I can't think of a title.

Last time (here’s a secret, I wrote this post and the previous post at the same time.  Aren’t I sneaky?) I talked about quotes; about how amazing and powerful they are, and about how I someday want to write something that powerful, that meaningful.

I know it may sound strange, wanting to get that sort of meaning out of writing some young adult fantasy novels, but it’s true.

Growing up, I read a lot.  Like, a lot.  Like, I read through morning prayer and had my book confiscated so I pulled out a second book and continued reading a lot (I think that last bit should be hyphenated.  I also think I like, said like too many times there).

Between bullying, a dearth of friends, and angry, divorced parents, reading was my escape.  I found a series of books, The Belgariad, by the late David Eddings, and they changed my life.  Literally.  The characters in the Belgariad became my friends, my parents.  I didn’t go outside and play with other kids, I played inside my head with Garion and Ce’Nedra.  They were my friends.  Silk and Barak were my wise uncles, Durnik and Pol were my more-functional parents, and Belgarath was my crazy, mischievous grandfather.  The characters that David Eddings created in that series, they were my family.

I can look at the interactions I have now, the things I try to do in my daily life, and almost everything about me comes from those lovely novels.  They have meant so much to me that, if I ever were to get a tattoo, it would be a line from those books.

What line, I don’t know, don’t ask.  That requires thinking and choosing, and I’m bad at both of those things.

In my journey from Elementary school to High school, I read through the Belgariad literally hundreds of times.  They were, and always will be, my favourite books.

As I sit and look at the book I’ve written, The Fire and the Fog, I find myself despairing, just a little.  Because I don’t feel it, or anything else I ever write, will ever be as good as the Belgariad; will ever captivate someone so completely, so totally that they’ll live their whole life by the words I’ve written; that they’ll literally inscribe my words onto themselves, using their own body as paper for the things I’ve said.

Because I want that very badly.  Not the tattooing; I could do without that really.  (though it can look really pretty sometimes).  But I want something I create, something I write or make, to mean that to someone.  I want for, after I’m dead and gone, someone to think of my passing and say of me, ‘David Alloggia was my favourite author.  His books changed my life’.  I want for someone I’ve never even met to miss me.

I doubt that will happen, the odds are not in my favour.

But that’s not going to stop me from trying. 

Because I’m hoping that’s where quotes come from.  Not from sitting at a desk and thinking about saying something witty and meaningful, but from wanting to mean something to someone.