It has always been the story that has driven me.
Jean M. Auel on Story. (The Commonplace Book Project)
You can find all the posts in The Commonplace Book Project here:
“From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me. The idea led me into the research, which continues to give me more ideas for the story.” — Jean M. Auel, in an interview with Aukon, September 2002
I was such an early reader and so taken by books all my life, that sometimes I have to remind myself that it’s not that way for everyone.
My sister wasn’t a big reader until she was an adult. It was Jean M. Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear that did it for her. She fell in love. She read all of the books in the series. By the time she was done, she was a better reader. She liked it more.
And she was hungrier for stories than she was before. So she read more.
As a writer, the idea of one of my books actually turning someone into a reader is seriously heady stuff.
Auel’s Earth’s Children series, which starts with Clan of the Cave Bear, is set in prehistoric Europe and explores the interactions between Cro-Magnon people and Neandrethals.
I’ve read the whole series. They’re my sisters books in the way that other books are mine. But I really enjoyed them, too.
Jean M. Auel is 83 years old. The first book in the Earth’s Children series was published in 1980. The last was published in 2011.
I really enjoyed this article about the sheer amount of work that went into writing her life’s work.
I couldn’t find the Clan of the Cave Bear film streaming anywhere, so I ordered the DVD. I haven’t seen it since I was a teenager.
If you haven’t read The Earth’s Children series, it starts with Clan of the Cave Bear. I just realized that I’ve only read the first four — and I haven’t read any of them in probably 20 years. I’ve added the first to my reading list. If I’m going to do this, I want to do it right.
Today’s Poem:
Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni by Percy Bysshe Shelley
(This is the first Stanza. Read the whole poem here.)
I.
The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark — now glittering — now reflecting gloom — Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings Of waters — with a sound but half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume, In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
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Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter @shauntagrimes and is the author of Viral Nation and Rebel Nation and the upcoming novel The Astonishing Maybe. She is the original Ninja Writer.
