Winning: Why it Counts

Winning something--anything--is fun, for a fact. I thoroughly enjoyed the recognition and my moment in the sun, but more than that, I took the Bulwer-Lytton prize as a vote of confidence.

"Celine," it said to me, "you've still got it, after all those years in Japan. You can still make people laugh in your native language."

That's it! That's it exactly. I want my words to touch heads and hearts and get a reaction.

If I can do it with a single sentence, then I can do it with a novel filled with sentences. This bit of encouragement is a vote of confidence that, someday when my novel is finished and read by total strangers, they will be right there on the page with me, not just reading the words but also feeling them.



"They can because they think they can."
Virgil, in the Aeneid