but hold me tight and fear not

[faeriemaiden]

Autumn is coming; I can smell it and taste it. Today is fey and wet and windy, and the tree I can see from my window is half orange already. The apple tree is heavy with fruit (and occasionally with cats, as Willow loves to settle on one of the top branches and smirk down at the world), the geese are flying, and I am lighting more candles than is

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[faeriemaiden]

I was going to defend myself with "it's only one story thus far!" except that I remembered that I wrote fanfiction for Joss Whedon's Angel that was totally a Tam-Lin retelling, with quotations and everything. *facepalm* And when it's not Tam-Lin, it's The House Carpenter. Of course, whenever I'm stuck for a title on something I find some nice T.S. Eliot to lift...

Yes, this. That's so important to me too--not just with this ballad, but the things I write more generally. There's a reason that the other story I keep coming back to is "The Snow Queen." That ability to love and be stubborn is *absolutely* heroic, to me.

Absolutely! Especially since, you know, I'm really not ever going to be the girl who can win the day through physical valour. I'm fairly physically strong -- averagely, I suppose -- and not tiny, but still, I might manage to give a few good hacks with a sword or shoot off a bullet or two before the bad guys felled me. In fact, most of the girls I know are that way. Most of my heroes are that way. So I like to hear it said that there are so many different ways to be brave and to save the day. I love reading about or watching people save the day with science, or riddles, or stubbornness, or stories, and the fuel behind all of that is love.

I also love stories that show that there are different kinds of love, that it doesn't have to all be romantic -- Madeleine L'Engle is awfully good at this.

[tempestsarekind]

I don't even think I'd manage that much! So I would definitely need to invest in some other forms of bravery, were I ever called upon to be heroic.

One of my favorite bits in the Murry books is when Meg has to find it in herself to love Mr. Jenkins--because loving Charles Wallace is easy for her, but loving Mr. Jenkins is hard.