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Sunday 27 May 2012

Just chat amongst yourselves

Monday, 4th October 2010

According to an article in yesterday’s Sunday Times, ‘literary authors’ – the serious ones destined for posterity, who write Great Literary Novels, as against the rest of us low-grade entertainers – disdain to join social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Why? Lack of time perhaps? Lack of interest? Both would be perfectly good reasons. No, apparently it is because ‘they look into the human soul, so why would they post musings in just 140 characters?’

Well, pardon me. Clearly those writers I meet and with whom I have enjoyable conversations on both Facebook and Twitter, are lower forms of literary pondlife – are you listening, Philip Hensher, Salman Rushdie, Nick Harkaway, Linda Grant, Amanda Craig, Ian Rankin? I have never heard anything so outrageously snobbish in my life. You either are a person who uses Facebook and/or Twitter or you are not. It suits you or it doesn`t.
What is more, how you use the social media and for what purpose, is up to you too. There are few rules.

I am assuming you know roughly what these sites are and how they work. If you do not, and do not wish to find out, feel free to pass on.

Some people assume they are the means of self-promotion – if you are a writer, for example, you tweet about the book you are hoping people will buy, share your literary success and details of your book life with friends on Facebook, get in as many mentions of your ‘product’ as you can under the guise of being sociable.

That is a way and a pretty damn quick one, to lose friends and followers. Nothing is more boring than the author who writes about nothing but their latest oevre and draws attention to every good review, every promotional appearance. The odd mention is fine but to push, push, push your book is just plain rude. It doesn`t work either. It turns people off. Do you really want to be your own PR person?

Facebook works via invitations to befriend. I invite you to be my FB Friend, you can accept or decline. Some people accept absolutely everyone who asks them– they collect Friends, the more the merrier. They’re called Facebook Tarts and seen as Desperate. I only accept a very few new FB Friends not because I am unfriendly but because of the way I use the site. My page is a gathering of people I either know in reality or have come to know via FB. We have the odd spat but on the whole get on well, exchange views, think more or less along the same lines, share sorrows and joys, encourage one another. In other words we are friends. I pick new ones with care because they might not get along with the existing set. We talk about serious matters, mention the highs and lows of the day, make jokes, pass on information and tips – say, about film recommendations or how to cook a duck. Those with children find a great mutual bond – at the moment both my FB page and my Twitter following are full of mothers whose children have just gone away to University for the first time – empty nesters They are finding it much harder than they expected and they can share the experience. You only have to expose your thoughts and feelings if you wish but this sort of solidarity can help you through a minor - possibly even a major-crisis.

Some people join Facebook but never contribute. They do not post anything, or reply to or comment on the posts of others. They are just silently there. Or perhaps they are not. This is puzzling - a bit like going to some trouble to join a club and then never setting foot in the door.

But there is no law against it. That is part of the charm.

Twitter is different. Posts are shorter, people spatter a handful like gunfire, reply to a handful more, then get on with their day. What is Twitter? Essentially, it is just a conversation – between two people or twenty people. It doesn’t matter. You can be pretty sure of one thing though – the more Famous and Starry someone is the more their Tweets are a Monologue not a conversation. Major Celebs often get their PR people do Tweet for them. Disgraceful. Major Celebs never reply to their followers they just bang on about themselves.

Quite a lot of writers Tweet – though only low-grade ones, if the Sunday Times is correct - and in turn we are followed by many aspiring writers, but on the whole none of us talk about our work, other than in passing – ‘talk to you later. Back to Chapter 3 now’ ‘Break 4 coffee and 5 minutes here before more proof correcting.’ That sort of thing. Literary agents and the publicity departments of publishers push their authors a bit but they also have conversations about topics of the day. Politics creep in. I follow several vicars, who Tweet about the joys and sorrows of their busy days – grief, joy, services, meetings, deaths, weddings, bell ringing, harvest festival hymns, Diocesan quarrels. I follow the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, though his tweets are irregular. You find out about people’s daily lives and worries, you laugh, you pass on stories. Oh yes, and gossip. You ask for information. ‘How can I get my new boots stretched?’’Anyone know a good roofer in Tunbridge Wells?’ ‘Cat sick three times. Anything I can do as broke, can’t afford vet. Help.’

