Indefinable, and Day 2 of Writing Challenge

To begin with I give you Day Two of the 15-day Writing Challenge! :)

Day Two: Your Favorite Male Author

Why, oh why, oh why must these question be so difficult?! I cannot choose just one favorite male author. It's a physical impossibility, I think! :P But I suppose I can limit it to two:

1. Charles Dickens--his brilliancy never ceases to amaze me. The masterful way in which he sketches the foils and idiosyncrasies of his characters and Victorian society is stunning. He has a wicked sense of humor...he's entirely quoteable. :) And I can say I know him pretty well, having made my way through several of his novels:

Little Dorrit

Bleak House

Nicholas Nickleby

The Chimes

The Cricket on the Hearth

The Christmas Carol

Great Expectations

Barnaby Rudge

A Tale of Two Cities

And David Copperfield, which I am almost 1/2 way through. :)

2. Close second behind Dickens is C.S. Lewis because....he's amazing. His writing says the things my heart longs to find words to say. I have never read a more beautiful allegory than The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Some of the times I yearn for Heaven most is when I'm reading the ending bliss of The Last Battle. It's beautiful, and reflects the relationship Lewis had with his Lord and Savior. :)

And now I find I must leave you on a bit of a sober note, for last night I was pen-slain. Ahem. ;) I read something that completely challenged my opinion of my own writing and caused me to wonder if I was a writer after all. The only remedy for that was, I felt, to write about it. And so I did. :) You can read the musings of my bewildered pen below. And though I am not quite so gloriously dismayed this morning, I thought I'd let you read it, that it might encourage or sympathize with one of my dear readers. ~Rachel

“Indefinable: a confession of beauteous pain”

By Rachel Heffington

I sit down to the computer and pull my chair closer to the desk. It is a new writer’s blog—new to me, a least—which I am visiting. Scrolling through the recent posts, my heart warms to this author. “She has good imagery and technique,” I think in my settled, complacent mind. I click on a page marked “writing” and prepare to read a cute paragraph or two about her literary endeavors—something like the page I have on my own blog.

I read her descriptions, then settle myself in to scan through her sample chapter. The first words capture my attention. Beautifully written, neatly-turned sentences.

All at once the sheer talent of this author hits me with blinding force. Her descriptions are perfect, her imagery flawless. I am captivated by the bewitching flash of her turns of phrase and my heart aches with…a feeling indefinable.

Indefinable, why? Because I have realized, with shocking, white illumination that my pen, my mind, my imagination is too feeble to even define the sensation, let alone attain such splendor.

The hour’s work I had been so proud of yesterday shrivels, pales, and wizens into a shabby child’s picture-book challenging a leather-bound, gilt-edged novel. I shrink from this realization as one does from a celestial light.

This writer’s words are beautiful, and yet painful to me. Like one who tremblingly steals a glance at a sight too lovely for mortals, I continue to read the singing lines, the shimmering prose.

How can I ever think I am a writer after seeing such an example? My heart throbs at the thought that my beloved passion already has one who can serve it better than I myself can.

And yet, the pain is purifying; it has touched the deepest chords of my heart, and evoked a melody pregnant with longing. Longing to be a better writer, longing to spin such webs of enchantment over my readers.

I can see I have only dabbled on the surface of the great depths this writer has dredged. My words are pretty and quaint, hers beautiful and knowing.

I will never be such a writer, will I? And yet a few drops of the purifying light cling to my heart like the fairy-lamps of the fireflies in the many-hued dusk. The ache her words awaken is not a new ache. I am familiar with the sensation, for it keens in my chest when I gaze on the evening sunset cupped in the hands of the pines—a goblet of golden light spilling onto an azure cloth in the banqueting hall of the heavens.

This writer has done what I have not yet managed to do: She has found words in which to liberate the beauty on wings of passionate expression…

Her pen has cut deep. It has shaken the very foundations of my craft and shown me how very transient my writing is. It has caused me pain and made me question my fitness as a writer.

And yet it is strange. I cannot despise her for it. No indeed. The wound is like gold thrown into a furnace, that the dross may be purged. And perhaps my wondering heart may take comfort in the imagery: my writing and talent may be, in some part, valuable. But I must welcome these cuts to my pride, these wounds in my flesh, that the gold will emerge from the wondrous pain a purer and lovelier piece of craftsmanship.

In Which You Meet My Sainted Aunt Fanny ;)

There comes a point in every writer's life when she stops and thinks,

"Oh my sainted aunt Fanny, what in tarnation have I gotten myself into?!?"

(or at least, that's how my brain would think it :)

And the only proper answer is, "you've gotten yourself into an adventure!"

A gift bestowed upon most writers that many other people miss out on is that of being able to see life in 3D. We don't just sit back and take each moment with unruffled complacency as it comes.

We watch people, seeing the complexity of characters and wondering if we could ever create such a person in our book.

We harrow up our souls trying to understand the grand plot behind every situation, and we get great satisfaction from it, though we seldom succeed.

We don't just live life, but we recreate it in our stories.

Much as it sounds affected, I know that you, every single other writer, and I store bits and pieces of our experiences in our minds to brush off and dazzle the world with someday.

Writing is an adventure. I know we've all heard this till we're blue in the face and wish someone would have one original idea to tote around instead, but the life of an author has it's ups and downs.

We fall into the depths of despair now and again when our characters or plot won't behave. But how sweet is the thrill that accompanies satisfaction in the work of our hands. I can think of only a few things more precious than to click "save" in Microsoft Word, sit back, and scroll through the pages, realizing you've just made history, even if only in your own life.
A writers, our imaginations are occupied in a land of our fabrication, among people we placed there, and events our wild fancy concocted. There is no limit to what can happen in the pages of a novel. I realize that I quote this self-same line from Miss Potter far to often, but it's become a byword for me. :)

"There is something delicious about writing those first few words of a story. You never can tell quite where they'll take you. Mine took me here, where I belong."

*nostalgic sigh*

So you see, as in our lives when we follow God, so in our writing if we keep a weather-eye out for adventures and then follow the words of our story you'll see...
They often almost write themselves.
Have you ever had that sensation of the words dancing out of your pen? As if you are hardly writing them, but they are arranging themselves on the page in a fashion quite wild, but perfect? :) Those moments are pretty much amazing.
I guess the main point of this post was to make other writers cheer up if they were sighing over their sainted Aunt Fanny and wondering what in tarnation they were doing...as crazy as it sounds, as inexplicable as it is to other writers,

We are simple following the path of our pens, aiding our imaginations with a bit of good sense, humor, and tenderness.

Believe me, I am not trying to make writing out to be a mystical, creepy, ridiculous thing. I am merely trying to get the point across, that one can definitely over-think their writing. The best pieces I've ever written are the ones where I exiled my brain and let my heart do the composing.
The pieces where I didn't give a lollipop for what a publisher might think or what was trendy in the market, or what people would read, but where I wrote what was in me to write.
Try to disentangle yourself from those sorts of cares. Who really gives a hoot for what the big-wigs think?
We are people, and as such, there are other people like us. I promise that somewhere, somehow, you will find a person who will love your book and identify with it.
And isn't that what we writers are all about? Sharing our love of life in words so that other people may learn to see the beauty? ~Rachel