Random shit and thoughts on Goodreads changes

I know I’ve been kinda quiet lately on the blog, but I’ve actually been quiet everywhere. I stopped using Facebook a while back since it didn’t feel very productive, and I haven’t felt like promoting much on Twitter either. I’m paying for that silence with really low sales, but I can’t work up the energy or the drive to get back to the “buy my book” routine. I really hope I can find my motivation once I get some new books out, but that might take a while . I’ve got a list of books I need to edit, and some of those include books I already published.

I’m having a lot of problems with fatigue, and I often drop for three hour naps in the middle of each day. It takes me an hour or two after waking up to get productive again, so I have to use the time I have wisely. Writing a blog post means spending a few hours on editing, and a lot of what bugs me is covered by other bloggers with bigger audiences who make their points more succinctly than I could. So I haven’t been doing as much ranting or rambling because I prefer to invest my energy into my creative writing instead.

The project I’m devoting my time to lately is revising the Alice the Wolf series. It’s a bit frustrating because I’ll feel like I’ve got the first couple of books up to a semi-complete state, meaning they’re ready for beta reading, and then I’ll find something in the third book and go “Wait, I need to fix that in the first book.” So I type more notes on the first pages of books one and two, and I’ll go back through them again and again. After I finish this refining process, I can start looking for beta readers and move on to editing the other stuff in my queue. Then maybe I can get around to releasing new stuff. At the rate I’m working, this might not happen until after the start of 2014.

Moving on, we got a kitten. Stella is a striped tabby with grey and black markings, and she’s slightly psychotic. I’m sporting a few hundred new holes because of her antics, and every day, she helps me find God. Usually by screaming “Augh-Goddamnit!” She’s a cute ball of fluff, and I love her, really. But sometimes I find myself fantasizing about giving her a permanent swirly in the toilet.

Which is funny because even though she’s a demon in the house, I’ve been able to put her in a harness and walk her outside on a leash without her going all schizzoid. It’s apparently very rare for a cat to walk on a leash, and people constantly stop to ask if she tolerates leash training, or if she gets along with Toffi. They stop to pet her, and then we talk. I suppose this is good in one way, in that I’m finally getting some regular practice for talking in Italian. I’m not always able to say what I’m thinking though, and it’s very strange being so full of words, but trying to cram them down into a smaller vocabulary.

Last night I complained to hubby how everyone insits that their language is very easy to grasp, and it’s only the other languages that are hard. People who make that claim forget about their parents reading them picture books to give them their first words. They forget about all those spelling tests they flunked, all those grammar and reading classes they hated. They forget it took them some sixteen to eighteen years to get a full appreciation for the rules of their language, and so they lose empathy for someone coming to the language with only a limited vocabulary and zero understanding of the rules of grammar. I’m not saying English is easier than Italian to learn, because English is a pain in the ass to learn. But I’m sick of my friends here asking me why I still can’t talk in full sentences. With one friend, I’ve begun pointing out that she’d meant to learn English for the entire time I’ve been here, and she hasn’t done it yet either. It’s a sore spot, is what I’m saying.

I’m trying to read more in Italian lately, and this too is a very humbling experience. I read aloud, and hubby corrects my pronunciation. It’s a very slow process for now, and I stumble over words all the time. One of my constant complaints is that it took Bart Simpson two month to learn French by listening to people speak during his exchange program visit, and I’ve been in Italy for nine years and barely know how to read or speak the language. But I’m determined to keep at this reading habit, so maybe 2014 will finally be the year that I become bilingual.

One thing that I’m finding is helping is to read books I’ve already finished in English and know I like. So I’m not going to abandon the book because I don’t like the story, and it’s just a slower process trying to sort out new words. Currently I’m reading Lasciami Etrare, or Let the Right One In. After this, I plan on buying the Italian versions of Twilight, Generation Dead, and Shiver. And maybe after I’ve got a better grasp of grammar and Italian idioms, maybe I’ll practice my translation skills using my back catalog.

Then I can be ignored in two languages. (Ba-dum-pish.)

So, the last thing I want to bring up is, after Amazon bought Goodreads, they’ve apparently made the decision to start moderating the site by erasing reviews AND bookshelves that focus on author behavior instead of on the books. So people can’t shelve an author under “Totally a bigot”, “Writes about abusive relationships”, or “Deserves to be raped in prison.” As usual, people are screaming censorship because they can’t say whatever they want on a corporate hosted web site. Because freedom of speech is being able to say whatever you want, wherever you want, however you want, without anyone questioning you or moderating your shit. (Unless you’re in any minority, in which case, you should watch your tone.)

The thing is, people act like there’s no easy way to tell their friends how they feel about an author without these Goodreads reviews or bookshelf titles. That’s some myopic bullshit, people. You can go to Facebook and make a note about authors you don’t like, and you can promote that note on every other social network including Goodreads by attaching the link to a status update. You can open a YouTube account and get a cheap webcam to promote your hate of certain authors and their views, or you can get a free WordPress blog and make blog posts on the authors you hate. If you want to say an author you’ve never read and hasn’t even been published should be raped in prison on your blog, there’s a 99.9% chance that post won’t be erased. (It’s still hate speech, and shock of shocks, most terms of service specifically prohibit this.)

I also find it hypocritical that you’ll bitch and moan about a controversial book and work to get it pulled from a bookstore like Amazon so no one can read it, and that’s fair. You claim it’s not really censorship when you get books banned because the “store can stock the books it wants.” But if your opinion on an author is being pulled from a service run by the same store, suddenly that’s censorship and it’s tyrannical abuse of your freedom of speech. No, it’s really not, and if you want someplace to complain, you can always get a free blog or a vlog and go at it. If an idiot like me can set up a blog and a YouTube account, it can’t be that hard, can it?

Since I’m on the topic, this means that when you review a book on Goodreads, you have to talk about the book and why you hated it. You can’t talk about the author’s behavior and then conclude, “And that’s why I won’t read this book.” Cause if you do that, it’s going to get erased for not being relevant. You want to claim that’s unfair to you? No, it’s not, and you’re just expressing outrage for having your entitled opinion erased from a place where it doesn’t belong.

Besides that, if you haven’t read a book, why are you leaving a review for it? You don’t like Becca Fitzpatrick or Cassandra Clare? Fine, go rant away in a blog post about it. But when you write a review about the author in the space meant for reviews of their work, you’re failing to tell other readers what’s wrong with the work itself. The thing is, you’re always free to rip apart these books based on your standards. Hell, just go look at my Goodreads review of The Hunger Games, or my more recent review for Witch Way to Turn. I ripped those books apart without saying anything about the author. My reviews will stay up because even if they’re mean, they’re at least relevant to the material I’m reviewing.

When you go to the entry for Ender’s Game and write a two-page screed about Card’s homophobia, you’re not adding to the discussion. Really, from the reviews I’ve seen, there’s plenty to criticize in the work itself without attacking Card for his bass-ackward social views. If you want to complain about Card’s books, write a review. If you want to bitch about his support of NOM, make a blog and fire away. But don’t be surprised when a site dedicated to book reviews deletes your irrelevant ranting because it has nothing to do with the book you’re attacking. That’s not censorship. It’s called moderation, and it’s about goddamned time that Goodreads learned what that word means.