Is Twitter the new way for people to make bad decisions in public? We’ve learned as a t’intertubed society not to feed trolls and not to email/text drunk. Now the new lesson is: don’t twitter angry, Alice Hoffman (there’s a Groundhog Day joke in there somewhere – although I suspect groundhogs lack the opposable thumb required to hold the phone). An ill-thought tweet and a bright career may well go blarp. See the LA Times link below (well, below-below coz I’m still talking).
It’s like putting the angry letter/email you wrote in the bottom drawer or in Drafts for a day or two. Gives you time to reflect so you don’t do a Homer Simpson and write a nasty letter to Mr Burns that you have to try to get back before he sees it. It’s worth taking a leaf out of Gaiman’s dealing with rejection folder: ‘The best reaction to a rejection slip is a sort of wild-eyed madness, an evil grin, and sitting yourself in front of the keyboard muttering “Okay, you bastards. Try rejecting this!” and then writing something so unbelievably brilliant that all other writers will disembowel themselves with their pens upon reading it, because there’s nothing left to write.’ (http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/02/on-writing.asp).
Don’t answer the reviewer/critic; just go away and write something brilliant in revenge. If what you want to say is something you wouldn’t say to that person if they were standing in front of you, then don’t put it out there. And never, ever tweet your rage.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/06/did-alice-hoffman-strike-back-or-strike-out.html