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?

I'm Still Here and You're Still Here. You Know What That Means....

Dance-Off!

Okay, not really.  It just sounded exciting.  I'm still in my pajamas weighing the pros and cons of doing anything else besides nursing my current mug o' joe.  So far, nothing has been so important that I've moved.

The ringing in of 2013 was anti-climactic.  Some tummy issue sidelined me from my family's annual karaoke/card game party, so I curled up in bed with my laptop, a tall glass of water (I'm a lush), and a couple of Twilight movies I haven't seen in ages but try to avoid watching when Mr. Ohboy is around.  My husband is my biggest fan and would sit through a Twilight marathon if I begged him to--and secretly, he would like it just a little bit.  That's the kind of thing he holds over my head, though.  Eventually I pay a price for such injustices to his manhood.

But, getting back to New Year's Eve...  The house was mine.  Empty.  Friends, I have never lived alone.  Never.  Maybe someday my own voice will echo back to me and I will miss the sheer chaos.  For now, the solitude is as close as I will come to straight-up magic.  My family's party could have gone for a week solid, and it would have been the next best thing to laying on a beach somewhere with a fruity drink in my hand.  Sadly, the boys returned at about 11:30p.m., and we flipped on the t.v. ten minutes before midnight only to see Carson Daly and his female co-host holding a conversation they wouldn't shut up about until 10 seconds before midnight.  Horrible--I want Dick Clark back.

Anyway...

Uninterrupted, I managed to plunk out a little over 1900 words, reaching my re-re-revised goal of 38k by the end of 2012.  Shortly after the ball dropped, bringing in 2012, I was snuggled up with my laptop.  A year later, I am in the same place, same characters, different story.  My eyes opened this morning, and my first thoughts were, "Now what happens with my characters?"

Well, no.  My first thoughts were, "Coffee.  Where's my coffee?"  But, the two kind of go hand-in-hand, so it's almost the same thing.  The point is, clearly I am where I am supposed to be.

The end of the world didn't happen, not yet, unless we're already smack dab in the middle of the zombie apocalypse and we just haven't noticed.  So what are you going to do to bring yourself to the place you want to be?  I'm not talking resolutions, because there is something about a resolution that screams "You know I'm too hard.  Quit already."  It has to be something else--something you go for with fire, because failing isn't an option if you ever want things to change for the better.      

Maybe you're stuck on a big picture, when focusing on a single baby step is enough to begin.  Every journey starts with a single footstep... or keystroke... or glass of water.  Take that single footstep every day and by this time next year, you're at least 365 paces closer.  But I bet you're closer than that because momentum in one area of our lives tends to push us to take a step or two (maybe more!) along the way.

So tell me what your journey is, and one baby step you'd like to take to get there.  Can I help you, even if it's just cheering from the sidelines as you baby-step your way through a year?

Social Interaction for Dummies

Something strange has happened to me.  I have become content being by myself in social situations.  If I am sitting alone somewhere, staring at the ceiling, please don't feel bad for me.  It's probably the most peace and quiet I've had in days.  In fact, if you come talk to me out of pity because I look lonely, you probably ruined the zen of the moment.  Thanks for that.

Deep inside there is a comedian... I enjoyed him for lunch with some fava beans and a nice chianti.  Just kidding.  But, really, I enjoy making people laugh.  I will beat every ounce of life out of a joke, and then give it one more really good  swat because, heck, I can.  That's my personality, love it or hate it.  Lately, though, I have been more than happy to be a fly on the wall, listening and observing vs. working the crowd.

If I'm being truthful, I've never felt like working the crowd.  I've always entertained others out of necessity and, eventually, force of habit.  When it all boils down to it, I'm much too slow to craft my speech, and I hate how little dexterity there is with the words that come from my lips.  In a perfect world I would want to live life with cue cards with the option of ad-libbing a particularly witty one-liner whenever the opportunity arises.  Maybe I missed my calling--maybe I should have been a sitcom actress.  Even then, I probably would have been cast as the quirky, awkward neighbor or the harried mother screaming at her kids in the middle of the supermarket....  An extra.

I don't want to worry about being myself, socially clumsy as I am, or about giving myself a free pass to get lost in thought when you think I should be doing the limbo or Macarena or something.  I don't mind if you don't mind.   If you mind, well, you've just become the topic of my next cue card.