Manners Matter

A handful of post ideas accelerated through me yesterday like the DeutscheBahn ICE speeding through the German countryside.  I impressed myself.  Woo-hoo.

However, I decided to go with a topic that popped into the wee noggin after the blog idea blitz: manners.  Remember those?  The way one person acts towards another?

No, I’m not being sarcastic.  Okay, maybe a little.  There have been a few recent incidents that leaned toward bothersome.  Civility shouldn’t be that difficult to demonstrate/deliver.  It takes but a few seconds to respond to a question.  When a favor is requested, the “requestee” doesn’t have to commit.  They can simply state they can’t do it, need time to consider it, or will get back—and then get back.  It’s called showing respect . . . being well-mannered.   Don’t agree to do something if it’s not going to happen.  Honesty is a refreshingly wonderful thing.

As bloggers/writers—salespersons in our own rights—a certain level of blog etiquette is required.  We want to attract followers, not lose them before they’ve even been secured.

If we’re critics, reviewers, or analysts, we may have negative comments to provide but, hopefully, we’ll do so in a courteous manner.  And if someone comments on our comments, let’s be considerate when we comment back (how’s that for a commentary comment?).

When someone doesn’t agree with you, that’s totally okay.  Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinions.  Embrace dissimilarity.  It makes the world go around.

No one likes a troll, someone who’s mean or negative, or out to bait/bully.  Don’t be one and don’t troll back.

Focus on: building winning relationships; developing respect; treating others as you’d like to be treated, and; acknowledging when required (if you use a photo or quote that’s not yours, cite and/or link).

There are a lot of marvelous quotes to be found about manners, but this one—from author and activist (among other notable things) Bryant H McGill—is simple and clear:

 Good manners are appreciated as much as bad ones are abhorred. 

Author: tylerus

I'm primarily a writer of fiction and blog posts, and a sometimes editor and proofreader of books, manuals, and film/television scripts. Fact-checking and researching, organizing and coordinating are skills and joys (I enjoy playing detective and developing structure). My fiction audience: lovers of female-sleuth mysteries. My genres of preference: mysteries (needless to say), women’s fiction, informative and helpful “affirmative” non-fiction. So-o, here I am, staring up a new blog for aspiring and established e-Book writers. The plan: to share the (long) journey of getting to this stage, and share "learnings" and "teachings". There's a lot I hope to accomplish with this blog, but it may be a while before that happens as there's a lot on the ol' plate - taking care of Mom, working full-time, and attempting to get another book in the Triple Threat Investigation Agency series written (never mind blog postings and other writing projects). It's very challenging and it's all good. As I like to say: teeny focused baby steps are just as effective as long forceful strides. It may take a little longer, but we will get there. View all posts by tylerus