I adore my guardian 'angel', but Sensei does not hesitate to slap me down when I'm being judgmental. Karmic situations pop up reasonably quickly for me, almost so quickly that they could be defined as 'synchronicity'. Laugh quietly in my mind at girl wearing hip-huggers with belly flopping over them, immediately step in dog shit -- yeah, that's my life.
Sometimes, however, the karmic effect takes a long time to show. I especially hate it when I've been selling books like crazy all month, and then I won't sell one for five days straight. What's with that, Sensei? I'd like to blame it on the Zon skimming from its publishers, but in truth I feel it's to shame or humble me from some subconscious judgment I've made along the way. What did I do to deserve author hell for FIVE days?!
Between writing scenes in my three works-in-progress (yes, I bounce between them all the time to keep from boredom), I like to pop over to Facebook; I clear out my notifications, chat with people, and ultimately get disgusted. Despite being my friends, the things other people think are adorable or important are not things I think are adorable or important. No matter; delete them from my news feed and move on. However, sometimes I do comment, usually to support the person, but sometimes in sarcasm over idiotic crap no one cares about.
Case in point: space after period -- one, or two? It's such an absurd situation to blather about it when the content is what matters, no? Yet why have writing conventions at all, if not to provide cues to relevant information? I capitalize at the beginning of sentences because that is what tells people it is the beginning of a sentence, and I use a period, question mark, exclamation mark, or interrobang at the end of the sentence to cue that it has ended. So why fuss about an 'extra' space when one will do the trick?
Because I was raised typing with two spaces after a sentence. I can't help it; it's as automatic as 35 years of driving and signalling both left and right turns. I am consciously typing one in this post, but otherwise, do you really care so much about this that you will 'shame' me up one side and down the other because 'typographers', the 'experts' in the field, state emphatically that ONE space is RIGHT and TWO spaces are WRONG?
I'm a helpful person in that, if I see something wrong, I will tell whoever I need to hopefully get that corrected. I don't care that I am not an expert in a field; if someone says that men are treated differently from women and I click on the link to realize he has assigned XX to the man, I tell him. But witnessing that subconscious elitism from the (anal/pedantic/slavering) typographer makes me realize how many times throughout the years I have probably been considered a supercilious bitch instead of a concerned citizen/friend.
Sensei, I would like to think I have learned the lesson, but I would dearly love to know WHEN I should correct someone's public mistake, and HOW I should go about it. You know I'm against pretending to be stupid, pretending to be an apologetic female, and pretending that a few mistakes don't matter when the individual is an author and the product is writing. I am not doing this to be an elitist; I want my friends to put out the most perfect product of which they are capable! Please, tell me when to speak up and when to shut up!
And while you're at it, Sensei, would you please delete every stupid-stition from my mind, especially the ones of which I am unconscious? Thank you very much!
