So, I haven’t quite finished A Fault in Our Stars, just yet. It’s a damn good book thus far. The kind of book that people will call important because it’s hella sad. I was driving along in my car, listening to it, as I do, and doing everything I could to not sob like a toddler that had his ice cream stolen by ravenous githyanki. I’ve seen that, it involves a lot of snot.
Now I’m curious as to how many of my readers are googling githyanki and how many already know what that is.
That brilliant non-sequitur is the actual point of this post.
You see, I listen to these books that are brilliantly depressing and I can’t help but understand the draw of the literacy elite to books that may be responsible for a increase in depression rates amongst their readers. I get it. I do. I fully enjoy the crazy sad books, too. They are true art.
At one point in my life, I thought, “Hey, I could be one of those people that writes literature.” I could be one of those writers that makes people cry.
But I don’t want to be… not completely. I mean, I’d love to write something that was so horribly important and depressing that it was the core of a college level literature class, but, I don’t think I want to focus on that.
See, there is this whole world of books that make you want to scream, “Eff Yeah” instead of making the same noise that a dog makes when you catch it peeing on your shoes.
Some of these books are linguistic perfection themselves. They are that pure art that the literary elite don’t like to admit, but, most of them are just kinda decent stories.
I don’t really worry about it anymore.
If, at any point in my life, I get to hear a person shout, “Hell-Yeah” while reading a book I wrote, then my life will be gumdrops and unicorn farts.
For the record, unicorns fart dust made of solid gold… so that’s a good thing.