There are times it’s hard to walk into a bookstore. Sometimes you are in the kids section of your fabulous indie watching your little boy play at the train table, and your eye catches some enormous display of a shiny YA from a reality star-cum-artiste, and you find you cannot take it any more, that it is all too much, and you say to your little boy, “Come on, honey, it’s time to go.” And he says, “But, why?” And you say, “You’ll understand when you’re older.” And you’re about to pack up and go when you realize you are overreacting; that this display has nothing to do with you or your self-worth; that publishing still is what it is, shiny display or no; that this reality star actually makes it so you can write your books too; that, most pertinently, you are only ensuring that your child grows up to start his own publishing house that produces nothing but novels by reality stars because you drove him to it. So, you gather yourself. You smile at the other moms. You tell your boy it’s going to be okay, he can stay. You put your hand above your eye, and you decide if you can’t see the display, it does not exist. You master yourself. You manage. Because it’s okay. Because it’s just a reality star and we are all rational people. We can survive this.
But this? This?
Former supermodel Tyra Banks has signed a deal for a series of fantasy novels about the world of modeling, her publishers said on Tuesday…
She has already finished the first, called “Modelland”, which is about a teen girl in a make-believe society at an academy for exceptional models called Intoxibellas. It will be published in the summer of 2011.
I shall not endure.
At least we know there won't be any zombies in Modelland. Not enough flesh.
Intoxibellas? Ae they drunk? I'd, like, totally read about drunk models.
I heard a rumor that a famous model was taking leave from her TV show and enrolling in a graduate writing program in Minnesota.
I suppose we should be glad they're not botoxibellas, but really…
I was disappointed last year when Cheerios decided to put a children's book by Princess Fergie in their boxes. This year, however, it was a book by a first-time author. My faith was restored, at least for a minute.
Yes, I have to take a deep breath and clench my teeth when I see a new book by a movie star, pro athlete, or other celebrity. It bothers me that they are allowed to elbow their way into print without having to bother with the more mundane details of writing, such as, say, learning the craft. They have *people* to do those things for them. It feeds that already too prevalent notion that writing books for children is easy; anybody–even a supermodel–can do it.
On the up side, Tyra is going to need a lot of ghost writers so if you can swallow your pride there will be writing jobs available. I think all of you above would make a fantastic writing team for a series about fleshless, drunken, intoxibella Modellanders.
Maybe we should write our own book where those fleshless, drunken, intoxibella Modellanders meet a totally hot pastry chef who tempts them beyond endurance with eclairs and cream puffs.
And THEN in a startling twist, it turns out that the pastry chef is actually a zombie!
You shall endure, Anne! When all the intoxibellas are dead from anorexia or imprisoned for life in detox camps–The Shadow Thieves will live on, unfettered and free.