I recently watched an interview with one of my writing heroes, Canadian folk musician Gordon Lightfoot. He said that he never heard anyone do a cover of one of his songs that he didn’t like. “Every time someone covers one of your songs, they’re doing you a favor,” he said.
I suppose an arrogant or insecure musician might believe that no one else could do justice to his work, yet Lightfoot’s comment makes a kind of fundamental sense. If someone else chooses to pick up your work and do they own thing with it, it’s because your work has touched that person. In the case of a song, they wouldn’t cover it unless they had tapped into the power and feeling and meaning of it for themselves. Their cover is a testament to that fact.
Writing a sequel to someone else’s story has its challenges. Diving into a world created by a team of writers and visionaries multiplies those challenges. But as I’ve worked with the Children of the Wells staff and read their writing, I’ve admired their perspective on faith and imagination. I consider them to have an approach to storytelling that is richer than the perspective many of my writing teachers have had.
I’ve also been impressed with the quality of writing in this project. At times I’ve found it exciting, and at times touching, and I was more than willing to tap into this vision and be a part of it.
In The Rules Change, when Jaysynn and Kyrie talk about faith and doubt and magic and miracles, their thoughts are mine, but it is the vision of Children of the Wells that makes their conversation possible.
When Vac and Tarc show up on the page, it is the vision of Children of the Wells that makes them necessary.
After reading these two characters, some people seem to think that I have a particular talent for writing leaders. The fact is, I would rather avoid this type of character. But someone needed to face mass starvation and mass panic head on and try to lead people into the future alive.
Tapping into the vision of Children of the Wells, into its power and feeling and meaning, has given me opportunities to do the kind of writing that I want to do, and has beckoned me to do the kind of writing that I might have cowered away from.
I hope that writers and dreamers who set this project in motion will look at my contribution and say I’ve done them a favor. I don’t mean that I want them to think I’m some super writer. But I hope that I’ve honored them by letting their work touch me, and their vision excite me.
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