Well, it’s official. I’m done writing.
The email came in this morning. This one sealed the deal. “Sean,” the message began. “You are a social media attention whore….”
Great way to start a Monday.
“...You’re like all other attention seekers,” the writer went on, “constantly looking for likes and engagement… I’ve been a professional writer for 29 years, and it’s people like you who corrupt the profession. …I think you know what I’m talking about.”
The last sentence ends in a preposition.
A few hours later, a book review on a major bookseller website.
“...[Dietrich’s] book was a laborious and difficult read... I found [the author’s] tone glib and disrespectful. This author might indeed have something to say, but he’s too immature to say it.”
You’re only young once. But you can be immature forever.
Then there was the letter to the editor of one of the newspapers for which I write.
“...I am a former reader of Sean. I was disgusted with his treatment of religion in his last column… I take offense at the tasteless jokes about Baptists.”
Why should you take
two Baptists fishing? Because if you take just one, he’ll drink all your beer.
And here’s another little gem from another newspaper that carries my shoddy work:
“...I found Sean’s article in [name of paper] especially upsetting, especially the jokes about the Baptist tradition. I have been a Baptist all my life. I am 77 years old, and found his humor belittling.”
As it happens, I have been a Baptist all my life, too. I come from a Baptist town. Even our atheists were Baptist, because it was a Baptist god they didn’t believe in.
Ironically, most of the Baptist jokes I’ve learned have come directly from Baptist preachers.
One of my childhood friends, for example, is a Baptist preacher. I recently told him about some negative mail I received.
He replied: “Don’t worry about it.…