Enna whispering in my ear

Full Cast Audio gave me another tremendous gift recently--enna burning on audio. This has become a hallowed experience for me, to listen to the books I wrote and be transported into the story via a new medium, so that the story doesn't seem like my words anymore. It's been the only way that I think I get to experience my books like any reader would. It's really magical. And the production of enna burning was just tremendous. The narrator is Cynthia Bishop, who also narrated the goose girl audio book, and her voice feels like home to me. The actor playing Enna is particularly outstanding. I'm very impressed with her, and pleased to hear that the same actress played Dashti in their just-completed recording of book of a thousand days (which will be out this spring, I imagine). And for you book nerds out there (like me), you'll get a kick out of hearing that authors Tamora Pierce and Bruce Coville both lent their voices to a couple of characters. It's an outstanding production. FCA received an Audie Award for their production of goose girl, and I think (dare I say?) they even topped their performance here.

I hadn't read enna through since the final proofing pass back in early 2004. I've skimmed it, looked up parts to fact check, but I hadn't just gone through the story, through Enna's struggle, from start to finish. And I was amazed. I'd forgotten so much, and the experience of that story is sometimes quite intense. I don't think I would write enna burning now, not the story that it is. I don't think it's something I could've or would've written after having children. And by that I don't mean that I'm sorry for the story I wrote then, nor that I don't think I'm capable of writing with intensity now. I'm just different. Since I wrote enna, I've had two children and lost one sister, and my soul is more sensitive, and my eyes see things differently. I found myself flinching from time to time. I'm so glad that I got the chance to write that story then, before I changed and didn't get the chance. I find it interesting that so few people have had any issues with the violence in that book, and those who have reported it to me have been mothers. The kids I know love the action and don't internalize any of it. It's not the least bit graphic to them--in truth, I don't think the descriptions are graphic, just the images a reader might visualize for herself. I remember being very careful with that. It's been over six years since I finished the first draft, so it's hard to remember what I was thinking at the time.

If I wrote the goose girl now, it wouldn't be the same story either. For one thing, it would be much shorter, and I don't know that that's a good or bad thing. I hope to keep developing as a writer, I hope to keep changing. I hope in twenty years I'm writing completely different things. I want to keep challenging myself, pushing myself in new ways. I'm very pleased with enna burning. I'm happy it exists. And I don't feel like I wrote it--which is precisely the way I like things to be.