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literaticat · 3 months

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As an agent, how do you recommend authors handle review spaces? Most writers are also readers, but I understand it's probably looked down upon to go around giving 2-3 star reviews to who are essentially your colleagues. I enjoy having the data to look back on of my reads, but as I plan to be published in the future, I'm wondering if I need to make this private and find a private system.

A bit more broadly than your ask: In my personal opinion, writers may be readers, but reviewing spaces such as GoodReads, etc, are not for them. I would strongly suggest that for mental health purposes, authors not only NOT EVER go on GoodReads, but also block it from their computer like it is a naughty website. NSFW BABE. Don't look up your own reviews, don't look up your friend's reviews, for the LOVE OF GOD don't RESPOND to any reviews of your books or your friend's books you happen to see, and unless you have something glowing to say about a book that will uplift the author, for Pete's sake keep it to yourself. If you have potentially snarky things to say about a book or author, journal about it. Text it to the group chat. But don't post it.

As for your more specific ask: I totally understand wanting to keep book-reading data -- I do! I use the Reading List app, which is private. StoryGraph I just got but it feels like a nice interface, I'll be playing around with it, and I'd happily add books I'm reading, my TBR, etc -- but I would either keep my account private to whatever extent is possible, or I just wouldn't rate the books on that. Other people use cool personal spreadsheets, or cool notebooks. This is MY data -- I'm not keeping it to impress or inform anyone else, so why would it need to be public?

When I find books that I particularly adore, I'm delighted to post about them on socials, but I don't need or want to talk smack about books publicly, that would be totally inappropriate coming from me, and since I know and work with SO MANY editors, other agents, authors, etc -- There's pretty much NO WAY I could get away with that without inadvertently insulting somebody. And while you may be "aspiring" now -- the longer you stay in publishing spaces, the more people YOU will know and meet, too.

TRUE STORY from just this week: I was at a Little Free Library and found an old Sweet Valley High book - BEWARE THE WOLFMAN, #106. It has a hilarious jacket and cover copy, I had no idea that the Wakefield twins went through a paranormal "American Werewolf In London" era, I was obviously obsessed and posted about it on Facebook, with a pic of the front and back of the jacket. Now, this is a book that is WELL out of print, it was published when I was in high school thirty years ago, it was a friends only post and I'm not friends with the author, like, literally who would I be insulting if I made fun of this book? Oh -- well potentially my friend Dan, who chimed in immediately to say that he in fact wrote the funny jacket copy. My friend Elise, who is an agent now, but was Dan's boss in 1994 and in charge of these books. OH ALSO, I am friends with the publisher. Ahahahah OK! Yay! Luckily it truly is a bonkers book and they know that so it was all in good fun and haha teehee, but like -- it could have been WAY worse!

ANYwhoo, you asked what I think, that's what I think. This is just how I approach it. "As an agent" I would never tell my authors what they can or can't do with their lives - but this is MY philosophy: we're all here to SELL books, not bash them, so if you don't have anything nice to say, keep it to yourself, because believe me when I say, it's extremely upsetting for all parties when you give a book a shitty review and then are seated next to the author at a publisher dinner later. TRUST ME, I KNOW.

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mcalhenwrites · 4 months

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Close enough to 2024 to ramble about this year and the coming one. I have goals.

Writing goals are first and foremost. Those will be the main focus of the year. It's my life and my career after all. If I couldn't find time for writing, I really wouldn't care about the rest. I love writing too much to want to do anything else more than that. XD - Publish Geckos, Automata. If it sells, that'd be great. I'm beginning to think it won't. Publishing it anyway, never shutting up about it, gonna keep spamming it until my followers either interact or just leave. - Tweaking the ending of That's... Not a Cat. Polishing cover. Putting it out there as an ebook. - Rewriting Stargazers' Hill. The thing I said I wouldn't do, but I have ideas on how to fix it, and I badly want to stay with those stupid characters even longer. (I get way too attached. My worst traits as an author, maybe? Don't care, I do what I want. :P ) I can't predict the rest because I don't trust my muses, but I suppose I'm going to work on a bunch of other things, from dragon universe stories to other things I've started. New stories are springing up, and I need to water them~ Really excited about developing Hervey/Algernon, but I think that one needs to steep a bit. :) I'm going to also at least finish one crocheted dragon. Probably Willow. Or Tessa's human form. Will post with writing so you can't have crochet without my writing content attached, bc honestly fuck all the pain crochet brings me. :) (Though I do want to finish my KHUX stained glass blanket, which I probably won't post when I'm done, bc I don't post my non-writing-related crochet 99% of the time. I just tell people I don't crochet so they stop asking for free patterns/gifts/tutorials/etc. So yeah. Don't crochet around here, fuck that shit.) Anyway. :) Money isn't great, so I probably won't play too many games, but I will be playing MISSING LINK when it comes out since it's F2P mobage (which is... ugh, but my favorite part of KH lore has been on the mobile games of all things). And Fantasy Life i, I saved already for that. ;A; This year, I did play some great games! Mostly on my switch. To no one's surprise, RF4 Special is here. Favorite game of all time. Harvestella is a rare treat, highly recommend. :D

And onto reading goals... thinking 90 books for my 2024 goal! My books this year are at 130 currently, and probably won't get much higher if at all unless I finish my re-read of Chobits, but here's that list:

Some of these are re-reads, many are not. Quite a few indie books, quite a bit of manga/comics in there... I re-read Loveless after deleting that I read it on Goodreads due to the controversy, but I have thoughts about how it explores abuse and think it's a really intriguing series for that matter alone. (It also has beautiful art and is taboo as hell, but you can find the block button if you need it, can't you? <3 ) Many amazing reads this year, hoping to read more from several of these authors! And some I realllllly love and clearly will continue to read (Yuhki Kamatani, Rin Chupeco, Nghi Vo, etc.) This isn't including all I read on AO3. Which is quite a bit.

