Smooth with the rough

I've had a fairly pants week workwise. You don't want to know, trust me.

So I'm going to think about the very best possible thing that happened instead and note it here for posterity:

I opened some fanmail for Patricia Leitch, she who writes the Jinny at Finmory series. Pat gets fanmail with horses drawn in the margins, horses that look a lot like the ones I used to draw when I was 9, with short necks, big heads and saddles that are nothing more than semi-circles on a straight-backed bean of a body. I look at the fanmail before passing it on and I read things that make me tear up with joy and catch my throat with happy-sadness. Pat's fans tell her how much they love her books and ask her which is her favourite, they tell her which bit they like best and her how much they love her writing. One girl wrote so lovingly of Pat's writing, finishing the letter by saying that she wishes she could write like Pat, but knows that she will never be as good. (From the subtle, nuanced longing conveyed with her letter, I suspect this girl has a lot more potential as a writer than she thinks.)

Obviously Pat's not the only Catnip author who recevies fan mail, but to me, hers means so much because I see myself in those letters, someone in love with a world created by another person's imagination, someone who sees a kindred spirit in the characters - or the writer. And then I think of where my love of her writing has taken me and I feel immensely honoured to be a part of bringing her books back into the lives of a new generation of readers.

So, on balance, I can take the odd really crappy week, just to be a part of something so important.