Friends! Chums! Mates!
Two things this week. First, a reminder: the finest compliment you can give someone is not a retweet, a like, or a follow. Instead, the best expression of thanks is to link to their work.
Here’s one example: earlier this week I was reading a book and it quoted a chap who linked to a blog post which linked back to…my blog! Wha—? And also: wot? It was that rare sort of ~Publishing Feeling~ I get when I can see my own hyperlinks make their return trip home. There’s this punch-to-the-gut when someone links to my work or points back at a note somewhere in the ol’ archives and it’s nothing short of exhilarating. There’s no higher honor, no kind of thanks giving better.
But is that feeling…good? That feeling I get when someone links to my work? Is it desperate? Isn’t it just a selfish hunger for fame and attention? Sure, probably, deep down that’s likely the case (my dad once asked what I wanted to be when I grow up and when I was 8 I turned to him very seriously and exclaimed that “I want to be a great man of history!” At the time I didn’t quite understand that you have to do certain things to be great, I just wanted to see my own face printed in books and etched on stone).