How Was Your Day, Honey?

My day was good.

I got a 5-star review. I helped an author with her manuscript. I made a best-seller list. I thought of a cool new story idea. I got a fan letter. I won a contest.

I wrote.


How was your day, honey?

Some guy came into the ER and was bleeding out.

I saved his life.

✢✢✢

My husband's job keeps all of my professional worries in perspective every day.

My heart attack--that almost killed me in 2010--keeps all of my daily worries in perspective.

✢✢✢

It seems to me that too many people in our industry have an extremely inflated sense of self.

At the end of the day, our business is still entertainment.

Is it valuable, is it special? Yes.

Is it worth losing our humanity for? No.

Do we threaten authors with violence, rape and torture? Do we bully bloggers and reviewers? Do we threaten their families? Do we think that Goodreads is the center of the universe? Believe it or not, many people, including people who read books, have never heard of Goodreads.

They have no idea what it is.

This bubble that we have created in the publishing industry is fascinating. It gives us a false sense of importance. It gives us a false sense of power. We write books, we read books, we review books. It is just one tiny part of all the things people do on this earth. We are no better or worse than others, and we have no right to threaten others all in the NAME OF A BOOK, or an OPINION OF A BOOK.

I would recommend that everyone needs to get an enormous sense of humor, but I think we are way past that.

For every act I see that makes me proud to be part of this industry--authors reaching out to each other, reviewers supporting each other, acts of kindness and thoughtfulness--I see other things that make me ashamed to be a part of this bubble.

Outrage over every incident doesn't help.

Somehow we need to regain our humanity, our civility, our perspective. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. But when we think that our opinion entitles us to threaten others, we have completely lost perspective in this world.

It's just a book.

How was your day, honey?

My day was good.


Penny