"What Have You Learned, Dorothy?"

Back when Facebook was still relatively new and just opening up to the general population, my kids patiently explained that I was doing it wrong. I understood it to be a way to share information and to bring up ideas that I might want to talk about, so I’d post articles from a variety of sources that were intriguing to me. I’m a half-closeted introvert and have never been able to get a real handle on small talk. But give me an idea and I’ll follow it wherever it leads. In fact, sometimes I notice a trace of a trail in the metaphorical thicket and invite the idea and its creator to follow me.

I limited my FB friends to those I knew, or had been introduced to by someone I knew, or had known in the past. I also limited the number of them because how could I keep up with everything a friend posted otherwise? (“But Mom, you don’t have to read everything … it’s not like a …. Oh never mind!”). It was a way to reconnect with friends that I used to have long conversations with, and to stay in touch with college-bound offspring without hovering.

I still use FB a few times a week, despite all its flaws and issues. For now, it’s a good source of aggregated news, both personal and universal. I have friends and family in a variety of vocations, geographic locations, and across a wide spectrum of politics, culture, and philosophical and religious perspectives. The articles posted, the moments shared, and the slices of life regaled keep me happily reading. Some of the ideas might be new or unusual, but those I know who post them give them a familiar context for me.

Goodreads was different. Joining it around this time last year was a very nerve-wracking thing for me. I didn’t really know anyone here. I didn’t know the structure or the culture or even the controversies that had swirled around not long before and still had fresh wounds healing. I saw a reference to it and thought it was something that I should do to stretch myself a little. It was to quiet the lecturing voice in my head and follow an idea that had been seething along in my mind ever since I’d discovered ebooks. Those had led me to an almost limitless virtual global library with books seeming to come into creation even as I browsed along the shelves.

I knew friends who’d joined GR, judging from Facebook posts, but I didn’t want to go in that way. I wrote as a hobby and a compulsion a few years ago, but few people who know me knew that and I wanted to keep it that way. So I decided to join as a separate entity to my day-to-day world self and try to meet other readers who wrote as a hobby. I imagined a shared storytelling around the fireplace kind of place and pitched it to RFG, whom I’d met when I’d looked in vain for something like that on lulu.com. Being a sympathetic and an encouraging kind of guy, he agreed to join GR and to form a little writing readers/reading writers group with me if we couldn’t find one here.

I realized that I had to do that if I really wanted to explore the notion that the new forms of reading and writing were circling us back to the ancient and more egalitarian ways of storytelling. I had to be on both sides: that of the reader, where I felt I most belonged and felt most comfortable with, and that of the writer, who faced a lot of uncertainty and risk in putting themselves out there. So I went public, sort of. I made a public profile with books listed, but didn’t really tell anyone.

I admit that I have advantages and security that professional writers don’t. As an amateur and hobbyist, I don’t have to worry about staying competitive or earning enough to feed my family. I do have to keep it sidelined to let my real job have precedence, but I’m happy enough to do that. But I assumed the role as a GR author as well as a reader because it wouldn’t seem egalitarian and sharing of the risk of ridicule and rejection in one’s stories if I didn’t.

Looking back over my year at GR, I’ve learned a few things. One is that there’s an interest group for nearly everything already, though it may not be active at any given moment. Groups are great places to meet people with similar reading tastes and to expand one’s palate (to belabor the metaphor). But I also learned that joining too many can have a downside and what starts out as low pressure reading can suddenly be angst-generating as deadlines loom. Another thing I’ve learned is that GR lists are really terrific ways to discover books. They can make one’s To-Be-Read shelves fill up faster than one can ever hope to read them.

Sharing book discoveries and impressions with others has been particularly fun. As I suspected, the best writers I’ve met are those who read a great deal. They’re generally the most personable and supportive. I’ve made many friends after reading books, sharing my excitement about them with the authors, and then having wonderful conversations afterward about all manner of topics regarding life and literacy. I used to hesitate reading and/or reviewing a book by an author that I’ve come to be friends with because I didn’t want anyone to think I was only doing so as a friend. But now, I don’t worry about things like that. Writers are allowed to have friends. They’re allowed to read books and have opinions about them. They can disclose if they want to, or not if they don’t. The best reviews are those that give a good idea about the book itself without giving away spoilers. If they’re done well, it doesn’t matter who the reviewer was, whether it was the author’s mother, cat, best friend, or chief detractor.

