I'm a Cliche & You Can't Judge a Book by It's Cover

Dear Kira,

First off, let me take a moment to address the sad state of my NaNoWriMo affairs. As you know, I am lagging behind by, count them, nearly three thousand words. That's almost a thousand more words than there have been years in the common era! But, I digress.

I think the point you brought up in your last blog is very important because, let's face it, we all have that moment when we're sitting in English class and the teacher is asking us, "what does this sentence mean? What is this a symbol for? Is Gatsby actually a murderer? Aw! The ambiguity". It bothers me that English teachers are all fine and dandy when famous authors write something vague, but if I write something vague or ambiguous in a short story, they're all like "um...I think you need to clarify this..." and I'm all like "but actually, I did that deliberately."

:P

So, to answer your question, I don't think there is any wrong or right way to write a novel. There is only the "write" way. Wow, that was a pun. Anyway, I think it's important to remember that most of the great writers are only great because they took risks and wrote in a way no one expected and no one had ever seen before. Sure, there's certainly bad writing out there (cough, cough Twilight), but I think there's more good writing than people think.

I think it's kind of unfair how some books are designated as "classics", as if they are some how better than other books. I think we already discussed this when I told you that my favorite book was Ivanhoe. To me, Ivanhoe is one of the best books ever written, but to another person it might just be obnoxious (sorry that I made you read it). And, conversely, there are a whole bunch of books I wish I could add to the canon of classics. So, really, what is "good" writing, is all a matter of taste. Don't get me wrong, the "classics" are classics for a reason, but I think there should be a little more wiggle room when deciding the merit or quality of a book. What do you think? Are the classics concrete or is there room to mix and match?

Maria

P.S. I know that was a cop out question, but I had to hurry up and write this so I could work on my NaNoWriMo; heavy sigh.