From Paulo Coelho’s newsletter “Warrior of Light”:

The common man worries too much about loving others, or being loved by them. A warrior knows what he wants - that is all in his life and that is where he concentrates all his energy. The common man spends the present acting as winner or loser, and depending on the results he becomes persecutor or victim. The warrior, on the other hand, worries only about his acts, which will lead him to the objective he has traced for himself.

Rule #1: Do your own thing.

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Every now and then, I get into a phase. Some might call it obsession. Me, I just call it enthusiasm.

Among my past phases: Sanrio, the Spice Girls, boys, and Harry Potter. Because I’m extremely nostalgic, and still a kid at heart, I will love each and every one of them until the day I die, but (thankfully) the intensity of that love will fade.

(Making room for NEW intensity!)

Right now I think my friends would agree, Dooce is my big obsession current phase.

I’ll be honest, I’m addicted. But I do think I’m learning a lot by reading each and every post in her archives. Sometimes it’s useless info (like what she was reading on July 30th of 2004) but sometimes it’s truly brave, or hopeful, or heartbreaking (in the most beautiful way), or just plain hysterical.

Her ability to turn anything — the ordinary – into a captivating story, it’s spectacular. It’s what I’m enjoying, and what I’m trying to learn.

That’s why I originally had “learning to be funny one dooce at a time” as the subtitle in my header image. But as Andy pointed out, that sort of gives the impression that I’m copying her, that I’m not that original, that I’m not doing my own thing. And that isn’t true.

(I’ve since changed the subtitle to “always leaping before she looks,” which IS true. I plan to change the header every few months anyway.)

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I FINISHED ANOTHER SHORT STORY!! YAAAAHHH!!!

Now I have to revise.

-_-

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In general, I don’t do well with things that are hyped up. Like, god forbid I take part in a trend, right? So I refuse and resist beyond all reason (just ask Angie) and I deny myself the wonder of things like capri pants, ballet flats, and Harry Potter. FOOL! (And yes, Angie, you were right about all of the above.)

In short: me? Not so good with the fads. And in literature, writing in the first person seems to be a very, very big fad right now. It’s something I’ve always sort of thought of as a cop-out, like, shouldn’t you be able to tell a story without having to pretend that YOU are actually telling the story?

BUT. (Butt!) I’ve read a lot of great books written in first person (like anything by Paulo Coelho and Amy Tan) and I know that this stupid prejudice of mine is just that: a STUPID PREJUDICE.

Not only that, but I’ve been thinking. And let me tell you, me thinking only leads to bad things. (Often tears. My own, of course. I don’t make other people cry.) In this case, the bad thing I thought of is that I probably need to rewrite The Good Daughters. In first person.

(I bet if I’d asked Angie, she would have told me that from the start.)

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From Paulo Coelho’s blog:

Writing is a constant challenge, where you have to dig into your soul, having discipline, inspiration, and courage at the same time.

Paulo Coelho has released another of his books online for free: The Pilgrimage. This is a limited time offer*, but I still think it’s fantastic and everyone should take advantage. I certainly am! (A free book? What more incentive do I need?) You could call Coelho a phase for me right now. You could also call it obsession. Both would be true.

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I have a focus problem.

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This past week has been chock-full of reading, and I’ve loved every minute of it. First I finished The Witch of Portobello, another wonderful Paulo Coelho book. I’ve realized that his style is essentially “fable meets self-help book,” and I like it. I don’t think it’s something I’d attempt to emulate within my own style, but imitating it might make a good exercise.

Last week I finished his book The Zahir, which is my favorite of his so far. The characters are very rich and engaging, and their plights are more “normal” than in the other two books. But The Witch of Portobello had a better (twist!) ending, like The Alchemist.

The rest of my reading consisted of excerpts from the 10 finalists for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest.

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I just finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (in English, not the original Portuguese). I had a hard time getting into its style, which some people compare to that of Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, but I think the big difference is… about 180 pages. You can get away with being crisp (in terms of sentence structure and character development) and overtly allegorical in a short work, but in a novel, it gets kind of weird. At least, it did for me.

That being said, I definitely appreciate the morals that Coelho presents. Particularly as a young, struggling writer, I found a lot to take away. Basically, Coelho says that following one’s dreams is a person’s only obligation in life, and that doing so contributes to the happiness and positivity of the world. However, not everyone has the courage to try. Why? Because of the four obstacles.

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