Everything Wrong with Eragon

It's no secret that I don't like Christopher Paolini.

Therefore, I was thrilled when I came across this list: Everything Wrong With Eragon

This is the list I've been wanting to make for years. Utter love to its maker LordSnow. ThingInTheCoat, you and I may just have to have a polyamorous relationship. ;-)

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Also in cool news, this keyboard is a modern writer's new best friend.



I know there's this stereotype that writers have cats (and why wouldn't you want to?), but really, isn't the keyboard your most faithful companion?

The Worst Book Ever Written

It is my distinct UNpleasure to introduce you to the a candidate for the worst published book in the world: The Shadow God, by Aaron Rayburn.

<--Worst Book Ever Written

I'd make fun of it, but this amazon.com reviewer has done a better job than I ever could.

Read his article here. Be prepared to laugh, to gasp, and to stare in shock that someone actually thought this book was fit to print.

Laughter aside, consider this a learning opportunity of what NOT to do.

Word Clouds

Today I found an awesome site for us writers.

It's called Wordle and it generates word clouds like this:



The above picture is derived from the entire text of my fifth book, Go Look There, which is a magical realism novel about strange things happening among the children of a particular Southern town.

Here's another, taken from the combined text of all of my favorite poems I've written:




Mostly what I found from this is that I'm a big fan of similes, which I knew, but when the word 'like' was twelve feet tall it really hit home. So I did a Find & Replace command in Microsoft Word (Which you can do by pressing control+F or apple key+f) and replaced 'like' with a space so I could REALLY find out what my most commonly used words are.

Anyway, this was really cool and I'd be eager to see your pictures of what words you use most commonly.

Confession: Taking the Plunge

Confession: I finally did it.

I finally started submitting to agents.

I had my query letter approved by Jaden the Wonder-Troll, and began emailing agents today.

<---Jaden in real life.

Using Agentquery.com, I sent out 65 queries. So far today I have received 9 standard rejection forms and 1 personal rejection.

And now, available only here, are details and examples of my rejection exploits. Read and learn:


Attn Ms. Agent,

I read on AgentQuery.com that you represent Young Adult fiction, and are particularly interested in __________. I believe you will be interested in my 60,000 word gender-struggle YA novel Woman's World, book one of a completed trilogy.

In a female-dominated society where men are kept as domestic slaves, one young woman must overcome cultural barriers as she grows closer to her new, abused slave -a romance that uncovers the secret history behind women's rise to power in our world and leads to an exciting, apocalyptic revolution to restore gender equality.

When the famous and reclusive writer known only as the Poetess selects for her first slave a young man whose muteness makes him worthless in society's eyes despite his great beauty, their journey towards trust and compassion in her isolated home sparks a powerful and forbidden romance. Torn with feelings deviating from strict religious and social dogma, and possibly dying from a cancerous illness that makes her shamefully barren, the Poetess struggles to come to terms with the love she feels for the slave she named Shaedyn, and her new, heretic belief that men deserve to be equal with women. Whispers of an underground equalist movement, and their tentative plan to use the Poetess as a political tool to sway the hearts of the nation, excite and terrify the Poetess until a near-deadly failing of health forces her to leave Shaedyn behind and travel to the East Hall, a technological metropolis and secret heart of the revolution itself.

At age 19, Woman's World is one of five novels I have written. Originally posted online at Fictionpress.com, garnishing 61,000 hits, near 1,000 favorable reviews, and hundreds of registered fans, Woman's World takes the female-dominant society stereotype to an intelligent and realistic place with a romance and characters proven to capture the heart of any reader. My other writing credits include a personal narrative in the literary magazine TeenInk, and an award from the Journalistic Education Association for Feature Writing. I would be happy to send you a complete copy of the manuscript for your review. I appreciate your time, and look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Savannah


Now, this is not the best query letter in the entire world, and I know that. But I was too impatient to wait much longer, having wasted so much time already. It's a mistake I encourage you not to make.

Within the next three hours I had six standard rejection letters, reaching a pinnacle of ten rejection letters at the end of the day, including one personal rejection letter.

Example of a standard rejection letter:

Dear Savannah:
Many thanks for thinking of me, but I am afraid I do not feel that I am the right agent for your work.

All my best,

Sara

--------------------------------------------------------


I’m afraid I don’t represent YA and wouldn’t be the right agent for this.

I wish you luck

Jessica

(Apparently agentquery lied to me in this particular case; learn from this -always double-check your results)

--------------------------------------------------------

Dear Author:

Thank you so much for sending the _______ Agency your query.

We’d like to apologize for the impersonal nature of this standard rejection letter. Rest assured that we do read every query letter carefully and, unfortunately, this project is not right for us.

Because this business is so subjective and opinions vary widely, we recommend that you pursue other agents. After all, it just takes one "yes" to find the right match.

Good luck with all your publishing endeavors.

Sincerely,

Kristin
Sara

--------------------------------------------------------

The Personal Rejection Letter:

Dear Savannah,

Thank you for submitting your query to the ________ Agency. Unfortunately this doesn't look right for us.

While I like the gender role switch, I'm afraid it's a pretty familiar trope and not different enough to stand out in the current market. It looks like you have a good grasp of storytelling, though, so I want to encourage you to keep writing and trying new things. Though this wasn't for me, perhaps another agent will decide to take a look.

As a side note, I was uncertain about the mention of YA and historical romance. This certainly looks like romance, but I didn't catch a lot of YA or historical with it.

Best of luck in your writing career,

Jodi

--------------------------------------------------------

Now, I've only gotten 10 rejections over 24 hours, and I'm sure I have many more coming in the next few weeks. Plus, since I submitted only (I thought) to agents representing YA, my next battle tactic is to submit to Romance agents, as apparently I'm a Nora Roberts sinner with a corset-opener sitting as blatantly on my desk as a Magic 8 Ball (which should be mandatory for every writer, by the way, as they are incredibly useful).

But already the panic is setting in. What if it doesn't happen? What if I can't do it?

This post by Seth Godin and this post from some dude are particularly terrifying.

Should this happen to me, I've decided I shall become a publishing rebel, self-publishing and distributing to my few Internet friends as their weekly allowance...well...allows.


Caption: I shall become a Publishing Pirate. You hear that term here first, kiddos.

Paolini, your route is not looking so bad. Perhaps I was deeply, terribly wrong about you.

BUT Paolini did self-publish first (As far as I'm aware). At least I've tried to play fair. :)

Advice and My Own Work (Finally!)

Check out these awesome bookcases:








Billy Collins, my poetry idol and unwitting mentor, spoke once in a poem of his, 'Books', about building bookshelves while in college.

This struck me as a very spiritual thing for a writer to do, and I found myself stumped as to why I had not paused to consider The Bookshelf more often. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard any other writer speak lovingly of bookshelves, when they are in fact tremendously important to our line of work.

I proposed then, in a poem, taking up bookshelf-making as an exercise in meditation, patience, and love of your craft.

In an effort to include more of my own work on this site and debate my own worth against Paolini, here is that poem, free-styled in modern poetry. And if you're not a big poetry fan (I can't stand any formats or classic work; it's modern for me or not at all, and not experimental modern, just... honest) then consider it colorful prose with hyperbole:


Bookshelves

My advice to you, young writer
is this:

(As if I could say anything
not already coded into the sequence of your DNA.
But perhaps the instructions there are pleated in your milk tongue,
as familiar and distant as the brainwave patterns of childhood.
While you speak the bland, foreign language of mediocrity now,
let me translate what I have discovered of the wending script
into words whose scientific meanings you will understand,
and allude to the musical impressions
you once breathed and swam in,
swishing your embryonic tail
through the fluid of your deepest nature)

to build bookshelves–
rooms and hallways of bookshelves.
Prepare the cradles of your children;
the cabinets and displays of your colleagues;
the frames around which books shall live and die.

Take steps, like a midwife of catalysts,
to usher life from non-worlds into this.

Hammer out rectangles and shells
to clothe and house your creations.
Meditate on your existence as you do this,
and accept a chance of death before the souls of your words
stop speaking.

Charles Bukowski

Firstly, thank you to everyone who has participated in the (I'm happy to say) intelligent discussion about this blog's integrity and dirty little habit of making fun of Christopher Paolini. You've all had interesting, mostly polite things to say, and I appreciate you using this blog as a forum for discussing proper decorum (I'm sorry, I couldn't help it; I had to rhyme) and in which direction this blog should be going.

That said, it's time for some old-fashioned writer-blogging.

Enter Charles Bukowski.



The Man, The Legend, the Writing. But we're only going to talk about the writing, specifically a poem that caught my eye and tugged at my heart.

As The Sparrow

To give life you must take life,
and as our grief falls flat and hollow
upon the billion-blooded sea
I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed
with white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatures
lengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes.
Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow
did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be
young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh.
I hated you when it would have taken less courage
to love.


The reason this spoke to me is because of the line "I only did to you what the sparrow/did to you."



I love how the last bit was dropped to the second line, and I love the implication of man vs. nature and man vs. man, but it leads me to this question: What exactly does he mean?

I have my own interpretation, but there's no reason for it to be right, or the only what. Tell me what you think. What did he do and what did the sparrow do?


This bird is called the Savannah Sparrow. Don't you love it?

Birthday Wishes

Readers, it's my birthday tomorrow.

And that brings me one year closer to no longer being a 'teen' author. What will happen when I leave teenhood for good to become a 'real' adult? Will this blog still exist? Will it have to become 'Blog of a 20-something... normal person... who is uninteresting...'?

Anyway, Happy Birthday to me, and I suppose we'll find out in the coming year whether I make it... or not.

Let the Gnomies Unite (What is with all these homeschooled kids?)

Being mostly Swedish, my heritage as celebrated in America is represented by a couple of things: Pickled herring (A yummy Christmas treat!), lutefisk (which should NEVER have been invented), and gnomes.



Yesterday I posted an entry that included this picture, which warranted a gnome-possession-lust from a very interesting person, who, as far as I can tell, is related to my fascinating friend, Jaden.

His name is Kaleb Nation, and we should all be very pleased to hear that, as a teenage author, he has an agent and is sprinting swiftly towards publishment with his book The Farfield Curse.

But this is not the only reason why we should laud over him.

No, my friends. Kaleb Nation has a strange fascination with gnomes (and may be one himself! :O ).

For you, Kaleb, my comrade, I recommend the following book (and to all you gnomies out there as well).



Gnomes are not just cute little short men who tend gardens. Nor are they evil, despite what R. L. Stine says.

Gnomes are protectors of the forest and good-hearted humans. The different types of gnomes, their habits (including eating and sex!), life cycles, legends and more are explored in detail in this fabulous reference book written by two men who claim to have spent extensive time talking with and observing them (Whether this is true or not I doubt, but they go on about it so convincingly that I've been on the lookout for gnome traces since).

If you're in a bookstore try to see if they have this in stock (I know the one I worked at did, and it was a very small bookstore at that). Try to find the page where you can see NAKED GNOMES! *GASP*

Now, this is all very nice, but what I want to know is why exactly Kaleb has a fascination with gnomes. Is this because he is irreversibly odd, having been home-schooled? What is with all these home-schooled teenage boys pumping out the fantasy books?

Is Kaleb related to Paolini? Or worse, are they the same person? Has Paolini gone mental and invented a completely new identity, seeking to conquer the book world over again under a pseudonym?

Are they forming a secret army of lawn gnomes? Are your daisies safe?!

Not An April Fool's Joke

April Fool's came and I had no plan of deviousness, as it caught me completely unaware.

Fortunately, now I get to do all my April Fool's jokes TOMORROW, and no one will suspect a thing!

Anyway, I've been promising to reveal some SHOCKING information, and now that all the hilarious hate mail has been dealt with, hold on tight and here we go:

I left my job at the bookstore.



It's true. I've been gone for about a month now.

'But Savannah!' you say, 'Why would you leave the bookstore you love and which entertains us with amusing stories?'

Because, dear readers, I was not making enough money. I can't give an exact figure, but it was not much above minimum wage, and way lower than minimum wage is even GOING TO BE come this July. So I got out.

I knew in my mind that I needed to get another job, then my parents came home from plant shopping and one of the stores they had been at needed a cashier. They picked me up an application, I filled it out and went over there and got the job.

I am proud to say that I now work in an Enchanted Forest. I'm serious.

It's a garden nursery that also sells fun stuff like lawn gnomes and little mushroom statues.



So I learned the book market, and now I'm learning how to nurture things.



Maybe after there's a manager change and some major pay increases, I would love to go back to the Bookstore. But for now I'm happy growing things, making friends with the lawn gnomes, and going an entire day with never hearing about Christopher Paolini, even though, as demonstrated in the picture below, he likes his self some good plant luvin.


Caption: "Our love is pure! Don't judge us!"

Paolini best Fantasy Writer Ever?

Here's an article that makes me mad.

Excerpt: When Christopher Paolini was 11, he read his first fantasy book. After an extended, several-year "reading binge," he decided he could write a better one himself. He has.

Umm... what kind of bad fantasy books was he reading that he felt the need to write a 'better' one? Tolkein, Adams, Pratchett, Card, and Bradbury weren't good enough for him?

And what was the writer smoking to come to the conclusion that Paolini wrote something better? That he even wrote comprehensible drivel has yet to be determined!

Paolini Rides Again

A week or so ago I logged into the computer at work, like usual, and checked the press page for all the juicy book gossip- you know, who's coming out with what, which book Oprah has decreed shall be the next best seller, etc.

And then, like a dung-colored beacon of awfulness, I saw it...



Brisingr.

Pronounced BRIS-ing-er, this is the third book of Paolini's infamously horrible Inheritance trilogy.

And it was on my front page!

There was a press link, so I clicked on it. I have never regretted clicking on a link more in my life, not even when I was goatsed.

No, ladies and gentleman, not even that could compare to the dripping fawnery drizzled about the page. Printed off, it was a one-page update about the status of Brisingr.

Apparently, the book world responded so enthusiastically to the idea that one of their all-time best-selling authors (Ca-ching) had actually announced when he would be releasing his new book, that the release date was actually MOVED FORWARD three days, meaning that Brisingr will now be released on September 20th, 2008, but not only that!

No, my friends! Just when I had thought that Paolini finally got some sense and changed the release date from the 23rd just to acquiesce to my superior whims and desires (you will remember that I was upset about the release date, being as September 23rd is one of my all-time favorite days), he revealed HIS PARTY-PLAN OF D00000000000M!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



YES! There is actually going to be a celebration on the eve of the release of Brisingr, just like the celebrations for the release of the Harry Potter books!

Umm, excuse me? Paolini does not equal Rowling.



On the other hand, good for the kid. That's excellent publicity, and should make him happy. I just refuse to attend. I REFUSE to work that night. I'll say something awful to a customer, I just know I will...

Paolini Deigns to Announce when his Next Book Will Come Out (And Thinks People Will Actually Care)

A huge part of my job (which I love), is to, obviously, help people find books. I'm expected to be knowledgeable about mainstream series and release dates.

And so... in the interest of being a good employee, I stupidly visited Christopher Paolini's web site last night... because I'm clearly a masochist... and found out that he's decided to grace us all with the announcement of the third book's release date:

September 23rd.

He had to pick one of my favorite months and one of my favorite numbers, didn't he? He just HAD to go there. September 23rd, May 23rd, and April 17th are my three most favorite days in the year.

That's not even the worst part. Oh no. The worst part is that he has 'BREAKING NEWS' about the trilogy, which he has chosen to share with us in the form of....

...A Video Announcement.

(Which, if you're really, truly a masochist, you can see here.

It says, and I quote: Kvetha Fricaya. Greetings Friends.

I cannot bring myself to watch it. I just can't.

But tell me how it is. And fear, my friends. Fear the coming September 23rd, which I shall now call Black Tuesday.

FEAR IT!!!!

............fear it...

Paolini and Urine

So there I am, standing at the register, minding my own business, not really doing anything because there was no one in line, and then I hear over the sounds of browsing customers and grinding coffee machines from the cafe... "OMG I LOVE Christopher Paolini."

"Gosh darn it," I sigh, rolling my eyes.

I turn to see a young girl, probably a junior or senior in high school, at the browsing computer talking to my General Manager, going on and on about how much she ADORES Mr. Paolini, about how AWESOME his books are, about how that's the only thing she's practically read EVER and how they're so good she's afraid to read other stuff... she's ranting about how UNFAIR it is that his third book isn't scheduled to come out forever and blah blah blah.

(Side note: Doesn't anyone remember how Paolini swore he had had the story mapped out since forever and knew exactly how it was going to go? As both my favorite manager and Jaden have noted, why then has it recently been announced that he'll be continuing with a fourth book? Is it possible he LIED to us? That he actually is just PULLING this CRAP from his ASS?!?)

Anyway, so I'm standing here trying SO HARD not to say anything, and my GM, who knows how much this being irks me, is giving me the 'If you insult the customers I will fire you!' look and THEN s I stood there squashing my natural impulses, a man comes up to me and explains how his little son had to use the bathroom yet was too short to reach the urinal, so unlike a NORMAL PERSON who would just hold his son up to the urinal, the man instructed his son to pee into the drain in the middle of the bathroom floor.

THEN he carried water from the sink, in his hands, making a huge mess, over to the middle of the floor to dilute it, and now he's just being friendly, letting me know there's a huge mess in the bathroom that I'll have to clean up.

Any other employee would have told this man where to go, but I, instead, smiled and assured the man it was no problem.

Then, the sound of the high school girls excited, high-pitched ravings still ringing in my ears, I trudged to the men's room to clean up boy urine.

Even more reasons to hate Mr. Paolini

....

So I just found out that not only will there be a THIRD book (which I have known for a while), but there will be a FOURTH!!

I said to my manager, "He should NOT be allowed to write a fourth book", and my manager, bless his heart, said, "He shouldn't have been allowed to write a first one."

I couldn't agree more.

I Hate Christopher Paolini part 2

So there I was, happily shelving books at the bookstore where I work, when I took one into my hands by John Steinbeck, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights.

