Library Cat-a-Log

Don’t worry, I don’t always pour buckets of self-righteous complaints upon the books that I read. Sometimes I even enjoy the books that I read. (I’ll write about those, too, I have a couple in the queue that I can’t wait to talk about.) This book, however, is NOT one of those lucky few that makes my awesome list. In fact, I’ll just tell you right now: I have nothing nice to say about this book at all, I’m about to rip it to shreds, there will be spoilers, there will be smug self-assured criticism, and if I have my way, there will be blood. Ok, probably not blood. But you’ve heard the term bleed onto the page? Well, this author did not bleed onto the page. But I did. While reading it. It was so bad my eyes literally bled. Right on the page. That’s right. I said literally.

There are many reasons I hated the book. I can’t share them all, because I believe this is a storage-restricted blog. But I will sum up my loathing for these pages in one simple, always-true concept: Just because you can does NOT mean you should.

Period.

That’s it. Anybody, yes, ANYBODY can write a book. All you have to do is put enough words in order to create a length that can be considered a novel. But just because you know how to string a sentence together does not give you the right to stir up some tripe with a side of nonsense, self-publish it, and wave it in front of my face under the guise of an actual literary achievement.

Now, don’t get me wrong here- I’m all for creativity among the masses. I know and enjoy reading many, many an amateur writer who can create short stories, novellas, and novels that are both spellbinding and worth reading. (They are also, incidentally, punctuated.) Heck, I myself celebrate the NaNos and threw in my 50,000 words with the best of ‘em. I have a T-shirt that loudly proclaims my status as novelist, woo hoo! But know why you don’t see my book on the shelves? ‘Cause it sucks. That’s right, sucks. I know suck when I see it, and that bit of nonsense that I babbled onto the page wasn’t even worthy of finishing, so I didn’t. See what I did there? That’s called discernment. It is the act of exhibiting good judgment. I had it. It’s something that every professional anything should really attempt to use in their day to day activities.

So. Just because you have the ability to write a novel does not mean that you should. But even if you do go ahead and write something that you arrogantly believe to be an amazing novel, well, you still have to get it published. And if you get rejected by five publishing houses, perhaps you should, I don’t know, consider the fact that your book may not be the literary treasure that you think it is? And if you are doing all that waiting for your rejection letters, perhaps you should, I don’t know, spend your time editing your piece of junk, er, literary treasure? Heck, screw the editing, maybe you should just proofread it, eh?

Here’s a side bit: when I was a kid I used to notice typos in the books that I read. (Okay, maybe “notice” is a little too light of a word, I actually sat there with a magnifying glass and a notebook to document all the errors I found in the final printings.) I found an average of one typo per book, which I considered to be an excellent ratio. After all, I type documents that are only 20-30 pages, and I’m certain that I myself have never caught every single typo in my work. Typo per book? Perfectly acceptable.

Back to it: therefore, the first typo in this book didn’t faze me all that much. Nor did the second. After all, after about 47 references in the first 20 pages to downtown Portland, it was clear I was reading a self-published book from a local author that was being supported by the local library, which is where I picked up this gem. After the 117^th typo, however, I stopped keeping track. Yes, I was keeping track. I started making tick marks after the 10^th or 11^th because I was so blown away by how bad these things were. I’m not just talking about a random capitalization here or a semicolon instead of a colon. Those are annoying, yes, but not nearly as confusing as, say, quotation marks around entire paragraphs that weren’t actually speeches- or quotation marks that started in the middle of a sentence. (Yes, both of those happened.) Or perhaps dialogue between two people that isn’t broken into paragraphs or sentences or makes any use of quotation or punctuation marks whatsoever. (See how confusing that not-a-real sentence was to read? Imagine a whole book like that.) Or my favorite how-the-heck-did-they-miss-this-in-the-read-through moment: seven, count ‘em, seven pages of reversing italics with standard font. How does one confuse those, you ask? Well, see, it’s simple. When the cat is communicating telepathically, his voice is in italics. When there is regular dialogue or narrative, we’re back to standard font. Except when you haven’t PROOFREAD your BOOK and you REVERSE this, so the reader spends SEVEN PAGES trying to figure out why “she walked down the hall, waiting for Milo to follow her” is in super-mysterious italics. Not annoying AT ALL. Perhaps you notice my frustration? Good. I’m trying to communicate emotion in print.

So, to write a novel you should probably first at least consider your grasp on the English language. If you don’t know the difference between a comma and a period, go back to elementary school and learn why Yoda didn’t understand the basics of SVO.

Second, perhaps you should consider your story. Caught that up above, eh, about the cat communicating telepathically? Yeah. I can see how that might actually be a good story. But, you know, if the cat communicates telepathically, maybe you should make that the story. Maybe you should forget about the weird guy that we’ve never heard about in the first 170 pages who kidnaps someone on page 171 and then just disappears when kidnappee wakes up a page later no worse for wear. Or maybe you could do without the mysterious meanie who is a dog-lover and the worst red herring ever. You definitely need the alien race, of course, because someone (here, kitty, kitty) has got to communicate with them, but you could skip the page-long description of the mysterious ceremonial circle on their floor (since you never bothered to explain what it was) and also the strange love affair that Mr. Cat seems to be having with his human- really, no one needs that mental picture. To sum up- maybe trim the fat just a tad.

Third. This is important. Very important. To write a novel, it is highly recommended that you have just the teensiest bit of follow-through. Don’t just slap your story down, bind it up, pick a UPC, and call it a day. For goodness sake, author- take some pride in your work!! Proofread! Edit! Get feedback! Yes, have someone else (not just your mom) read this thing!! Then go back and hack according to their directions! And then go back and hack again just because you probably should!! Seriously! Do not make it crystal clear to your reader that you were so excited by the action in a particular scene that you never bothered to a. spell check, b. grammar check, c. proofread, and d. pick a bloody font and stick with it. Really. These are basics. You would never turn in a paper without going through the necessary end-check and expect to get a good grade. What kind of grade would you expect from this giant work that hasn’t even been looked through? Don’t waste your novel debut on this. Please. You end up looking foolish. You lose all your credibility. Bloggers whine about you.

Yes, you. I am addressing this entire entry to one person: You, A. P. Adams. You, who are probably very capable of writing a good book, but just didn’t take the time to do it. You, who bound up this crazy book without even reading it from front to back yourself. You, who wasted so much of your time self-publishing something that might have had a chance, but you were too lazy to give it one. You, A. P. Adams, you must do better!!

I fear these pleas are falling on deaf ears. I’ve just spent a few minutes researching this author’s website, FB, etc…whoops. If the misspellings and inability to punctuate on all those sites indicate anything about Ms. Author’s competence, well, I guess the book probably was proofread. Just not very well. And I’m pleased to see that Ms. Author is now to become Ms. Filmmaker- congratulations on deciding to venture into the realm of amateur film making! I’m pretty sure your plan to make your own movie brings me right back to where I started: just because you can make a film does not mean you should.

I’m sure there are a few (Ms. Author probably included) who are right now saying to yourself, well, just because you can blog, Ms. High Horse, does not mean you should.

I agree. And to that I answer: Just because you can read my blog does not mean you should.