#mcalhen personal

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liapher · 2 years

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1, 8, 19 & 20 for the book ask game if you want :)

thank youuuu :)

book you’ve reread the most times?

there are a couple book series i reread a lot as a child/teen (ages 6-9: various enid blyton books my parents had read when they were children, ages 8-11: cornelia funke's wilde hühner books, ages 10-16: the harry potter series), and since then i've only been occasionally rereading books. i just checked my goodreads and apparently there isn't even a single book that i read twice between 2015 and 2022??? (or maybe there's something weird going on with the way gr handles different editions of the same books?)

8. what is the first book you remember reading yourself?

the famous five books! (side note that searching for papers on translations + localizations of enid blyton books is pretty interesting---different translations adjust the setting in different ways and also deal with the xenophobia/racism/sexism in rather different ways)

19. most disliked popular books?

hmm hard to say since i usually don't pick up books i think i won't like / don't finish reading books i dislike. i think the most popular book among my goodreads 2 star ratings* is mr penumbra's 24 hour bookstore which i read in 2017 and found thoroughly underwhelming, but i keep seeing it in prominent spots at bookstores (*insert disclaimer on how star ratings for books are suboptimal anyway, and how many of my years-old ratings are entirely puzzling now to me, etc etc)

20. what are things you look for in a book?

i tend to specifically look for books that have somewhat experimental writing styles / tell stories in uncommon ways / do interesting things with the form of the book, but i can't read a lot of those kinds of stories in a row. i also really enjoy novels that add just a dash of linguistics (instant way to elevate your scifi story). my two favourite storygraph/goodreads shelves are 'experiments in style' and 'linguistically interesting' and every few months i try to find more books that fit either of these criteria

but more generally, i want prose that draws you in, i want stories where you know the author trusts their readers to read between the lines a bit and/or where crucial information is only revealed to you very slowly and you gotta work for it, i want interesting character studies and interactions. but you know sometimes you just want a fun 'no thoughts head empty' story and anything goes

#replies #anon

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maddie-grove · 3 years

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Little Book Review: In the Dream House

Author: Carmen Maria Machado.

Publication Date: 2019.

Genre: Nonfiction (memoir).

Premise: In a non-linear, multi-layered memoir, Machado tells the story of how she was in a relationship with another woman who abused her; she also tells the story of telling that story. She examines the topic through dozens of different lenses, such as folktale taxonomy, queer villainy in the movies, and (perhaps most upsettingly) a choose-your-own adventure novel.

Thoughts: After Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel and The Other Black Girl, this was the third book I read this summer that tackled the trauma of being betrayed by another woman who should have your back. It's also the best of the three. It has the most depth and artistic control, and--strange as it might sound--it's also the most fun. The pop culture references, the creative footnotes, and the multiple introductions do a lot of serious work: exploring the complicated impact of gay stereotypes in the media, eliciting unexpected emotional reactions from the reader, illustrating the difficulty of writing about a little-understood traumatic experience, etc. Yet they're also playful, even funny at times. Machado's love of language and narrative comes through clearly, and of course I appreciate any author who can find the weird, whistling-in-the-dark humor in an awful situation.

I'd read a couple of Machado's short stories before, I want to say at The Toast or The Hairpin or The Awl, and what I like best about her writing style is how well she captures the loneliness of the various stages of childhood and young adulthood. In the Dream House made me think of reading Goosebumps alone on the bus home from elementary school, or wandering through the empty halls of the old office building where I had my first job, or compulsively watching way too much SVU in my first apartment. I've never been in an abusive relationship, but Machado also vividly portrays the particular loneliness of living with someone who can't be trusted to treat you decently, and how that chips away at your sense of self.

Machado also illustrates something really painful that often goes along with traumatic experiences: the tendency to audit your entire life before the trauma happened to look for an explanation of why it happened to you. I've never been able to figure out if this is self-victim-blaming, or an attempt at self-protection, or superstition, or what, but I appreciate Machado describing it so thoroughly.

Hot Goodreads Take: Many of this book's retractors complain that it's "pretentious," and they're entitled to their opinion, but they do realize that people can be genuinely interested in Derrida or whatever, right? It's not necessarily showing off. Plus, none of these reviewers seem unintelligent; they could get into philosophy if they liked. There are fun YouTube videos about it and everything. I also had to laugh at the reviewer who said, "If Raymond Carver didn’t need [fancy writing techniques] you don’t either." I appreciate Raymond Carver, I do, but it took some work to get there from my initial reaction as a college freshman, which was a firm, "More like Raymond Cardboard, lol." If I can learn to appreciate Carver's oatmeal-like prose, reviewer, you can learn to see the merits of "fancy writing."

#little book review #in the dream house #carmen maria machado #abuse #like i'm not into math #and barring a miracle i'll never be good enough at it to make money off it #but i could learn more about it if i chose #and math people aren't being mean to me by liking math

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