Let Down Your Hair…

Been thinking about this for a little bit, especially since the topic has come up on several mailing lists I’m on and it’s made me curious how people feel.

The theory is that in the old days before Facebook and Twitter and the Internet and all that, authors often seemed to be in an ivory-tower of sorts. There was a mystique involved in the creator of the written word.

These days the veil is a bit more transparent. Authors tweet what they had for breakfast, where they’re going shopping, what they’re reading these days. Facebook allows fans to see pictures, get instant updates and possibly discover where the author lives. (Depending on security settings.) Blogs, GoodReads, LinkedIn – all of them are portals into everyday information about a person, but is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Obviously security is one thing that shouldn’t be compromised. I’ll admit I probably haven’t been as cautious as I should be, even here on this blog.

But with that in mind, I can see how from a reader’s point of view, getting in touch with an author of a favorite book can be a nice way to connect to a beloved story or favorite characters, at least in a small way.

Still, I tend not to worry about the day-to-day issues involving it, but I do have to wonder how much info is too much info? I don’t talk about every subject here, but for example, take LKH – she’s been blogging for a while, and her writing is so polarizing that there’s actually an entire LiveJournal blog dedicated to shredding the stuff that she says and does.

I’m of two minds of that. On one hand, if it’s a book review, then I don’t think the author’s personal life should come into play. You can dislike an author but still enjoy a book, or judge it on its own merits. On the other hand, if the author in question tends to tweet and blog about his/her sex life and sometimes semi-outrageous declarations of ego, is is open season? One could say that success is having a group dedicated to your “haters”, but I’m not sure that’s where I want to go.