If You Be A Writer...

Read!

Seriously, all writers must read. And not just novels, either. Do you remember those readers you'd get in school? YOU know, those books you'd have in second, third, and fourth grade? Yeah, those books, with the hundreds of short stories in them?

I remember when I had absolutely no books to read, I'd go into the school room and pull out all the readers I could find and devour those from cover to cover. When I was done with those I'd go into the living room and pull out Mom's storybook collections. She still has them. They are the Colliers Junior Classics readers, the "Young Folks Shelf Of Books." There are a bazillion stories in there that I bet very few people remember reading.

For instance, who knows the story about the Funny Thing that would eat children's dolls? "And very good are they - dolls," it would say with a smile. Come on, let's see those hands.
No one? Please, check it out! It's a great wee story, and I only remembered it because I was visiting my brother in Kansas and we were having some sort of nice food, and I said with a pseudo-quote, "And very good are they - (whatever-it-was-we-were-eating)," and no one knew what I was quoting! So then I started asking if they remembered stories such as Peter Churchmouse, or Poppy Seed Cakes featuring Andrewshek's Auntie Katushka? (Say that three times fast. :-) How about Evie and the Wonderful Kangaroo?

Apparently only my older sister and I were weird enough to read every reader in the house. But I am full of stories because of it.

So read your readers! Even now, I enjoy pulling down a reader, or Grimm's fairy tales, or just any short-story collection and reading it through.

Because they're full of ideas.

And you never know which story will inspire your imagination.

God bless!

Cat