Where I can become who I’m supposed to be...

All my life I’ve wanted to be the kid who gets to cross over into the magical kingdom. I devoured those books by C.S. Lewis and William Dunthorn, Ellen Wentworth, Susan Cooper, and Alan Garner. When I could get them from the library, I read them out of order as I found them, and then in order, and then reread them all again, many times over. Because even when I was a child I knew it wasn’t simply escape that lay on the far side of the borders of fairyland. Instinctively I knew crossing over would mean more than fleeing the constant terror and shame that was mine at that time of my life. There was a knowledge – an understanding hidden in the marrow of my bones that only I can access ― telling me that by crossing over, I’d be coming home. That’s the reason I’ve yearned so desperately to experience the wonder, the mystery, the beauty of that world beyond the World As It Is. It’s because I know that somewhere across the border there’s a place for me. A place of safety and strength and learning, where I can become who I’m supposed to be. 

I’ve tried forever to be that person here, but whatever I manage to accomplish in the World As It Is only seems to be an echo of what I could be in that other place that lies hidden somewhere beyond the borders.

- Charles de Lint (Why, this is me.)

My muse...

I finally finished reading “The Bards of Bone Plain” by Patricia A. McKillip. Seriously, this woman… I kept having to stop reading at one or other line or paragraph and just marvel at her skill and how she masters the art of painting pictures with her words that touch the soul. And she never failed to inspire me, my muse, and make me write.

So, I decided that even though I have books by Charles de Lint and Diana Wynne Jones waiting for me to read them, I will read yet another of her books because I need the inspiration.

This time it’s the turn of “Cygnet”, a compilation of two of her novels: The Sorceress and the Cygnet and The Cygnet and the Firebird. I have only read the first sentence of the book and I’m already trapped: He was a child of the horned moon.

 Anyway, more writing and less blogging.