50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 9

tldnr
Ana and Christian buy a car and ride a boat. 

How exciting! A chapter so boring that we can cover it in but a single week! That's pretty impressive, right? Not really, I suppose. It's also certainly possible that I'm just getting tired of this thing, and that's why I'm moving along more quickly. The whole point of this was to talk about terrible prose, but EL just kind of repeats her terrible moves over and over again, so at a certain point, it stops being very entertaining for me to just make the same complaints again and again. I mean, it isn't like EL is listening to me, so I might as well just do what's entertaining to me, right? Sure.

This is perhaps the most obnoxious chapter of the entire series to date. There simply isn't any narrative tension. There is no sense that this thing is moving anywhere. An anecdote is some stuff that happens, but a plot is a series of connected events. This chapter is all anecdote. I almost can't believe how empty and pointless it is, but then, I've read the previous chapters and the previous book, so, yeah, I can believe how empty and pointless this is.

So where were we?

Our story thus far:

 

50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 8 part 2

tldnr:

Ana and Christian go to a hotel so that they can avoid Leila. They have sex there and Christian tells Ana that he loves her. 

I'm trying to improve my writerly discipline by taking a class at Hugo House which is a Seattle writing center. It's possible that I have damaged my skills in some way by reading this terrible book, as evidenced by my classwork. I'm supposed to be writing a novel but mostly I'm just using my story's narrator as a conduit for my complaints about working in customer service. Also I keep thinking up different pointless phone apps that I'm pretty sure don't actually exist and largely ought not to, but I keep including them in the story too. I don't really know what my problem is. I know part of the problem. I go a little off the rails whenever my medical consultant is scheduled for night shifts. Things get pretty weird around Complainist HQ during these times. Really not pretty. Oh except for how I just eat pho all the time. That part is great!

I wrote that paragraph because I figured everyone was super curious about what I might be up to. Do you think it's weird how often I use the word "super"? I do and also I've stayed up too late and have gone a little off the rails. See previous paragraph. 

Wait what were we doing again?  

Our story thus far:

 

50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 8 part 1

tldnr
Leila breaks into Christian's apartment so Christian and Ana leave for a hotel. 

So if the previous book was about the immediate problems caused by a Ana's relationship with Christian, this sequel introduces the reader to additional, unsurprising reasons that Ana ought to run away. Because, you see, the trouble is not just with Christian. It makes perfect sense that someone as unstable as Christian has a series of even less stable skeletons in his closet.

But wait! We get a strange alchemy. The young lovers face a number of problems, all of which were caused by Christian alone. Now logically, this should push our heroes apart. But instead, so far, it's bringing them closer, despite all the evidence that Ana will become just the latest link in a long, disturbed chain if she doesn't get away. Ana largely absolves Christian for the role he's played in causing all this trouble. He is, after all, the common denominator across all of Ana's problems, but Ana is quick to regard him as the victim rather than the instigator. She continues to follow him, knowing that he's treating her basically the same as he's treated the women who now threaten her. 

And what're we to do? Stick around for the ride, I guess! We do see a gun drawn in this chapter. Now, the rules of drama demand that it get fired, but this is fan-fiction, not drama, so I don't know if the gun is ever going to fire or not. I do know that I hope this just dissolves into a series of dumb action sequences. I don't think anything could improve this book, but I would like to move from one version of inanity to another for a while. Y'know. Just so I have a break. 

But hey where were we?

Our story thus far:

 

50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 7 part 2

So, my computer died. I'm using it again, to type this very sentence! So I guess it's undead now? A zombie? And my backup habits were poor. You might think, gentle reader, that we've reached the point where people just don't have poor backup habits anymore. The point where people don't even have to really have their shit together because they have machines to keep their shit together and they don't even have to think about it.

You'd be wrong, though. I feel dumber than you can possibly imagine. And yet, I still see this status update from somebody basically every week: "Lost my phone, guys, so can everybody please message me your number?" That is the only thing that keeps me feeling semi-sane about the fact that I had to restore my computer with a backup that was several months out of date. Months! Downright criminal. I'm only sharing this with you, gentle reader, and this is pretty personal stuff so please don't tell anyone. Got it? Thanks.

It couldn't have happened at a worst time, since now I'm taking this class that swears that I'm going to write a novel in 5 weeks. And maybe I will. What am I paying for, really? Pretty much I'm just paying to make sure that there's a group of strangers who will know if I don't write 1,200 words a day like I said I would. I'm paying for a shame-mechanism.

Which, to be fair, I think is worth it. I no longer have a shame-mechanism. It's not like I get desperate emails when I don't publish this on time. It's not like anyone knows whether I'm writing anything or not, or particularly cares. That must be some indication of the trouble I still have in my new, northwest life. I have to pay money so that strangers will ask me whether I'm doing any writing or not. I'm sorry. I'm in a terrible mood because of this computer thing? And for reasons general? And also because I just listened to George Saunders talk about writing and he's just a mutterblushing charmer and his thoughts on writing hit me at just the wrong time and now I feel like maybe I should just never write anything ever again. But then what would I do? I don't know! Netflix?

