My Writerly Inspiration

I am a writer. More precisely, I am a novelist. However, perhaps more importantly than that, I am a reader. Long before I began writing my own books, I was reading. Two of the first books I remember reading are Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner and Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander. Over the years, I have read many more books, some for school, some just because they caught my attention.

Several years before the idea of being a writer became something I wanted to do, I had discovered three authors who have stuck with me since over the years. These authors are JRR Tolkien, Terry Goodkind, and Joanne Bertin.

I first read Tolkien’s The Hobbit when I was twelve, followed by The Lord of the Rings when I was thirteen. The stories and the characters immediately captivated me, and as I learned more about Tolkien as an author, he evolved into a scholar and linguist as well. He has stories that are so long-lasting that fifty years after they were written, that they have become popular enough to have movies made of them. Due to that, the stories of Middle-earth have gathered a following that even includes people who would not generally read a fantasy novel. People have asked me if I want to be famous like JK Rowling, but my answer has always been that I want to be famous JRR Tolkien. I have always admired him and to be able to enter into the same ranks as him.

I found Terry Goodkind by chance in my second year of high school. I had seen a partial title of the second book as a random student was walking by and for some reason decided to look it up. He recently released the fourteenth book of his Sword of Truth series, and while I have truly come to love his characters and stories, the book that has reassured me in my decision to self-publish my books is a prequel to the series. The First Confessor is a book that he actually self-published, while the main series is produced through traditional publication. Seeing an author I have read for ten years self-publish a book that carries a special significance for him has helped inspire me to follow the course I have chosen.

The final author of the three is Joanne Bertin. I read her first two books, The Last Dragonlord and Dragon and Phoenix when I was in middle school, and I am currently reading the final book of the trilogy Bard’s Oath. I found the first two books fascinating. While I did not immediately notice the personal significance of those books, I noticed after several years of checking every six months or so that there was obviously a reason that I kept waiting for the final book. It took ten years for the final book to come out, and I have been savoring the long-awaited book. Because of that, Bertin is one of the authors who inspires me. Having seen an author who created a story that I found easily worth waiting ten years to learn the conclusion, I know it is possible to create a story that will cause people to yearn for the rest of the tale no matter how long it takes. While many authors create that kind of desire in their series, Bertin is one of the few authors I have read who had such a gap, and her persistence in writing that final novel is something I wish to emulate in my writing.

I have read many authors, and I find many of them to be inspirational in some manner. However, these three authors are people whose footsteps I wish to follow. Tolkien, Goodkind, and Bertin all come from different backgrounds and have different writing styles, but they each have managed to find a lasting place on my bookshelf.

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