhausting if it wasn't genuine! Choosing to filter what you put out isn't the same as constructing a persona.

Yeah... use of the word "persona" in this person's comment is revealing. Trust can be hard to come by, and if I thought someone was *dishonestly* trying to present herself as someone like you, as some kind of display or marketing strategy, I'd probably read what you do differently. But that's true of any writer a reader doesn't trust, and a reader can choose not to trust anyone.

You, though, have done, and do, as much as I think you possibly can to earn your audience's trust, if that audience cares to look for evidence. Online and in person, you have visibly been who you are -- in more than one way, maybe, but still you -- for many years. There are many people, trustworthy themselves, who can verify that, yes, she really is like that. Not *only* or *always* that, but definitely that. You take personal risks in your writing. You explain yourself, even when no one expects you to. You don't mind a spotlight, but when you get it, you share it, and even loan it out.

Most of all, you let your audience talk to you. And you listen. Not just listen, but, well past the point at which it's even remotely reasonable, you regularly respond, in a way that displays respect for both your own thoughts and those of the people you're talking to. I can only imagine the price you pay in time and energy to do it, but I think it's one of the most important things you do. It helps fill in the spaces between art and artist and audience, between people who are different, but share the same world. The day your audience finally grows too large for you to do as much of that work will be bittersweet, if still glorious.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about someone finding you "grating", even if their opinion isn't about suspicion or cynicism. You are kind and you are genuine, and the irregularities some people might find off-putting make it easier for the rest of us to grab on.

This isn't entirely related, but it reminded me of when I used to play FFXI. I can't speak for most people who play MMORPGs but the people I interacted with generally weren't really role-playing a character, though, I know there were specific groups that did do that). Mostly we were playing the game to play the game and so in regard to my character, it was basically me. Anyway, one thing and another happened and someone was really mean to my character in the game and for the life of me I can't really remember the situation. What I do remember is that I was sitting in front of my computer with tears pouring down my face because it was essentially no different than this person being mean to me even though it was this little collection of pixels.

I think the Internet is a lot like a costume for people. Not that they necessarily are disguising themselves or turning into superheroes, though, I suppose that's also likely. But more that there's an empowering feeling of anonymity. Perhaps more before social networking really took off, but still very much a fact. And I think because of that a lot sometimes tact and decency go out the window. Which is to say, while everyone has a valued opinion and has a right to share it, but I think the Internet as a whole isn't always the best venue for what everyone might have to say.

And FWIW, your enthusiastic randomness is one of the things I most enjoy about you! It's nice to know I'm not the only person in the world who is like that. ;-)

Seanan,
don't worry about one old grumpy git.
The numbers must speak for themselves - you have lots of people following your blogs, and you must be selling tons of books, so you must be doing something right!!!

"...'Shut your fucking face, you fucking fucker' rolls trippingly off the tongue..."
Does 'you scurrilous knave' work better in writing?

I never notice any grating in your supposed persona.
It's not as if you get into bouts of GeneralZod-ing and demand that we bow down before you.
:-)

"It's not as if you get into bouts of GeneralZod-ing and demand that we bow down before you."

She doesn't have to. Seanan shows people reasons to kneel before her, and they kneel - metaphorically, anyhow.

General Zod told people to bow down. Didn't work as well.

(Clearly, General Zod never read anything about writing books.)

I adore you as you are. While I've not met you in person, I know people who DO know you in person, and trust their opinion of you :-). Some people have personalities that do not click, this is not news.

Some people assume that people won't be themselves on the net. Some people can go eff themselves.

I also am pretty much the same online as off, only with less swearing and slightly more coherency online. The fact that my mind not only meanders, but multitracks AND meanders can cause contextual whiplash for some people. To them I say "meh."

People always tell me that "you write exactly like you talk", like it was a surprise. Never quite understood that - both as someone who is close-to-boderline-aspbergers (so I tend to observe human social rituals like I was an alien anthropologist) and as someone whose college degree is technically in Speech (because that's what NU gives it's theatre grads).

I also do a lot of interactive theatre, so I have had occasion to "write in character" for show prep or publicity, but again I never thought it was that odd a thing to be able to do.

I suppose I view "having an online person" sort of like wearing a different hat - the hat that means you're talking to someone who might be upset if you say "fuck" a lot, or the one that knows that the other party to the conversation hasn't seen all of the new Doctor Who episodes. You subconsciously edit what you say in conversation based on what you believe the other party has interns of experience/knowledge/level of patience.

Some of us LIKE listening to podcasts about melting wombats and being buried alive, for example....

Also, with online you there's less singing (this hardly seems possible and yet...) and getting sidetracked by saying hi to/interacting with non-human creatures.

I can actually see why someone might think what they see of you online is a persona. But I suspect it has nothing to do with how genuine you come across and everything to do with a built-up cynicism about the online representations of anyone with a measure of celebrity. How much is the actual person and how much is the image this person is trying to sell?

But then I assume this is a person who only sought you out online after you were published anyway. Because, honestly, such an extensive "persona" would be exhausting to maintain for the number of years you've been online. You'd need a Seanan Wiki just to keep it all straight!

At the risk of being a synchophant, I gotta say that I think you'd be pretty cool to hang out with and talk about the X-men and horror movies and whatnot. I really don't get why you'd be grating.

I tend to see it as a mistake to assume that an "online persona" is the same as the person ... leads people to think they really know someone, when all that they do know is the side of the person that makes it online.

That said, I love your online persona, and suspect it reflects the real you enough that I would love you in person, too.

I can't imagine telling someone I had a problem with their online persona. If I didn't like it, I just wouldn't follow. They can happily be who they are & I don't need to have anything to do with them. Internet is great that way - we can choose.

People are strange.

Seanan, I have been reading you online since your List of 100 Surreal Things (as mentioned above), and it's been so long, I honestly feel like you're the successful distant cousin that I rarely hear from. I've heard you sing, I've read your thoughts, I've read your fiction, I know so much about you that it hardly seems real that we really don't know each other (and I'm going to stop right there before I start sounding stalkerish. What? Too late? Oh, yeah...).

SFH got me through a lot of crazy times in my life -- your music is so soothing and comforting (and sometimes stimulating) that it's earned a permanent place on all my playlists.

All in all, I love you and hope that you remain happy for a very, very long time.

So, to the point -- I love your online self, and I think I'd be very comfortable around your offline self, as well.

(P.S. -- In case you hadn't already made the connection [and I don't expect you to, what with all your fans] I'm also Coach_Michael on Twitter.)