Léna is also a Regional Manager for Writopia Lab whose mission is to foster joy, literacy, and critical thinking in kids and teens from all backgrounds through creative writing.

"Well, the question is, what do you want to believe? Do you want to live in a world where things are possible, or in one where they aren't?" Cin, Edges.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Damn You, Goldfinch!

The other night I had one of those dreams that ran in my head like a movie, or better yet, as a novel. I would not let myself wake up, for I was conscious enough that it was a great story and that I needed to remember it to turn it into said novel. It started with a phone call and a death, and ended with a young man smuggling a painting out of a museum.

Groggy, I force myself to half-sit and scrawl the dream down in my journal, excited about my novel-as-dream, dream-as-novel when it hits me - I am writing the plot of Donna Tartt's latest tour de force, The Goldfinch.

Damn you.

I had just devoured The Goldfinch over the holidays. I read, a captive audience, eschewing time with my family to snuggle in between the pages, to sigh with jealousy, admiration and awe at what writer's can do. The research, the in depth characterizations, the metaphors, the symbolism, the plot twists, the drama!

Masterful.

Deflating.

Inspiring.

“Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?”
Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch