Blog Post 7

To me a good story is a good story no matter what genre it is. If it’s fiction or nonfiction, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s entertaining and meaningful.  I’ve read plenty of fiction novels and memoirs to conclude that they are basically the same thing. Both genres are written by an author who’s just trying to pass on a story, true or not. That’s why I think that the line between fiction and memoirs should be discarded.

When I read A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, I was fascinated with his story. All the things he went through were crazy and tough. But when I found out that some of what he had written was false, it didn’t bother me. I didn’t care that part of his story didn’t happen, that he had made it up. To me, James’s story was just that: a story. While I was reading it, I never took it as complete truth. I just read it like I would any other book; as a piece of literature that was entertaining and controversial. Which is the way I think it should be read. If there wasn’t a line between fiction in memoirs then maybe people would read books this way. You wouldn’t expect everything to be true in a memoir, and authors wouldn’t have to categorize their writing in a set genre. They would be able to be creative and experiment with their stories. Without set the set genres, then people would be more open to new books they wouldn’t have read before.  

Blog Post 6

My goal in life as always has been to produce something great. Something touching and powerful and bigger than anything else I could ever do. Something intellectual and controversial and timeless. Something that would make people look up to me and respect me for what I made. I wanted to make something so I could believe in something. Be a part of something. Be known for something. I wanted to be a writer. And I wanted my greatness, my everlasting legacy, to be a book. A book that lasts forever, that has a timeless message and a powerful heart. I wanted this book to be like the classic books that I lived in. The books that I imagined my life to be like, with the characters I modeled myself after. Through this book I’d be like the historical writers I admired so much. Through this book I’d be a story teller and a visionary, someone I’d always wanted to be. My name would last forever along with my ideas and my lessons. To me, this was the most I could get out of life. The furthest up I could fly before falling back down to myself. Back down to whom I’m supposed to be.

For me this belief started when I read my first classic book. I got lost in the timeless story line and effortless, beautiful writing. I realized that there was more in this book than the books I had been reading. There was a bigger message; a more powerful point than I had expected. I loved it.  So I read more classic books, until those were the only ones I read.

It makes me sad to think that I would have never discovered some of my favorite books if I didn’t have to read them in school. If Mr. Goetz hadn’t made me read To Kill a Mockingbird for sophomore English, I would have never picked it up. I would have missed out on an important story that Mockingbird offers. An important story that’s not only an entertaining story but also contains a meaningful lesson; because these books are more than just stories. They aren’t written to be entertaining or to make money, they are written because the author believes in something. Something that they want to pass along and make others believe. I feel like a lot of authors these days just write books to be writing. They have no goal but to make money and have their name out there. Their writing seems forced and cliché; without depth or feeling. For me this isn’t inspiring, it doesn’t want to make read their books, let alone write one of my own. If these were the only books we read in school, then what we get out of class would be lacking. We need to read classic books to experience true literature, to teach ourselves how writing should be done, how to write to make it mean something. Without this, then all of our books will be meaningless.  

Book Two Project- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close