(Or take a moment, won’t you?)
Aside: I made this (Patreon) post “free to everyone” for, well, for reasons. It’s short, too, which helps. In the end, maybe it will help a few folks see things in … well … different ways.
Have a good one….
I’m in one of those hectic moments of life when three projects are coming together at the same time.
Exciting, meet angsty, right?
I’m running my newly launched Holiday Hope Kickstarter, while putting the closing touches on the delivery and accounting for this summer’s Saga of the God-Touched Mage and this fall’s 1101 Digital Stories in an Analog World.
Lots of small but critical tasks have been circling.
Details matter. Focus is helpful.
In other words, it’s been a scattered week of shifting gears and keeping multiple plates spinning, tasks not aided by a combination of weirdness at printers, my own silliness, and the fact that there really is only one me in here.
In the midst of this, though, came the act of signing a set of the Special Editions for a backer of the Saga. Earlier, I had asked her how she would like her books personalized. Her response was interesting. Just pick your favorite line out of the books, she said. Which I thought was kind of cool and interesting at the time. It turned out to be even more than cool and interesting, though. Instead, the act of making a good faith effort at fulfilling that request—which I undertook over several days of lunchtime perusing and re-reading—made me so happy.
Think about it.
In fact, do it today.
Find some time, and take the biggest, most important, or just most favoritest book you’ve written, and ask yourself what your favorite line is. If you’re not a writer, think about your kids, or your significant other(s), or your best friend, and ask yourself what the best quip, joke, or other comment they’ve ever made is. It’s that same thing, really. Akin to asking who a teacher’s favorite student might be. Focus, you know?
Really think about it.
Going into the exercise, I already knew I wouldn’t be able to choose just one, but once I was into the process, I began to see the books in much deeper ways. For me, fulfilling this request, especially coming as it did at the end of the entire endeavor, felt amazing. I started to see myself in them. Started to see things I knew were there, but hadn’t appreciated.
It gave me a sense of gratitude toward the books, and a sense of something I’ll call closure, but is not closure.
Don’t hold me to it, but I think it was Ursula Leguin who said that writers are people who use words to describe things that words can’t describe.
So, yeah.
I loved, loved, loved writing these lines.
And looking back at them with such a quizzical eye made me love, love, love the fact that I had done so, which is a different thing, too.
All together, taking this exercise to its fullest made me happy in that deep-down way that life can give you at times.
That’s all I have to say right now, except for this.
Take me up on that challenge.
If you’re a writer, grab your latest book (or any book you might have sitting in a dusty corner of your past and ask yourself what your favorite line is. If you’re not a writer, find a similar item. Something you worked on. Or, again, a friend. Whatever it is, really focus on it. Let the process take as long as it needs to take.
Let yourself enjoy it.
Let it tell you what it means to you.
Then go out and have a great day.
I am a human. Not an AI. You can tell because keep a Patreon page where I talk about writing and being a writer (among other things). In other words, I post a lot of things there before I post them here. I also share occasional work in progress for Patrons only, and give special discounts and sometimes even free books to Patrons at various levels. If you’d like to support me–or just this blog–you can do so by clicking here:
