Thursday, April 17, 2008

Following The Advice Of The Three Greats

So, in that paper I posted about C. S. Lewis, Stephen King, and Madeleine L'Engle, their advice was to:

-read and write a lot

-hold true to a vision

-use inspiration

Time to check how that's been working for me. I've been reading A LOT. That almost never changes for me. No matter what, I read. Haven't been writing a lot at all, but that's partly because I finished the first round of revisions on my novel and sent it out to some friends for feedback. It's sit back and wait time. In a sense, the "write a lot" principle is working for me right now. I've never gotten this far in the novel-writing process before. It's all a new experience from here and I'm learning as I go.

Holding true to a vision: I wish I had a clearer or more magnificent vision for the novel I wrote. What I did have was a flash of story and a flash of characters that I pursued. I had finally decided I should write children's novels because that's the bulk of what I read! I've got shelves and shelves of L'Engle, L. M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Betty MacDonald at home.

Did I make use of inspiration? C. S. Lewis's was a spiritual type of ecstasy he called Joy; Stephen King's is a dwarfish muse who carries "a bag of magic"; and Madeleine L'Engle's was faith in the significance of every creature and every act in this world. I don't know. I don't think so. Most of this process felt clunky and contrived to me, but when I got into the flow of writing, I felt the joy of productivity, of creation. The act of writing regularly calmed my soul. But I didn't have any illusions about the beauty of my writing. I thought I was writing a cute little story about a few cute little characters that would turn out to be unprofound. I don't believe I have the talent to go deeper than that. Or maybe it's just that I need more experience at this to really believe in what I can do. Maybe.

What I discovered while typing that sentence up there ("I was writing a cute little story about a few cute little characters that would turn out to be unprofound") is that it doesn't bother me. That sounds all right.

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