Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Bacon Makes Everything Better

Can you tell I'm getting ready to make breakfast? But you know, it's true. Bacon does make everything better.

Take writing. With greasy fingers, you can type faster. The protein (er, fat) gives your brain a boost. And that salty cure forces you to drink more water, thus you're hydrating. The best part about bacon? The taste. It puts a big smile on my face.

I can always tell when it's going to be a bacon day. Today feels like it. I'm about halfway done my current work in progress, and I need to be completely finished by the end of this week. No problem. I'm focused, and I'm eating bacon (or I'm going to). And for a completely inane segway, let's talk about authors acting piggy--like idiots.

Perhaps I should have offered my bacon to the divas blasting one of my publishers on a public loop. But it's fascinating to me that people think they can talk crap to their employers. Even in a rather bohemian profession like writing, where rules apply in odd ways, it's common courtesy not to lambaste the powers that be, showing your ugly face to all and sundry. It's interesting though, because a few well known authors are now complete Never Reads to me, simply because I've been witness to such poor behavior.

When does success mean you can treat others poorly? How many copies can you sell before you can rip into another author/editor/agent without feeling some kind of consequences? No, I haven't witnessed anything too extreme lately, but instances of this whacked out god-like behavior by some authors have stuck with me.

I was always taught that you reprimand in private and praise in public. Something I adhere to this day. And it makes me super curious, wondering how many instances of bad behavior I might see when I attend a writer's conference in a few weeks. I'll make sure to post my impressions. Though when I attended this same conference two years ago, I saw nothing but friendly and helpful people. Hmm... we'll see. But to be on the safe side, I'll take a baggie of bacon with me, and toss it helpfully to anyone behaving like a childish moron with delusions of grandeur.

Bacon, anyone?

2 comments:

Elle said...

Hmmm... I'm noticing this is a rather common theme lately, the whole lack of reprimand in private/praise in public thing. As a reader, I'm not going to get involved in the social media wars of author(s) vs author(s) and/or their editors/publishers, but I DO take notice and am turned off by bad behavior. Recently, there have been a couple of authors that went on my Do-Not-Buy list and I've stopped following their blogs/websites/twitter feeds because of such behavior. Will it have any effect? I may just be ONE reader, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels that way and acts accordingly.

*steps down from soapbox*

On another note, YES PLEASE to bacon! Although, I tend to buy/eat turkey bacon so I kind of miss out on the greasy yumminess of the real stuff. :)

Marie Harte said...

Yeah, Elle. I agree. I steer clear of flame wars. It just baffles me that people who can coherently put words together to entertain don't understand the meaning of common courtesy and bad behavior. Like you, I avoid the nonsense, but I definitely make a mental note to steer clear of that author. They won't see a dime from me.

I did the turkey bacon for a while, but you really do miss out on the fat. Which my hips and thighs will tell you. :)