Give Me a Book...Any Book!

I can't imagine living in a time when people couldn't read.  I've always read and always made up stories in my head.  As I frequently tell my grandkids, and told their mothers while they were growing up, books are my friends.

Growing up an only child, there were times when there was no one around to play with.  Before learning to read, I had picture books and an imagination.  Oh, what an imagination!  Those really were the best times, whether spent alone or with neighborhood friends.  Our bikes were horses, my clamp-on-with-a-key roller skates were my skis, we hung by our knees at the top of the swing set--our trapeze, and there was never enough time for play.

Adults aren't expected to live their life in imaginary worlds.  In fact, it's pretty much frowned upon.  Instead, we turn to reading books that are created by the imaginations of writers.

Guess what?  Now we're the writers, so we get to let our imaginations run free!  Just call me Peter Pan...from one of my favorite stories.  With no books in Neverland, Wendy told stories to the Lost Boys.  She should have been a writer. ;)

But books aren't only used by grownups for entertainment.  We use them to gain knowledge of things we don't know.  As writers, we often use them to help us hone our craft.  Many of those have been mentioned this month on this blog.  It's worth checking them out, if only to see a new way to do something or solve a problem we're having with our own writing.  They're a great teaching tool!  Fiction and non-fiction bring us full circle.

Life doesn't give me a lot of time to read these days, but I've been trying lately to do more.  I read in the car, as I wait for my grandkids school to be out.  I read before going to sleep...and sometimes while I'm going to sleep!  There simply aren't enough hours in the day.  My favorite fiction books have been read more than once.  I just finished reading Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Natural Born Charmer for the third time.  This time I tried to pay attention to more of the writing process in it.  Not so easy to do with a book that pulls me in from the start.

Yesterday, I took Debra Dixon's GMC to read while waiting for the grandkids.  Now that I've learned how to use it, it's much easier to understand.☺  Sometimes I work on my own writing.  I'm a failure at doing nothing.  I read online articles and blogs on writing.  I research topics related to my stories.  Yes, I write contemporary romance, but there are still many things to learn, whether it's mechanics of writing, locations for stories, and currently specifics on maternal death in the U.S..

I love to be entertained and I love to learn new things.  I have shelves of how-to books, some related to writing, some to life in general.  My Kindle holds even more, including romance, suspense, YA, classics, biographies, and even cookbooks.  (Disclaimer:  I am not a "cooking" person.)  If someone took all my books away, I wouldn't know what to do.  Make me laugh, make me cry, and make me learn!  It's all about books...and life.