Some of my best friends are spammers. They don’t hunch over computers in darkened rooms, far away from the reach of US authorities.  They’re just like you and me… well… maybe not like me since I don’t spam people, but they’re just like you, going on Starbucks runs and taking the dog to the dog park and making dinner for someone at their church and hitting like on Facebook because they do have a daughter and they do love her so, and that’s what the Facebook status told her to do.

Yes, everyone who hits like on those Facebook status updates asking you to prove that you hate cancer or to type a certain word in the comment section and see what amazing thing will happen when you do are spammers.

Image: Janetgalore via Flickr

That’s how tricky the original spammers are; they don’t need to take over your computer with a virus and force you to send their message to your entire address book. They just put spam on Facebook and people willingly hit “like” and clog their friends’ new feeds with the message.

There are some really good reasons beyond the fact that it annoys your friends why you should stop hitting like because someone’s parents will get them a puppy if they get a million likes.

It all comes down to spammers playing with the Facebook algorithm in order to deliver some higher quality spam later on.

This is how it works: a spammer creates a Facebook meme that asks people to like if they think someone is beautiful. In fact, let’s take a real example that you’ve probably seen in your news feed: Mallory. The caption is “This is my sister Mallory. She has Down syndrome and doesn’t think she’s beautiful. Please like this photo so I can show her later that she truly is beautiful.”

So, because you have a heart, you hit like. That’s how you enter the role of spammer, sending that spam message into all of your friend’s news feeds. That should be reason enough to stop, but there is actually a larger reason to walk away from those types of memes without clicking.

The first is that those likes give power to those memes, ensuring that the meme itself and the page it comes from will get featured in the news feed. Likes are how the Facebook algorithm knows what is important, hence why your status updates that get a lot of likes and comments are seen by more of your friends than the ones that don’t receive likes and comments. Likes generate more views which generate more likes. The point, of course, is not the meme itself, but to give the pages that create the meme power so when they put out other status updates in the future, those will be seen because they have a strong Edgerank in the Facebook algorithm. Once those pages have built up their Edgerank, the spammers can sell their very valuable page that will beat the system for the new owner and dump their message or product into the Facebook river where it will bubble up on everyone’s shore.

As Daylan Does explains:

And within 3 days a post like this one has 70,000 likes, and someone somewhere is about to make a nice little profit by selling the page to a business wanting some quick wins.

Like farming also directly hurts the person who hits like since it allows spammers to quickly gather access to thousands of Facebook accounts.

Plus, there are usually very real people whose images or stories are being exploited in order to create these spam Facebook status updates. So hitting like hurts them too.

So pretty please, stop hitting like to show you hate cancer. Use your status box to rail against cancer, fundraise for cancer research, or express sympathy to someone fighting cancer. Putting up a link to the PMC takes more time than hitting like, but it actually helps fight the good fight rather than spread spam. And that is something to actually like.

So now you know.

Cross-posted with BlogHer

The thing is that everyone says after you admit that you don’t have your shit together, “oh my G-d, I didn’t know!  I totally thought YOU had your shit together.”  And then you’re like, “well, no, I mean, really who does have their shit together?”  But even as you say that, you admit to yourself that you are insanely jealous of all sorts of people that you assume have their shit together.  They seem to know what to do, they understand instructions, they achieve great things, they sail through embarrassing situations, they show up on time.  They pack pants.

By which I mean, I’ve come to realize that we’re all fairly good at faking it, at least in small intervals.  We can hold it together in the carpool pick-up line.  We can hold it together at the grocery store.  We can hold it together through blog posts or presentations at work or dinner parties.  In doing so, we can skate by while our neighbours and friends and co-workers and sometimes even family members think all is fine.

And let’s be clear, all is fine in the grandest sense of that word.  Even when you’re falling apart with anxiety or jealousy or disappointment, it’s not the same as being blown apart.  In one case, it’s an easy mess to tidy up.  In the other case, you’re shattered.

So the truth is that most of us are a little jagged on the inside, snagging on ourselves.