Is that enough of that? I suppose so. Let's rejoin our heroes. When last we saw them, Christian had just gotten finished buying Ana at an auction, and he was competing with some mystery man. Then they retreated to CG's childhood bedroom to do it. (Editor's note: by "it" we mean sex.) And there on his wall was a mystery photo of a mystery woman so we've got two mysteries! OMG WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE and also who cares.

And then, they return to the party.

But let's do that thing where we catch up all the way, shall we?

Our story thus far:

 

50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 7 part 1

tldnr
Ana gets auctioned off to her own boyfriend and then they have sex in his childhood room. Ana gets spanked but this time she kind of wants to be I guess? 



Guys: I didn't finish my homework.

That's pretty terrible, right? Not completing a task scheduled for completion at a certain time for arbitrary reasons? I do feel bad about it. I know there are literally seven or eight of you who probably noticed this delay and probably said to yourself "Huh," before figuring out some other thing to look at for five minutes while trying to ignore everybody else in the break-room or doctor's office or sex dungeon or wherever.

I decided on Tuesday as the publishing day because that's the day that new books come out and in my hubris I imagined one day being one of those people who'd have his name on a book on new-book Tuesday. But Monday is sort of my Friday so maybe I should just give up and move everything on over to Wednesday. Whaddaya think, Wednesday? Are you prepared to be the host of weekly five-thousand word screeds about terrible novels that the world has already basically forgotten about?

I'll wait and see if Wednesday gets back to me before making any decisions.

So where were we?

50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 6 part 2

tldnr
Ana and Christian go to a charity auction and Ana buys a weekend at one of Christian's houses. 

Well. Mardi Gras was a fun opportunity for me to not think about this terrible book for a while, but that's all over now. We are into the Lenten season, and that means I have to like, give up my vices or whatever and buckle down and focus on the task at hand: getting through this terrible novel.

Expect fewer block-quotes because the website I was copying all the block-quotes from seems to have been shut down. It was convenient for me to copy and paste but I guess I can't really complain. My whole mission is kind of to catch people before they decide to  read 50 Shades so the disappearance of a website where the books were available for free is basically right in line with my goals.

It's kind of appropriate that we're talking about masked parties and stuff, right? Since Mardi Gras just happened? Just so you know, there are lots of Mardi Gras "balls" and I don't know anything about them because they're the things rich people go to and they sound like kind of a drag. I'm going to assume they're not as bad as this terrible party that Ana and Christian are about to go to, because it's just kind of the worst. Are you so surprised? No? Ok good. Because I'm not going to lie. I just got back from vacation and I'm going to kind of rush this. I had only like, nine views the other day? And that's basically none. That's like a rounding error. It might've really been zero. It's not very many, is what I'm saying. So I gotta get my act together and publish something so here's what I'm publishing: The rest of Chapter 6, in which our heroes go to a party. Yawn. 

Wait where were we?

50 Shades Shadier: Chapter 6, part 1

tldnr
Ana and Christian have sex and get ready for a party. 

I have some bad news to share with you.

Here's what's happening: I haven't been reading ahead for a couple of weeks. I don't know what's going to happen except for in the most general way, since I haven't read this whole book but I have read some plot outlines. Hence, I thought that the end of Chapter 5 was suggesting an implied sex scene, and that we'd start Chapter 6 right after its conclusion.

I was wrong. Chapter 6 starts with a quick trip to Sexville, Population: 2. So that's what we're starting with today. I don't like that any more than you do. I probably like it less! You, after all, might be able to derive some kinky pleasure from my suffering, but I'm just here, suffering. Oh well. We've endured worse.

Oh and here's another thing:

My medical advisor asked me today why I highlight text the way I do rather than doing block quotes like a sensible person. And I said "because I don't know how to do block quotes like a sensible person" and then she said, "I bet if you hit that button there with the big mutterblushing quotation mark icon it'd make block quotes ya dumb idiot." And so of course it did and now I know how to make block quotes and also I learned how to be even more embarrassed about myself. (Editor's note: Our medical advisor may have phrased things much more gently but we don't remember. We were too busy being embarrassed.) So that's why this week's entry is a mix of highlighted text and block quotes. You can pinpoint the exact point where we learned the error of our ways! The highlighting reportedly doesn't transfer well if you're reading this via an RSS reader, so I'll switch to more traditional quotations entirely next week.

Also, next Tuesday is Mardi Gras so we may post something but Mardi Gras is a time for enjoying life and this book interferes with my enjoyment of life so, vacation!

But before that? Work! Where were we?