There Is Information, and There Is TMI

We were yakking about information yesterday--how we promote ourselves through informing others about us, our books, our likes and dislikes. The Internet is a wondrous place for facts--promotion or otherwise.

I'm still undecided about the value of having a My Space (or My Face, or My Place) to me as an author besides it being a social-gathering place. Admittedly, My Space appears to be more "hip" and your name gets advertized among many others as people looking for "friends." There are already people sending me invites to "friend" them at that My Space page I'd set up, but they are gentlemen looking for mates ;-). I checked out their pages and yeah, interesting dudes, but no, I'm not looking for someone to date through my Gennita Low page. So that's the downside of having a My Space page.

I'll perhaps jazz it up a little more during one of my free weekends (ha-ha-ha) and see whether I get any reader response. Don't get me wrong -- there are a few authors who love their My Space page so much they've abandoned their own chat forums in favor of just chatting through that site. To me, as a first time visitor, it's just a lot of "Hi, just wanting to say Hi" stuff, but I'm sure there are those who dropped by to look for book information.

Some of these pages are fantastic fun. Please do leave your My Space Urls here, if you have a page, so I can take a peek. I think, if it's not done already, this subject would be a great discussion topic for an author workshop at a writers convention. I just want to know all the relevant details that have nothing to do with "making friends" or "networking," like reader traffic stats, book-related questions, new readers who became curious enough to check out one of your books, that type of detail.

And now, because I'm the queen of the " from the ridiculous to the sublime," I was googling about uncut penises for a friend who needed information for her medieval book. My friend is an American writer who has never seen or touch an uncut penis and since she's about to write a scene with a Nekkid British Lord, she wants to be correct in her, ahem, details.

So, good friend that I am, I googled for pics and articles that didn't sound too scientific, but with enough information about how the foreskin worked and what medieval or Regency males did to keep clean, etc.

Oh My God. Too. Much. Information.

Here is (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) Everything You Ever Need To Know About Smegma. Oh My God. Scroll down the page and read everything under the Smegma section. One comment needs to be cut (hah) and pasted here: "I used to think it was very unfair of life that, although I was very turned on by the equivalent smell of a female, I never found a woman who liked the smell of my (uncut) penis."

Oh. My. God. I will never read a Medieval story the same way again. It's normal back then to only bathe once or twice a year! Argghhhhhh. The stench.

Thanks, my writing buddy. You OWE ME a lot more than alcohol for this new piece of information.

And why am I passing the shudders on to you, my friends? Because I shouldn't be the only person to bleach my eyes and brainage today ;-).

Besides, now I have the perfect answer to those pesky readers who like to debate about condoms and the awfulness of romance authors who don't consistently demonstrate their social responsibility by having their characters use condoms during sex. You don't scold me about condoms and STDs, and I won't write about the smell of seven day-old smegma, deal?

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!