When people ask me if I want to write a book, I usually say, “Yes, one day. When I have a story.” But the honest answer is no. Hell no. There are a lot of reasons for that, most of them to do with fear and insecurity and also a certain knowledge that if I do, I will have to wade through a bog of knee-deep, lady blogging memoirist horse sh!t to do it. And I’m just not interested.
Look at Emily Gould. Her book comes out soon, or already has – I’m not really up to speed on these things – and love it or hate it, the remarks about it tend toward the personal. People are blaming gender (“They wouldn’t say that if she was a man!”) and maybe they’re partially right but uh… I’m guessing the comments are personal because the book is personal? To me it’s a gigantic, Duh. Sure, the writing may not actually be any good, but I have no firsthand knowledge of that. Anyway, I remember when she had some big article come out a year or so ago (in NY Times Magazine, I think), an article about, among other things, oversharing on a personal blog. Now, Ms. Gould had been off my radar for a very long time by then but that article – its mere existence – bothered the hell out of me. You’re going to have to dig way back to childhood for this one, but remember what it feels like to chew on a foil gum wrapper, especially if you have fillings? Her article was tin foil in my mouth.
Years ago, after I wrote my own New York Times piece, Emily Gould launched a full out internet assault. Something about writing about my personal failings absolutely incensed her (personal blogging in general was so distasteful to her – but talk about dating and you were Offender Number One) and when she got bored leaving nasty comments about me on my own blog, launched one of her own, dedicated to making fun of me. It was something like, shutupandmarrymealready.blogspot.com and it was a succession of derisive posts, many of which were ripped right from my own blog. Naturally, they were taken out of context and then peppered with multiple exclamation points (we know how much I cherish the double punctuation. Shudder) to make me look like a drooling idiot. To say she was unkind would be an understatement. She was cruel. And horribly personal about it. I was a kid still in many respects and it haunted me. I didn’t have enough experience to know that those who claimed her motivation was jealousy were mostly right and so I ate up every word they wrote about me and cried. They – because if the posts she wrote weren’t enough, the comments on that blog were saturated with hate – and interestingly enough, precisely the same kind I saw following her five-years-later article about her own blogging experience.
A lot of the vitriol appeared to be girl-on-girl hate. Comments like that are bad for all of us women writers. Period. But there was this part of me that thought she deserved every horrible thing people had to say about her. In my mind, she practically invented girl-on-girl internet crime. Every criticism aimed, not at her writing but at her person, every crude, slanderous thing – I felt she’d earned all of it. Truth: I still feel that way.
I also feel that there may be a legitimate reason why lady blogger memoirs like Gould’s are treated as less-than-serious work, and I don’t think it has as much to do with gender as it does with the kinds of behavior that we bloggers have engaged in on the Internet – because we can. The sniping and the gossip and the hateful commenting. If there’s a valid reason as to why her writing will be seen as trite, it’s because the author herself behaved pettily on a very public stage. It’s only a theory. But I can’t see that the opinion of bloggers as serious writers ascending until we stop using the Internet to lower ourselves beyond the point where the credibility of being published will not be enough to bring dignity to the undignified.
Like I said, it’s just a theory.
Wow.
I had no idea. I had never heard of her name until now.
My gut says all of her actions were based in jealousy and envy. I’m glad you “turned your back” (so to speak), as it appears she has dug herself into a nice little hole.
Gotta love Karma.
If it’s any consolation to you, know that I will never search for or read her blog and I certainly won’t be running out to “purchase” anything she may have think she’s written. Ugh.
I’m angered that her petty actions/words had caused you such discomfort and pain.
I believe in your theroy.
Well, no one ever said Emily Gould didn’t suck. I certainly didn’t. But I don’t blog, so it matters not what I say. You’re a very talented writer, Ms. Fish. Who says everyone has to write a memoir? Howsa about a novel? With a cat as the main character/narrator? Just brainstorming here. Or brain drizzling.
someone posted on my facebook yesterday this fantastic piece of greatness …
Passing judgement on others is only a testament to your own insecurities. Or as Jesus might say, “don’t hate me cuz you ain’t me!”
now, im not all that religious… but boy does that speak volumes! and lets be serious. can you picture jesus saying ‘dont hate me cuz you aint me’ .. of course you can.
keep up the good work sister! i look forward to your blogs and if you ever went away I dont know what else I would do with 30 mins of my workday everyday
Wow, that’s awful. I knew there was a reason that the blogger in question sort of irked me. I couldn’t put my finger on it but her writing, her online persona…it all kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Now I get it.
Ick.
