So. I received this comment from a, apparently, “former” blog follower:
It seems as though you are a professional student rather than a professional writer with a PHD. Sadly I must drop you from my watch list since it’s simply impossible to know where and what you are going to be doing next. I’m not fond of following such chaotic career choices which detracts from the works of any professional individual. It must give your followers fits! I have always found your work and thoughts engaging but as you continually leap from organization to organization I regret I will no longer consider your work relevant. I certainly wish you good fortune in your career and perhaps one day I will find your work worth pursuing again.
I wonder what, exactly, I’m meant to take from this. I mean, clearly Mike D. disapproves. And you’d think this blog had been devoted to post after post of all the dirty little details of my “chaotic career choices.” Only thing is, I’m pretty certain I’ve written about nothing but the writing life – with the exception of the last post that attempted to explain why I’d been so absent for so long. And I’m also pretty certain working three jobs (simultaneously, I might add) in the publishing industry does not qualify as “chaotic.”
Perhaps Mike D. needed further explanation that my “leap[ing] from organization to organization” was, in fact, out of my control and that I had been volunteering at these organizations to help them out with specific projects that – eventually, as all special projects do – ended. Perhaps he missed the note that indicated that I have, in fact, been working on my memoir during this time as well and am planning to share pieces of it with you. Perhaps Mike D. just had a bad day and needed to vent. In any case, I suspect Mike D. could have simply stopped following my blog and taken me off his “watch list” without any need for snarky commentary at all. But I suppose one asks for such unwanted personal criticism when one enters the blogosphere. I suppose I could take his commentary to heart and go out and dedicate my life to one soul-sucking endeavor and give up this whole idea of trying to find a place in the publishing world that also allows room for my own writing. Yes, I suppose I could do that. If I cared at all about what Mike D. had to say about my life. Which, of course, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I don’t.