Don’t Hate Me Because I Made a Fan Page.

Remember those “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” commercials? About shampoo, weren’t they? And you just wanted to grab that smarmy ho’ by the neck and bitch slap her, didn’t you?

Yeah, OK, so maybe I had some issues.

I’ve always felt kind of the same way about people who make Fan Pages for themselves on FaceBook. And now I’ve gone and made one for myself, and I feel like I need to go take a long hot shower with Lava soap—you know, the kind that hurts like hell when you use it, like it’s full of sand. Which it is.

A Fan Page. Goodlordalmighty. First it was MySpace. Then Facebook. Then Twitter. And now this. When will it end? When will I say, “Enough” and just go back to the days when the only contact I had with the outside world was the occasional email from my beloved Women Who Say Fuck?

But wait:  I love this blog. I really do. It’s so much fun to share stuff and get reactions and then check out the stuff y’all tell me about. And Facebook doesn’t always suck. But everything else? I keep thinking, “Ok. This is supposed to be A Good Thing, but, umm, I’m not seeing the point already.” I’m not getting any strokes from any of it, and it takes a shitload of time I could easily use a million times over for other stuff, and then I keep having to remind myself that it’s Not About Me. It’s about The Book. About my agreement to market. And my belief that it’s a really good book that I want people to know about when it comes out.

I can’t start the next book until after this one comes out and they see How It Does in those first vital weeks. Well, yikes.  I have these projects I reallyreallyreally want to do, and they’re all contingent on the performance of something that is, in some ways, completely out of my hands. I mean, it’s not like I have an advertising budget or an agent or a staff or, well, anything. And it’s not like anyone else is going to fork out The Big Bucks for any multi-state promotional Big-Time Author Book Tour. Hell, the “Book Tour” will be me on the phone trying to convince people to let me come and set up some folding chairs in their garage, pretty much.

I am not JK Rowling. Let’s just get that straight right off, in case you were somehow confused. I am also not Joel Osteen. Shit, I’m not even Charlie Epps, and he’s fictional (in Numb3rs, he writes a self-help book that shoots to the top 100 on amazon.com the day it comes out, and I’m thinking, “OK. I hate him.”  I’m envious of the marketing talent of a fictional TV character, and I really think that must be indicative of the level of stress I’ve been under with this DAMN ROOF.

Is what I’m thinking. You know? Not to mention Twitter and the damn Fan Page. You want a confession? I made the page and then had to spend a half hour finding it again. I was that fried, and it was that pathetic. It was like walking through a forest and finally carving out a decent spot for a picnic, chopping down a dead tree and setting up some shade and stomping down a nice little circle of grass. And then, all exhausted, you go back to get the picnic basket and find you didn’t leave yourself any clues for finding your way back to the newly-arranged clearing.

Fortunately, someone took my hand and led me back through the woods, but I’m thinking next time I’m going to send up flares to remind myself where I am.

And now the metaphor has broken down, and I’m going to bed. At least I am if I can find my way there on my own.

Just don’t hold the fan page against me, OK?