A Writer's Treasure Hunt

[departuresong]

A friend of mine has a wonderful blog about literary/writing stuff. Her most recent post, I Challenge You: A Writer's Treasure Hunt, is particularly intriguing.

You are a writer.

Out there somewhere is a writer now published. A novelist, as we shall call him or her. S/he may have passed away.

That novelist has written and published a book that will give you goosebumps when you read it. It might even bring you to tears.

Why is that so? Well, when you read that novelist's book, you will find within the pages a voice that is similar to your own and images that take your breath away because they so acutely word what you see in your own mind.

It will be an experience that may surprise you. It will be an experience that will forever motivate you to write.

I challenge you to find that book. It may be within your genre, it may not be. You may already have read it, and it may be sitting on your desk right now in a place where you can see it. It may be another decade or so until you go into the bookstore, thumb through some of the books on sale, and gasp out loud when you begin to read aloud to yourself something that perfectly describes you and your character's story.

You may never write as well as the novelist wrote in his or her book. You probably will not. But magic awaits you within the pages of one book out there.

Finding this book is the ultimate gold of any writer's treasure hunt.

I never thought I would pick up this book, this Pulitzer Prize-winning book that to me sounded uninteresting, something to which I would give a passing glance. But I read the first page and had to reread it to make sure I wasn't imagining the voice, the narration, the words turned into sentences that rang true to me.

Have you found your book? Do you think you could? If not, where do you think you would start looking? It's interesting to think about.

 

[Sandstone-Shadow]

Hmm... it is interesting to think about. I have a few books in mind, but I'm not completely sure if they match this. They were books I first read quite a few years ago, so it's hard to tell whether they matched me or whether I was affected by the book and changed so it matched me, if that makes sense. I think it may be more of the latter, since I was younger and less defined when I first read them.

There are two other books I have in mind - The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean and Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev. I'm not sure that either is the book that this article describes... but they are for sure the closest I've come.

It may be within your genre, it may not be.

I guess that's a reason to read other genres as well. Weird to think that you might be missing something that close to you by missing a genre, you know?