Tag-Archive for » stephenie meyer «
You know, I was going to wait and post on something productive tomorrow but I just have to get this off my chest. My review for Breaking Dawn will be up on Bites around mid-week. I can honestly say I’m enraged by this book. It’s not the writing. Actually, the stylistic aspect of the work has slightly improved. Slightly. Considering the first three were lessons in how NOT to write, it’s not much, but still an improvement. It’s what she’s glorifying that has me wanting to burn the book in a pile of poo.
It was bad enough to have her glorifying Edward as the perfect romantic when he’s nothing more than a controlling, abusive, manipulative stalker. But this . . . making pedophilia OK? This is so not cool it’s liquid nitrogen. There is absolutely no way that this can logically and non-squicky be explained around. None. Because no matter how you slice it, a man of legal age of consent in all 50 states fell in love (in love, as in soul mates, I want to make love to you) with a newborn. Not to mention his wolf brother falling in love with a three year old. That’s sick. No, that’s fucking sick. The very foundation of that relationship is to be life mates and neither of the two parties even knows what a foundation is let alone can shit in a toilet bowl without getting it all over the place.
It’s just downright sick. I thought the stalker thing was bad enough. Now she’s given the likes of NAMBLA headway. Lovely.
Ok, yeah, since I’m still studying for my exam on Saturday and I’m trudging through Spine-Breaking Spawn, expect more commentary. As if you’d expect any less.
So, I’d like to know the defining argument behind the Twihards’ support of the notion that Bella doesn’t have just Edward in her life. She has friends outside of him. Really, I think the proof is in the very wedding.
Bella’s marrying Edward. Big shocker there. Who’s helping her get ready? Alice. And for a nanosecond Rosalie (who probably put Nair in her hair). That’s it. Who’s in Bella’s wedding party? Just Alice, her very-soon-to-be sister-in-law. That’s it. Now I’m not saying you have to be like my guinea family and have 47 bridesmaids, 18 matrons of honor and 12 flower girls to be considered surrounded by loved ones but am I the only one that sees the pathetickness of this? Not even ever mom helped her get ready on her wedding day. Her mom. One, what does that say about Bella’s flake of a mother and two, what does that say about Bella’s insistence on cutting everyone but Edward and the rest of the Cullen clan out of her life so she can live how she wants with her love?
Since we’re on her mom, miss “don’t you dare end up like me and get married young” turns out to be all giddy when 18 year old Bella tells her she’s getting married. Riiiiiiiiiiight. So I take it this is the start of the about face these characters go through, right? Everything for Bella, right?
But back to the wedding. No one but Alice in the wedding party, no one but Alice helping her to prepare, spending the night before alone and in her room and this is healthy? This is a good thing that Bella has absolutely no one else in her life except Edward? I mean the proof’s right there. Right there. How can the Twihards insist otherwise? Yeah, yeah, Jacob makes a cameo at the reception but he doesn’t really count, now does he? Not in the friend department. Not when she only uses him as a substitute Edward with his own heating system.
And I’m actually kind of peeved Meyer completely skipped over the sex scene. Not because I wanted to see Edward schmex, but because it would have been amazing character development and a chance to actually dig a little deeper into both of them. But no. Of course not. Why would Meyer want to do anything that even imitates writing technique and forfeit the Mary Sue and her epitome of perfection? We don’t need to get any deeper. This is as deep as it gets!
We still have no idea why they love each other like they say they do. There’s no proof that Edward finds Bella anything other than “beautiful” and “nice smelling” and no proof she sees anything more than Edward’s good looks in him. Yeah. Deep.
This is a great video with teenagers debating which series is better, Harry Potter or Twilight. Just compare the arguments of both sides and see if you came to the same conclusion I did.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Someone help me out with this. Is there an asterisk I’m missing somewhere? Does the freedom of speech part only apply to people in certain employment fields? Because as far as I’m concerned Stephen King had every damn right to say that Stephenie Meyer couldn’t “write worth a darn.” This is aside from the fact that I don’t really think King can do any wrong and I think he hit the nail pretty hard on the head. This is simple freedom of speech.
It’s about owning your words, people. The people going “OMG I can’t believe he said that!” or “how could he say that?” or “respect your fellow writer by not saying things like that!” or “he didn’t have the right to say that!” make me twitch. Now I don’t really swear all that often on this blog, but this ridiculous explosion has rendered it. Shut the fuck up already.
Like I said in a previous post, there’s no reason why writers should be held to such a higher standard with their “co-workers” and “not be allowed” to say such things. I’ve heard the argument that it’ll make you a marketing nightmare. Ok. Because you don’t like every book you pick up and want to express that? If it’s a substantiated claim then what’s the problem? Get over it. Just because I’m a writer doesn’t mean I automatically forfeit my right to an opinion. In this day and age, it doesn’t have to be written on the internet or in a writing forum for the world to find out about it.
This is just absurb. King said Meyer sucks and Rowling rocks. I can guarantee he’s not the only one that feels like that. So why shouldn’t he say it again? Because there’s some implied obligation in the writing world that we need to have a 24/7 love-in? He’s entitled to his opinion and he can say it wherever he damn well pleases. Was it blunt? Yes. Does the truth hurt? Yes. Did he not realize what he was saying? I highly doubt it. Does he regret what he said? Probably not.
The leak for this unfinished book happened at least six months ago, if memory serves me correctly. Maybe back in August or September, something like that. And it’s still being talked about. Apparently fans were optimistic that Meyer would put the shenanigans behind her and finish writing the book. The fans knew it was being written and were jonsing for some more Edward love.
