CurlingFlowerSpace

I know I'm going to get some pretty sarcastic and snarky replies to this, but your book "Slammed in the Butthole By My Linear Concept of Time" had a passage in it that was really emotionally affecting and brought me completely on board with you and your work.

Specifically, it's the part where, in the midst of all the layers of the worlds you write in, you stop to address the reader directly and ask if what we're really doing is reading your books because we're laughing at you, if you're just someone for people to point at and make fun of.

And that really hit me hard, because I'd been reading your stuff and laughing to myself, thinking it was funny because it was different. But with that passage, you do something so deft: you gently take the reader by the hand and show them that you're a real person, not an art performance, and you deserve to be respected—and you always have been.

So, Dr. Tingle, I'm sorry I laughed at you. You're a writer and an artist, creating and putting out what you love for the world to see and either enjoy or criticize, and that's great. You're doing what makes you happy, and you always strive to make other people happy too. You don't judge or look down on others for their preferred pounds, even if it's not your thing, and you take a bad situation like the Hugo Awards and make it about supporting others. Everyone and anyone can be a hard buck—they just have to help prove love. That's a great message.

I tell my friends to read your books, not because they're funny or weird, but because you have a big heart and a solid philosophy on life.

Okay, because I have to have a question: do you have a favorite flower? If so, what kind?

I'm graduating from library school in December. Janel, how did you land what I can only assume is the coolest job ever? :D

And to ask a question related to archiving: is there any talk of archiving live-feed events by mimicking the pauses between posts or updates? If it's presented all at once, the reader can view it at their own pace. If they're forced to wait (like people would have been when the feed was truly live), it would add an element of suspense or tension that wouldn't be the same if it were available in one fell swoop.

I think where it would differ is that these types of large news events would be difficult to capture—questions of what truly matters and how far to condense wide-spanning events in order to make the experience feasible.

It would be interesting to see if we as a society develop archival methods for online information experiences, like being on Twitter and watching thousands of messages go past and new information slowly trickle in. So many news sites have chronological updates on developing stories, but of course they put the newest stuff at the top, so being there for each new bit isn't quite the same as if you read the latest update at the end of the day.

Is there a story behind your name being literally Ptolemy? I feel like that's a softball invitation for a retelling of a salty epic adventure.