My work output has not been what it should be for some time.
Some of this is due to illness, but the rest is the great freelancer disease that keeps us from working the way we should.
I have been eliminating lots of distressing things lately. People, and things. I’ve retired from my, er, active creator rights activism. No more trips to Washington DC for me. I can’t stand the pressure, the responsibility, or the financial strain. (You guys realize most lobbyists aren’t making money at this, right?)
I’m sorry I won’t be doing any more aid for people who need help with their publisher, or a contract vetted, or anything else of that sort for the foreseeable future. I need to take care of writing and drawing the books my readers are waiting for. I look at all the time I spent on this other stuff, and think of how far along I could be with my work right now, and I want to cry. I feel like I’ve been throwing rocks at the moon. Maybe I’ve done a little bit of good, but it’s not good for me.
What is good for me now is creating my books.
Thanks for understanding.
totally understandable. You can’t fight everyone’s battles for them. You can only show them where the armory is.
And here’s to creating more books ^_^
I’ve been telling some of my peeps privately I was getting out of the game, and you would not believe some of the outraged reactions. Apparently, the ENTIRE CREATOR RIGHTS MOVEMENT WILL COLLAPSE ON ITSELF if I stop being the only comics creator going to Washington.
OR maybe someone else could pick up the load.
You think?
Mmmhmm, mmmhmm – what you and Arlnee said. Somehow I think the movement would benefit from more voices (and more bodies going to Washington). In any event, you are completely within your rights to do what’s best for you, and we fans will certainly benefit from it!
In all the years I have been going to DC and putting out announcements for events and symposiums, no one else has showed up. Not once. I can’t take it anymore.
I do not want to hear “But Colleen, we neeeeeedddd you,” anymore, when at no time did anyone else make any effort to make their voices heard on the legislative level by actually showing up to speak to their Congressman or Senator. It is no easy task to get close to some of these people, we had plenty of opportunities to speak directly to the most powerful people in the country, and NO ONE SHOWED UP.
Creators continually complain they don’t have a union. But we have the Graphic Artists Guild with a paid lobbyist, and few creators avail themselves of this EXISTING union, nor do they bother to join to get benefits like health insurance or legal aid.
There’s nothing else I can do.
Oh yeah, there is something else I can do…go make comics.
“I want my rights protected!”
“Great, will you come speak on Capitol Hill?”
“What, and cut into my websurfing time? No way!”
That seems to be the gist, right?
Got to do what’s best for you. Those that get that will be happy for your decision. Those that aren’t need to be looking in the mirror when they wonder why their problems aren’t getting remedied.
I don’t know if its as bad as people wanting to websurf instead of go to Washington, but…we do have different priorities.
I can’t get into more of it without making some private conversations public, so there you go. I just had to ban someone from my private FB page for doing that.
Some need to get a dictionary and look up “private”. I hate when that happens. If I wanted everyone to know the conversation, I’d have made it public.
Bingo.
My FB page is not just private but PRIVATE, as in I’ve quietly deleted people before. It doesn’t mean I don’t like them, it doesn’t mean I disagree with them, it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy their company.
But if we can’t talk to family and friends without wondering if everything we say isn’t going to end up an anecdote in someone’s book, or slag on a gossip website, then the unfriend button is there.
Some people really don’t get it. And haven’t been very honest about why they got deleted off the page.
Considering how private I am, sometimes I wonder why in the world I got on Facebook in the first place. The unfriend button has definitely come in handy. Someone who I thought I was friends with went off on me, in private, via a joke I had made. I apologized but they said I was to never contact them again. So I figured this isn’t exactly someone I’d want to be in contact with anyway, so I hit the unfriend button. They were furious when I did that. I guess they really monitored their friend count. If you don’t want me to talk to you, why are you mad I’m not in contact with you?
On the plus side, it certainly helps me distinguish between an actual friend and someone who is a “friend”. Don’t really need the latter.
More focus on your work is definitely great news for us fans, huzzah!
getting unfriended off a Facebook page is not a violation of your first amendment rights and it’s not a conspiracy to silence a dissenting viewpoint, it’s a “if you can’t respect my house rules, your hanging out at my house privilege is now revoked, go play somewhere else” thing.
I think some people just can’t help themselves. They don’t mean to be rude, they don’t mean to be indiscreet, but that’s the way they roll. Some of them are people I like a lot, but I know if you say anything to them, it’s going to be repeated. It doesn’t have to be pro-related info. If they know something about your life, they’ll talk. I never discuss my personal life in public.
I’ve deleted a lot of bloggers even if I like them. A couple of them continually pump for info. I’ve had to cut several people I used to know from conventions or who used to work at comics pubs. All we are to them is dinner.
I don’t monitor my friend count at all, and have no idea who leaves or goes. As far as I can tell, no one ever does.
Arlnee: THIS. I don’t know why that’s so hard to handle.
I really wish they’d come up with a term besides “friend” for people you link up to on the internet…it makes it sound way more important than it is. “OMG, you’re not my friend any more!” Random internet dude, we were barely acquaintances. You’ll live.
I know a guy who posts a lot of political stuff on his Facebook. Every time someone unfriends him, he hoots about how obviously so-and-so couldn’t handle his oh-so-controversial opinions. I always think, “Maybe they just thought your were boring.”
