book « Robin Writes

Yeah, yeah. Late again. Story of my life.

A group of us went camping this past weekend—and no, I’m NOT still recovering, thankyouverymuch—and we had a blast!

We set up camp on Friday afternoon; slight glitch with a stuck tailgate on the truck, but nothing we couldn’t work around. Setting up the tent in 25 mph winds was interesting. Then the RV arrived, for the “city folk.”

Had a great dinner: campfire stew, cornbread, and Dutch oven blueberry pie. And beer. Of course. Temps in the 60s, in spite of that wind . . .

Saturday morning, the temp had dropped to 37. Hey, I might be roughing it, but I still had my IPhone! So I set up my little stove to start the coffee water while I built up the fire, watching the sunrise. Beautiful! It warmed up pretty quickly, but I was still thinking I should have worn those long johns to bed . . . and I missed sleeping with the lid off. Er, the fly on the tent. Lid. Fly. Whatever.

Since we couldn’t decide between hashbrowns and bacon or oatmeal and bacon, we cooked both. Oatmeal—with dried cherries—was done first. Second breakfast, hashbrowns and bacon. And then the “city folk” wandered over to the fire and made breakfast burritos!

Mostly we hung out around the fire, or close by, played with a parachute—and turned it into a drinking game because, hey, we could! So much for hiking, whiffle ball, Frisbee, etc. But it was great just being outside under all the trees . . .

Dutch oven roast with all the trimmings for dinner—and a pizza for an afternoon snack—and a late-ish night with friends around the fire. AWESOME!

The wind had died down and the temps stayed in the mid-50s until about 3:00 a.m. Until.

Good thing I wore the long johns.

At 3:00 a.m. I woke up to 30 degrees and howling winds, about 35 mph. Those lovely trees were swaying and bending—which I thankfully didn’t notice until I finally got up around 4:00 a.m. And yes, I was freezing. And yes, I climbed into my truck and ran the heat for about ten minutes. Don’t judge me!

In between warm-ups, I hauled stuff from my tent to the truck. VERY thankful we’d pre-loaded the kitchen and cooking stuff the night before! Finally, around 6:00 or so when it was light enough to see, I decided to de-tent.

And it started sleeting.

Lovely.

My point?

I do not like the cold. Not. Like.

So, once again, I’m really hoping that SHTF doesn’t hit until say, spring. Or early summer. Or something like that. Of course, then I’ll be griping about the heat . . .

My second point, the main one even, is that you MUST be prepared. Layers. Blankets. Shelter. Don’t skimp on any of these. You’ll not only be miserable, but cold can wear you out and use up all your energy. Don’t take that chance.

Yep, as a writer—or a human being—we’re all called upon at times to deal with the pettiness of daily life. Sometimes, that can seem ever present, ever constant, and PUBLIC. The truth is that it’s really none of those things.

A couple weeks ago, I received an email from that strange site, Goodreads. The one that is supposed to be about readers sharing their opinions of books but has, sadly, become a huge advertisement. I was pretty excited a couple years ago, when I finally created an account there. But then . . .

First, Goodreads allowed someone who had NOT read my first book, Reduced, to rate and review it. It was pretty obvious that she hadn’t read the book, and so I complained; I was positive this was someone who had been bashing me personally, on and off, for a few weeks before the book was released.

Goodreads removed the review, but not the rating. I complained a second time when someone marked a book as having one star AND as on his or her “to read” shelf. How can you rate a book if you haven’t read it? Again. Goodreads finally got back to me and said that some members “rated” books as to how BADLY they wanted to read them. Um, okay. Whatever.

Once, I had “librarian” status there; then it disappeared. Goodreads never could tell me why, they just kept saying to re-apply; never heard anything else.

And every time I log on, I have at least 25 invites to “events” in which I have zero interest. Online “events.” Ugh.

So, not a fan.

Back to the email, and the point of this whole thing: Goodreads said that I had to “disclose” that I had published some books, according to the FCC, any time I rated or reviewed them. I had not done so. My bad. If anyone wanted to know WHO I was, they could click on my name and go right to my profile. It says there, in plain English, that I own Rocking Horse Publishing. Duh.

[I could also add a comment about how the US Government concerning itself with book reviews is just plain ridiculous, but that’s probably better left for another day and another topic.]

So this morning I have a message from an author about an anonymous blog post talking smack about RHP and the author and me. It was related to this “disclosure” mess, but led back to a review on Goodreads that was POSTED OVER A YEAR AGO.

The reviewer had said there were “errors.” I asked if she could send me a list, so they could be fixed. Truthfully, there were a few, but mostly it was formatting. The problem was that she didn’t SEND me a list, but added her response to the review thread itself. I was astounded, and pointed out, nicely, that I had expected a PM.

Here’s where it gets weird: someone else recently added to that year-old thread and said I shouldn’t have complained. Complained? I was just surprised that the reviewer had posted publicly instead of PMing me. And again, A YEAR AGO. I’d forgotten all about it.

And THEN—someone anonymously blogged about the thread. What? Zip back up to my title: Idiocy.

Here’s the thing: give it all five minutes of your time and move on. Consider the source—in this case, anonymity, a janky website, and something that happened A YEAR AGO. In Internet time, folks, that’s like a decade.

Oh, and Goodreads? If someone wants to know who I am, tell them to click my name. Look me up on Facebook, or Google, or Twitter, or wherever. And anonymous bloggers? Get a grip; you’re really not that important. Especially when you’re “anonymous,” your Goodreads profile is “private,” and you have nothing better to do than troll around, looking for something to cause trouble.

Why, then, am I writing about you? To show everyone how ridiculous you really are. And to laugh at you. Yes, I said that. And I’ll stand by it. We used to have a word for you, but I’m sure it’s no longer PC to use it: shit-disturber.

Writers, there are a lot of these folks hanging out online—I suspect they used to hang out in their mothers’ basements before the Internet came along. Now we have to deal with them. Yay.