I\u2019ve been stewing about this for several months, but perhaps my problem could be alleviated by not hanging out on litrachoor blogs, where it\u2019s the nature of the beast to say what you don\u2019t like about a particular work.<\/p>\n
Anyway, at one niche blog I hang out on a lot (but don\u2019t post much because I have nothing constructive to add, whether positive or negative), there are a couple of posters who comment on each and every literary offering (whether they\u2019ve read the work or not) with a *sniff*<\/em> and variations on a theme of \u201cI don\u2019t like this.\u201d Usually for weird X reason.<\/p>\n I get that. I don\u2019t like everything I read, either. Whether I say so is a function of A) how lazy I am that day (I can\u2019t be arsed to sign in and comment a negative), B) how confident I am in my own scholarship (as in, I\u2019m not a litrachoor type nor an intellectual nor even a pseudo<\/em> intellectual), C) whether I actually liked the work or not (I can be arsed to sign in to make a positive comment or to take a counter position to the negative poster if I feel strongly enough about the negative comment).<\/p>\n Aside: Oh, I forgot. Good<\/em> litrachoor criticism means you are not allowed to A) like it and B) say anything positive about it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n However, what I don\u2019t get is the constant not liking of everything that\u2019s posted and feeling a need to say so. And! Worse! When the commenter enumerates how the work lacks everything s\/he thinks it should have, that it isn\u2019t what s\/he thought the work would\/should be, i.e., \u201cWhy don\u2019t you people write what I want to read?\u201d while yet not actually writing anything him\/herself. Especially in a niche that has precious little to offer the world to begin with. If you don\u2019t like what\u2019s there, write it your owndamnself.<\/p>\n Another aside: Why am I stuck on having been instructed in novel-writing techniques by someone who\u2019s never written a novel (nor, as far as I know, a novella, or a short story)? And teaches an adult extended education class on the subject?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The latest offering was a poem. I liked it, and while I\u2019ve not traditionally been a fan of poetry, Th. and Tyler<\/a> (and Tyler<\/a> again and Th.\u2019s posting of May Swenson<\/a>) and some dude named Danny Nelson are all seducing me to the dark side.<\/p>\n This was not a constructive post. I realize this. I try to offer some solution to whatever I think is a problem if I start to bitch, which is why I\u2019ve kept a lid on this for so long. But, look, not every work that\u2019s posted or linked is a piece of crap.<\/p>\n And if you think every work actually is a piece of crap, do something about it instead of hanging out on litrachoor blogs and trashing everything that walks by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve been stewing about this for several months, but perhaps my problem could be alleviated by not hanging out on litrachoor blogs, where it\u2019s the nature of the beast to say what you don\u2019t like about a particular work. Anyway, at one niche blog I hang out on a lot (but don\u2019t post much because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,424],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviewing","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1198"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16955,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1198\/revisions\/16955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}