BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Yep, social networking is a part of our lives. How’s that for title-content disagreement? Well, read on…

Like I said, social networking is a part of our lives. You can’t get away from it. Oh, I suppose you CAN get away from it if you are an off the grid sort of person. Perhaps you can even get away from it if you are a somewhat-on-the-grid but not-on-the-griddle sort of person. Fact is, I have a buddy who is not on Faceborked. He even refuses to be on Faceborked. I’m not sure if it’s because he fears getting borked, or if he’s just afraid he’d get addicted to Farmville.

The thing is, if you are like me, you don’t really have any choice but to be “into the social networking scene.” Honestly, I’m one of those “on the grid off the griddle” types. If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t poke social networking with an elebenty foot pole. I have too much other stuff that needs doing—but, again, I chose my career and with it comes the pain of social networking, which is why you can find me on most every social network out there.

Well… You “yoosta could.”

Over the past few months I’ve done some informal analysis of my own. I’ve taken some scrapings from the various social networks, dissolved them water, then proceeded to experiment with various acid/base titration setups, whirl crap around in a centrifuge, and even grow a few cultures in Petri dishes. (The little, round Pyrex dishes, not Rob and Laura Petri… Although, Laura was definitely a dish… but I digress…)

Here’s the thing – I’ve found that there are some social networks out there that are more or less worthless to me. This revelation, of course, prompted me to jettison said networks. The other thing I discovered is that on certain networks – Faceborked, for instance – my presence was split in such a way that I was ending up doing double work for half the benefit. This wasn’t helping my productivity in the writing arena at all. So, while jettisoning Faceborked wasn’t an option, consolidating it a bit was.

Therefore, if you are a “friend” of my Faceborked “profile” you have probably been seeing this message (or one very similar to it) lately:

I’m streamlining my social networking, therefore the M. R. Sellars PAGE: http://facebook.com/SellarsMR will soon become my PRIMARY Facebook presence. This Murvel R. Sellars “profile” will be DELETED at the end of AUGUST. To stay connected go over and LIKE the M. R. Sellars PAGE.

I will be repeating myself, on Faceborked, daily, right up until the end of August. Why? Because I want this to stay current in the newsfeed, and because not everyone logs onto Faceborked daily, therefore I don’t want to be receiving strange emails in the middle of the night from people I don’t really know, all asking me WTF happened to my profile and why did I leave Faceborked.

I didn’t. I just moved into a bigger house.

Who am I kidding? I’ll get a truckload of those emails anyway. At least I’ll be able to respond with a link to this blog entry instead of explaining myself 4617 times.

More to come…

Murv

It has been quite a while since I’ve done a Frequently Asked Questions blog, so I though maybe it might be time for one, especially when you consider that I’ve had a few questions being asked frequently as of late…

Believe it or not, as silly as some of the questions may seem, they have actually been asked by someone other than the voices inside my head. And, you will notice that some of these questions have appeared in past FAQ blogs. Why are they here now? Because people are still asking them. Frequently. As in, a lot.

Srsly.

So, without further mucking about, it’s time for…

ASK MERP!

1. I just read (or recently read, or at some point read) Merrie Axemas: A Killer Holiday Tale, and loved it (hated it, think you suck, WTF, Christmas is over you putz). Will you be continuing the story at all?

The short answer is: Yes. The long answer is: Yes. (That is to say, look for the full-length novel, In The Bleak Midwinter, coming November 2011.)

2. Why haven’t I ever heard of you before?

Hmm… Uhh… Well… Umm, best guess? I have no friggin’ clue. But don’t worry, I haven’t heard of you either, so we’re all good.

3. Do you write every day?

Yes. While I don’t necessarily work on a novel project on the weekends, I write something every single day, whether it’s a blog entry, notes, a bit of poetry, or a random journal entry.

4. If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

Srsly? Okay, you asked for it – A hardwood. Take that however you want.

5. I read in an interview where you said that you give your wife a 30 minute back rub every morning. Is that true?

No. It used to be, but she changed the setting on the alarm clock while I was out of town, so now it’s a 45 minute back rub. Since I have more traveling ahead of me, I suspect by the end of the summer she will have adjusted the alarm clock enough that it will be a two-hour back rub by sometime around mid-August this year.

6. Will you ever be growing your ponytail back?

I’ve grown accustomed to being able to escape the clutches of the evil redhead – at least part of the time – now that she doesn’t have the built-in leash to grab onto. So, I’d have to say growing it back isn’t very high on my priority list.

7. When are you going to write the Rowan Gant cookbook you talked about?

Me and my big mouth. I really have no clue. Srsly. I don’t. I know I babbled about it once upon a time, and apparently it resonated with some of you. I haven’t ruled it out, but it’s not residing on the top of the projects pile either. However, when I do, I’ll be sure to shout it from the rooftops.

8. When are you coming to [insert town, city, state, country here]?

When someone books me to do a gig there, most likely. Book tours aren’t as common as they once were, due to the economy, the changes in the publishing industry, and the surge of social media. However, if someone books me for a gig, I’m there. To do that, contact my publicist: Wendy at promo_dept@willowtreepress.com

9. When is there going to be a Rowan Gant Investigations movie?

When someone buys the rights and makes one. That’s about all I can say. At this juncture, nobody has optioned any of the books in the series, so it’s doubtful you will see one in the near future. The same goes for TV.

10. I read somewhere that you get up at 4:30 in the morning every day. Is that true, and why?

I wake up at around 4:30 AM, give or take a few minutes. My feet don’t generally hit the floor until 5 or 5:30. As to why, I have a very high maintenance wife. Her breakfast doesn’t fix itself.

But seriously, on the “why,” it’s my internal clock. I spent a lot of time on a farm growing up, and even when I was in the city, my family was of the early rising type. It’s kinda baked on and I haven’t been able to scrub it off, no matter how hard I try.

That’s it for this edition of ASK MERP! Keep those cards and letters coming. The sponsors won’t pay up unless I can prove you’re watching…

More to come…

Murv