And yet, we can’t help but be surprised whenever someone tells us that they don’t feel like they know what they’re doing.  Them, we think incredulously?  We make a lot of assumptions about other people and how easily they have it.  How things fall into place for them.  How they are treated different; receive different things than we receive.  We assume they have things figured out or are emotionally set for life or somehow worry less.

And we’re completely dumbfounded when we discover people think those things about us.  That they think we have our shit together.

Oh my G-d, if we’re all just bumbling around in the dark and no one feels settled, then what stability is there on this earth?

*******

Neil had a great point he made last week in a writing group that we’re in (if you are curious, you can sign up through him) about admitting that you don’t have your shit together.

Do you think — that as creative people — we are given a pass in allowing to express these fears in public. I mean we certainly don’t want President Obama coming to the microphone and saying, “You know what — I have no fucking idea if my health plan is really going to work!” But can we say, “I’m not sure this story I’m working on even makes sense?” Do we always have to say, “My novel in progress ROCKS!”

I gave this a lot of thought.  President Obama has my well-being in his hands, and he isn’t an average guy I’d see at my local Starbucks, so I could write off that example.

But what about my doctor?  What if my doctor came into the examination room and said, “I think I suck as a doctor.  I’m really unsure of myself.  But let’s schedule your surgery anyway.”  Noooooooooooooooo.  Dentist?  I mean, my dental procedures aren’t life-or-death; would I stick with a dentist who said, “I woke up this morning wondering why people choose my dental practice over another one.  I mean, it’s not as if I’m as good as Dr. Goldblum.”

Okay, those examples both pertain to my body, what about a window installer who told me that he found the installation instructions confusing and really didn’t feel he had a firm grasp on the process?  Or a baker who told me that her bread was okay, it was edible, but had I checked out the bread at that other bakery because everyone said that bread was amazing.

Because it does beg the question: if there is amazing bread to be had, why would anyone buy the less amazing bread?  I mean, yes, luckily the taste of bread is in the mouth of the beholder, and what I would consider to be the best might not be what you’d consider to be the best.  And in a lot of cases, good enough comes into play, or factors beyond the criteria we think should be important.  I don’t just read blog posts I find amazing; I read blog posts because they’re written by friends.

For me, connection trumps all.

But aren’t we drawn to confidence?  Drawn to claims that something is the best?  Don’t we admire people who seem to have no foibles, even if we rationally know that they must have foibles since everyone has some?  Right?  Everyone does have foibles, correct?

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I just finished reading Paper Towns by John Green.  It’s not even his best book much less on par with books by writers like Margaret Atwood or Toni Morrison or Knut Hamsun or Chinua Achebe.  Why the hell would I spend time reading Paper Towns when there are books that have literally changed the world that I still haven’t read?  There are fantastic books that have changed the course of history, and I’m bypassing them for someone’s not-best work. (Apologies to Josh Green — I have loved everything else, and I gave you a great review on GoodReads comparing your book to eating blueberry water ice)

I don’t know.

I guess because it’s enjoyable.

That’s really the only hope I have for my books.  That someone will put enjoyable out there as a reason to give their time to it instead of one of the other hundreds of books that fill me with jealousy over their publicity budget or awards or acclaim.

Anne Lamott opens Bird by Bird by saying: “good writing is about telling the truth.”  So I’m just telling you the truth in written form, about writing.

And yet going back to Neil’s question, telling the truth marks me and fills me with embarrassment.  Why should you stick with a blogger who doesn’t feel sure of herself, or read the book of a writer who admits that she doesn’t really feel like she has her shit together?  Don’t you want to read the words of someone who knows?  Who has it all figured out?  Aren’t we looking to others because we don’t have it figured out?

I’m telling you the truth because what else can I do?  I certainly can’t pretend that I have my shit together mostly because if anyone ever took a moment and thought about it, it’s so abundantly clear that all of us do not (and yes, realizing that applies even to the President does fill me a bit with dread).

