Reanalyzing Goodreads

Ultimately, I’m always thankful for the hardtimes. The negative reviews on my songs got me to refocus on what my vision was when I first started writing lyrics.

And recent events, of hitting a brick wall with finding reviews and an audience, have made me re-evaluate my career. I was making a lot of decisions based on what I “should” be doing. And “should” means “what society says you have to do.” And may be it’s true. But in reality, most people do not succeed in any particular endeavor, rules be worshipped or rule be damned.

On a high of a embarking on a new venture, I spread my social wings. But as in college, I got over it and was ready to return to the cocoon. So I’ve pruned back and refocused on the one or two thiings I liked to establish my online presence: facebook and blogging. They are relatively controlled cultures that are open to those interested and shut the rest out.

I joined Goodreads initially for my own purposes. Since university, I kind of miss not writing research papers, but I would never write one just for the hell of it. But Goodreads at least served as a reading journal, a place to jot down my ideas of a book upon finishing. I never cared about the groups or other reviews or even meeting people. My only friends were from people who were from facebook, and I never read the feed.

Unfortunately, becoming an author has ruined Goodreads. Having my own work there, checking for reviews and ratings, haunting forums, and constantly seeing my book on my dashboard, has taken me away from my joy and intoa place I didn’t want to be. I wanted to focus on MY craft and MY stories, not on self promotion and being constantly faced with the tastes of a status quo I never fit in with before.

Being a writer is odd in that way, especially when your sensibilities is not in line with others. You want readers, but when you’ve never met anyone who reads like you (a bit of hyperbole but I’ll keep it moving) then how do you find readers. Writers write what they want to read. Some want to read what everyone else reads so they write what others want to read and prosper. But when you were always a minority among readers, why would you be anything more than a minority among writers? Unless, there really are untapped potential pools of readers that can be coalesced, manifested into a readership. I think that’s my experiment.

As I read my goodreads reviews though I didn’t like quite a few of them. Goodreads may have been my reading journal; yet there are quite a few qualitative reviews. Even I couldn’t help but conform to the good/bad reviews I don’t like. I am a close reader. I find books I love, and zero in on them. But with Goodreads, books I would have normally moved on from, I took the time critique.

When I do negative critiquing it’s usually along a political line, assessing the portrayals of minorities. I am okay with that. It’s necessary at this time in our cultural, when so many heterosexual white people are finally trying to incorporate diversity, to bring some attention to how they do it (and how they do it reveals unconscious beliefs).

So Goodreads was not that private utopia I thought it was. Even with no interaction, it’s culture seeped in. My reviews are written selfconsciously, I am aware how the general audience feels about the book and I frame response as a reaction. For example:

“Trollope is not the plotter that Dickens is; the strength is the characterization. At times the characters rehashing their central conflict may seem redundant, but I found Trollope revealed slight psychological shifts each time.”

The first sentence isn’t even my opinion. It what I’ve generally picked up on from reading reviews. The second sentence is also what I’ve picked up on from others and only the second full clause actually gets to how I feel.

1) Trollope is not the plotter that Dickens is;

2) the strength is the characterization.

3) At times the characters rehashing their central conflict may seem but,

4) I found Trollope revealed slight psychological shifts each time.

Only one of those four ideas is mine, and it’s the last one. While I was reading I noticed the shifts, locked into the world of my mind and the text. But once the novel was over, I began to negotiate my ideas with society’s. If this happens with reading, then I can only imagine how this has played out with larger concerns *cough cough* my writing career.

Actually, I think I’m relatively immune when it comes to writing. With my reading, society only came creeping in when the reading was over. It’s the same with my writing. I write in joy, inspired. But once I’m done, society’s tastes, beliefs, and standards overwhelm me. Will people accept the gay characters? Should I warn them that they are there? No. I shouldn’t have to warn people. That’s what’s wrong with the world.

So slowly, I’m finding my way back to myself. I got lost in the zeitgeist of hope (not the first time). The opportunity self-publishing presented after the failure of going the agency route made me dive head first into a culture without evaluating my goals, my vision for my life. If I’m going to fail, then it might as well as be on my terms. I’m never going to write about some doe eyed white girl struggling to find love with a brooding white boy in the ruins of the Statue of Liberty, and if I do, then I’m gone. I may be rich, but I would be numb, void of any feeling or need for feeling fulfillment. Self-fulfillment for an artist is non-negotiable. You have to be proud of your art AND see your at thrive. If one of those elements is missing, you’re miserable. If you’re rich from works that resemble those you can’t stand, you suffer in quiet. No one wants to hear the writer their jealous of complain.

So how do I get back to being the reader I want to be, the reader I was? Can I write about my reading without falling into the “customer review” mode? I shall find out. But first, I’m getting off Goodreads. So far this blog has been a good “private” place, I’ll try here. I’ve also stopped promoting my twitter. I have my website and my blog and my facebook. Three sources that are relatively filtered. People can’t/won’t just randomly tell me they don’t like me or my work.It’ll give me an honest assessment of who my true readership is. Thankfully, I got nothing out of Goodreads as a self-promotor, so it’s not like I’m missing out on a great business opportunity. I am no longer engaged by the site; I don’t need the site. As a reader and writer, I can move on. Win/win. And it’s been a while since I had any kind of win.

 

UPDATE: August 25, 2013

So I’ve re-engaged Goodreads, not as a reader, but as a writer. I really don’t check my reviews but have found value in the indie writing groups and book giveaways. Also, maintaining an author profile allows me to make sure my books are properly grouped.