Ellie Lieberman's Blog: Dusty Shelves - Posts Tagged "to-miss-the-stars"
The Story Of the Book
Barbara Liebermanwrote, “The story of the book enhanced the story within it.” Never have I received a book the way John’s sister received Comedy Divine in To Miss The Stars, but I understand the sentiments behind the quote well.
I have blogged before about my grandmother’s copies of Anne of Green Gables. Though, the story behind these books haven’t faced quite the same adventure, they are special to me. The story may seem short and simple to anyone else. To me, it is just as important to the story itself. She passed on not only her love for Lucy Maud Montgomery’s work and the doll and other related items, but, something I treasure the most in her copies is her signature. Seeing her name and penmanship.
For me, books are always a great gift. Last Christmas, I received Perks of Being A Wallflower from my brother. The message on the inside made the gift and story even more meaningful for me. It was his copy, which was special in and of itself. However, what the book meant to him made it mean more to me.
This is very similar to The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I’m currently reading. It came as a recommendation from my boyfriend and it’s his copy I’m borrowing. For as much as I’m enjoying the story itself, it becomes even more special because it’s his and he loves the book.
Books tend to be tied to people and memories for me. And as much as these elements and the stories the people I love bring to these books, the story of why an author wrote the book enhances it just as much. I have always loved learning about the story behind the story.
Evangeline Duran Fuentes, author of Cry on Hallow's Eve, is a storyteller through and through. For as much as I adore her books, I absolutely love how the stories came about. In the back of her book, she includes a little information about the urban legend her story is inspired by. Knowing she was told this story as a child by her father and this was her own twist on it, enhances it in a way only Barb Lieberman could put words to.
Now, in the age of technology, authors themselves are more accessible in ways they had never been before. We can receive this information more readily and I do think it makes a difference in our appreciation for the story.
I have blogged before about my grandmother’s copies of Anne of Green Gables. Though, the story behind these books haven’t faced quite the same adventure, they are special to me. The story may seem short and simple to anyone else. To me, it is just as important to the story itself. She passed on not only her love for Lucy Maud Montgomery’s work and the doll and other related items, but, something I treasure the most in her copies is her signature. Seeing her name and penmanship.
For me, books are always a great gift. Last Christmas, I received Perks of Being A Wallflower from my brother. The message on the inside made the gift and story even more meaningful for me. It was his copy, which was special in and of itself. However, what the book meant to him made it mean more to me.
This is very similar to The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I’m currently reading. It came as a recommendation from my boyfriend and it’s his copy I’m borrowing. For as much as I’m enjoying the story itself, it becomes even more special because it’s his and he loves the book.
Books tend to be tied to people and memories for me. And as much as these elements and the stories the people I love bring to these books, the story of why an author wrote the book enhances it just as much. I have always loved learning about the story behind the story.
Evangeline Duran Fuentes, author of Cry on Hallow's Eve, is a storyteller through and through. For as much as I adore her books, I absolutely love how the stories came about. In the back of her book, she includes a little information about the urban legend her story is inspired by. Knowing she was told this story as a child by her father and this was her own twist on it, enhances it in a way only Barb Lieberman could put words to.
Now, in the age of technology, authors themselves are more accessible in ways they had never been before. We can receive this information more readily and I do think it makes a difference in our appreciation for the story.
Sit Down At A Typewriter and Bleed
Earnest Hemingway said “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”When I write, I truly write. There’s not only an investment in the characters and storylines. It is pouring heart and soul. It is knocking down the barriers of the everyday, exposing and vulnerable and naked on a blank page.
It is said that if there is no tears in the writer there will be no tears in the reader. From what I know of books like Chip Davis’s Angel’s Song in The Playlist Anthology and Barbara Lieberman’s To Miss The Stars (which comes packaged with tissues, by the way), there is truth in that saying.
Each week I revisit my manuscripts to participate in the local twitter event, 1lineWed, where writers share lines from their work based on a weekly theme. This week’s theme is Chaos and in Society's Foundlings, which was published two years ago, I came across this one line, “There’s a comfort in what you’re accustomed to. Chaos becomes its own sort of peace.” It amazed me how a simple line could still stir those same feelings in me as when I first picked up the pencil to write them.
2015 was a chaotic year, if not for external reasons, then for internal. In the years following the outward became its own sort of chaos. Now, I am in a much better place in both ways.
We have terms we use in my family for PTSD moments. Those little triggers that send you back to moments your body can’t seem to forget no matter how much your mind wants to. Those responses so ingrained in the brain, your breath catches, your heart seizes, the pain from that moment mere months or years ago is just as fresh and present now as it was then. But, revisiting this honest and sometimes brutal text that I created is different.
It’s as bittersweet as the story itself. I’m better. My world is better. The characters will forever remain frozen in that moment, in those conflicts, though. I have moved on and in a way, while there is hope on that final page, it is a final page. It is a scar, that indelible reminder, but it’s the scars that let the light shine through.
