Star Struck Style

I was just reading through some old blog posts when I realized that I seem to be especially pleased with my own writer’s “voice” when the sun is transiting my eleventh house. For instance, I got a big smile on my face when I read this passage from a post I wrote last September:

“Anyway, I’m planning on ironing today because I need to get my wardrobe sorted out for my trip. I’m going for four-and-a-half days. That means that I’ll need at least nine outfits — not counting the ensemble I’ll bring just in case I visit the pool.

That probably sounds ridiculous to someone who crams two pairs of cargo shorts, a few T-shirts and some dollar-store flip flops into a gym bag that they cram into the overhead compartment on the plane. Nevertheless, I don’t need to justify my behavior to people who wear pajama pants to the airport.”

That inspired me to dedicate this post to the way I like to reach out to my audience, so I went onto amazon.com to link the photo above to the site where people can actually buy my book. While I was there, I discovered a bad review written by someone who gave me a one-star review and actually wrote the line “Tone is smug and catty.” How scandalous it must have been for her to discover that someone who works in the fashion business had adopted a smug and catty tone to write a book about fashion!

I’m glad that I don’t let things like that bother me. I’m also glad that I have a distinctive voice that is made perfectly clear in whatever I write. If I wanted to court an audience that wears “pajama pants to the airport,” I’d probably adopt a different tone.

What really makes me smile, however, is that the aforementioned review is three years old and I’m just reading it now. The idea that I don’t need external validation in order to keep doing what I’m doing makes me very happy. That doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy having an audience or receiving feedback from that audience. I just don’t live and die according to the opinions of me that have been posted online — even when the sun is in the sector of my horoscope associated with social media. I am perfectly at ease with my snobbery. I’m a Capricorn with a Cancer moon. Need I say more?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got things to do, like planning what I’m going to wear to the airport in fifty-two days from now. I’ve got to stand out from the rabble. My audience is depending upon me!