That is awful. Thankfully, I’ve only been the recipient of insanely nice internet fodder. Trolls and people like this woman are… just… baffling.
Hi — I think I remember what you’re talking about here, but that parody site was made by someone else, not me. I would appreciate a correction. You’re accusing me of something pretty serious, and without any evidence.
I think you are driving at one of the things (okay, one-and-a-half)about the internet that makes me so very sad:
the internet was originally for exchanging information. Yes, military, but still: information. Soon universities with their research and folks who were isolated with unique interests in communities far away from each other. Remember those really hideous “gopher” relay chats? Anyone?
I’m totally geeking out here, but I’m on a roll…
I’ve heard it said that folks thought that the “.org” suffix was going to be the biggie for web addresses– it was going to be about information distribution. Which one became largest (among English-speaking domains)? Dot Com. Commerce. Buy and Sell.
Don’t get me wrong: Half.com and I are like that. I love a good internet sale without harsh fluorescent lighting. But I was really hoping the internet would be about information exchange and community, blind to all the things that trip us up from making connections in everyday life. I don’t know: maybe I watched one too many episodes of “Lain”. IMO though, people use the internet to be even more snarky than they are in real life. As if!
One of the reasons I’m such a faithful reader, Heather, is that you do create a little community here with your honesty, respect, and humor.
And as to the rest of the folks– the trolls, the biters, the haters– they’re just. Totally. Missing. The. Point.
I’d also never heard of this woman until now. But, honestly, she started a blog just so she could make fun of you?!?!?! That’s incredibly pathetic!
And, yeah, karma can be a real kick in the a$$.
You know, this sort of goes along with what I’ve been thinking about people recently. We came home from a weekend away at a wedding to a car that had been broken into (hello $1000 repair). For the second time in a year. What boggles my mind is that some people jump over that hurdle that is firmly planted in my mind that says, “This is not my stuff. Do not touch it because it does not belong to me.” The same idea that it is ok to just break down a window, climb into someone else’s car and root through it to see if they have anything that you would like. The thought just doesn’t occur to me.
It I think the two connect because the internet exposes the thief in us. The one that says, “I will break down this window and take what I want because no one else will know. Because I want to,” is just the same as the one who says, “I will say this because I can and no one else will know. Because I want to, regardless of whether or not I would say this out loud or in front of my family.”
Maybe it has to do with poor impulse control coupled with a mean streak. I don’t know. I do think what you say and do anonymously reveals your heart, and that it will bleed over into real life at some point.
Also, I have read some blogger-turned-author memoirs, and do so selectively. I wouldn’t buy a celebrity’s autobiography or a gossip queen’s. I buy the ones whose stories are honest, genuine, and written by people I want to be friends with. And those are great books, deserving of all the attention given to the Emily Goulds of the world.
I’m very impressed with what you wrote here. Seriously. It takes a lot of character not to be nasty back to someone when they are nasty to you. And you wrote this post not with a bitter tone, but rather with the kind of perspective that comes with time. I kind of feel like we should give middle schoolers a copy of this post so that they can see that the cruelty they subject to others at that young age can haunt them in strange ways later on…If that makes any sense at all…(sorry had a few, it is 5 de mayo after all).
Heather, I hope that you do decide to write a book one of these days – and it doesn’t have to be the same subject matter or style that your blog is. You are a very talented writer with enviable timing and a great sense of humor! You have a way of expressing yourself through language that demonstrates that writing is, indeed, as much a gift as it is a product of hard work and application.
I would never tell anyone *what* to do, but I would certainly encourage you to keep thinking about your plans for your writing. You have an amazing talent that you have been honing for a number of years, and I hope that you continue to write in at least some format for the rest of your life.
Who knows? Maybe you will write a novel that incorporates some of the things you’ve written about (or experienced) as a result of your blog that will be wildly successful!! (I like double exclamation points, too!) Maybe you will write a more non-fiction piece that will be something you can show your grandchildren. Maybe you will write a journal that you will never publish or show to anyone – or all of the above. But you definitely are a writer – and a good one. I hope that you remember that on days when you don’t feel so good about something someone has said.
George Clooney said once, “I am never as good as people say I am when they say I’m good, and I am never as bad as people say I am when they say I’m bad.” The only perspectives that matter are yours and those of people whose opinions you value. Everything else is just packing peanuts.
If women spent less time bitching at each other over petty things, we would find the cure to cancer. Men love it when women divide and conquer themselves. It’s the ultimate in sexist when we undermine each other. Men don’t even have to lift a finger to do that.
I went to HS and MS with her. She was a mean girl then. And apparently never got over it.
Write a book if you want to. Ignore her.