It could well be that there are hucksters out there, and hawkers, and those who annoy us in other ways. It’s a sea of humanity and we’re all different with different ideas. And though I hate to generalize people, I have indeed learned that those who list very few books read but somehow have hundreds and even thousands of friends, are generally interested in “friending” merely to promote their own books. They’re not likely to be interested in discussing the works of others at that point in their lives. When I see them in discussion groups or approached with a GR friend request out of the blue, I’m sometimes tempted to say: “This is Goodreads, honey, not Goodsales. You’re not listing any books that you’re reading now. That’s like teaching a nutrition class after you’ve given up eating. Writers, whether new, established, indie or trad, should not take themselves out of the readers pool. That only reduces the number of readers in the world. I don’t think anyone wants that.” But then I remember how risky and weird it feels to be on the writer side, and just wish them well.

Reading reviews regularly is something that I’ve picked up since joining GR. I generally avoided it in the past and still prefer a little distance between reviews and my own experience of a book. I want to form my own opinions first, and then go to those of others to see things that I might have missed. So even if I decide to read a book after reading a review, I make sure it’s well down in my reading list so that I’ll forget what was said about it when I start it.

Writing reviews, on the other hand, is not so fun, at least not to me. I admire those who write them regularly, and do so with a good deal of thought and care. I’ve come to realize that if writers need to acknowledge and nurture their own reading, then readers could well claim and nurture their own role as writers, whether of reviews or comments in discussion groups. They’re putting together words in an original way to get across ideas and opinions; that surely meets the definition of writing. They should have due credit for what they express, as well as the responsibility for doing it as well as they expect those writing in other forms to.

Another thing I’ve come to understand since joining GR is why there’s such an aversion to longer works. I tend to prefer epics and comprehensive reads, and was rather amazed at the prevalence of dedicated readers who prefer shorter ones. I wondered why that was so, especially for indies, who theoretically don’t have to adhere to cookie-cutter market standards. I particularly feel annoyed when buying ebooks. Unlike print-bound versions, there are no worries about them being too heavy or creating complexities and higher cost for printing. So why was there a preference for short works for serious readers? Was everyone afraid of the world ending and not being able to finish a book started? Was there fear that they wouldn’t like it, but would feel compelled to finish? Were they too compulsive to indulge in the time-honored practice of skipping parts that didn’t interest them?

But after participating in reading challenges based on books read, and seeing that most GR groups have books that are read together for a limited amount of time, I began to understand. So, I’m going to look for a reading challenge in 2015 that’s different. It won’t be based on the quantity of books, or even the overall word count read for the year, though that might be interesting. Instead, it would be based on the number of “Minutes/Hours Spent Reading in 2015” or even a challenge listing “Ideas, Themes, and Characters Discovered in 2015” or “Settings and Worlds Explored via Reading in 2015”. And if I don’t find anything like it, maybe I’ll come up with something myself. Because the most important thing I’ve discovered in my year with Goodreads is that to try to quantify all the wonderful new genres, rediscovered works from old genres, settings and themes that crossed genres, as well as all the ideas, perspectives, and styles that I’ve come across doesn’t do them all justice.

I joined for the challenge of exploring an idea and living an experience, and have met so many people who were very pivotal for me. If reading and writing are ultimately ways of interacting with other people across space and time, then all of the words shared back and forth in books, discussion groups, private messages, and reviews have enmeshed us together in a wonderful communion. I came to this vast virtual library as a stranger and was welcomed, challenged, and encouraged. I had delightful experiences with nomads, avatars, faeries, robots, rodents, and marsupials in my reading. I even unwittingly won a very fun prize for my writing that will be treasured on my virtual mantle for years to come. I continue to meet encouraging and supportive friends as I wander among the shelves. Even if we do no more than smile and nod as we browse or glance up from a book, it makes a good experience an even better one.