Have you ever seen something–a garden gate perhaps, a picture hanging on a cafe wall, an odd, unexpected object in an odd and expected place–that made you stop and look again. That stirred your heart, maybe your gut, a place deep within?
I love connecting with a picture, a story, a random object.
Imagine if something I made did the same for someone else. Even if I never publish anything, connecting with someone through something I created would mean wonders.
When I was 16, I read this book, The Truth about Unicorns. I’ve blogged about it before. I loved that book so much, when I got to the end, I went straight back to the beginning and read it again. Why did I love it?
I don’t know.
But that book reached me. Maybe this is problem. I want to write a book like that book made me feel.
Or how Watership Down made me feel.
Or The Phantom Tollbooth.
Mama Day.
But how does one write a book like that?
I don’t know. But that’s why I write. Eight novels and a pile of short stories, and I haven’t written that story yet as far as I can tell. I believe in that story, and one day I’m going to write it.
What book do you aspire to?
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 
I aspire to write the book only I can write. 🙂
Just saw a relevant Ken Burns filmlet you might like, at Brain Pickings.
I have almost no confidence in my ability to stop someone in his/her tracks with a story I’ve written. I’m pretty sure that one person or the other has really, really liked a specific sentence or phrase or whatever, because they reminded me years later of their reaction when they read it. Less often, they might say something along the lines of, “I always liked that one scene in your story ‘[insert title].'” Sadly, though, these people have never been publishing/writing professionals — or if they have, they weren’t in a position to do something with my story.
All of which makes me wonder, intellectually, why I keep trying to write and publish entire full-length freaking novels. Common sense would say, well, Stop torturing yourself. The thing is, it’s just so… so… so much fun, ultimately.
That sounds awfully weird, now that I’ve re-read it. But it doesn’t feel bogus to me.
The book that gave me that feeling was Lord of the Rings. It’s the reason I kept reading, and now write, fantasy. Nothing I’ve read has quite gotten me there. Figuring out what made it special for me has been a lifelong pursuit, and is a big part of my wriing journey. And I guess we can only continue to strive. I hope my wring is one day worthy of inspiring deep feelings in some reader I don’t know.
Darn wordpress, can’t see around my posting info. Those last ‘wriing/wring’ thingies were both supposed to be ‘writing.’
You pose an interesting question here. I’m not sure there’s any one book I aspire to. There are so many books I love, although I am not a re-reader of books. Do you mind if I borrow this question for a future post on my blog?
I write the kind of book I like to read.
That really is the only book to write.