Kristin, it’s so obvious to me why Fifty Shades went viral and is a bestseller. I’m sorry but you book agents are working too hard…and I mean it in a way that’s helpful. You advise how to write the perfect query and you point out flaws in writers’ submissions. What agents are doing is actually sawing off the tree limbs they’re sitting on. They’re factory farming the submissions, all homogeneous like the rows of battery caged white hens where eggs roll onto a conveyor belt. Oh look! That egg looks a slightly different shape…it must mean something! That egg is the common way of publishing books now…it looks just slightly different. But no one wants to take a chance on walking outside the factory barn. No one wants to take a chance on honesty and something from the heart, something completely off the wall…like Fifty Shades. I got a twitter message from Erika…I mean E L James and she said fame is weird when it happens. Be careful what I wish for.

Well I wish the publishing industry follows the lead of E L James and let the fans decide what they want to read. It’s the wave of the future. We don’t want the perfect query…I’ll never write one to sell my book because it’s just not me…I’m not a salesperson and it comes through loud and clear when an agent reads my pitch. I am honest, my book will be published, it is different and I’ve had hundreds of hits on the chapters I’ve put on my blog. I believe in the Beat generation, the new Kerouacs, and the people who challenge the status quo. If you want a go at my book, Kristin, I know you work hard and have tons of respect, just ask!

I am in awe. Just in awe. Of so many things. But let’s focus on how do you segue from ‘YOU’RE JUST A PART OF THE OUTDATED SYSTEM, MAN’ to ‘Well you plz check out my online novel which has literally hundreds of hits? :D’ Also, the familiarity is just classy. Everyone knows that’s Dr. Ms. Agent Badass Q. Gatekeeper III to you, asshole.

..Hey, editors! Leave those kids alone… All in all, it’s just some, masturbatory fantasy~ (-courtesy of Dan “The Boyfriend”)

I want to write, I want to read, but I can’t do any of the above because of the sheer amount of schoolwork I have fallen behind. (Writing the first act for Psych will be easy, the gifuckinggantic epic tome we need to write for Survey of Film, not so much. And somewhere, in there, I still have an anthropology test to take before 12:00am on Sunday.)

*browses tumblr for two days* 8D…..

And reading articles about 50 Shades of Grey http://therumpus.net/2012/05/the-trouble-with-prince-charming-or-he-who-trespassed-against-us/ A very well written article, the bits about fairytales aside. I really recommend it.

I love this comment someone left on Literary agent Kristen Nelson’s website:

James’s prose has the same quality that Stephanie Meyers, Dan Brown, Nora Roberts, Clive Cussler, WEB Griffin, Janet Evanovich, James Patterson, Stephen King, John Grisham, Julie Garwood, Jayne Anne Krentz, Susan Elizabeth Philips, Robert Ludlum, Ken Follet, Anne MCCaffrey, et al all have. (lolling forever at the comparison. Et al, indeed,) It is compelling to read. It is so compelling that the reader loses themselves in the story and doesn’t notice mistakes in spelling, punctuation, and grammar. That is talent. That can’t be taught. And quite frankly, I would rather write like one of these authors, than some literary genius no one but the literati have ever heard of or will ever hear of.

Unfortunately if you’re the type of person who notices spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes when you read, then you will not be able to recognize compelling prose even when it sits up and slaps you in the face.

And I feel sorry for you because when I read a book and get lost in story, it’s like riding on Space Mountain. If I’m noticing the spelling and the grammar and the punctuation, then I feel like I’ve been dragged into The Hall of Presidents. If I get to choose between the two, then it’s Space Mountain every time.

What tees me off about this discussion is that there is a lot of mudslinging about the book, but no in depth analysis of why it is bad.

I’ve read an analysis of Da Vinci Code written by an Ivy League literature professor. His analysis was so stupid, it wasn’t funny. What’s really scary is that he has a PhD in literature and he is teaching creative writing.

Welp, you heard it here, folks! Grammar is for snobs and ~the literati~ no one will ever hear about. Time to pack it up, guys. The ability to write so well you don’t need grammar comes from talent and can’t be taught. Oh well, we tried!

God, it’s hard to think of this as some lone imbecile on the internet when 50 Shades has been #1 on the NYT Bestseller for 7 weeks. F. Scott Fitzgerald took liberty with prose, but like an artist making stylized choices with drawing, it was because he knew the essentials well enough to experiment. I’m not even sure James knows how to construct a paragraph which, you know what, can be improved and worked on with the help of an editor, I guess. But then going so far as to say that there is no need for improvement? That willful ignorance is okay? That pointing out someone’s mistakes is a form of elitism, or that mistakes don’t need to be fixed? God. I hear the ‘But it’s my styyyle’ argument coming from artists who don’t understand anatomy all the time, but never did I think I’d hear it about the goddamn written word.

theballetblog:

We are all such ballet snobs. Lol.