All that comes with it

Oli and I have been skirting the fringes of each other’s friendship groups for around ten years, but it’s only been in the last 18 months or so that we’ve actually become friends.

He’s a regular commenter on the blog, a enthusiastic member of the mighty Dales Walk team, and someone who obviously likes to bring things in right on their deadline (This post appeared in my inbox at 2:30am this morning).

He has his own livejournal site, and also a webpage containing some of his rather spiffing photography.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Oli.

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Thanks for inviting me to write a post Dan.  I was simultaneously very chuffed that you’d chosen me to contribute to your online opus, and a bit miffed that I didn’t get to go first.
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks putting together lists of things that I could write about, but as I’ve read from other contributors, it’s best not to force these things, so I scrapped all the lists and decided to write about what’s going on at the moment.  And a few thoughts.

*****

I’ve just bought a new computer.
It’s got Vista on it - designed to make my life easier, and help consolidate all my daily functions.  Well, not ALL my daily functions but I think you hear enough about Dan’s daily functions, so I won’t go into that.
The thing is, it hasn’t made my life easier, and I guess that’s no real surprise.  It’s certainly not made my life worse, but since receiving it on Thursday morning, I’ve found myself being really quite grumpy.  The only good thing about the computer was its delivery time - ordered at 4.30pm Wednesday; received 9.15am Thursday.  Oh, and the fact that the hard disk doesn’t make horrific clunking sounds and refuse to turn on (the sole reason why I needed to buy another).

Now as I understand it, blogs are mainly used by people to tell their friends what they’ve been up to.  Sometimes they attract readers from further afield, and sometimes the more popular blogs amass a huge following from all around the world (hello everyone).
I read that blogs first started when some fellow decided to serialise Samuel Pepys’ diary (has he finished yet?), and the idea caught on.

Did Sammy P whinge about his new quill in the same way as me and my new computer?  Were the majority of his diary entries accounts of how fed up he was with various aspects of his life, or how he could never get that girl he fancied?  I suspect not, but I have noticed that the majority of blogs I’ve read feature mostly complaints and gripes, and seem to demonstrate that as a whole, the online community is not a happy bunch.

There are exceptions of course, and from what I’ve read on this here blog, we’re a contented lot (perhaps the main subject matter and the thread which connects the vast majority of posters, if not readers too, is the reason for this).

However, my experience of blogs, online messageboards and the rest of the real world has led me to the conclusion that we’d much rather complain than offer praise or thanks.
For the past 5 years, I’ve run a website for the students of St Andrews, and the main attraction of the site is the growing number of messageboards.  Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a trend on these boards, which is that almost every single discussion will dissolve into a bitter, argumentative slanging match, usually before the end of the first page, and I’ve come up with two  reasons why.

1) We don’t think enough.

It’s not that we don’t think of sensible strategies to argue or debate; it’s not that we don’t think of enough things to raise in order to prove our point; it’s simply that we either don’t think how our message will be interpreted, or we don’t think what the other person could mean.  I may be digging too deep, or I may be waffling (but hey, that’s another purpose of a blog, right?) but what I’m getting at is this:  If I write a flippant, off the cuff comment, and you read it after a bad day at work, you’re going to interpret it in a different manner from if the sun is shining and you’ve just been with the person you love.

Perhaps this could be resolved by being more eloquent, or being less ambiguous in our writing.  Perhaps we should post more things about the positive stuff that’s happening in our lives.

2) We frown while we type
(This one’s a lot easier to fix)

This student community website of mine causes me no end of trouble (including the occasional threat of a lawsuit for defamation*), heartache and frustration, but all of this fades away into nothingness when one person tells me that they chose the university in the town where I live because of the information they’ve gleaned from my website. Just one person every once in a while who says, “thank you”.

Which leads me to think:
I’ve seen shops’ websites with a “How to complain” page, but without “How to get in touch to say thanks”. I’ve seen stacks of complaint forms sitting in offices, but never a “thanks for doing a great job and providing the level of service I expect”.

What would happen if we started phoning or writing to the people who we buy stuff from to tell them that it’s arrived, and it’s exactly what we’ve ordered?
I’ll tell you - it confuses them.  They’re not used to it (at first). I’ve been doing it for a while now, so they’re getting used to it.  And my suppliers give me better deals.  And I get free stuff.  And I now receive “friendly reminders” instead of “final demands” if ever my accounts department is a little late with a payment.  And I get really friendly phone calls and twenty-odd minute chats from people who would previously have only spoken to me if I’d called them to conduct business.

And I become less grumpy.

And I realise that this computer isn’t trying to ruin my life, and although it’s not exactly making it easy at the moment, any frustrations that the computer causes don’t REALLY matter in the long run.

