Mini Vacations - with a bit of tongue-in-cheek

Books are wonderful mini vacations. Books have taken me so many places including on a tour of Europe, to a Caribbean Island, to the hot bitterness of a gunfight, across the passages of time and back again, and into fantasy worlds. Sometimes I'm right there solving crimes in way too many cities and out of the way places to list here. I've fallen in love vicariously and even had an affair in more than one romantic get-a-way. Books have had my blood racing and stopped cold. Novels have opened my mind to imagine things I'd never dreamed of.


Be it the classics or the latest find at the cyber bookshelf, reading is a glorious pastime. Think of it. What else can you do when you are confined to your sickbed and get an equally wonderful experience when lying in the sun, possibly by the pool or even on vacation?

Books, both non-fiction and fiction have the ability to take you to a place you have never been. I personally prefer fiction, romance of course since that is what I endeavor to write. But romance has almost as many genres as the publishing world has publishers and sub-genres? Too many to count, especially when one "pigeon toes" a book into a very specific category as an author is expected to do.

I remember when I started writing, it was easy to say "I'm a romance writer/author." Of course there were the "nay" sayers. My favorite, from a gentleman that clearly experiences little romance in his life. "What do you want to do that for? You write one book and there is nothing left to write." Oh really? Have you, kind sir, bothered to count how many new romance novels are released every week? Oh, and a good percentage of those are by previously published authors. Time to cease my ranting…

Books. Writing. Glorious pastimes indeed. And I might include this note, even when the reading is required. Teachers, especially the boring ones that have stopped reading anything new, will often hand the unsuspecting student a reading list that may or may not be filled with books the student would never, in their conscious mind read! Who can blame them (the teachers that is) one can only read so many books (i.e. words) a year, whether they are well written or not --- and most high school papers, I am told by English Teachers, fall into the latter category. And lest you feel I am ranting on the poor unsuspecting high school student that is clearly doing the best with what they have been taught, College Professors have mentioned the poor quality of some papers as well.

But.

Note: I am a high school graduate, but do not hold a college degree in English. That said, I am a published author, professional reviewer, have served as Vice President of my writing chapter and, yeah, a mom that is occasionally called on to proof the young student's papers.

Back to the books.

I am one of those students of life that has happily discovered the best way for her to learn -- by reading anothers work. This is not an exercise in plagiarizing, quite the contrary. It is my experience that I cannot write while I am reading. Okay, that needs clarification. If I am reading a book wherein I am learning a whole lot, as in the one that my boss assigns me to review, I seem unable come up with my own material that is unique until I have slept it off, in a manner of speaking. That said, if the book is not in the genre that I am currently working on, it is quite easy to write while fresh in the morning and read that evening to meet a dead line.

Okay, so you still think I'm on a tangent. Maybe I am, but that is the joy of owning a blog. I can write what I want (within reason). And you can choose whether you read or not. 

So cheers! With a glass of your favorite beverage. Grab your favorite snacks and get to reading! Enjoy the mini vacation one has poured their heart and soul into to share with you, the reader.

P.S. I review for InD'Tales Magazine under a pseudonym.

P.P.S. My current WIP, the first in my Time-travel series must undergo a major rethink/rewrite phase due to my most recent assigned reading. I want to know where the unwritten bible to writing time-travel is. Someone is hiding it from me. Grrrr