“A gorgeous, aching love letter to stories.”
I bought a book based solely on reading this brief, beautiful review on the back cover.
These words comprised Christina Henry’s review of a novel by Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January. The intriguing title was a bonus.
What a challenge it is for writers to hit just the right note, find the perfect word in the hopes of moving a reader the same way this phrase moved me.
At the beginning of my very first creative writing class, the instructor made a pronouncement that I remember to this day.
“Success,” he said, “requires either the ordinary use of extraordinary words or the extraordinary use of ordinary words.”
An oversimplified statement to say the least but it sounded incredibly profound to my eighteen-year-old ears. I decided at that moment that the extraordinary use of ordinary words might be achievable for me. Probably because the reverse inferred sophistication, academia and eloquence, all of which was unfamiliar territory to me at the time.
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