To tell the truth, no idea. I’ve had this website for close to three years now and really, I’ve just used it to provide updates on my story publications. There’s a bio there too, a few photos, but not much else about me. If I can’t be honest with myself, who will be? It’s all a bit dull really.
So what do I have that is unique to put out into the ether?
If anyone reads this, the pause between that last line and this line will be miniscule. In reality, it was long. It’s not that I have nothing to say, it’s just it’s probably not anything that someone has not said before, and probably better. But does that matter?
There’s a view that there’s only a handful of stories out there being retold over and over in books, television, film. Yet we keep coming back. Why? Well, if one hundred people tell the same story, you’ll get one hundred stories. They might be similar. They might be nearly the same. But they’ll differ in subtle personal ways. And some of those differences will resonate with the reader in subtle, personal ways, and give you that feeling when you watch a really good show that jolts you just enough to think, ‘ah, I’ve been there, that’s kind of how I felt when…” A good story reminds us that the human experience is not an alone experience.
So here goes.
I have two kids, a boy and a girl. Both very different. My little girl has gotten into Harry Potter recently. We’ve seen the three PG movies, started reading the Philosopher’s Stone together, she’s got toys, actually plays with them, dresses up as Hermione. Probably not that different to a whole generation of kids.
This afternoon, we sat down and watched the Goblet of Fire. I told her it was going to be a little older, a little scarier. She said she wouldn’t mind and she didn’t. I’m not one hundred percent sure she followed every twist and turn, but she was so excited to see it, to be immersed in this story of fantasy and magic. It seemed very, very important to her.
I love movies. I love books. I loved sitting alongside my daughter, curled up with me, watching Harry Potter on a rainy afternoon.
Sometimes life goes fast. You get into the habit of getting through things like the work week, like a cold winter, always looking forward to a few big events like a holiday, a birthday, a weekend. That looking forward can make things race by, including the thing you were looking forward to in the first place.
I have to remind myself sometimes to stop and enjoy the little things. Like a little girl needing with all her heart to see the next Harry Potter movie.