This is the truth:

I would like Measure of Love to succeed, though I have no concept of what I mean by success.  It’s one of those things that I know it when I see it, though the reality is that feeling that something is successful is so fleeting too: the moment I feel as if it’s doing well, I set a new goal marker to reach and feel depressed that there are still so many miles to go.

I would love your help in making Measure of Love a success by getting word out there about it or reading it yourself.  It feels less lonely to release something when you know it is being caught and held by others.  Please know that when you’ve done that, it has made a difference and, to me, speaks volumes.

I sometimes feel like curling up on the sofa with Truman and ignoring everything that needs to get done, and I give in to those desires more often than not.

I feel like everyone else read the operating manual that came with life and understood it, and I became overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the booklet and the confusing syntax and the precise instructions, which is why they know what to do in life — how to operate in life — and I am left stumbling along, trying to figure it out.

And I hope that in admitting all of this, you do not back away from me slowly, wondering how you have spent this much time — even virtually — with someone who really doesn’t have herself together, and instead stand your ground and say, “me too.”

If we write to say to the world, “I am here!” what does it mean if we’re not writing?  That we’re not here?

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Where do we even go when we’re not here, wherever that figurative here is?  And if we’re not there, transported elsewhere like the three children following Mrs. Whatsit in a Wrinkle in Time, is there a way back to your here-ness?  How does one drop enough bread crumbs to come back when they’ve taken a period of time to not be in their here-ness?  It’s so hard to come back into being yourself sometimes, as if you’ve locked yourself out of your own house.

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I haven’t been here; here being an imaginary me-shaped space that only we can fill.  I haven’t been inside my me-shaped space for a bit.  If I had to define where I was, I would call it a mental martello.

I once visited a friend in Dublin and while I was in the air, flying to him, the transportation workers went on strike.  No buses, no taxis, no public transport of any kind, so we walked around the city for a week, going anywhere we could get to on foot.  He took me out to the strand to a martello.  They are these squat, stone, circular structures built by the British for defense purposes.  They were worried that Napoleon would invade Ireland, so to protect the coast, they built small forts which could hold about 25 people.  They contain no windows — it’s a solid wall of stone — meant to be able to withstand cannon fire.

That’s what I felt like in the not-here-ness.  I felt like I was in a martello constructed out of ideas; the strength of those ideas more powerful than the person inside them, even if they weren’t necessarily true.  That’s sort of the thing about stones: you can’t argue with them.  They hurt if they hit you, and they’re immovable if they’re large enough.  And circular stone ideas feel the same way.  They keep looping, and their circularness is their power: there is much more strength in a seamless structure.

A martello constructed out of stone ideas keeps everyone else out, and it’s fairly lonely inside, as musty old stone structures usually are.  I’ve always wondered if James Joyce saw the martello he lived in with Oliver St. John Gogarty as a cozy space, keeping the elements at bay, or a semi-prison.

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There are so many times when you can be somewhere and not really there.

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I’ve always written.  Before I could write by myself, I would dictate stories to my mother and she would write them down for me.  And then I went through a phase, like the ChickieNob is in now, where I produced thousands of stapled together stories.  By high school, I wrote an on-going serial — a paper soap opera — that people passed around.  I wrote stories for the literary magazine and articles for the newspaper; I took two writing electives at once.  And then I went to college for a degree in writing and finally graduate school for a degree in writing.  The only time I didn’t write was the first time we were doing treatments, when I was so depressed that I couldn’t type words.

Even now, I write all the time.  I write here, on this blog, and I write on BlogHer.  I write books.  I write short stories.  I jot down ideas on post-it notes or send emails to myself.  I talk out stories into voice memos if I arrive somewhere early, sitting in the car so it looks as if I am just talking on the telephone.  I write during work hours and when I’m starting to fall asleep and even on vacation, working things out longhand.

I’ve written my stories in the margins of other people’s books.  I’m like one of those drummers from high school who always needed to drum on every surface.  And you thought it was just because they were thoughtless or were trying to be annoying.  But maybe the answer is that they had to drum, in the same way I have to write.

The best way I know to hurt myself is to stop putting down words.

*******

If we’re to believe Malcolm Gladwell, we need to plug away at most tasks for 10,000 hours before we get any good at them.  And even then, we can’t really rest once we reach expert level.  We have to keep plugging away lest the hard work done becomes mushy; too ripe and blackened.

I watched the documentary ¡Cuatro! on YouTube, and in it, the lead singer talks about his decision to push ahead with writing more songs despite the band  feeling at the end of their rope with the previous album.  As they took a break, he continued to write during the month off.  “I think sometimes taking time off feels dangerous to me because I just like playing music, it’s just what I do.  I’m addicted to it.  And what I’ve noticed, what happens to bands that quote unquote take time off: they’re not as good when they come back.  For us, it’s just keep that evolution going.  Let your audience grow with you, and grow up with you.  And at some point, grow old with you.”

I could relate to that desire to create, to not want a break from creating.  And part of me agrees with him; when you take time off — really take time off — it’s very hard to get back into that creation mindset.  It doesn’t feel as natural.  It’s like stepping outside after being inside a windowless stone martello for days; the sun feels too bright, unmanageable.

Later in the documentary, they talk about the strength that comes in numbers, of being part of a band instead of working as a solo artist.  Of having that posse behind you, not only for collaborative purposes and the feedback you get bouncing ideas off of one another; two heads are better than one.  But more the sense that when you step out, when you present your ideas to the world, you are presenting them as a team.

Book writing, blog writing, all writing is a lonely process.  I know there are some people who can group write, but I’m not sure how they do it.  Or if I’d even want to.  But overall, it’s a lonely process where you either believe in yourself and your ideas, or you don’t.

You either write, trusting yourself.

Or you don’t write.

*******

The problem, for me, is never the writing.  The writing I can do.  It’s the releasing.

The twins raised caterpillars to butterflies, and they finally needed to let them go after observing them for weeks.  It was hard for some of the kids in the school to watch their hard work fly off.  They caught them in their hand again as they floated around, cupped them, saying they wouldn’t let them go.  The twins were jealous that their butterflies had defied capture and were fluttering off someplace else.  But really, I convinced them, where they were in the process was so much better.  Butterflies are meant to fly away, and holding them in cupped hands doesn’t change the nature of the butterfly or what needs to happen.

Even recognizing our similarities, I gave myself another few days to wallow in how cupping my hands around my creation, my work, my life, my ideas was different.  And then, after making it harder on myself than it needed to be, after crouching inside my mental martello and yelling terrible things at myself there, after feeling disappointment in others and frustration with situations and despondency at the universe, I released all of it.

It took me a little more time to flutter away, by which I mean, return to my here-ness, wherever that may be.

Here’s the problem with book clubs.  You join one, and it seems like it’s going to be great.  And maybe the first book discussion or two is great.  But then you always end up reading something that you grumble through, that you would have never read otherwise and there’s a reason for that — it’s not your type of book.  Sometimes you read this book and no one else bothers to except the one quiet person in the group, so now you’ve read a book you didn’t want to read AND you don’t even really get to discuss it.  This is why I continuously drop out of face-to-face book clubs.

For a long time, I ran Barren Bitches, but I wanted to resurrect an online book club using an even easier format with an even more straightforward read-it-or-don’t-read-it method in order to come together to discuss general fiction and non-fiction.  It’s open to anyone and everyone.

So I present to you, GRAB(ook) Club.  GRAB stands for
Gonna Read Anyway Books.

Meaning, these are the books you were going to read anyway, so you might as well grab it (get it?) and read it now so you can discuss it with others.  Or, if you never had any intention of reading the book choice or you’re too busy to participate in the moment, forget it and wait for the next book because there will always be enough people participating to get a discussion going.  Drop in or drop out depending on your needs/desires so you always have good feelings towards your book club.  It’s a fun space; not a chore.

Participating is simple.

• Look at the book choice each month as it’s posted. (This post serves as the sign-up post for the first book.)

• If you want to read it, leave a comment stating that you’re in.

