Friday, May 25, 2012

Epiphanic reminders*

*I don't even know if 'epiphanic' is a real word, but I like it, so I'm using it. :)

I was just about to get started writing--later than I wanted to begin due to unexpected situations--but I found myself distracted. I couldn't quite start. "Well, I'll read some #editortips then, or visit an author's blog, to get inspired." I enjoyed both, but kept flittering from one blog to the next, like an indecisive butterfly. I still couldn't start writing.

Then it hit me: if I couldn't find the "right" thing in someone else's words, I should write my own.

So here I am.

Then I realized this was something I already knew. It was part of the reason, a part that never even really needed to be stated out loud, that I wanted to be a writer in the first place.

Sometimes I think we have epiphanies, grand floods of inspiration and information, and we suddenly understand something that moments before was elusive. But I think we can also have epiphanic reminders, those moments when something you already knew comes to the forefront of thought rather suddenly, and you wonder why you didn't think of it earlier.

I'm off to write now. I have a chica stuck in hell who needs to get out before New Year's. She's gonna need a little help.

Happy writing, everyone.

Monday, May 21, 2012

With the Green Wind and his Leopard

"(It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.)" pg.4

I can attest to this.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

A Wizard, Revisiting

Years ago, I went to my local library, as my family did every week, and skimmed through the spines of the YA fantasy books. Many caught my eye, including one called, "So You Want to be a Wizard," by Diane Duane.

I read that book, maybe the second or third, and enjoyed them. It started off in a way that really made the reader feel the same could happen to them. Nita, the protagonist, finds the book with the same title. At first it just seems like a kid's book, but then turns into a real manual for wizardry.

In February, I turned 28. It's been a number of years since I last picked up that book, even though I have a friend who is a huge fan of the series. I see his enthusiasm and have thought on multiple occasions that I should revisit the first book. But I never did (the silly funk I was in). Until I went to the library a few weeks ago to meet with someone about a collaborative story. Of course I couldn't leave without looking at the books and on a whim I picked up books one and two.

Reader, I cried. A couple of times. And then I borrowed books four and five (they didn't have number three), and cried during one of those as well.

I didn't expect it, and I didn't remember being that affected by the stories when I was younger, but I felt encouraged by how deeply the story pulled me in and connected with me, and I have been devouring every book I could get a hold of.

It's also helped, I feel, get me thinking of stories and new plots and characters.

Ayway, if you, dear Readers, ever get the urge to reread something from your youth, I highly encourage you to do so. It won't always be the same experience, but you will learn from it.

Happy reading, everyone.