Annie Wicking gave me a writer's cave dragon for a Christmas present, which she beautifully painted herself. She only gave the writing cave dragon to a handful of writers on blogger, and my inclusion in that handful I take as a great honour. Also, having spent so much of my informative years in places like Middle Earth, Avalon, and on Pern, I've always dreamed of owning a dragon of my very own. It's very likely that the fantastical creature is the very reason I became a writer, so her gifting of her writer's cave dragon couldn't be more appropriate. Thank- you Annie. :)
A sentence I wrote about anger won the daily writing prompt on C. Beth's One Minute Writer blog. It's the very first award I've ever received for something I've written, so I will proudly display that on my blog as well. Thank-you C. :) ... Small steps, but still meaningful ones for me.
... Last night I finished reading Carol Shields' 'The Stone Diaries', which won the Governor General's Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It wasn't an easy read; I had to concentrate or else I'd have to read parts over. But when I lost myself to it, I was rewarded with such simple everyday profundities that it left me feeling both exhilarated and unsettled at the same time.
The story is about the ordinary life of a woman from her birth to her death, told from many different perspectives, including the narrators. It's a masterpiece, poetry written in prose, and there's nothing plain and simple about it except the subject matter. As a writer I can only imagine how involving it must have been to write such a novel, and I am in awe of Shields' accomplishment.
So now that the Christmas panic is over and I've time to get back to my own writing, I'm finding it difficult to do just that. Because of the time I've been away from it, and after reading 'The Stone Diaries' with it's lyrical magic and meaning, I am filled with feelings of doubt and incompetence once more. I've been gifted with joy of the written word, to see, and moderately comprehend the complexities and magic of it, but my ability to write pales so much in comparison to my understanding of what other writers have written. How can I continue to take my little stories seriously when the pinnacle of perfection is so far out of my reach?
Well done on your awards! They look very lovely:-)
ReplyDeleteAs for your question? All you can do, is keep on keeping on. I think most writers have read something and think 'I'll never be as good as that' but we need that. Something to aspire to. One day I hope someone will say the same about something Dar has written:-)
Lane, Thank you, such a very nice thing to say. ... I suppose, if we can see how good something is, then we have it in ourselves to do something similar... Keep on keeping on.... The funny thing is, there isn't really any other goal but that because if there were actually a place that you could reach, and you got there, then what?
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