It is life. Today Ian Rankin played football for the first time in years and nearly killed himself. Today a vicar took communion to an 88 year old lady in a Home and was moved when the lady insisted on praying for her. Today, writer Nick Harkaway was complaining about a dreadful smell of sewage coming in through his windows. Today novelist Joanne Harris tweeted from the QM2 that she was feeling very queasy and about to do a platform session with Bill Bryson. Today I raged about my cat presenting me with the head (only) of a blue-tit. Trivia? Perhaps. Life. Certainly. Conversations, definitely. Time wasting? It can be. Tonight a lot of people are watching the X Factor and simultaneously tweeting about it every other minute which is a double waste of precious time in my view – but that’s just my view.

The pomposity of the idea that Great Literary Writers are above Twitter defies belief. Let them not Tweet. If they did they might find friends and flashes of inspiration and a wide variety of human life but they prefer to get those things in other ways. But they would rather not. Fine.

Make no mistake though – you have no claim to the moral high ground just because you are not on Twitter.

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Steve

October 4th, 2010 11:14am Report this comment

Great literary figures might be more inclined to do twitter and facebook because the greater the artist, the more emotionally backward they tend to be. I use to do a lot of amateur theatre and I was fairly mediocre at it, but I was a lot more emotionally stable than some of the luvvies there who have since gone on to very successful careers in theatre and film. I'm happy for them, but I think when you're that driven to succeed you lose a grip on your emotional intelligence because nothing else matters. I think modern social networking sites have accelerated this decline. Nothing is cool unless it can be compressed into a soundbite or tweet.

David Bouvier

October 4th, 2010 2:15pm Report this comment

It's not snobbery, its commercial interest. The Sunday Times might as well say that "facebook gives you cancer".

I imagine they will follow up with an article about how MySpace (prop. Rupert Murdoch) is the home the modern day literary salon.

Hadrian

October 4th, 2010 8:24pm Report this comment

Perhaps it's a generational thing but I simply get nonplussed by all these 'virtual' thingies and respond in good old Luddite fashion and never use them!
Just doing e-mails, the odd website search and not much else exhausts my technical knowhow! When I see the tinies who can deftly manipulate their computers and mobiles I am torn between green with envy and black with a certain curious disapproval. Nothing can quite match the printed paper word for charm and, I suspect, the development of proper grammar, linguistic facility and articulacy,,but there speaks an aged grammar teacher!!

Hadrian

October 4th, 2010 8:30pm Report this comment

Incidentally, I should make it clear that I do share your anti-elitist reaction to those who sneer at 'tweeting' 'face-booking' etc. The mundane details of life are endlessly fascinating and often very pleasant to contemplate and fiction, by its very nature possibly fails sufficiently to capture this. Who knows- in a hnundred years' time tweeting will possibly be seen as an art form itself?!

Vivien

October 4th, 2010 10:44pm Report this comment

Sorry not to comment intelligently on Twitter etc, which I don't use, but I do feel rather sorry for your cat. The bird's head was a loving gift. The cat had used enormous natural skill to catch the bird (we couldn't do it) and I think it wanted to show its appreciation of you by giving you something which, for a cat, is a proud achievement. (We had cats who gave us mice and frogs - they were gifts. Not quite our idea of gifts! - but cats have rather different minds). Supposing we humans went hunting in Sainsbury's for necessities, and some alien being looked at our shopping bags and accused us of a moral horror?

Anyway - very interesting post, as usual - thanks.

@LDNCalling

October 5th, 2010 10:16am Report this comment

Just a shame you stopped following me, I miss our good natured banter :) Great post BTW.

SUSAN HILL

October 5th, 2010 10:31am Report this comment

Oh I know, we get mice, galore, rats, even a squirrel, rabbits.. not too many birds but I just draw the line at a single head somehow. Ugh.

Naomi Muse

October 5th, 2010 11:06am Report this comment

There must be a techophobe masquerading as a middle england snob in anyone who is unaware of how to use social network media and blogosphere and is in need of keeping up to date, or naturally a networker.

Tweeting is such sweet sorrow - sorry!

Naomi Muse

October 5th, 2010 11:10am Report this comment

I always thought puddy tats caught and brought random small mammals in to teach us how to hunt, as well as doing their bit for the household economy. They must think we are pretty naff hunters as all the stuff we buy comes in bags, instead of furry or feathery coats.

