Geoff, Grateful and Genre (8 April)

[Continuing the theme of my Epic Fantasy, ‘The Daighacaer’ ('Day-gar-care'); Book I, Escape From Mount Vilipend]

Geoff Maritz

Geoff: So what does Geoff have to do The Daighacaer? Nothing at all but he does have everything to do with my taking part in this A-Z Challenge. Geoff is my brother and he has a Blog called Geoff’s Blog (I've linked Geoff’s picture to his blog). 

We are a close family. Not geographically all the time but close in the love that we all have for one another. We help one another when necessary, celebrate, laugh and cry with and for one another. We are truly blessed and for this I am forever grateful. It was through Geoff that I learned about the A-Z Challenge and it was he who encouraged me to enter it. So here I am trying to think of something to write about each letter of the alphabet. I think I must be ‘cooked’ but I've got this far and will push towards the end. If I can do this, I can do anything because “21 days a habit makes” …

Grateful: I wonder how many people honestly appreciate the daily blessings and gifts they receive? On my Facebook page yesterday, one of my friends posted this: “I’m a Realist. I believe in miracles.” That pretty much sums up why I live in daily gratitude for the gifts I have and the very many blessings which whisper into my life. Whisper is what these blessings honestly do because they are so unobtrusive that they are easily missed and I know that I've missed more in my lifetime than I care to think about. That is why I am so grateful for the blessings I do recognise.

Genre: Merriam Webster defines Genre as ‘a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterised by a particular style, form, or content’. It goes on further to give the following example:

“In genre fiction there is an implied contract between writer and reader that justice of a kind will be exacted; “good” may not always triumph over “evil,” but the distinction between the two must be honored. —Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books, 14 Aug. 2003″

The Daighacaer follows the norm in this respect with good versus bad. I guess fiction must closely mirror life itself because in life, the ‘distinction between the two’ is generally honoured and those who don’t do so are considered aberrant.