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Maradonia: An Insult To Decent Authors
Apr. 18th, 2011 08:44 pmI've recently discovered the atrocity that is the Maradonia Saga, and all I can say is Oh. Good. God. Thankfully, up until now I've been blissfully unaware of its existence, but after viewing a recent YouTube video by the WriterfromNowhere I've discovered this God-awful piece of literature. Now, first of all I'm going to point out that it isn't so much the book itself that's so atrocious, but the egotistical behaviour of the publicity team marketing it. The writing itself is bad, but not painfully so. From the small bits of it I've read it seems bland and childish, but not Tara-Gilesbie-level undecipherable. If it was just a piece of fiction on the internet I would pass it off as another mediocre story by a young author that may potentially one day turn into something good as the writer matures, and I wouldn't give it a second thought.
However, this isn't just something a young teenager has written as a hobby and posted to FictionPress. This is something the author (a sixteen year old named Gloria Tesch) takes very, very seriously. She likes making a big deal of how she is 'the world's youngest novellist', conveniently ignoring the fact that there are younger authors out there with publishing contracts who didn't need Mommy and Daddy to pay for the printing costs. If anyone attempts to critique her work she kicks up a big fuss about it and removes negative reviews where she can, and has her publicity team file lawsuits to have YouTube videos taken down because of supposed 'copyright infringement' (even though using excerpts for the purposes of crtique or commentary is perfectly legal under the Fair Use Clause).
I wouldn't be commenting on this if it was just that the books were bad. All authors' first attempts are crap. I still cringe at the stuff I wrote when I was eleven everytime I come across it on my computer. But the difference is I never self-published it and then tried to pretend it was the most amazing piece of writing in the world. Gloria Tesch seems to have just churned all this stuff out without thinking it through, having never properly gone through the process of proof-reading and editing and correcting and just had her parents pay to publish it. The result is that a few bookstores somewhere now have some poor quality, juvenile, amateurish-looking books on their shelves. Although this isn't exactly a positive thing, the fact that she's self-published in itself doesn't make me angry.
What has made me angry to the point where I feel the need to write a LiveJournal post about it is some of the crap I've read on her website. Tesch's egotistical attitude is nothing more than an insult to good writers. I can think of several FanFiction and LJ authors who would be much more deserving of a publishing contract than she is, but unfortunately it's the unjust way of the world that Tesch happens to be born to a rich family so she gets to have her drivel published. I wouldn't mind so much if she was slightly more humble about it, and maybe if she could admit her work could be improved and actually took on board some of the constructive criticism people offer her, but no. She seems to insist that her books are nothing but amazing, and anyone who says otherwise is merely a hater. Team Tesch carefully doctor all the stuff that appears on their website so it appears nobody has anything but good to say about the Maradonia Saga, and where necessary they make stuff up themselves.
( Cut for length... )
However, this isn't just something a young teenager has written as a hobby and posted to FictionPress. This is something the author (a sixteen year old named Gloria Tesch) takes very, very seriously. She likes making a big deal of how she is 'the world's youngest novellist', conveniently ignoring the fact that there are younger authors out there with publishing contracts who didn't need Mommy and Daddy to pay for the printing costs. If anyone attempts to critique her work she kicks up a big fuss about it and removes negative reviews where she can, and has her publicity team file lawsuits to have YouTube videos taken down because of supposed 'copyright infringement' (even though using excerpts for the purposes of crtique or commentary is perfectly legal under the Fair Use Clause).
I wouldn't be commenting on this if it was just that the books were bad. All authors' first attempts are crap. I still cringe at the stuff I wrote when I was eleven everytime I come across it on my computer. But the difference is I never self-published it and then tried to pretend it was the most amazing piece of writing in the world. Gloria Tesch seems to have just churned all this stuff out without thinking it through, having never properly gone through the process of proof-reading and editing and correcting and just had her parents pay to publish it. The result is that a few bookstores somewhere now have some poor quality, juvenile, amateurish-looking books on their shelves. Although this isn't exactly a positive thing, the fact that she's self-published in itself doesn't make me angry.
What has made me angry to the point where I feel the need to write a LiveJournal post about it is some of the crap I've read on her website. Tesch's egotistical attitude is nothing more than an insult to good writers. I can think of several FanFiction and LJ authors who would be much more deserving of a publishing contract than she is, but unfortunately it's the unjust way of the world that Tesch happens to be born to a rich family so she gets to have her drivel published. I wouldn't mind so much if she was slightly more humble about it, and maybe if she could admit her work could be improved and actually took on board some of the constructive criticism people offer her, but no. She seems to insist that her books are nothing but amazing, and anyone who says otherwise is merely a hater. Team Tesch carefully doctor all the stuff that appears on their website so it appears nobody has anything but good to say about the Maradonia Saga, and where necessary they make stuff up themselves.
( Cut for length... )
