Just Some Thoughts on Writing

I'm a bit tired of hearing all this high-falutin' talk about Writing. Wait, before I go on, let me give a disclaimer: I love writing; I love reading. It's been one of my chief pleasures since I was little. I love the way words can be put together to form a picture in my mind. So, with that out of the way, what do I mean by 'high falutin'?
It seems like people who write have a serious superiority complex. Not only that, but they describe writing in terms that make me cringe.
How about this one? 'If you are still emotionally stable after reading, then you're not reading the right books.'
Or this one: 'Writing is easy. You just open a vein and bleed.'
And a hundred thousand other things said by various authors. Things like that really annoy me. Take the first quote, for example. As far as I know, I've never become emotionally unstable after reading any book. Any. Some stories have made me almost cry, and a few have haunted me for a long time, but they've never destabilized me emotionally. I have started a few books that I've put down as being too depressing. Why would we want to become emotionally unstable? That's just stupid. Shouldn't a book, a good book, do just the opposite?
What about the next quote? Oh, that sounds so grand. 'Just open a vein and bleed' eh? I wish there wasn't anything that needed to be said further, but too many writers think of themselves as martyrs, pouring out their hearts and souls into living words of passion and vulnerability.
Is there any rule that says a story must be birthed in agony? I've certainly had some tough times while writing, but never come close to anything like opening a vein and bleeding; not even close. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who feels like this. I know I can't be the only one, but no one else seems to be saying it.
I'm tired of being told that, as an author, I'm basically sitting up on a cloud with a halo. Everything that I write, simply because I am an Author, is worthwhile and everyone should automatically read it.
That's what annoys me a bit about NaNoWriMo. Thousands upon thousands of people sign up for it and are told that, 'Everyone has a story inside that the world needs to hear.' No they don't. Sorry, but no. Your story, my story, any story in the whole world, isn't worth something simply because of the fact that it was Written. Stories have to prove themselves. If they didn't, then writing would be pointless. It doesn't matter if you sit down and pour out your soul; that doesn't make it a good story.
Any thoughts, anyone?

Debunking the Myth of 'Anything Goes' in Fantasy

Possibly the most annoying thing I've heard from people defending certain fantasy movies is the argument that, since it's fantasy, who cares if it's realistic? After all, the whole thing is fake anyways. In other words, a character can defy the laws of gravity, but it's OK because, hey, it's fantasy!
That's just ridiculous. If, in the movie, the laws of gravity are present and intact, then no one should be able to violate them, no matter how amazing he or she happens to be. But how do we know that the laws of gravity apply in the movie? Well, do the characters fall down when they die? The law of gravity is therefore intact; and anything contradicting it, without a better excuse than the awesomeness of the character, has no business being in the movie.

This certainly goes in our novels as well as in our movies. We can't establish a rule (implicitly or explicitly) and then break it willy-nilly. If we do it once, then our readers might forgive it as an oversight. Twice, and they begin to wonder what's going on. Multiple times, and they start to nod their heads in boredom. What's the point of a story that breaks its own rules just for the sake of excitement or convenience?

I think that the people who make the argument of 'anything goes' are those who don't get fantasy. They'll watch/read it once in a while just for entertainment, but they don't understand people who really like it. So when people like myself complain about Thorin and Co. in The Desolation of Smaug being chased around by a dragon that breathes fire and can fly, and this same dragon being unable to even singe their beards, they just don't get that a story must stay true to its own rules or else it becomes laughable. Or maybe it's because the viewing public has been so dumbed down that a stupid chase scene that stretches the movie out way beyond what it should have been is more interesting than what should have happened: a tense, witty scene in the dark with Smaug and invisible Bilbo. Because who wants dialogue when we can have a dragon covered in molten gold just for the fun of it?
That's the way we'll get people to regard fantasy as a legitimate form of literature or film.