Lane von Herzen: Fragile Seeds

My Third Novel's Conclusion, My Heartbreak

My heart begins to break when I think about completing this particular book -- because this narrative has sustained me like no other story I've known. It's both more personal and more universal than my other works. But beyond memory and archetype, it's a cri-de-coeur about needing to become the person one is destined to be. And in the writing, I have met my own life's work, my own fated journey -- having the sense all the while that the pages are suffused with a resonance, an energy, an electrified field that defies explanation. Writers hope and pray to be overtaken by a work in this way -- to be conscripted into passionate service of a profound story. To experience it even once in a lifetime seems a great privilege. I still have several months before this novel is complete, and this constitutes my reprieve. Because I'm not ready for the beauty to end.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Fragile Seeds

Ms. Emily Chappell sends us this captivating design, which feels so warmly hand-wrought, so genuinely conceived. From the turning currents of the lettering, to the crowding, gathering spheres of the motif -- I find myself drawn to the abundant, swirling world it represents.

In Ms. Chappell's words:

"The Velcro-like amorphous drawings were initially inspired by the Hackeysack toys played with by the local children in Part Two. The colours were chosen to represent the colours of Santa Rosa -- 'like dinosaurs, jagged-backed and blue,' and the 'foothills, which stretched out raw and brown.'

I was also taken by the shifting waves of fragility in the novel, and likened them to falling California sycamore seeds -- round, spiky, vulnerable and Velcro-like."

Thank you, Ms. Chappell, for this wonderful piece.