Sound and Fury

The Twilight books will never be all that good because they were written for the author and not for the story.

You may or may not be aware that I aspire to make my living as a fiction author. But did you also know that I dabble in poetry? I'm not very good, but I do enjoy to write poetry. While on one hand, I can actually see myself perhaps one day, if luck is on my side, publishing a book or two, I seriously doubt my poetry will ever be good enough to be in any sort of demand.
I wonder why this is sometimes. I certainly spend similiar amounts of time writing and thinking about both. But the way that I write poetry is so different from the way that sucessful poetry is written.
I'm being confusing. Allow me to expain.

I've come to think of it in this way. There are two ways that you can write: for yourself, or for others. (I mean this purely in the sense of audiences, keep in mind.) You can write something with the thought in mind that other people will hopefully read it, or you can write it purely for the sake of writing it. For me, most writing is written for an audience, even when I don't show it to anyone. But my poetry? That's for me. Even if I DO show some of it to people, it's not written for an audience. It's not even written to be good. I write poetry because I want to get some emotion off of my chest.

Good writing should be done in part for the audience, in part for yourself, and wholly for the story (or poem). Because in the end, it needs to say something to people, and it needs to mean something to you. If writing is done purely for the author, then it has no point and no meaning. There's a very good chance it wont even be liked. But if it's written purely for the audience, then it doesn't have any meaning to the author, and that author cannot hope to create anything with meaning if it means nothing to them. There is a balance here.
Mostly it must be written for the sake of the writing itself. Only when you write what the story is asking for will you write anything good.

For this reason, my poetry will never be all that good. I'm not writing to impart something onto an audience, the way that real poetry should be written. I'm writing for purely selfish reasons. And I'm okay with that.

Marina Reid

Because I stink and haven'r written something in forever...

Read something awesome by someone way more talented than I.


What is Stephen Harper Reading?




Yann Martel = Awesome.

Marina Reid

I think few people can boast more about their menial, entry-level part time job than I.

I consider myself to be very lucky to be forced to spend excessive amounts of time in a bookstore in exchange for payment. If I have to do some menial, grunt-work type job with a lot of shelving of product and dealing with customers in a retail setting, why not do it in a place I've always loved? My store has a certain atmosphere to it, a certain attitude almost... you see it in the customers that come in and how they behave, the other employees who work there and how much fun they have together, and all sorts of other little things: the music we play, the crazy amount of chairs for customers to just sit and read without paying first, and even the happy little kids squealing and running around or playing with the train set. To get paid to talk about books and look at books and pick out what books your going to buy next and help other people pick out what books to buy next.... there are few better jobs.
Don't get me wrong! I'm not saying that I want to go to University only to end up the manager of a bookstore! This is just a part-time job, a necessity until I can create a career. I wouldn't want to be STUCK there. Though if I was... well, there are worse places to be stuck.

Crazy things happen at work. I work with some of the best people in the world, honestly. We race halfway across the store to answer the phone. I often find myself almost on the floor with tears rolling down my face from laughing so hard. Whenever we do a midnight release of a book we go all out in planing the party and dressing up. We play bingo and do mad libs during work hours and plan the deaths of authors who write far too may books to fit on our shelves. Basically we just have a lot of fun.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have a fantasmagorical, fanny-pack-tastic job. Oh, and my job could beat up your job. So HA.

Marina Reid

Thanks for dropping by!

Welcome. Some of you might be aware of who I am, and some of you may have stumbled across my sad little literary blog accidentally without any idea of what is going on. I apologize for any dazed and confused people wandering about with a mad look in their eye; if they bump into you blindly, just walk around them.

So! You may be wondering what's going on here? Or perhaps you're at least mildly interested. Even if only because I seem to have two blogs and zero points. If you've noticed that, then damnit! I've been foiled again.

Basically, I've decided that with the amount of books that I read, come in contact with, and discuss on a regular basis, I have plenty to say about them. Add in my thoughts on writing and my asperations to be a writer... well, it all adds up to what will be (I hope) a very interesting blog about all things literary.

So you've seen my main blog. You've gotten your little view into my head, into my world, into my life. Now peek into my library, peruse my shelves, and see what I have to say about books and writing.

I hope you enjoy the little trip through my library!

Marina Reid