Here’s a thought - as you’re driving around today, smile and wave at people.  People you don’t know.  They’ll smile and probably wave back, even if they don’t recognise you.  Ring up someone who isn’t expecting you to, and thank them for something they’ve done.  You’ll both feel better for it.

A friend of the family had the following cross-stitched on a cushion (which I don’t feel invalidates the point in any way): Happiness is contagious - we get it from each other.

That’s another thing blogs are good for - overly sentimental rubbish that you probably should take heed of. Oh, and if you choose to post a reply, try not to frown as you hunch over your keyboard…

*****

So there we go.  The longest post I’ve written for a blog.
Even my own blog doesn’t get such a lengthy submission (truth be told, I only signed up to Livejournal so that I could access someone’s private
area). I hadn’t realised it was such hard work - I’ll regard your blog in a new light from hereonin Dan.

Although I suspect I’ll continue to skip the bits about your daily functions.

Oli Walker

My village boasts a few claims to fame, unfortunately most of them are pretty unpleasant. Not only has it been host to two very unpleasant murders in the last twelve months, but it is was also the location used for the ITV pile of pants ongoing drama Where The Heart Is.

So given that the village has such a horrendous record, why on earth do people choose to keep living here? Why because it is home to two of the worlds most illustrious bloggers of course. Rol of Sunset over Slawit is one of them, and modesty forbids me to mention the name of the other one.

_{(it’s me)}

I’ve yet to meet Rol in person, but it’s probably only a matter of time before we bump into each other in the Co-op . That will probably be the point that he stops reading this blog, and very likely immediately moves to the other side of York in order to avoid further encounters in the future.

Still, I’ll always have this guest post

Blogger Obsessive Disorder

Oh, the tremendous responsibility of it all!

Ever since Dan asked me to write him a guest post, I’ve been wracked with anxiety. After all, Dan’s blog has readers! Just look at all those comments! It’s all very well using my own little blog to witter on about my inability to get a haircut, the furore over Morrissey’s arse, how I’ve had another bloody rejection letter, or how Audi drivers are the scum of the earth (all for the benefit of my three regular readers, one of whom is a goose fetishist), but if I’m going to play with the big boys - I need to raise my game.

The problem is, whenever I start thinking about writing for an audience, I just freeze up and go to pieces. (No, that’s not a mixed metaphor. Haven’t you ever read a comic where the villain freezes up a cop or innocent bystander or somebody with his ice gun / stone hands / glass ray, then shatters said victim into a thousand pieces? No? You need to read more comics.) I had this brought home to me recently when I was given the dubious honour of being made Blog Of The Week by a best-left-unmentioned national newspaper. Eek - new readers - I better start behaving myself! Stop swearing - stop slagging off the advertising industry - suck in that gut, soldier! Start thinking up clever things to write that might interest them (how about a nice cookery slot?) rather than just ranting on about whatever the hell is bugging me today or blatantly self-promoting my ever-expanding girth of web-published short stories.

The strange thing is, I’ve been writing fiction long enough to know that a writer’s best work always comes when you write for yourself - the sort of story you want to read. The second you start trying to tailor your work to an imagined audience (or worse still, your own stupid perception of whatever’s hot in the marketplace right now), that’s when the old creativity, individuality, and originality begins to suffer. Still, everybody wants to be read, and when you’re given the chance to set up your stall in front of a whole new audience like this… it’s so, so tempting to put on some kind of epic performance to try and reel you all in.

Really though, that’s not what blogging’s all about, is it? ‘Comment Envy’ is one kind of Blog Obsessive Disorder I’m sure we’ve all suffered at one time or another, especially when you’re starting out, but there’s nothing worse than a blogger who’s trying too hard to be liked. You end up looking like the wacky kid in the back of the class, cracking jokes and doing impressions, always first to butt into the conversation, never knowing when to shut up. In hated that kid, didn’t you. (And in my worst moments, I was that kid. But I did try to keep him in check.)

Blogging should be, more than any other kind of writing, almost 100% selfish. The awful film I saw last night, the great book I just finished reading, the latest music on my Zen Jukebox (I don’t do iPod). If today I feeling like writing about why paper cuts bleed more than knife wounds, how daffodils give me the heebie-jeebies when they gang up on the side of the road, or how myspace has gone to the dogs… I should just bloody well do it, and not worry about whether anyone else is interested or not. (Actually, no, I shouldn’t do it. Because I did it last Tuesday.) And if Dan invites me over to guestblog, I shouldn’t get all precious or polite or performance-arty in the hope that a few of his generous, gorgeous, and intellectually-superior readers might add Sunset Over Slawit to their Google Reader… I should instead just waste the post wittering on pointlessly about Rol’s Philosophy of Blogging, bore the arse off every one of you, and go for Dan’s Lowest Comment Count EVER!

Mission complete, then. My work here is done.