Facebook is killing what's left of my writing

It just occurred to me that back in the heydays of this blog, I did not have a Facebook account. I got on Facebook about four years ago only because I bought into the writer-hype that said if you're a writer then you MUST be fully engaged in social media. It is absolutely imperative. Just think about how you can leverage all of your Facebook friends when it's time to sell your book!

I thought to myself at the time that I could only imagine ever having 50 or so Facebook friends. I mean, who is out there beyond that?

Welp, today I have over 600 Facebook friends.

How is this possible.

Some of them are people I honestly do not know. I have never met them. Some are people I barely knew in high school thirty years ago. Some are people I have only met online. It's a strange world.

But that whole hype thing...that's fodder for another post about the business of publishing a novel which is very dark and pessimistic. Suffice it to say that having several hundred Facebook friends translated into a sales multiplier of about one one-hundreth.

And I know it was because I didn't play the game the way you're supposed to. I know that. I don't want to talk about it right now.

But today Facebook has become my primary source of news and cultural awareness. I mean, how would I have know about the home-wrecker penguin if I hadn't been on Facebook? How would I have a feel for the angst of my friends on the left and the right post-election? It's hard to imagine not being on Facebook now because I would lose touch!

However, on the negative side, there have been many times when I thought I would write about something—many times—when I saw that seventeen people were already blabbing about that topic, and I decided that even if I thought I had something new to say chances are by the time I hit the "publish" button everyone would already have moved on. My post would seem to them the way so many posts seem to me. "For God's sake. Not another blogger talking about that!" And so I don't write anything.

But this election season (all 36 months of it) has just about made me sick to death of Facebook, enough that that muscle-memory reflex of clicking the button, that automatic impulse-response of thinking "I wonder if anyone has posted anything new" has just about run out of gas.

The answer is 99% of the time, "no. no one has posted anything new, and if they did, it's probably not interesting."

I'm coming back to where I was in 2012 before I was persuaded to create an account.

The Big Short should be renamed "Incredulity"

I watched The Big Short last night (again. The first time I may have been enjoying an adult beverage and didn't remember many of the details.)

Now. I have already seen Inside Job and The Queen of Versailles and several Youtube clips explaining the 2008 economic collapse, so I'm pretty clear on how it all happened.

But during the first half of the movie the dominant emotion that captured all the drama was Incredulity. Lots of dropped jaws, stunned gazes, speechless moments, and heads shaken in disbelief. The outrage of the film makers was well portrayed by the actors, and I the viewer vicariously entered their astonishment and outrage at the madness and greed of Wall Street bankers.

The second half of the movie then was a continuous sequence expressed by the phrase, "We are fucked." Really, over and over again. If you were to rename the movie, it could easily be divided in two and renamed according to the main thing being expressed by each half. The Big Short is a pretty good name too. Just saying.

Don't get me wrong. It was a very good movie, and I am as disgusted by the events of 2008 and the lack of accountability to which the big bankers were held in the subsequent years. And of course, I love all the actors in the film. It was all very well done, and perhaps deserving of all of the awards it received.

It just seemed to be very one-dimensional. Yes, there was the subplot regarding the suicide of Mark Baum's brother and Mark's psychological pain in the years that followed. But still I have to say the film was pretty straightforward.

It was almost as if to break up the linearity of an already all-star cast, the director had to employ a few clever and original tricks to keep everyone not only on track with the machinations of Wall Street and the jargon thereof, but well, entertained.

First there was Margot Robbie, arguably the most beautiful woman in Hollywood today. Then there was Anthony Bourdain talking about how CDO's are created, using the metaphor of dumping old seafood into a nice bisque instead of throwing it out. Good stuff, but somewhat obligatory.

I'm not trying to be critical. I am by nature I guess. But one should be able to say these things while also saying it was a very enjoyable movie.

And, I'm trying to keep it innocuous before I start getting really controversial on this blog.

Vale of Tears: The Resurection

Nearly four years ago I abandoned This Vale of Tears thinking it was the work of a period when I did not take writing seriously, which was true.

I have since published a novel and other stories and articles here and there. And with the benefit of four years of publishing and publicizing experience, I have come around to realize that it is also possible to take one's self too seriously. And I also realized that I like the name of this blog, and I cannot think of a better local to resume my blogging efforts.

So I am bringing this blog back to life and planning to start writing content that is more mature and above all is honest, revealing my true heart about things.

One fear that has proved to be a roadblock to my honest writing is that if I am honest about myself, my faith, or my cynicism, I will drive away readers and publishers and agents, and my chance to break into the world of writing will be obstructed by my lack of professionalism.

I now realize that that whole pursuit is 1) probably not going to result in getting some kind of platform or following and 2) not providing me any of the satisfaction that writing is supposed to bring.

So I think I have talked myself into bringing this blog back to life. 

Just know that every post prior to this one is at least four years old, and I have grown a lot in the intervening years. To readers who subscribe and start reading older posts, please forgive my tone and/or lack of skill as a writer.

For new subscribers, welcome to This Vale of Tears.