Monday, June 29, 2009

Channeling Your Inner Child is Not a Good Thing

I've been hanging out at Authonomy for a couple of months now. At first, I was interested in seeing how far I could take my novel "Let's Do Lunch" and getting some feedback. It got to 14 on the Romance chart in short order.

I was addicted - spent all my time reading and commenting. Which taught me a good lesson about the destructive nature of addiction. Which lead me to back up, start taking better care of the things that are important, like home and family.

Which brings me to the "inner child" part of this essay. I started reading the forums, which proved to be an eye opener. While I was berating myself for letting my home life slide - other people were in much worse shape. A number of them appear to be channeling their "inner child" and pulling all kinds of silly tricks: Alter egos (known as sock-puppets), drunken ramblings, causing chaos while others jump at the opportunity to keep it going.

I got caught in the leading edge with Mary and the Militant Writer. I had a glimpse of madness, enough to keep me at a distance while I watched with dismay. Then I got another tweak a couple of weeks later when I posted a critique instead of a comment.

Now there is a sock-puppet hunt going on. The 'quarry' appears to be enjoying the game a great deal. In fact, the fox is having a great time leading people on a merry chase. Lot's of tweaked noses, pinching, dropped hints and so forth on both sides.

I'm starting to wonder if there are any rational adults on the site. Oh granted it's a free-for-all social networking site, not a focused forum like "Forward Motion" but I rather expected something more professional from the British.

Silly of me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like another site I should stay away from. I've been resisting the incessant invitations from friends to join Facebook and/or MySpace, and Twitter, and AIM, and a bunch of other things I can't even recall. I honestly don't know how anyone has the time to deal with all these things.

K. A. Jordan said...

I know what you mean.

Authonomy was a good idea. And they ARE pulling books from this giant slush pile. One went this month from the Editors Desk to the Publisher's Desk.

Myspace - well I log in one a week or so. I need to 'beef' up the site so I can use it to advertise "Let's Do Lunch," eventually.

I think that these sites are entertainment - and like Spider Solitare - they can be addictive.

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