Fandom and the Black Witch
I really should have added this on about dealing with fans and why it's such a tiring ordeal. You have to be so nice to someone that you don't know from Adam and they think they know you & you know them, like y'all already the best of friends in their heads. This is very bothersome and annoying at the same time. You don't want to be mean because you have no real reason to but that over familiarity and imbalance (remember, I don't know a single thing about you and you think you're already familiar with me) is taxing because they want to be like friends and I'm not a person that prefers to dredge friends outta nowhere always so it becomes a dosey-doh (sp? I know I got it wrong) of me being super nice to someone I don't know and dealing with their over-familiarity and pedestal perception of me. No, I don't always want to talk, no, I'm not sure of where you're comin from. I am glad my readers can find familiarity in my work, but the thing with fandom is dealing with people who think you're putting everything out there for them to see, nothing up your sleeves. It's no cakewalk. People may see me as familiar, someone they know but to me I see a stranger, someone I don't know. I know there's no certain way to tell people to calm down, you're not all that they see because idolization of something familiar is bound to happen and everyone is prone to it. It's nice to have readers that are polite and understanding but what I would prefer more is some more balance between the reader and the fan. Kinda for them to understand that they are readers, consumers of a product, and that while they may think they know me, or relate to me (which is good, can't write if you don't relate) they may have to understand that I may not respond with the same amount of familiarity because, honestly, I just don't have it. I don't really know much of my readers, no matter how much I may or may not check out their stuff (I always check FB or Twitter profiles when I get a new follower or like on the fan page) I prolly won't be as familiar to them as they are to me. It's not easy and like I said earlier, I'm an introvert and prefer to be by myself usually because that's the kind of person I am. Not trying to be a jerk, just I've never been the super social type and it shows. I like that my column has readers, I'm just gonna be weirded out a little by fandom tho.