Twilight addictions

Twilighter, Twinerds, Cullen fan, whatever you want to call me I'm proud to admit I'm one of those crazy, obsessed fans who waits at the doors of Barnes & Noble awaiting the newest release of Stephenie Meyer's books. Originally I chose not to pick up the so called "teen reading" books, but was otherwise convinced by a good friend of mine who said I'd be impressed, lending me her copy. After reading the first 100 pages I gave her back her copy and ran to the bookstore to buy all three books ("Twilight", "New Moon" and "Eclipse") and started my two week long venture to finish them. Not only did I catch the bug, but I might have shared it a bit with my best friend in Layton whose husband now probably resents me for the two weeks she disappeared into the Forks adventure. ;) Just kidding Jason. So when "Breaking Dawn" released I was up until 3 a.m. after waiting in line for four hours. For those of you who want to know, yes I loved the fourth book.

But this wasn't the point that drew me to this blog. Because of my constant need to feed my addiction I have always paid attention to Stephenie Meyer's Web site. For those of you who haven't been on the site it is: www.stepheniemeyer.com. Stephenie is known to post her own messages on the Web site now and again and on Aug. 28, 2008 she posted this message, which may I add tore my heart out!

"As some of you may have heard, my partial draft of Midnight Sun was illegally posted on the Internet and has since been virally distributed without my knowledge or permission or the knowledge or permission of my publisher...I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being...So where does this leave Midnight Sun? My first feeling was that there was no way to continue. Writing isn't like math; in math, two plus two always equals four no matter what your mood is like. With writing, the way you feel changes everything. If I tried to write Midnight Sun now, in my current frame of mind, James would probably win and all the Cullens would die, which wouldn't dovetail too well with the original story. In any case, I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on Midnight Sun, and so it is on hold indefinitely."

If you didn't catch that it's not being finished. It will never be published. Now as a writer myself I found myself angry with what someone could do to violate a close friend's life work. Then it hit me that her newest book, which would easily have topped the sales of all of her books in the time it takes to swipe a credit card, would never be brought to life. She did however give her fans what she had written, about 264 pages. Readers can find the manuscript on the same link as above.

All things aside about Twilight, it made me wonder about my own work and how easily someone can feed off of someone else's creativity for their own personal gain. Now I've been writing for the Dixie State College newspaper the "Dixie Sun" since my senior year in high school. How many people may have plagerised my articles? How many people typed up the same information I worked hard to obtain into their class report at the last minute to save themselves a little time? Has our reality sunk to you can't trust your closest friends to allow you to achieve your own successes? Or am I wrong?

I hope at one point someone gets a reality check and gets it through his or her mind that life isn't about cheating your way through or finding loopholes that benefit you at the moment but maybe demolish the person who actually did the work.