(I don’t know if this is the right place for this thread, but I didn’t know where else to put it. Mods, feel free to move it if there’s somewhere else it would fit better.)
The other day I was at the bookstore.
Five seconds after entering, my thoughts went something like those of a kid in a candy store: Mmm, the smell of paper! Lookit all the pretty books… brand new… every single book had an author who managed to get it published. I bet I can do the same thing. Wow, wonder what it takes to get a whole table of your books up at the front of the store? Hmmm, where shall I go first?
After wandering past the teen fiction shelves (which I’ve all but outgrown anyways, but I always look): I am so sick of all these vampire books. Although there was a Twilight parody there that made me giggle when I glanced at it.
Decided to go haunt the science fiction and fantasy section for a while. Wow. Most of these books look like clones of each other. More vampire books, only with trashier covers than the ones in the teen section had. Okay, this one looks like high fantasy, maybe it’ll be… never mind, I’ve read that plot before. Man. Fantasy seems to be turning into a formulaic genre to rival romance. Maybe I should find a new favorite genre.
Went to the general fiction section in search of something more interesting. If I find one more historical novel entitled [Somebody’s] Daughter or [Somebody’s] Sister, I’m gonna scream. How many of these can they have? …Oh, I remember reading those books over there, you could have switched the main characters from one book to the other and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the plot. Sigh. I think I’ll pass on the literary fiction, too.
I wandered through the nonfiction and ended up hanging out in the history section, which was stocked with a seemingly never-ending supply of fascinating tomes.
**
Okay. I’m not saying that I found nothing to interest me fiction-wise, because I did find a few books that looked pretty good. And I know that you can’t always judge a book by reading its back cover and flipping through it briefly, although that usually allows me to tell at least whether it’s going to stink. But it seems like lately, whenever I’m at the bookstore or the library, I end up disappointed. No, I don’t want to read another fantasy about defeating an evil empire or questing for the Yada-Yada of Whatever. No, I don’t like that token romance subplot shoved in there. Constantly I wonder: where are all the good authors? Where are all the fresh stories?
I feel guilty about thinking about books this way. I’m supposed to devour books, breathe them in, right? And I do – the good ones. But there are never enough good ones, and as for all the ones that I think of as mediocre – what right have I? The author must have done something right, after all; they finished a whole book, and they sold it, and I have yet to do either of those things. I can harp on their prose for being awkward or dull or whatever, or on their plot for being hackneyed or pointless, but right now, I don't have the skill to outdo them. Don't I owe these authors who’ve already done what I’m trying to do more respect than that?
Are my standards for books too high? It seems nervy for me, a wannabe, to come out of a huge bookstore (a temple of literature!) and say that there are not enough good books in the world. I'z confused.
The other day I was at the bookstore.
Five seconds after entering, my thoughts went something like those of a kid in a candy store: Mmm, the smell of paper! Lookit all the pretty books… brand new… every single book had an author who managed to get it published. I bet I can do the same thing. Wow, wonder what it takes to get a whole table of your books up at the front of the store? Hmmm, where shall I go first?
After wandering past the teen fiction shelves (which I’ve all but outgrown anyways, but I always look): I am so sick of all these vampire books. Although there was a Twilight parody there that made me giggle when I glanced at it.
Decided to go haunt the science fiction and fantasy section for a while. Wow. Most of these books look like clones of each other. More vampire books, only with trashier covers than the ones in the teen section had. Okay, this one looks like high fantasy, maybe it’ll be… never mind, I’ve read that plot before. Man. Fantasy seems to be turning into a formulaic genre to rival romance. Maybe I should find a new favorite genre.
Went to the general fiction section in search of something more interesting. If I find one more historical novel entitled [Somebody’s] Daughter or [Somebody’s] Sister, I’m gonna scream. How many of these can they have? …Oh, I remember reading those books over there, you could have switched the main characters from one book to the other and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the plot. Sigh. I think I’ll pass on the literary fiction, too.
I wandered through the nonfiction and ended up hanging out in the history section, which was stocked with a seemingly never-ending supply of fascinating tomes.
**
Okay. I’m not saying that I found nothing to interest me fiction-wise, because I did find a few books that looked pretty good. And I know that you can’t always judge a book by reading its back cover and flipping through it briefly, although that usually allows me to tell at least whether it’s going to stink. But it seems like lately, whenever I’m at the bookstore or the library, I end up disappointed. No, I don’t want to read another fantasy about defeating an evil empire or questing for the Yada-Yada of Whatever. No, I don’t like that token romance subplot shoved in there. Constantly I wonder: where are all the good authors? Where are all the fresh stories?
I feel guilty about thinking about books this way. I’m supposed to devour books, breathe them in, right? And I do – the good ones. But there are never enough good ones, and as for all the ones that I think of as mediocre – what right have I? The author must have done something right, after all; they finished a whole book, and they sold it, and I have yet to do either of those things. I can harp on their prose for being awkward or dull or whatever, or on their plot for being hackneyed or pointless, but right now, I don't have the skill to outdo them. Don't I owe these authors who’ve already done what I’m trying to do more respect than that?
Are my standards for books too high? It seems nervy for me, a wannabe, to come out of a huge bookstore (a temple of literature!) and say that there are not enough good books in the world. I'z confused.
Yo! Dude! I'm over here! 
