The thing to remember when you're writing," he said, " is, it's not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It's whether it wakes a truth in your reader. I don't care what literary device you might use, or belief systems you tap into--if you can make a story true for the reader, if you can give them a glimpse into another way of seeing the world, or another way that they can cope with their problems, then that story is a succes.
Charles de LintThe moon likes secrets," Meran said. "And secret things. She lets mysteries bleed into her shadows and leaves us to ask whether they originated from otherworlds, or from our own imaginations.
Charles de Lint... we chase after ghosts and spirits and are left holding only memories and dreams. It's not that we want what we can't have; it's that we've held all we could want and then had to watch it slip away.
Charles de LintWhat I want to do is travel deep and deeper into the dreamlands, to find that place that I know is waiting for me here. My home.
Charles de LintMusicโs the soundtrack of my life and has been since I was a teenager. Thereโs always music. If Iโm not playing it, Iโm listening to it. With my writing... sometimes it inspires a story, sometimes it highlights something Iโm working on, sometimes it simply helps me stay in the narrative mood.
Charles de LintLife's an act of magic, too. Claire Hamill sings a line in one of her songs that really sums it up for me: 'If there's no magic, there's no meaning.' Without magic- or call it wonder, mystery, natural wisdom- nothing has any depth. It's all just surface. You know: what you see is what you get. I honestly believe there's more to everything than that, whether it's a Monet hanging in a gallery or some old vagrant sleeping in an alley.
Charles de Lint