What have I read?
This last week I finished the first book in The Lost Years of Merlin series, one that my fiance has been regaling me with tales of ever since we discovered we have similar taste in books. It took me a while to get around to it but I definitely glad I did. These books aren't challenging reads but that never diminishes the experience for me.
What have I learned?
One of my favorite things about this series, right off the bat, was the topic T.A. Barron seized upon. I am personally very interested in re-written fairy-tales so The Lost Years of Merlin is pretty well up my alley. I go back and forth on whether it is harder to create an entirely new world/space or to write creatively within an already defined and somewhat destined space as T.A. Barron has. I'm not sure there's a right answer to that particular question though I do feel like there are right and wrong ways to go about both. In my opinion, Barron has, thus far, done an enchanting job. I'm excited to read the rest of the series!
In reading the first book of this series I was reminded of a fact that I stumble upon on occasion. For a book to be good, in my mind at least, the main character does not have to be lovable 100% of the time. As a writer, this is something I can feel myself grappling with in the same way I would grapple with playing a character that I don't like or agree with in a drama class. I want to enjoy my characters and appreciate them and that's understandably difficult to do sometimes. I have noticed that there are a lot of paradoxes in good writing. We love stories that give us characters that are real or relate-able or dynamic. Oddly, the thing that generally makes all these characters so good is that they aren't terribly likable all the time. They go through struggles and times when they are whiny or egotistical or stubborn or ignorant or just plane stupid. Times when you almost get so sick of them acting that way that you contemplate putting the book down. Or throwing it through a wall. I know that at the end of the 5th Harry Potter book I would certainly have been happy to have the series end in both Voldemort's and Harry's death, he was so mule-headed and self-centered.
I guess, to make an absurdly long paragraph short, I have learned that sometimes, the most interesting topic areas one can address are the holes in our favorite stories and legends. Such explorations take research and a special kind of consideration because your ending, in this case especially, is already well established, but can be very rewarding. I also plan to work, in my own writing, on developing characters that are real and sometimes unlikeable.
As a small aside, as part of the Picture Book portion of the semester I had the privilege of spending an hour and a half in a Q&A type session with Rick Walton. [Don't worry, I didn't know who he was until a week ago] Rick Walton is known, for our purposes though not limited as such, as an author of picture books. Lots of them. His enthusiasm for humor and word play are evident in his books which makes them a pleasure to read. It was awesome to hear his perspectives and advice on writing and the process of getting published. The man knows his way around and he had great words of wisdom to share with all of us budding authors. Some of them were things we'd discussed in class with some common sense mixed in. Others, though, were completely enlightening [at least they were for me!] without being discouraging [something I've decided can be harder to do than it sounds].
I am definitely looking forward to the other author visits that we'll be having throughout the semester.
Now for some of my own writing.
This "piece," if I dare call it that, is an excerpt from my writing journal [as all posted pieces will be]. I'm still getting a feel for what should go up here but for now I'm selecting the one that I like the most, even though it's more intense than I think I planned on beginning with.
What if you're whole life you've been a lie? Not that your life has been a lie [except by extension], but you have been a lie.
What if you answered "yes" to all their questions because that's what you knew they wanted and expected? You didn't mean to lie of course. You wanted to mean it. You still want to. You just wanted to make them happy, proud, more than you wanted to be sure you meant it first.
What if your motto was "fake it till you make it?" All in all, not a bad suggestion. But what if, after all those years, you realized that maybe you were simply faking it and never making it?
What if you became that lie without meaning to and now it's the skin you wear, the air you breath, the smile on your face, the dreams you dream and, of course, the clothes you wear?
What if you become so much the lie that you don't know if there was ever any truth in you, that you are anything but this paper skeleton?
How do you find truth again? How do you find truth in yourself again, if ever it was there, when all you expect from yourself is lies? How do you recognize it if you stumble across a piece of truth, of your real self?
And how do you keep from despairing that the lie is all you've ever really been and all you're ever going to be?
What would truth ever want with a creature like that?
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