JK, you just nailed it. I did not unfriend this person for disagreeing with his vastly important opinions about everything that ever happened in the history of comics.
I unfriended him for not honoring my request to keep my FB page interactions private. The End.
I don’t keep close tabs on my “friend count”. I know who my real friends are and there are a number of FB folk that I like conversing with and don’t mind them tracking whatever I post.
But I have a lot of friends who are pros in the comics business — and they really are friends, as in I can email them and talk about stuff and get an answer. But I get a LOT of friend requests from people I have NO clue who they are. When I look at the “mutual friends” they and I have and see ONLY pros, and not any of certain circles of readers/fans, I consider them a “pro collector”. Those people I never confirm as friends.
But because my list is so mixed, I have no problem when my pro friends leave me just on the “public” list. Like I said, if I can contact them anyway, why should I worry about FB connections? It’s silly. Pros have a right to have a private life, and I respect that!
Anyway, all that FB melodrama aside — You’ve done a serious tour of duty on the creators rights front, Colleen, and deserve to be taken out of the rotation. Others should get their acts together and take up the crusade. (Ahem, which reminds me… need to go attend to some Unscrewed business.
)
I do not understand FB and Twitter drama. I’ve had people have meltdowns over unfriends and unfollows, or not being allowed on my FB list. I just don’t get it. At all.
I have some fans on my private FB list whose company I enjoy 100 times more than some pros. It’s not about being a pro that gets you on my list, it’s about being amusing, entertaining company, and respecting boundaries.
I think Unscrewed is exactly the kind of organization we should really be supporting for creators rights, because that IS what creator rights is about to my way of thinking. I don’t want to focus on bad contracts from 35 years ago. I cannot help someone who signed a bad agreement. I wanted to spend more time helping creators who signed agreements that were violated, and educating young creators about the nature of their work. If we can educate young people about what their contracts really mean, they won’t be worrying about where they stand in 35 years.
I also wanted to spend more time in Washington working on WFH reform on a legislative level, such as making national WFH law similar to California WFH law. If you’re going to be treated like an employee, pay employee benefits. See?
But people are more interested in screaming at individual companies hoping the Board of Directors will have an epiphany, than in getting laws changed.
If that is what they want to do, so be it. I’m out.
I think that the line gets way too blurry between fans and pros. The friendliness at conventions and the frequent interactions on different sites give the false impression that we’re all one big happy family.
As Scribblerworks noted, pros have a right to a private life and for me, it’d be very presumptuous to go about saying “I’m friends with Pros A, B, C, etc..”. People should only have to peel back the curtain on their terms. My buying someone’s work does not count as a backstage pass.
I enjoy conversing with people whose work I admire either on FB, official sites and e-mail but it’d be excessively fanboyish to start inundating them with friend requests and asking invasive questions. If I’m welcomed, great. If not, it doesn’t make me green with envy. I tend to compartmentalize my life and prefer to keep the personal and professional aspects of my life separate; even my interests (some of my friends aren’t into comics, whereas others are).
I suggest supplying the definition of “boundaries” to those who keep wanting to know why they aren’t “in” with you.
BTW, there are a few peeps who were very supportive on a personal level, and, of course J Michael Straczynski was not only very supportive on a personal level, but was kind enough to help me out in a professional pinch. But on the whole, I’m afraid most creators really aren’t interested in legislation.
Ms. Doran, you did more going back and forth to DC than most people will (unfortunately). Thank you for your hard work, thank you for publicizing the issues, and thanks for offering a great website where people can be directed for enlightenment.
As for Facebook and other social media… I’m rather singular, so I don’t care too much about who is on my friend list. I haven’t had to “unfriend” someone, but then I’m fairly tolerant… and there aren’t a lot of people who comment on my postings.
As for professionals, I’m slowly building a reputation via the Internet, but I’m still a bit reserved when meeting them at a convention. (If it’s bar-con, then it’s a little bit less fraught.)
I do appreciate the virtual front porch you’ve set up here, and look forward to the many teasers you’ll post about upcoming projects!
I deleted my Facebook page not long ago.
The “friend” thing begun to rub me the wrong way in a big way. Also, I have a blog, so I could not justify the time to manage another site. Additionally I had some security worries and there is the admittedly unoriginal notion that if the service one uses is free then one is the product being sold.
As for those distressed about your discontinued lobbying efforts….
Whaaah….
Prioritizing and streamlining ones life becomes more important the more one sets out to accomplish.
Hi Ken, nice to see you again!
I think FB and Twitter are great for communicating with my readers and finding new ones, but it’s definitely not for everyone and can be a huge time sink.
I get the distinct impression some people think my time is more important when it is spent meeting their needs than mine. It used to be easy to guilt me into many daring deeds of underpaid dogooderism.
After awhile, I began to feel like a sucker.
Oh….No I wasn’t suggesting that YOU quit facebook. It’s part of your business plan and seems to work. For me not so much.
The friend/unfriend drama was bizarre though.
Yes, I do not want any more of that drama. For crying out loud, FB isn’t real friendship. No one has to take the valuable hours of their very life to endlessly listen to people beat dead horses. You can leave a conversation or relationship anytime you feel you must, especially one as tenuous as a relationship on FB.