It’s clear that I am a professional writer. It is my right livelihood work that brings me such joy that it is sometimes overwhelming. I’m grateful that The Muse sees fit to shower me with ideas at all hours of the day and night. As I mentioned in a previous Bliss Blog entry, I sometimes write in my sleep, awakening with stories fully formed and I need only to type them into being.

I am also a professional reader. With more books than any other kind of item in my home, more arrive regularly from authors and publishers who want me to review them or interview the wordsmiths. I am pleased to oblige, but sometimes it takes me awhile to get to them all. I read and absorb quickly, the content, sometimes giddy with delight, others sobered with the poignancy of the subjects and the ways in which they are crafted. There are so many talented writers in the world who have the courage to put themselves and their creativity on display. I was on the website of an author whose book I am currently reading and discovered that she doesn’t like to read reviews since sometimes she doesn’t like what she sees. We authors can be kinda sensitive about people dissing our ‘babies’.

Reading has long been one of my joys; since childhood, I have immersed in word soup. I loved meandering through the aisle of libraries and book stores and still do to this day. I was in a local used book store this past weekend and sat on the floor in front of a shelf of self help books. Paging through various tomes, wanting to adopt them all; I had to resist and only brought home two. I have many shelves in various rooms in my house and have begun double stacking some of them. My ideal décor would be wall to wall shelves.

The origin of my love affair with reading was that my parents read to me. My mom took my sister and me to the library for story hour. We would leave with stacks of books that we would read and return the next week and bring home more. When I got my own library card, it was a read/red letter day! Highlights Magazine and Dr. Seuss were colorful companions.

“Children whose parents read to them tend to become better readers and perform better in school”, according to the National Center for Education Statistics