Fifty Shades Of Frustration

I am on Twitter.  I'm not too terribly proud of it.

My motives were good.  I wanted to connect with other writers so I could stop boring my friends and family who don't really give a hoot.  Twitter seemed a logical place, with people much like myself just a hashtag away.  Or so I thought.

By searching out and following random (and not-so-random) writers and publishers and editors, I found myself eyeball-deep in self-promotion and little else of value.  Tweets like these, by the thousands, sweep through my feed:

BUY MY BOOK FOR .99, TODAY ONLY #bythewayitsucks

Mona doesn't need dignity where she's going...  VAGUE BOOK TITLE #scrubyourbrainwithlysollater

#Write your #novel in five hours but.payme20bucksfirst.com !!!!

I nearly called it quits, deciding I'd failed in ferreting out real live people on Twitter.  The best I could tell, Twitter was one big, soulless PR/Advertising dumping ground for authors and booksellers alike.  Not at all the place where tormented artists were huddled together, whining about deadlines, writer's block, and plot holes.  Something happened late last week to change that, though.  An innocent question led me to small community of writers loosely tied to NaNoWriMo, and, finally, I found hope in the whole Twitter idea that I'd been scoffing at all this time.

Until last night.  Yes, I had four whole days of Twitter happiness, and then I discovered something so..... so....  I don't have the words to describe it.

I followed a particular female author, just because.  She's no one I'd heard of before, and I didn't remember her at all until something popped up on my newsfeed last night while I was watching the Oscars.  This woman was interacting with her followers (something rare amongst authors on Twitter, with the exception of the incomparable Neil Gaiman), and I took notice.  Authors/celebrities who take the time to talk to their fans impress me--it shows me they care...  about something, at least.  Her follower complained that her website had crashed, and the author explained it always did after she released a new book "teaser".  They began talking back and forth about how wonderful and quirky the books' main characters are.  Now, I had no idea who this lady was or what she writes, but I was intrigued.

I proceeded to download a free sample of one of her books from Amazon without reading the summary.  The sample netted me 10 or so pages to read and decide whether I am interested enough to buy the entire book.  At $10, I'm already fairly certain I'm NOT interested, but I wanted to see this quirky character everyone's in love with.

It took me about five pages before I realized that this series is completely hanging onto the coattails of Fifty Shades of Grey.  (Please don't ask me if I am into Fifty Shades of Grey unless you want to hear me go off on a day-long rant....  I just....  Yeah, don't ask me about it, that's all.)

So, whatever.  I get it.  Sex sells.  A lot.  Like major best-seller a lot.  That's not really my beef here, although it's really annoying.  I'm taking a deep breath and trying--but failing--to climb down off my soapbox.

This morning I checked my Twitter account and came across this author again.  At some point, she (or one of her followers) had shared something by an individual on Twitter pretending to be the main male character of her book series.  Not that weird--I'm assuming that most fictional characters have a Twitter account maintained by some fanatic.  Maybe someday even Liam or Claire will have their own Twitter accounts, too.

What disturbed me is that this fictional character was having fairly graphic Tweetsex (is that a term?  If not, it is now) with his followers.  I mean....  What???  Y'all have no shame.  I don't want to imagine any of you doing any of that with any of that, knowwhatI'msayin'?

I'm not against romance novels.  I like it when people fall in love, in real life or in a book's life.  I've been known to drown myself in chocolate chip cookies and a trashy novel when I can't be bothered with thinking.  Trashy novels don't require thinking.  But.... some of these books are topping the charts! And I don't want to believe it for a single second.

It's discouraging to know that this is what I am up against.  That most of the readers don't care what the plot is or how utterly unbelievable a character is as long as they are drrrrty birdies.  That I will likely never see the same level of success because my main character doesn't let him x her y with a z.  Depressing, really.

I'm not yet swearing off Twitter because luckily I did find a few quality individuals along the way, and a couple of them have helped quite a deal with my novel.  However, I guess I will have to learn to be more discerning of the complete strangers I pay attention to.  I suppose that's not a bad thing to apply to most areas of my life.

And even though it's disheartening to see, I'm not going to let the Fifty Shades of the literary world get me down.  A captivating story can be created without all of that, I'm sure of it.

#rantover #amiright?