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Friday, October 1, 2010

Welcome to One of THOSE Days...

I want to completely start over. I want to wipe away everything that I have ever written--but keep everything I learned--and start completely fresh. I want to stop trying so hard because trying so hard is getting me no where. I want to stop caring. I want to let go. I want to be better. I want to be the same. I want to know what kind of writer I am. I want to have something to say, something meaningful, something important, something fun, something funny. I want to be seen. I want to be invisible. I want to grip a reader like a vice. I want to know what I am doing. I want to have purpose. I want to show you something new.

The Last Good Place of Lily Odilon arrived in my mail box yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised to see it as a paperback. I like that. I think all books should be paperbacks. Books should be folded up and stuffed into the back pocket of your baby blue jeans, ready to guide you with a flick of your hand. Books should be highlighted, shared, passed around like a stale cigarette. Books should be worn--not from carelessness or vandalism--but from use. All of those eyes, skimming the words that have been skimmed before, that melted into someone, the same words, melting into you...

Books should be scattered, left on a park bench or buried in the sand like a treasure map for anyone to find. Books should be quoted. The words fly from lip to lip. Books open doors that otherwise remain locked and sealed. Books are keys. Books are a business. And a passion. And a life preserver. Books are transportation units. Books are time travel machines. Books are coloring books, color in the blanks, stay inside the lines...

Books are mirrors, sometimes cracked, sometimes shiny, sometimes covered in an old paint cloth. Books are jolts of electricity that bring us back to life. Books are havens. Books are caves. Books are flash lights poking through a storm...

Books are trouble-makers.

Hope you all had a great Banned Books Week!

Happy Friday!

P.S. If you can't tell, I'm in a super weird place about my writing these days...I'm in limbo or something...can't wait for November so I can use that to get pumped up again. This writing this is hard...but is it supposed to be THIS hard? Le sigh.

4 comments:

  1. Beautiful post, Lisa. Really hit home for me and totally fits my mood too. (haaaa sighing with you)lol

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  2. I love the idea of books being scattered, to be found by the next person. :)

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  3. I'm feeling exactly like that at the moment. I laid awake last night listening to self doubt whisper nasty things in my ears.

    Great post!!

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  4. This is absolutely one of the most gorgeous posts I have ever seen - you captured how I feel about books perfectly! I have a friend who HATES to bend paperbacks, and I'm like... but why? It means they've been loved!

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