Crummy Cake Communication

Country folk have odd recipes, but we always eat good.

My mom had two cakes she introduced us to when I was a kid. She called them Mayonnaise Cake and Tomato Soup Cake.

Yeah, that’s how we reacted, too. Allow me to expand: the mayonnaise is used as a substitute for eggs and oil in a chocolate cake with coffee in the batter. A thick, dense, moist explosion of coffee-chocolate flavor. Frosting would be pointless. Vanilla ice cream works. We’d stir them together, unknowingly creating a cookies and cream experience 30 years before anyone was selling it.

My father was most precise in his speech. It was from him that I learned to look for the right word, the difference, for instance, between “loping” and “trotting” or “thinking” and “pondering” and such shades of meaning which give depth and clarity to our communication.

(That’s called “setup” so you’ll wonder, as I relate this, where it comes into play.)

Continue reading “Crummy Cake Communication”

The Surefire Method to Repel Connections and Make People Mad at You

i-cant-see-you-la-la-la-la-laIgnore them.

When they leave a comment on the blog, read it, maybe, but don’t respond.

If they ask a question on social media or by email, ignore it.

Don’t offer new information, say, by posting to your blog or updating your website.

Instead, disappear for weeks at a time.

If you want to compete in the business of being an author in 2016 you had better be approachable and responsive.

Or someone who is will take your readers.

And their money.

Why is Silence the New “No” ?

I get a lot of spam. Not the autobot machine stuff; Gmail filters all that out. I get lots of emails from real human beings who want to help me optimize the SEO for my websites or to provide coding services for my web company.

I used to reply this isn’t a match for me, but that seemed to invite dialog, which also isn’t a match for me thank you very much.

Now I just delete them.

Most of the time they’re canned emails these folks are sending out to anyone who has “website” in their portfolio.

There are other people I’ll move heaven and earth to respond to. Real people, who approach me about something real. A question about publishing or the web or music. Real people who know something about me, and took the risk of putting their hand out to a stranger.

Sometimes, though, I can’t help them. Continue reading “Why is Silence the New “No” ?”

You Can’t Hit What You Don’t Aim For

Engaging in what might euphemistically be called a “lively” conversation often gets the better of me. Someone makes a statement I find patently ridiculous, and I feel the need to educate them.

As I’m writing, I can already envision their response, to which I’m already formulating my rebuttal.

My what? So, I’m already assuming they’re going to argue with me? Well, if that’s my attitude, it’s no wonder what I wrote garners an angry response.

taking aim
Continue reading “You Can’t Hit What You Don’t Aim For”