| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: lasted unbroken till I was thirty-one. By that time, I had
written little books and little essays and short stories; and
had got patted on the back and paid for them - though not
enough to live upon. I had quite a reputation, I was the
successful man; I passed my days in toil, the futility of
which would sometimes make my cheek to burn - that I should
spend a man's energy upon this business, and yet could not
earn a livelihood: and still there shone ahead of me an
unattained ideal: although I had attempted the thing with
vigour not less than ten or twelve times, I had not yet
written a novel. All - all my pretty ones - had gone for a
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Desert Gold by Zane Grey: as inscrutable as if mind had never awakened in his race. Yet
Gale was conscious of greatness, and, somehow, he was reminded
of the Indian's story. His home had been desolated, his people
carried off to slavery, his wife and children separated from him
to die. What had life meant to the Yaqui? What had been in his
heart? What was now in his mind? Gale could not answer these
questions. But the difference between himself and Yaqui, which
he had vaguely felt as that between savage and civilized men,
faded out of his mind forever. Yaqui might have considered he
owed Gale a debt, and, with a Yaqui's austere and noble fidelity
to honor, he meant to pay it. Nevertheless, this was not the thing
Desert Gold |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum: obliged to untangle the flowing locks of her golden hair and tuck
them back of her pink ears. But she did not complain, for it was not
often that the King of the Wind Demons came into the heart of the
Forest. After the Fairy Queen, whose home you know was in old Burzee,
came the King of the Light Elves, with his two Princes, Flash and
Twilight, at his back. He never went anywhere without his Princes,
for they were so mischievous that he dared not let them wander alone.
Prince Flash bore a lightning-bolt in his right hand and a horn of
gunpowder in his left, and his bright eyes roved constantly around, as
if he longed to use his blinding flashes. Prince Twilight held a
great snuffer in one hand and a big black cloak in the other, and it
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus |
