Writing thoughts for Monday

I really shouldn’t be doing this. Really should not.

At-All!

But Lawd help me, feel compelled.

Lately I've (complete newbie author) been running across tons of hateful, crass, snarky, bitchy and mostly useless (except for the lesson of what NOT to do) postings on reviews, reviewers and authors.

At one time, I would have thought book reviewers and authors was cone to ice-cream, uh…apparently not.

At least not always.

I've followed a wonderful editor (A.J.) for quite some time and have tried to implement much of what I have learned from her. One big NOT to was posting (at ANY of the social sites) rants. This is my largest obstacle yet. I'm a ranty sort and will own my fault. I do try to tone down, or walk away not posting until the next day when I can see how I still feel about whatever the rant was about.

I think reviewers, authors and MOSTLY the commenter's should consider the same.

Several times over now, I've seen a review, neither good nor bad, where the reviewer was attacked by author 'friends'. I've seen the reverse happen as well and have noted that each time…the brewing feud would have ended sooner if not for the hecklers egging it on.

The most recent I ran across, actually looked (though I don't know either party and no I will NOT name) as if the sparring were mostly in jest.

Until…the comments from followers began.

Remember the old fights at the flagpole? Even if you both showed had the crowd not been cheering for a fight, odds were you both would have walked away.

I do know this.

There is your right way and their right way.

In my humble opinion, reviews are like crits.

Be careful of your word choices, not your word count.

I've seen crits ripping a story to shreds, changing from original authors voice to that of the critters voice. I don't think that’s what a crit should be. (Remember though I'm newbie and probably talking from my ass, so?)

My idea of a crit. Did you get the story? Did it grab, pull, entice and bait you to NEEDING to turn those pages? Did you catch typos, grammar issues, or did the blue sweater in chapter two, magically turn purple in chapter three? Did you get lost, confused see far too many adverbs or ellipsis (because those who know me know ellipses are my drug of choice)

Ditto for reviews.

If you didn't like, fine. Say so. You hated the voice, or the story or the plotting. Hell, you flat fucking (did I mention I sometimes drop the f bomb? No, well I do) loathed it.

But I DO think that reviews that actually go so far as to tell someone they should never write another sentence in their life are going too far.

There are many out there that only have their dreams. That’s what makes them wake up and look forward to the day. Should that be? No. Everyone should have someone or something more than ONE thing that has them waking up each day.

Look at the headlines though. For many, apparently they don't.

Is it our job to police and protect the world?

Hell no.

But the faceless freedom of the internet cause lapses in good judgment for some. Good, smart decent people that given a computer and internet become Super Netties!

Yes, we've entered the final frontier.

So in all that hasn't crashed, frozen or bugged out, let's think about how we word things and act a bit more like we would, if we were face-to-face.

My JIMHO Monday moment.