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Dear Reader,
Author M.J. Rose had a great idea a few years ago, "Suzanne, you should give yourself a vacation every year and ask friends to fill in for you. Treat yourself to an annual vacation"...and from that ingenious idea the "Write a Dear Reader Contest" was born.
M.J. Rose is a good friend and a great writer. Send her an email and she'll reply, and she's giving away copies of her books. You can reach her at: MJRnewsletter@aol.com --Suzanne Beecher
From author M.J. Rose...
Instead of writing about reading books, I'm going to write about reading emails. And writing emails.
I've had wonderful friends my whole life. We'd have lunch, go shopping, see movies together, stay on the phone for hours and talk each other in and out of life's highs and lows. But then e-mail happened.
At first it seemed an even better way to keep in touch. Snippets of communication several times a day. Cheaper than the phone. Home, in bed, on my laptop, I could get work done. At work, I could e-mail friends or loved ones. Totally wonderful.
Except it isn't always, as this email exchange shows.
My e-mail kiss-off
From: RuthM To: MJRose Subject: Not having heard from you for three weeks Date: Sat, April 3, 2:34 PM
I haven't heard from you for three weeks and am saddened to know you have chosen to let go of our friendship. I had no idea you thought so little of me that you would treat me this way.--Ruth
From: MJRose To: RuthM RE: Subject: Not having heard from you for three weeks Date: Sat, April 3, 3:34 PM
I've been busy, traveling, crazy with nerves waiting to hear from my editor. Besides three weeks is not that long as far as my thinking goes. I don't know why you'd just jump to the conclusion that I have let go of our friendship nor did I realize you were clocking us.--MJ
From: RuthM To: MJRose RE:RE: Subject:Not having heard from you for three weeks Date: Sun, April 4, 9:04 AM
Obviously we just have a different view of friendship. I guess I like friends to be friends, not casual in and out acquaintances. So now we know. I wish you only the best but we can't be friends. Good luck with your new novel.--Ruth
The problem is, as a species, we're new at this e-mail thing. We've been learning how to communicate with each other face to face for millions of years and still can't get that right. E-mailing? We've only been at it five, ten, fifteen years at the most. We're not experts at it yet.
I hadn't ever thought about it before but when we rely on e-mail for important communications we miss out on a lot of what makes communication work. We don't get the cues in e-mail that we get looking at someone. We don't see eyes fill with tears, mouths break into grins, and frowns appear on foreheads.
In the mess of the e-mails that cost Ruth and I our friendship, what I didn't know was that her in-laws were getting divorced and that her husband--stressed over it--was taking it out on her. And what she didn't know was that a member of my family was in the hospital.
Had she told me that straight out, I'd have been more sympathetic. Had we spoken on the phone, I might have heard the worry in her voice. If we'd seen each other, she might have seen the circles under my eyes and asked what was wrong. But we missed all those clues.
The e-mail experience itself messes with our boundaries. Love letters, inter office messages, recipes from great Aunt Ida, and spam offering you very cheap vitamins or worse--they all come into the same box. And it's so easy to answer them all quickly and without taking the time to regroup, switch moods, and change our tone between responding to a relative and responding to a colleague.
Enamored with the ease and efficiency of the medium, we forget that not everything should be written down and sent off via the Internet. Some conversations need to be had in person or if that's not possible over the phone.
Once upon a time when the Internet was only a sci-fi writer's dream, communication in person or via letter was all we had. It's tempting to think that the only difference between e-mail and a letter is the way it gets delivered. But there are other, bigger differences.
So now I try to remember to think before I write and reread my message before sending and when I get an email that strikes me wrong I try not to jump to conclusions.
Feel free to tell me about your email issues--just email me at MJRnewsletter@aol.com. I promise to read your email slowly and write you back carefully. And the three best emailers will get a copy of one of my novels.
Thanks for reading with me--and Suzanne.
M.J. Rose
MJRnewsletter@aol.com
www.mjrose.com
M.J. Rose is the author of The Reincarnationist and The Memorist.
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