• On a mid-month Thursday (you can see the dates next to the book list below), post a single question on your blog, no longer than one paragraph.  If you don’t have a blog, no problem.  Post your question to the GRAB(ook) Club Facebook Group or the GRAB(ook) Club GoodReads Group.  Include a link to the book so people who are hearing about the book for the first time can read more and quickly join in the conversation after they read the book.  Of course, those who are participating in the club will be able to comment immediately.  Do not write a long post about the book; it’s just a single question and a link to the book.  That’s it.

• Come back to the main post on this blog that will serve as the virtual living room for our discussion and use the linky tool to add a link to your blog post.  There will be a general link to the Facebook Group and GoodReads Group each time too.

• And then jump from link to link, reading the question and leaving your thoughts in the comment section.  See, the discussion takes place in the comment section vs. needing to prepare a long post.

That’s it.  So no long post to write beforehand, no long post to read the day-of, and the discussion can unfold over many days inside your comment section.

I’ve chosen my book, Measure of Love, to be the inaugural book.  I know this is all sorts of hubris, but so many people have said they’re reading it that I thought this would be an easy way for me to jump into the discussion too.  So no apologies — I’ve picked my own book as the first book.  If you’re reading it anyway, go read it and discuss with us.  Participation in this book club selection counts as two entries in the contest where you will get a character in Apart at the Seams named after you.  If you sign up today to participate in reading/discussing Measure of Love, make sure you go to that contest post and leave a comment there too since every comment counts as one contest entry.  Got it?  Leave two comments if you’re joining: one here (so we know how many are in the group) and one there (so it serves as a contest entry).

If you’re not into reading the first book, no hard feelings, though I hope you’ll join along for a future book.  Here are the upcoming summer books:

• June’s Book: Measure of Love by Melissa Ford (discuss on June 13)
• July’s Book: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (discuss July 18)
• August’s Book: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (discuss August 15)
• September’s Book: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (discuss September 12)

So, consider this the sign up for the first book. Who is in for the June book, Measure of Love by Melissa Ford (remember, joining along counts as two entries into the contest to have a character named after you)? Leave a comment below letting me know your intent, and we’ll come back to read each other’s questions (and leave a lot of comments) on June 13th.

Even if you don’t plan to read the first book, please join the Facebook Group or the GoodReads Group or sign up for the email list below so you can be sent reminders twice a month. Or hey, sign up for all three.

Participants in Measure of Love (for June 13th)

• Bereaved and Blessed
• Sticky Feet
• Me Plus One
• Are You Kidding Me?
• The Road Less Travelled
• Biogirl
• Two Adults, One Child
• Lavender Luz
• Better Full Than Empty
• Bionic Mamas
• Two Bees in Love
• CD1 Again
• Queen of the Slipstream
• Slaying, Blogging, Whatever
• Adventures in Writing, Reading & Bookcrossing
• River Run Dry
• The Book Diva’s Reads
• Inconceivable!
• Pepper (on GoodReads/Facebook)
• Linda (on GoodReads/Facebook)
• Anne (on GoodReads/Facebook)
• Amy (on GoodReads/Facebook)
• Jacqueline (on GoodReads/Facebook)

Have you ever wanted to jump straight into a book, getting to meet the characters and hangout in their world?  While I can’t give you that, I can give you the next best thing.  How about having your name as a fictional character in a published book coming out in 2014?  Help jump into spreading word about Measure of Love with this contest — Say “I Do” to Measure of Love and Have a Character Named After You contest — and you (along with a partner or a friend) will become characters in my upcoming novel.

In my new book, Measure of Love, it’s the summer of 2011 and New York City is holding its collective breath, wondering who the New York Times wedding section will name as the Volt Couple — the 500th couple to meet at Volt, a coffeehouse famous for successful first dates that lead to marriage.  By the novel’s end, the Volt Couple has yet to be named.  In my follow-up novel, Apart at the Seams, best friends Rachel and Arianna have been following the Volt story with great interest, reading the Sunday Styles every weekend wondering who would be featured in Vows. Until one day, when they open up the newspaper and it’s… YOU.

No, I’m serious: you are the Volt Couple.

