The Website Launch

I'm very excited to announce the launch of my new website yvonneosborne.com. Visit me and say hello! I'm nervous about it, hesitating between "coming soon" and the public launch. Just as debut novelists wonder, what if nobody buys my book? I wonder, what if nobody visits me? But I thought it important to do this before my debut novel hits the shelves in the spring of next year.

Website building for a non-techy person is a painstaking process, one that had me one step shy of throwing my laptop out the window. I finally wised up and hired a pro to help. Jane Friedman said we shouldn't have to, making the process sound easy. but she obviously didn't have me in mind when churning out her website building classes on Writer's Digest. I'm neither a plumber, electrician, carpenter, nor website builder! I just want to write, and I think many writers feel the same. We want to sit in a private corner with our favorite writing medium, immersed in our stories with characters whom (honestly) we often feel closer to than the people outside the door. When in the zone, we don't want to talk to real people.

So, that said, thank goodness for experts like Gaby at Fiver. Check her out if you are thinking of building a website or just want to renovate an old one and you aren't one of the prior-listed skilled tradespeople! Then check out mine. All human, all the time. Too bad that needs to be said, but with AI on the rampage and plagiarism on everyone's mind, I feel it does. How do we protect our names and our work? But that's a whole different subject.  But I promise, I will never edit text with AI. If I can't compose my own sentence structure and  narrative from my experiences, ideas, and imagination, than I'm not a writer. What am I? A copycat. The kid at the back of the room who is either too lazy, or just can't cut it, and enlists the help of others to write his papers for him.

Have a great weekend and may Aeolus, the god of storms in Greek mythology take his bluster elsewhere. Likewise, Thor, that hammer-wielding god of Norse mythology associated with lightning can take his hammer and split. Though my dad always said chain lightning was important because it channeled nitrogen into the earth, we've had quite enough in southeast Michigan.

I just had to throw in a weather lament. When not writing, I'm a farmer and a gardener, and weather is of paramount importance. Notice how all these gods of mayhem are male and irascible? 

The Pet Peeve

 

On my mind of late is the increasing use of the term "guest" instead of "customer."  I was standing in line at a checkout when a clerk waved an arm and called:

 "Next guest!" 

I looked around. Guests? Whose a guest? Who...me?

I wanted to ask the perky person behind the arm why refer to me as such an animal.  I thought I was here to buy something. Am I to be entertained? How nice, where may I sit and should I have taken off my shoes? 

I thought this experience was an abberation. Perky was obviously out on a limb of her own choosing. This misuse of the term couldn't have been suggested or condoned by the powers that be. It couldn't possibly take root in the lexicon of customer/business relationships. And so, I forgot about it. But then, alas, it happened again and again.

Guest, per Webster is a person entertained in one's home or a person to whom hospitality is extended. 

Customer, per old Webster is one who purchases a comodity or a service from a store or a business.

I'm a customer when I go to the department store, the uptown store, or the downtown store. I don't expect an easy chair, or a glass of wine, or a crumpet. I neither expect nor want to take off my shoes. I don't expect anything other than efficient, polite service and a commodity at a fair price. It grinds my goat to be called a guest when I'm a customer. Guest implies friendship and comaraderie. It implies a gift exchange. I think someone far removed from those of us who grease the gears of civilized society decided it would make us feel all warm and snuggly to be thus labeled; complacent as lemmings as we stand in line to pay for our gifts with Guest stamped on our foreheads, bamboozled by yet another example of the flagrant misuse of the English language.

Gift, per Webster is a thing given willingly to someone without payment.

The final straw was the tire guy. We needed a tire rotation, which was free because it's where we bought them. Unfortunately, this turned into four new tires and an estimate for brakes and rotors that if not attended too would land us in the ditch where we would be neither guest nor customer but SOL. In reading over the estimate and invoice, we were referred to over and over as a Guest. This service (please refer to Webster's definition of Customer) was going to cost us (now their GUEST) over $1,200. 

Is that any way to treat a guest when all we wanted was a free rotation?

Challenged by Bjorn Rudberg at d'Verse to use rhetorical device to argue a cause you believe in, I have argued a pet peeve of mine. As Bjorn reminds us: "rhetoric is the art of convincing." Did I convince you?