Google Yourself At Your Own Risk

Bestselling author Tess Gerritsen googled herself the other day and was stung by what she found.

Any writer who succumbs to the temptation of checking out what others are saying
about her books should be warned that what’s out there on the internet ain’t
always pretty. After eighteen books and twenty years in this business, I should
know better than to go searching for more reasons to drive myself crazy, but
what else is a masochist supposed to do in her spare time?

While you’re at it, stay away from Technorati and Blogpulse, too. Occasionally, I make the mistake of googling or blogpulsing myself and I’m always sorry I did. Do I really need to know all the different ways fanficcers and "Real People Slash" whackos would like me to fuck myself? No.

I also see a lot of outright lies and falsehoods — people accusing me of doing or saying something I never did or said. As infuriating as that is, I try to resist the strong temptation to refute every one of them (which would take hours, and draw me deeper into the cesspool, so I don’t bother).  It’s just not worth the time or effort.

But what attracts me to those Me Me Me searches, besides a raging ego, is that sometimes I will stumble on a positive review or an interesting discussion about my books, TV shows, or blog posts that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. Still, every time I type my name into one of those search engines I do so knowing I probably won’t like what I see…and vow never to do it again.

Until tomorrow.