The one where I try not to rant... much.

Lately I've been trying to stay away from Goodreads. Why? Because I seem to be getting a lot of reviews that, positive or slightly less so, miss the story's point completely. Whichever story it is, whatever kind of review it is, I find myself going "did you actually READ the book?" or "wasn't that obvious?" way, WAY too often.

One of my pet peeves is people who read my shifter book, Chuffed, and compare it to the kind of books I talked about in my blog post at Sue's blog. Or when they just don't seem to read the book carefully or slowly enough and then complain about things they missed because they really didn't see them, I guess?

For example, I've had one or two complaints about the shifters in Chuffed going to have their blood tested to be able to bareback. The complaint is that they don't go to the hospital for other reasons, but they do for this? Like it's an OUTRAGE for this to happen. My question to these readers is, where in the book does it say they can't go to a hospital/clinic to have their blood drawn? It's made very clear--if you read the book, that is--that they won't go to a hospital when they're in serious pain because that causes an involuntary shift and they need to stay hidden from the human eyes. Getting your blood drawn wouldn't cause this...?

Or maybe they think that there's something in the blood that would expose the shifters somehow? This is not even talked about in the book, but now that I'm talking about it here, no. There's not a thing in their blood that someone could see and think odd while taking a standard STD-test.

Another thing that comes to mind is about Thank My Lucky Scars, my novella about a bike messenger and a porn star who fall in love. The complaint about this story seems to be that it's ridiculous/stupid/pretentious/hypocritical/whatever that while the guys don't have sex, the porn star goes and has sex on the job.

Now, I don't understand this at all. Honestly. Let's say you're in a tentative relationship with someone who doesn't drink wine. Your job, however, is wine tasting. That's all you do all day every day, taste wines. Because your romantic interest doesn't drink wine, do you stop doing your job?

I know it's not the same, sex and wine are hardly the same (though some say both can be near religious experiences...). My point here is that IT IS A JOB. Do you stop doing your job for your lover who, by the way, understands the nature of your job completely?

Or maybe these people who complain about this aspect of the story don't understand porn? Don't approve of it? Or just find porn dirty and disgusting, unless they're watching it when it's SUPER HOT. But god damn it if those guys have a real life outside their jobs! That's just DISGUSTING!

Okay. I think I'm done ranting now. ^^

There are several other things I don't understand about some reviews or random comments I see about some of my stories, but then again, that won't prevent me from writing other things people won't approve of or understand. In some ways, writing a completely understandable book and trying to see how many people don't actually care to read it carefully enough is... fun. In some masoctistic way, at least.

Another pet peeve? When people round down their .5 ratings on Goodreads. That's just mean, really. But that's a whole other rant for some other time.

(PS. There will be a contest at some point soon, you can win a paperback of Technically Dead and whatnot... Keep your eye on this blog and my Facebook and Twitter too. Just remember I'm usually not that SFW with my Twitter links... ;))

Welcome!

So, here I am, trying to write my first blog post...

In the last year and a half I've gone from not having written a word in a few years into reading fan fiction, writing it to get a hang of writing once again and then quitting the fan fiction in favor of writing my own, original fiction.

I learned to write very early, before I went to school and while others were learning to read and write, I came up with stories of my own or read, read and then read some more.

Reading...I never really stopped. Writing, I did stop temporarily but now that I got the hang of it again I realized this is what I want to do. This is who I am. A writer.

Feels so strange, yet good, to say it out loud or to type it here, as it might be.

Right now I'm waiting to hear from a publisher I sent something for an Anthology call. There are countless stories in my head, some of them have been written, most not and a few are being worked on as we speak. I'm hoping there will be good news sometime soon. We'll see.