belatedly, a love-note about stories
Stories
Somewhere, tonight, perhaps even now, a 14 year old girl has deduced that it is far better to be an Emma Woodhouse than a Harriet Smith - except for all the baggage which also comes with being a know-it-all.
Somewhere, this afternoon, Samuel Coleridge's albatross is flapping about, presaging doom.
This morning, a curious agnostic paged through the Acts of the Apostles and found Paul getting snakebit on the Isle of Malta (er, after starving, getting seasick, and shipwrecked earlier that same day).
Stories live.
Bella Swan and Harry Potter are carrying on in the imagination of teenaged readers, having different adventures in different places - all at the same time. Nancy Drew is still creeping up the hidden staircase at the Sign of the Twisted Candle, and the kindly maid is showing them how she makes 'Butterfly Pie' for old Asa. Trixie Belden still teaches her cousins and friends her 'memorize the room' game, and beating her brother at saying 'Rabbits, Rabbits" on the first day of the month.
When you put a story out there - in pictures, in words, in binary, in lovingly dipped crowquill script - yesterday, or a thousand yesterdays ago, those names and places and faces will carry on, whether you claim them or not. You still have to stand behind anything you write - being gentle with the younger-and-perhaps-less-wise author, nonetheless. Because if your story was read by anyone, than it is still 'there'.
For my story, so far, there is exactly one person who knows that a girl named Justine has fine, almost transparently white blonde hair, and that she will never willingly speak. Another knows that a bad person named Eli should really get the splinters out of his tongue before they, er, fester. And, a third reader knows that there is a girl, on an old mine road, thinking she knows everything, who has learned all she will ever, ever know, too late. And that some cups should be passed, and some water never drank.
Your stories will live long after you do - tell them carefully, and tell them well. Watch, closely, the stories you read and write - fiction or not - those names and faces and places will live in your head, and are almost impossible to evict. They will remember you, whether you want them to or not. They will keep you company, for a very, very, long time.
Sweet dreams, my story tellers, my readers.
Read and write and dream well.
Stories
Somewhere, tonight, perhaps even now, a 14 year old girl has deduced that it is far better to be an Emma Woodhouse than a Harriet Smith - except for all the baggage which also comes with being a know-it-all.
Somewhere, this afternoon, Samuel Coleridge's albatross is flapping about, presaging doom.
This morning, a curious agnostic paged through the Acts of the Apostles and found Paul getting snakebit on the Isle of Malta (er, after starving, getting seasick, and shipwrecked earlier that same day).
Stories live.
Bella Swan and Harry Potter are carrying on in the imagination of teenaged readers, having different adventures in different places - all at the same time. Nancy Drew is still creeping up the hidden staircase at the Sign of the Twisted Candle, and the kindly maid is showing them how she makes 'Butterfly Pie' for old Asa. Trixie Belden still teaches her cousins and friends her 'memorize the room' game, and beating her brother at saying 'Rabbits, Rabbits" on the first day of the month.
When you put a story out there - in pictures, in words, in binary, in lovingly dipped crowquill script - yesterday, or a thousand yesterdays ago, those names and places and faces will carry on, whether you claim them or not. You still have to stand behind anything you write - being gentle with the younger-and-perhaps-less-wise author, nonetheless. Because if your story was read by anyone, than it is still 'there'.
For my story, so far, there is exactly one person who knows that a girl named Justine has fine, almost transparently white blonde hair, and that she will never willingly speak. Another knows that a bad person named Eli should really get the splinters out of his tongue before they, er, fester. And, a third reader knows that there is a girl, on an old mine road, thinking she knows everything, who has learned all she will ever, ever know, too late. And that some cups should be passed, and some water never drank.
Your stories will live long after you do - tell them carefully, and tell them well. Watch, closely, the stories you read and write - fiction or not - those names and faces and places will live in your head, and are almost impossible to evict. They will remember you, whether you want them to or not. They will keep you company, for a very, very, long time.
Sweet dreams, my story tellers, my readers.
Read and write and dream well.
Love it! XOXOXO
ReplyDeleteremember these words :-) you are one of my favorite story tellers - and you are in good company!!
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