On commenting

I'm going to make a bold, sassy statement: This is my blog. It is not a democracy. I was speaking to Cecil Castellucci, a fellow writer and blogger, about my hesitancy to let my site administrator delete comments, because I don't like to censure. She heartily disagreed and said, "It's your blog, Shannon. Don't let people poop on your doorstep." So in the interest of avoiding doorstep poop, I will in the future allow my administrator to freely delete any comments that strike her as smarmy, condescending, rude, or critical of others. Disagreement is always allowed, but I think we all know the difference between disagreeing and attacking. There is no hierarchy here. All respectful opinions are valid.

A few things to consider: on this site, it is never appropriate to make fun of what others' have said, correct their grammar or spelling unless they ask for that feedback, call names, or assert you're right and everyone else is wrong. This blog world is still new and we're all still trying to find our way, so don't feel bad if you crossed some lines in the past. Let's just be nice going forward, shall we? For further reading, someone sent me this link to a list of blog commenting etiquette.

I hope you'll all stick around and keep commenting. And as this blog isn't a forum and isn't setup for ongoing discussion about a variety of topics, I think the new forum little red set up will be a great tool.

With that out of the way...I'm back from Michigan! I'll give tour details later when I have some photos to show. It was lovely, and I got to meet four of you squeeters out there, which was a real treat. I came home to a poor, sick toddler, so mostly we're snuggling. I fly to Minneapolis on Thursday, so back at it again!

P.S. Just got a sneak peek at the austenland cover and I LOVE it. I'll show you as soon as I can.