Good news
December 6, 2014
Dear Readers,It's not quite a Christmas present, but I did want you all to know that I've finished the first draft of another novel. Only a year later than I originally expected to! There have been particular challenges and changes of direction with this manuscript, and those of you who know about my writing process will realize that there are multiple drafts to come. Still, this is good news.
I've also "blogged" about song and story at http://jeknowles.blogspot.com.
As 2014 draws to a close, I think of all the good books I've read this year and hope you've enjoyed many as well. This year's Booker Prize was won by Richard Flanagan of Tasmania, Australia. I've quoted Flanagan before, and I quote him again below, with wishes for a happy holiday season filled with good reading.
Flanagan's last novel, Wanting, features Charles Dickens as a character. In this passage, Dickens is speaking to Ellen Ternan.
"We have in our lives only a few moments. A moment of joy and wonder with another. Some might say beauty or transcendence. Or all those things. Then you reach an age, Miss Ternan, and you realize that moment, or, if you are very lucky, a handful of those moments, was your life. That those moments are all, and that they are everything. And yet we persist in thinking that such moments will only have worth if we can make them go on forever. We should live for moments, yet we are so fraught with pursuing everything else, with the future, with the anchors that pull us down, so busy that we sometimes don't even see the moments for what they are."