~Veriun

I've been in a Pokémon craze lately. Maybe it's because of Pokémon Pearl.
Anyway, I recently beat the Elite 4 (with THE sucky team, bwahaha) and found out how much I've attached myself to my team.

First it's my dear Alexandria, who's a Raichu. I caught her in LeafGreen when she was still a little Pikachu. She's a very quiet Raichu, and also a very deep thinker. She's really adorable and doesn't like fighting, and at night she curls up beside me to warm me with her fur. Also, she's a very emotional Raichu. She's very easily offended or hurt because she doesn't have a lot of confidence, but she's always helping me on my journeys.

Second it's my absolutely fluffy Aur, Bulbasaur. Unlike Alexandria he can get really competive and can't stand losing. Though he has a bit of a temper and is still a pretty young Pokémon he's ready to push us forward when we give up.

Thirdly, my Butterfree with no nickname, though he's probably going to get one soon. He's the big brother-type of the team and supports us emotionally. He's also very protective of Raichu and helps us with sleep powder when we can't get to sleep. He doesn't fancy fighting, much like Raichu.

And lastly, Adeleide, my Blissey. She's the healer of the team and hates fighting. She rather prefers to journey and see new places, and she's a really motherly figure. She's constantly scolding Bulbasaur because he gets into fights easily, but she's really kind and worry about everyone's peace of mind.

They all watch over me and protects me on my journeys to see new places and experience new things. I couldn't imagine putting them into battles that endanger them.



...wow, I sound like such a geek. Who gets emotionally attached to their Pokémanz? I mean, really?

If Christopher Paolini was a genius for coming up with Eragon at 15, then obviously I must be a writing god beause the character currently used in a story I'm writing was created by me at age 8.

This is going to be very ranty. In other words, my view on the book Eragon - or, the Blue Brick as it's called. Yes, it's probably going to be like any Anti's little speech on why oh why they hate the book, but I simply must get this off my chest.



Many people at anti-shurtugal.com's Livejournal commented on how they a) immediately realised the plot was ripped off from Star Wars and the world from Tolkien, b) had heard so much baddiness about the book before reading it and proved the rumours true or c) couldn't really place what was wrong, but once they visited anti-shurtugal or got told about its more obvious flaws and plagiarism, they began to loathe it.

I, for one, really liked Eragon.

I could see nothing wrong with the plot, and the characters were doing fine in eyes. Sure, after reading it I wasn't really left behind by an impression of having read the book of "the 21st century's Tolkien", as the author Christopher Paolini got praised as once, and I really couldn't remember a whole lot of what had actually happened.
I enjoyed it, at least.

But... there definitely were something there that triggered my "wait a minute, I've seen this before" senses. However, I couldn't find faults in the plot (even given how thin and non-existant it was), so I started reading it again.
And then, the realization dawned, and I saw what couldn't stop bothering me:
The book was in my writing style, back when I was 12 and wrote several (bad) fantasy stories.


My. Frickin'. Writing style.


At age 12.



That's right. Paolini's style of writing did so closely resemble mine that it was scary. Having the Norwegian edition of Eragon, I wanted to make sure, grabbed the book and dug deep in the trash bin of my computer until I found the stories I wrote back then.

They were effing identical, both in choice of words and writing style.


So... a 15-year-old "prodigy" wrote similarily to... that of a 12-year-old girl. And I do know, for one, that my writing back then had no voice. I hadn't yet found my voice, I hadn't yet managed to pour my soul into my writing. I still don't have a voice.

I always loved writing stories, and I read a lot. At high school, my teachers approved gladly when I told them I was writing my own fantasy story. "You're like, the next J.K.Rowling," one of them told me once, and of course, my ego soared into the skies and probably had a growth spurt until it was as big as Mt. Everest.

Then I posted my story on fictionpress.com.

Every single reviewer told me my story sucked.

However, they also explained WHY, and although I was furious at first - after all, everyone told me my work was brilliant! I had gotten so many fantastic grades! Surely they were only jealous! - I actually took them to heart. After a while, I began to see the mistakes they pointed out. In the end, I took the entire story down and butchered it to pieces.

Unlike Paolini, I killed almost every single idea that had been originally included - for example, the story was filled with angels, demons, fairies and merpeople - and sacrificed the sake of neatness for the actual story.
This was a story I wanted to write. This was a story that was nothing more than broken pieces that didn't fit together at all - but it was my story. Even now, when I'm 16, it's just beginning to come together. But I don't care whether I become famous or not, or if my story will never get published at all.

As long as I finish it, as long as it comes out exactly as I want it to be, then it's okay not getting published. Because I have spent years working on that story, its world, its characters, Eragon managed to do something no other book has ever done - it made me hate it. I loathed it, I detested it, I became furious at Paolini and everything he said and stood for.

Because Eragon is not a story. It is a patchwork of different author's ideas just stitched together with the seams sticking out like sore thumbs. It is a shame, a laugh, it mocks everything I stand for as a writer. Paolini has offended everything about being a teenage writer; he has given his fans the idea that it's easy to get published, that all teenagers write crap and that they are unable to come up with good stories. I don't give a damn whether he was 15 when he started it or not. I have met teenagers who are far better writers than Paolini, and who are aware of their workings sucking, they are aware that publishing is nothing more but a distant light that they, maybe, may never reach. And yet they won't give up, because they love writing.

Paolini, in comparison, does not love his writing. He does not read reviews. He does not have that fear that his one great dream - publishing his work - may never happen. He is arrogant, even if he doesn't intend to. And worst of all, he refuse criticism. That is the worst thing a writer can do to his writing. He refuses to improve, he isn't allowing his stories to develop.


So when faced by the old "you're jealous!"-accusion:

No. I am not jealous of Paolini, nor will I ever be if he don't get his ass moving and realise that his writing suffers because of his arrogance and stupidity. I will never be jealous of someone who treats writing like crap, who thinks it's okay to rip off other people's stories, who refuses to take criticism, who thinks himself above Rowling and Tolkien, who offends everything my inner writer holds sacred. If anything, I am jealous of him being published. Not his writing. Not what he can do.

On another note, I feel very sorry for him. Although this is pretty much his own fault, his parents are to blame as well. They self-published his books, thereby making his ego the size of a lesser planet. And then he got "discovered" by pure luck, and then his ego grew into the size of Jupiter. It's not looking like it's going to shrink any time soon.

If he continues like this, his writing will never get better.




I feel sorry for you, Paolini. I really do.

...my leaving certificate says that both of my exams were in writing, yet my English one was oral (got an A for bashing Eragon senseless). So I have to get a new one. If all the other leaving certificates have that typo, I'll laugh - that means 105 completely useless leaving certificates.

Yay.

Hi everyone!

I'm so happy! We're going to have oral exams soon, and I got English! I English, which is a thousand times better than mathematics. Poor guy next to me got just that. Anyway, we can write about a book or a film and say whatever we want about it... and you know what that means.

It's Eragon bashing time! Boy, I'm gonna have so much fun with this one!