In the ultimate Choose-Your-Own Adventure, one lucky winner (plus another name of their choosing, from their partner to their best friend) will have their name immortalized as the Volt Couple in the winter 2014 follow up to Measure of Love, Apart at the Seams (Bell Bridge, 2014) and appear in the acknowledgments.  It’s the Say “I Do” to Measure of Love and Have a Character Named After You contest, and it’s the ultimate catching of the bouquet or garter.

So how does one enter?

The contest is open from now until July 1, 2013.  To enter, use any (or all) of the options below. You may enter as many times as you wish.

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IMPORTANT: each comment counts as one entry, so if you do three options below, please leave three separate comments with links.  If you place them all in one comment, they will only count as one entry AND there is a good chance that your comment will be caught by the spam filter.

1. Leave a comment below saying, “I Do!” and you will be entered. [You can enter this way once.]

2. Write a blog post about Measure of Love.  Add this text and link to the post: Say “I Do” to Measure of Love: http://tinyurl.com/measureofloveamazon. [Each blog post is one entry.  Please provide a link to the blog post in the comment section below.  You can write one blog post per week.]

3. Write a blog post about your wedding. Add this text and link to the post: Say “I Do” to Measure of Love: http://tinyurl.com/measureofloveamazon [Each blog post is one entry.  Please provide a link to the blog post in the comment section below.  You can enter this way once.]

4. Post a picture from your wedding on your blog or Pinterest.  Add this text (or something similar with the link): Say “I Do” to Measure of Love: http://tinyurl.com/measureofloveamazon [Each blog post or pin is one entry.  Please provide a link to the blog post or pin in the comment section below.  You can enter this way once on each site.]

5. Write a blog post about how you feel about the topic of marriage. Add this text and link to the post: Say “I Do” to Measure of Love: http://tinyurl.com/measureofloveamazon [Each blog post is one entry.  Please provide a link to the blog post in the comment section below.  You can enter this way once.]

6. Tweet, Facebook, or Google+ this message or your own wording with the link: Say “I Do” to Measure of Love (http://tinyurl.com/measureofloveamazon). [Post a direct link to the Tweet/Facebook status/Google+ status.  One entry per site per day.]

7. Tweet, Facebook, or Google+ a link to my author page on Amazon with this text or your own wording with the link: This author said “I do” and wrote MEASURE OF LOVE (http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Ford/e/B001JRXBZY/). [Post a direct link to the Tweet/Facebook status/Google+ status.  One entry per site per day.]

8. Participate in the GRAB(ook) Club reading of Measure of Love.  This book club opens tomorrow. [This option gives you two entries: post a comment below saying that you’ve signed up, and return on June 13 with a link to your question.]

9. Tweet, Facebook, or Google+ this message or your own wording with the link: Get a character named after you!: http://tinyurl.com/measureoflovecontest. [Post a direct link to the Tweet/Facebook status/Google+ status.  One entry per site per day.]

10. Pin the book picture above from this post and provide a link to this post: (https://www.stirrup-queens.com/2013/05/say-i-do-to-measure-of-love-and-have-a-character-named-after-you-contest/). [You can enter this way once.  Please provide a direct link to the pin.]

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Over 125,000 copies of the first book, Life from Scratch, were read.  Measure of Love, the second book in the series will hopefully reach just as far.  Imagine seeing your name in the third book, Apart at the Seams, and knowing that you caught the ultimate bouquet or garter.

The winner will be selected at random on July 2nd and sent an email confirmation.  This contest is open to anyone and everyone: single, married, gay, straight, old, young, male, or female.  The only catch is that a proper, given name or an agreed upon nickname must be used in the book, and a name can be rejected at the discretion of the author.  The winner will be announced here and on my Facebook page after the winner has been contacted.

Remember: each option above is one entry, and some of those options have multiple times that they can be used.  Keep coming back here every time you do one of these options to provide a link inside a comment and have another chance to have a character named after you and a loved one.  Bookmark this post so you can easily find it and say “I Do” to not only Measure of Love, but to having a character possibly named after you too.