Neighbors and Writing...

Today I'm going to talk about neighbors. For the most part we all have them. Some are better than others. Lately I feel like my husband and I have been at war with one of ours.

There are just some people that should move to the remotest location they can find and stay there. The man that lives directly behind us is one of those people. We live in a townhouse subdivision. When we moved in we thought it was the answers to all of our prayers. A nice three bedroom with an upstairs and a downstairs. What could possibly beat that? My husband has his room to do photography, graphic arts, and sound mixing. I have my room to write, read, and quilt in. Win win! We soon found out that paradise had a price. Ours is Douchey Neighbor.

Douchey Neighbor doesn't like to follow the Home Association rules. When he's called out on it he screams and yells at the person pointing out his offending behavior and blames them for interfering in his life! I think that it's safe to say that we all know someone like Douchey Neighbor. The funniest part of this? Douchey Neighbor has a really nice wife! Go figure!

Now, this being a writing blog and all I realized that there's kind of a moral to my experience with Douchey Neighbor. Writers bare their very souls to the world. Whether you're writing for a magazine, a blog, a book, or for yourself you are putting your thoughts out there. Our writing is a little piece of us. Let's face it, if people don't appreciate our efforts we tend to bristle. It's only natural, if someone walked up to your baby on the playground and cursed them out you'd have something to say about it. More than likely it would be a lot of somethings to say about it.

When my husband and I first moved in Douchey Neighbor didn't appreciate being told he couldn't park in front of our garage. For some reason it offended him that we wanted to park in a space that belonged to us. Apparently we hindered him on a personal level. After a lot of blustering he moved his vehicle. We thought that was the end of it, nope...we were very wrong. After a couple more times of asking him nicely to move his vehicle we finally had to lay it on the line, move it or lose it. Yep, we told him we'd call a tow truck. Of course we needed to suffer the wrath of Douchey Neighbor for that statement. On the bright side? We no longer have a need to ask Douchey Neighbor to move his vehicle.

Usually in situations like the one above it's always best to take the high road and not bait them. That's the best way. Ok, my husband is the one that's constantly telling me this. But it highlights the point of this post. I've perused the GoodReads site, checked out Amazon (like every other author I know), and looked into Barnes and Noble. I've checked out the reviews of some of my favorite authors and I can say that usually their reviews are glowing. In the past I've seen Twitter rants from people frustrated because an author didn't take the high road when it came to their babies. Yes, I like many other people just had to click the link and see what the hullabaloo was all about. The drama, while entertaining, sickened me a little. This business is extremely subjective. While I don't enjoy much in the way of Sci Fi, my father in law loves every last book he can get his mitts on. My father in law on the other hand, is not very impressed with Young Adult.

With the amount of genres and authors out there I'm having a hard time understanding why some people feel the need to be rude to those that don't agree with them. Sure, Jane Doe might not have liked your book but does that mean that Jane Doe is a bad person? In the age of instant digital reviews it's way too easy to get sucked down the rabbit hole and ultimately get into a word war with someone over their opinion. Us as authors need to take the high ground.

Conversely, I also have a hard time understanding why a reader would find it necessary to utilize their computer to tear someone else apart word by word. Hopefully there will come a time somewhere in the future that all Douchey Neighbors will be eliminated, until then I hope that authors and readers can come to some sort of a truce.

There is enough room in this world for everyone's opinion and that means that you are entitled to yours as well. You know how that saying goes....I won't be so crude as to repeat it.


Until next time my fair readers! Be good to each other and write like the wind!!