You might recognize Steinbeck's name because he wrote many great American classics, such as The Grapes of Wrath, and is the winner of the Pulitzer AND the Nobel prize.

I'm not the biggest fan of his work or style, but regardless he was a great writer (though any ninth grader writing a term paper on Of Mice and Men will disagree with you), and deserves to be held with the greatest respect.

And so, it was with greatest shock and anger that I saw this:



Don't see it? Look closer. At the bottom. At who wrote the foreword.

Do you see why I was shaking with rage?

Christopher Paolini writing the foreword to a STEINBECK?!

This is a travesty! A complete and horrific travesty! It is an insult, an abomination, an atrocity, and it should be a crime!

Dear readers... I cannot express how hard it was to put that poor book on the shelf. I spoke of it very slowly and calmly to my manager, then requested my lunch break, where I stewed for half an hour, eating a sandwich and dreaming of the day when... when... when this book will go out of print?

There's nothing I can do, really. I just don't think Paolini is qualified to have that honor, that's all. This tires me.

Confessions 5 - I hate Christopher Paolini

I hate Christopher Paolini.

While not recognizing the photo, you may recognize the name. Mr. Paolini is a New York Times Best-Selling author for the Inheritance Trilogy, the most famous of which is Eragon.



You may remember a few years ago when this book came out and it was apparently a big deal. I read it. It was not.

I was introduced to Mr. Paolini through Oprah. She was doing a segment on teen authors, and I was watching it from my home television, seething with jealousy.

I am now going to make a generalization. You are free to agree or disagree: ...Fantasy sucks. The vast majority of fantasy and science fiction novels are badly written and cliched and follow the same plot over and over and over again.

(Ironically, another teen authoress featured on that Oprah Show did a successful series on vampires. Vampire stories also suck. Even Interview With A Vampire, when it comes down to it, sucks.)

This is my personal vendetta against fantasy and science fiction writing. I don't expect to be hassled about it. I know there are exceptions to the hideous rule, such as the well-known and quickly-declining-in-integrity Harry Potter books, or the Dealing with Dragons series, which was comedic and heart-warming. And lets not forget the classics (Tolkien, Pratchett, Adams, etc.), but even they have their moments.



But this is not about my hatred of those genres. This is about my hatred for Christopher Paolini.



Hate is a strong word. Mine is composed of anger and envy. While previews for the movie Eragon were showing, I took to changing the channel every time one came on. I forbade my family to see or support that movie in any way (alas, as I am a dependent teenager they have done little to respect my wishes, and in fact tonight I shall commit the treasonous act of purchasing that blasted film for the enjoyment and corruption of my little sister).

Why, you may ask? I'll tell you.

REASONS WHY I HATE CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI

1) First and foremost, he's a cheater. He did not submit his book to literary agents or publishing houses, he did not wait in agony for MONTHS for a rejection letter before sending his manuscript out again. He did not go to literary conventions and attempt to make contacts who would be interested in reading the boring and terribly-written novel of his.

NO, I say! He did none of these things. He is nothing like the rest of us.

His family owns a publishing company. Without having to earn the right in any way, he published his book and began distributing it.

Aha, but you may say... if he is so terrible, why then the success of his novel?

Oprah. Plain and simple. Oprah did a segment on teen writers, and as he was one, he got to go on. This led to his popularity with the general public, who is known for having bad taste.

2) As mentioned before, his books are terrible.

Anyone who has read Eragon, or attempted to read Eldest (I say attempted because I myself, a staunch believer in not abandoning books once you have started to read them, had to put it down due to sheer passionate annoyance) can back me up on this one.

Paolini took the low road. He created a /very/ cliched character: a special, talented, attractive boy with a mysterious past who is mistreated by his family and then made fabulous through magic.

BORING!

A basic plot summary: The Cliched main character, whose name is Eragon, discovers a dragon stone, watches the dragon hatched, and is now its caretaker. He fights off bakers or something of the sort, and takes an old man and the dragon with him on a journey to stop some dark force spreading across the land. There is a race against time, some more bad guys, some fire, a little blood, and then a magical and beautiful elven princess who is heroically rescued from prison as she is the leader of a rebellion camp (go figure).

The plot continues in that vein but I can't continue because it's too painful.

Anyway, I don't like his writing. He also sounds like he swallowed a thesaurus, and then puked it all over his 'script.

In conclusion, don't take any of this too seriously, as someday I shall probably have to eat my words.

Am I envious? Of course. I'm envious of any writer who has success, particularly those who do not /deserve/ it.

Does Christopher Paolini deserve my envy? Of course not. He has done nothing remarkable and his work will not be remembered past this generation.

...At least... that's what I tell myself.