A Few Kind Words Go a Long Way

By the time I woke up yesterday, a few things had gone wrong in my life. I'm depressive to begin with, and more than one nasty happening will usually send me into a downward spiral. Being depressive, I of course always overreact to such issues, so I sat at work, going through the motions of my job, wondering why I was doing what I was doing, and getting ready to just go home and go to bed.

But right in the midst of my preparations for Hara Kiri, I got a Facebook notice from a friend regarding an anthology we happen to appear in together: Night-Mantled: The Best of Wily Writers Speculative Fiction. If you don't have it, you really ought to do yourself a favor and get it. There's some powerhouse stories in there, and I'm not talking about just mine.

Getting back to the review, it's a story about the book printed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, so one assumes they know what they're talking about. You can read the entire review here, but I particularly wanted to share with you the kind words they said about my personal favorite of my stories, "The Minimart, the Ruger, and the Girl."

Mark Worthen’s “The Minimart, The Ruger and the Girl” is an elegantly creepy story about a guy who substitutes for a vacationing night manager at a convenience store. The genre is desert noir with a classic horror convention–the room that must remain locked at all times while the owner is away. This is my favorite story in the anthology, strong on atmosphere and the protagonist’s world weary expectation of worse things to come.

"Elegantly creepy" made my day. I felt better afterward, as one should after having one's work praised to the skies. Well, if that weren't enough, I got this note via Twitter:

Read "Those Eyes." Well enjoyed. Almost chilling in a modern day Poe-like writing! I'm not usually for description but this was good.

So my day went pretty darn good after that. Work came with the happy rewards it's supposed to, and I was even able to get some writing in after getting home. J and I went out for dinner at Chili's. Their avocado burger is not bad, by the way, if a bit on the dry side.

Hope your day was as good.

Faux Pas

I made a mistake this week.

Once you have some of your own stories on the web (see right if interested), you become your own publicist. That means you have to work to get every follower, every friend, every name on your mailing list, because each one becomes a potential customer, a potential buyer of your product.

So unless your brand involves pissing people off, like that abuse-the-customer bakery in New York, one has to be careful to act accordingly. My brand, as you can see from above, involves three things: novels, self-publishing and screenwriting, not necessarily in that order. Not calling bull$h*t when people start spewing negativity, lies and/or plain nonsense.

Unfortunately, sometimes one's personality doesn't always fit with one's brand. I, until recently, followed a gentleman, we'll call him Leroy, and all this guy does is watch TV and tweet about how stupid the show is. Unless, of course, the show involves a certain British TV character. Where that show is concerned, the man is a dedicated fanboy.

So, I told him I was tired of his negativity and intolerance for everything on TV. Why does he bother watching if all he does is complain and moan?

Well, it didn't occur to me this guy might have a brand too, and I was telling him it didn't work. So he tells me I'm being rude. Maybe I was. I don't know. I sure wanted to know why he bothered to watch TV he hated, though.

So I call him on his baloney, turn the machine off and go to bed, not giving it another thought. The next morning, I'm down 30 Twitter followers.

They must have liked his brand.

I didn't, so I unfollowed. I don't need people bringing out the worst in me.

The moral of the story? Not everyone understands you. Your brand will not appeal to everyone. But, and here's the tricky part: One should be careful not to alienate those your brand attracts.

You'll sell less.

So, harshly learned lesson of publicity number one: Don't be a jackass.

Unless that's why people like you.