I share your Ugh! at being presented with a blue tit's head, but seeing a cat spring from a sitting position, apparently washing himself and not taking much notice of his surroundings, 3 feet into the air and catch a bird on the wing, is amazing. I'd rather he killed rodents than birds though.

SUSAN HILL

October 5th, 2010 4:01pm Report this comment

I once watched our Ginger cat lie with half closed eyes, apparently basking in the sun, outside one of the stables.. watched for maybe 10 minutes and just as a rat leaped out of the stable for freedom cat leaped, pulled him down and killed him with one bite to the back of the neck. Amazing. He then went back to snoozing.

Naomi Muse

October 5th, 2010 5:21pm Report this comment

Puzzies have great style and elegance of all effort. Yes, cats are rather relaxed and unconcerned but really a coiled spring inside. My old ginger cat used to lie his 'morgue' down in rows under a truck. I have never seen a cat keep his mortuary in such good order with species laid out in groups, tummy up. The odd pair of baby rabbit hindlegs on the half landing of the stairs was not a welcome find, though.

Hadrian

October 5th, 2010 9:15pm Report this comment

I am more a dog than cat person, myself. However, worry not, I do like like moggies!
My own little barrel of a mutt ( she stands slightly smaller than a border collie, slightly larger than a jack russell ) is an extraordinarily intelligent and sweet natured beast, far too dignified to get agitated about anything. Still, even she gets crazed when the odd squirrel or puss that dares cross her path!
For an amusing picture of the contrast between the usual hauteur of the feline and the shaggy dog enthusiasm of the canine, I cannot refrain from directing folks to the very entertaining and charming novels of Suzette Hill, starting with 'A Load of Old Bones' where they must 'rescue' their 1950s down beat Vicar from himself and the consequences of his one foolish moment of inadvertantly murderous madness- and of course, thereby preserve their own cushioned life style! In those stories it's the dog who collects his bones, a habit disdained by the superior feline, Maurice! Wonderfully funny!

AndyinBrum

October 6th, 2010 8:49am Report this comment

Only a head? Our cat brought a starling in and then appears to have ritually disemboweled and then dismembered it. And then for added fun decided to spread the parts around the house.

He know has a bell the size of his head on his collar.

As for Twitter, people who just use it as PR are boring and get ignored.

I find it a great way of "meeting" new people with similar interests (cricket & Rugby mainly) from around the country & even the world. And also annoying famous novelists (Sorry about that Ms Hill).

It's also a great place to vent frustration

SUSAN HILL

October 6th, 2010 2:18pm Report this comment

AndyinBrum. No, actually, you are not sorry. If you were you would not have said it.

SRS

October 6th, 2010 3:48pm Report this comment

Oh, Susan, are Facebook and Twitter (plus writing and life) why you have been absent from the blog on your own site? Weren't we promised more reading suggestions? They would be most welcome!

SUSAN HILL

October 6th, 2010 11:11pm Report this comment

No, I decided to stop blogging for quite other reasons. I don`t spend much time on FB and Twitter. I do spend much time on writing books, publishing books, blogging on here, doing a lot of journalism - and spending this summer looking after a litter of 6 Border Terrier puppies. Sorry no more suggestions. But maybe on here one day.

Rebekah

October 8th, 2010 7:49am Report this comment

If they are so keen on looking into the human soul, then they'd realize that the strength and beauty of an idea is not how long it happens to be. Some of the most profound things I've ever read have been from people who were able to compress truth into just a few words. And yes, just a few words sometimes comes under 140 characters.

And Twitter is just a tool. It's nothing more than a medium for dispensing information. There's no reason it has to be for communicating things you're doing at the moment, or even chatting. I've seen writers on Twitter use it as a blank slate for creating art. They post everything from poetry, condensed wisdom, to actual stories boiled down to the core.

Then again, it seems a lot of "literary" people aren't really interested in actually writing for posterity or to push the boundaries of the written word, like they claim. They just like to make it look as though they do. It's all about manufactured chaos, identical bits of nonconformity and superficial profundity.

It's about keeping away from the masses so they can say they are people apart, without really doing anything that places them apart. Standing on a pedestal doesn't make you a work of art.

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