My Article for tMF
May 15th, 2008 by --KALEB NATION--
Thanks to the enormous and wonderful readership that has graced my site TwilightGuy.com, I was asked to write an article about Stephenie Meyer for a large movie website called TheMovie-Fanatic.com. I tried to bring as much focus onto the actual words of Steph’s fans, since they are really the ones who can describe her best.
If you’d like to read my article, head on over to this page on tMF and check it out!
Also, there were so many positive responses from people wanting to help for the article (over 400!) that I couldn’t possibly get all of the best ones into the article. Thus, I posted my 25 favorites over here.
I find it very interesting to take a look at this, especially since I will be a very new author sometime late next year. There is something very different about Stephenie that sets her apart from everyone else, and I find myself watching Youtubes of her book signings as if they were videos in a class on How To Be An Author. Granted, I think I’ve already watched all the Lemony Snicket, JK Rowling and Rick Riordan videos as well– but unlike theirs, where the fans are simply fans, I find that Stephenie’s readers are something deeper.
It is a learning experience for me to see this, since for the years that I wrote my book, my mind was told in offhanded ways that authors must be reclusive, refuse fan mail, never appear without their publicist (and when they do, appear unkempt, drunk, and disorderly) and above all things: never, ever, ever have something like a Myspace page. I discovered Stephenie Meyer and all my old stereotypes for writers were gone: the same stereotypes I was dreading having to conform to. Here she was, knocking Harry Potter off the charts, and still being able to do fun things like music playlists for her books, a dream movie cast, a mega Myspace page and actually answer fan mail.
It was freeing, in a way, to learn that the best type of author was the real one: that before I went off and made myself a recluse because that’s what I thought authors were ’supposed’ to do, the thing people really would rather is for me to be myself. For any writer out there, it is worth searching on Youtube ‘Stephenie Meyer Book Signing’ and really watching how it’s done like a professional (and the screaming crowds do loads to get you writing again
).
Also, my agent posted probably my favorite story from him ever. I originally read it in one of his books, but if you’re a writer and you want to know the secret lives of those great beings we call Literary Agents, as well as some of the many odd things agents do for their clients, you absolutely must read this article.
Posted in Stephenie Meyer, TwilightGuy, Writing












May 17th, 2008 at 8:29 am
just curious..have you actually finished the book? and you’re re-reading it?
I don’t think you’re a slow reader at all and a book like twilight is not to be read..slowly…since it’s so goooood.
July 13th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Hey Kaleb,
I just wanted to say that if your book reflects your personality and has the same style and quality of writing that your blogs do, you have the potential to be a huge success. Like so many others, I found out about you from twilightguy, but now read your blog as well, and am a fan already - and you haven’t even been published quite yet!
Stephenie Meyer’s success really is in large part due to the connection she maintains with her fans - even those in Australia, for example, like me, who’ll very likely never meet her. The online presence alone is enough to make us feel like she actually cares about what we think of her work, and she feels like a friend. Lucky, too, that her work’s so easy to love, I guess!
My (long-winded..) point, though, is that you’ve already got this strong online presence, and a really interesting plot, by the sounds of it, for your upcoming book. It seems to me, at least, that with a strong fanbase already, your career as a writer is likely to be a great one.
Best of luck with editing and everything else that the finishing stretch entails!
Jocelyn