Nein. According to the Daily News, nothing’s changed. It’s on hold indefinitely and she’s still licking her wounds about how much of a violation of her work and trust that leak was. Would I be pissed if my first draft manuscript was leaked? You bet. Then again I’m not going to walk around a set of the movie based on the first book in my series and pass out unfinished first drafts of my fifth manuscript like sticks of gum either. But that’s just me.
Does she not see that she made a really stupid move doing that? I can understand a newbie writer doing that. They’re overanxious, want people to read it and hand it out to anyone that says yes. But this happened last year. Twilight first came out in 2005. The fourth book in the series, Breaking Dawn, was either just about to come out or had just come out. This could not be passed off as newbie naivety. So what was she thinking? And it’s someone else’s fault for the leak when she handed out these manuscripts to people she didn’t rightly know and couldn’t rightly trust?
If I were so desperate to keep the contents of my book a secret, I’d do everything I could to prevent leaks. Rowling was able to do it with Deathly Hallows (I believe, I don’t remember a leak for that one). It seems to be working out ok for Suzanne Collins. So . . . I fail to see the need for the hissy fit on Meyer’s part. I guess this can be chalked up to yet another one of her instances of externalizing her flaws.
And I’ve read bits and pieces of that manuscript (it’s on her website, to her chagrin, because she doesn’t want people seeking out the illegal copy), along with other first draft pieces she’s put on her site and while she says they’re messy and full of errors, I honestly don’t see much of a difference between the quality of those first draft pieces and the final products. Judge for yourself on that one. Check out her website (www.stepheniemeyer.com) and compare. I know I’m not alone there.
Holy crap weasels! Talk about a surge! I’ve doubled my hit count in the last 24 hours. I guess a fair number of people are just as shocked as I am about Meyer being author of the year. That was the most popular post by a long shot. So, yay for stats!
And yay for me! I think. It would appear I’ve won a copy of Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side from the IB Teen Blog but I’m not 100% sure. The comments section of Beth’s interview on that site was the entry ballot and there are two Donnas on there, including myself. If she’s going by handle, then it’s me but I wanted to confirm to her before I got all excited. How embarrassing would that be? So, it looks like I won but I’m not really celebrating yet until I know for sure. I haven’t been contacted yet or anything so we’ll see.
Now onto the editing oi. I knew DC would need some serious editing but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad. Well, not bad, really, just a lot more than what I imagined. My situational timing is off and I’m focusing on the wrong events, and on the wrong characters, in some parts so that needs to be fixed, on top of a total rewrite for the first four and a half chapters, not to mention I still don’t know where this story is actually going to start but the idea is becoming clearer the deeper into editing I get.
I’ve figured out that reading this particular manuscript is like reading (or feebly attempting) to read Old English through to Middle English. I’ve said about the tone before that it’s a drastic shift at the four and a half chapter point. With hindsight I thought the shift was much more drastic than what it actually is. It is drastic, but the language I was trying to get away from is more tapered.
Side Note–OMG my egg hatched! He’s a little dragon! Click him to help me raise him. He’ll die if you don’t. Do you want that on your shoulders? And yay for the psycho-fastness of Barnes and Noble shipping! My copy of Why We Suck by Dr. Denis Leary arrived today. My lord and savior, I have thee in book form.
USATODAY named Stephenie Meyer author of the year. Why, you ask? Good question. I have no idea. Nor do I have any idea why she would approve such a god horrible picture to be released of her. She had to approve that picture, you know that, right? Was no one able to tell her that only people weighing less than 80 pound can pull off an upshot like that? Eek!
Anyway, I’m trying to figure out what renders Meyer suitable for author of the year, because it certainly isn’t the writing. Not in this case anyway. Yes, she has something that keeps you reading. I don’t know if anyone knows what that something is, but that’s all she has going for her in the writing department. I’ve seen better written prose out of a ten-year-old.
People say she revolutionized the YA market. Nope. Sorry. JK Rowling beat her to it years ago and with much higher quality work. So stop. There’s just no comparing. Harry Potter is something that will be filed into the “classic children’s literature” category 30 years from now while no one will even remember what Twilight was. At least I can severely hope.
Before focusing on the novels of MT Anderson, this article makes a very valid point about teen reading. Don’t underestimate it.
Now, the title to my blog post is slightly skewed as what Anderson is pointing out is the intelligence of teenagers and how they don’t need separate books whereas I’m saying don’t underestimate the genre. But I think the two go hand in hand, you think?
Do not underestimate teens. I think that’s the crux of the argument and the rest is just details. No, they haven’t lived as long as you and no, they don’t have the worldly experiences you do but that doesn’t mean they need their works stripped down to simplicity to understand. Do I think teens need their own book category just for them? No. I read Interview with the Vampire (please don’t sue me) when I was 11. I also knew how to mummify a corpse when I was ten. So no, it’s not necessary.
But not every teen is an advanced reader and if we didn’t have that middle ground between middle grade and adult, kids would be going from Goosebumps to Stephen King. Some do not have that kind of reading capacity. Others do. That’s also not to say YA is for the slower readers. Bite me if you think that. The majority of my TBR pile is YA. It fits my patience level. But it provides a stepping stone. For those that run screaming from a novel that’s 600 pages in an 8 point font with a 3 millimeter margin (me), there’s the equally stimulating but much fat-trimmed YA.
So, I ask again, do teens in general need their own category of books? No. But the pre-teens do. As do the teens that just don’t want to read mainstream adult fiction. Or the adults with the short attention spans that enjoy reading without the pomp and meandering. It’s like taking a stair or two out of your staircase. It’s still manageable walking up and I’m sure a lot of people could do it, but there are those that can’t, or those that simply don’t want to. YA is a stepping stone. While all teens don’t read it, many (and many younger readers, and older) do so I don’t think it’s an obsolete category.
