UNKINDNESS OF (C)RAVENS!

A group of crows is known as a murder. Another scavenger (pick, pick, pick) group, the raven, has the delightful moniker, unkindness.

How does the human mind hop, hop, hop :) from one piece of rarely used and largely useless information, to a whole topic? Darned if I know. However, last night I was in a state that frequently passes for sleep with me–drifting–and I recalled how Ruth Rendell once wrote a book called An Unkindness of Ravens. Bam, I was wide awake.

The Internet, that’s where the unkindness took me, and then to a mental picture of black birds with pointy beaks stabbing away at something long-dead, if it ever lived at all. Have you noticed that scavengers don’t fancy prey that might fight back? Twisting raven into (c)raven was the result of that thought.

How about the comments sometimes sent your way or mine, on the Internet, that would never be said to our faces? When I first heard the term, “flame war,” I thought someone was kidding. Then I saw some examples and was ready to run from this wonderful tool of ours before I got infected. Once I’d bought my kevlar vest I figured I was all set to hang around after all. But I still get sad when I notice someone who tries to build him or herself up by putting someone else down–and does it from the relative anonymity of a cozy cyber blind.

The Dalai Lama said, among so many insightful things, something close to, “Be kind whenever possible, and it’s always possible.” My thanks to Cissy Hartley who reminded me of the quote recently. I am not suggesting we should drip sugar from every pore, or lie through our teeth and say we’re crazy about something we hate, but what’s wrong with choosing to say nothing at all when no good will come from being nasty?

“I’ve read all of your books and I’ve hated every one of them.”

No, I’m not joking, that comment has arrived via email in the mail boxes of several writers I know well–including my own. “Sooo,” I think, “what is your point?” In fact the statement is very funny.

Where am I going with this. Believe me when I write that I tend to go where the idea and mood take me and that’s what’s happening now so there may be good fodder for nasty comments later:)

Because we can reach others so easily on the Internet, we have a formerly impossible opportunity to share thoughts and feelings. In recent days a reader let me know I had made a mistake in describing a Morgan sports car. She did it politely and added that she was really enjoying the book. Great, I’m cool with all that. Someone else asked if I would write more Spivey books (Mayfair Square) and I was able to have a nice “chat” with her about wanting to write historicals again one day.

Sometimes I’ll hear that someone doesn’t like a particular character, or the way a book ended. The latter is usually tied up with a reader being engrossed and not wanting the book to end without revealing more and more of the story. Unfortunately, stories have to end somewhere... And, naturally, there are all kinds of characters who still “need stories of their own:)”

But if a writer puts out a book a reader doesn’t like as much as some others, what’s the best way to deal with that? I’ll give some possible choices:

1. Hope the next book will please us more?
2. Accept that writers may not turn out stories using a pattern that never changes and decide to be more careful before buying another book by the same author?
3. Write to the author and tell them off?
4. Write to the author and explain the elements you found difficult, and why? And perhaps get a response that helps explain why the writer had to tell that particular story.
5. Go online in the most public forum we can find and initiate a rip and tear session with others who also didn’t like the book, or who will agree with you simply to enjoy the sport of piling on and pecking away?

This is one of those IMHO comments. I think what makes us want to keep on reading particular writers is their creativity, their sudden veering into a topic we hadn’t expected, or a new element that’s a surprise. As long as the book I pick up by an author I’ve read before lets me hear that author’s voice, I’ll go along. I won’t love every book the same, but the essence, or voice, of the author will engage me.

Of course I’ve read books I wished I’d never bought. I’ve thrown books away because they upset me so much, but I know that for every reader who felt as I did, there were hundreds who enjoyed the story. Hurt a child or an animal in a book and you’ll lose me:)

I’ve already posed a question above and I’d be very interested to get some answers, but I still need to wrap this up. We have incredible opportunities to share on the Internet. I treasure all the people who come my way with notes, questions, just a “Hi, how are you?” and I realize my life would have a big hole in it now if there wasn’t that special connection.
When I write a book–and I’m into my paranormal trilogy (Court of Angels) now–that’s different from anything I’ve done before, I’m going to keep on hoping my readers will “hear” my voice in the words, and be willing to travel with me in a new direction. If they can’t, I hope they’ll shake their heads, maybe write and ask me, kindly, what I was thinking, and give at least one more of my books a try:)

And here’s the marzipan and icing on the fruitcake: The alternative term for a group of either crows or ravens is . . . Storyteller. As in a storyteller of crows or a storyteller of ravens!

Blessings,

Stella