So you want to hear more?

Glancing around the bookstore today, I considered my negative remarks concerning the junk that is considered fiction writing that is available on the shelves of bookstores today... and I wished I had included names like Madeleine Wickham/Sophie Kinsella, Jane Green, Emily Griffin, Meg Cabot, Ann Brashares... well, just about anyone who can write a book in a year is NOT writing literature. I also considered my probably unpopular remarks concerning these writers and thought, "tough sh--" these women are making money writing the piffle that is left in the bottom of the sink after you've washed dishes. And as a feminist, nay, as a thinking human it is my responsibility to call them to task for the dreck they cloak in terms like "writing" or "authoring". No, they are harming us all by feeding us the same fish that caused the seamen to spasm in agony. We would be better off to tell them to find another profession that does honor to our gender rather than debase us publicly. Meanwhile, women who are putting their hearts and minds into the offering, are often looked over or completely rejected in the publishing world! It is time for this to stop!

You might say, "Well, what can I do? I am just one person. My choosing this other, lesser known writer is not going to change anything." Yet, what happens when you find something so beautiful that it silences the soul and causes you to pause in the everydayness to savor beauty? You tell others and soon the sky is illuminated like the sky at sunrise. All around benefit from the light. Great writing can do that...

You might also think to yourself, embarrassed to say it out loud "They're too hard!" Like Samantha on John Stewart, "Ow, ow, ow, you're hurting my girl brain." I would challenge you, dear reader, that if reading beauty and word filled melodies causes you to think harder than you might want to, that it is necessary, perhaps even dire, for to put your ill-at-ease aside and take up the most challenging novel you can find (and by challenging I do not mean BORING- there is plenty of "literature" out there that is just plain wordy and boring. Don't bother with that!) and take it in and find your way through it. You may find yourself along the way...

P.S. And if you are a writer who aspires to more than pop fadness, then you owe it to your craft to read what you want to write. Reading the best can only cause you to write your best.

P.S.S. And I might add... for those who like to think of themselves as "different" or "radical" or an "individual", the stream is against your finding great literature. Publishers are not really interested in developing great writers, they are merely interested in the bottom line. They market the writers that will produce a book a year because that is how they make money. They SELL them to you on a silver platter and it requires a bit of searching to find the great books. And though it's not popular to say this either-- there truly is a conspiracy to keep you from reading wonderful literature, (though it might not be with the intention of keeping the public from thinking -although it has that affect also), it is with the intention of separating you from your money. In the paraphrased words of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, "They're selling [you] a dream..." will you see through the disguise? (Full lyrics are at the bottom of my blog)