Happy Saturday! Blogging five days a week isn’t a big deal for me, but the Saturday post will be a bit of a change of habit. If you’re looking for my 140 character Twitter pitch, click here.

Otherwise, welcome to day two of my alphabet soup writing journey.

I went through a lot of options and it’s only day two. Boy. Blue. Bonnet. Okay, maybe not that last one. But I will say we spent about fifteen minutes on the porch last night spewing ‘b’ words at each other. We probably sounded like some warped children’s program. Not one from the US, because Sweetie was smoking. But maybe one from a European country or something.

Almost landed on Ba’al, but decided I didn’t want to post that snippet of my work today.

Almost landed on boyfriend, but…it just wasn’t making an effective post.

So instead (and I’ve changed my mind/restarted this part of the post three times now)…book.

Which was

1. my original choice and
2. I’m surprised I haven’t seen it yet this morning. It’s still early (here, anyway), so I’m sure I won’t be the only one to use this theme.

Books are pretty much central to my life story. Not only as a writer, but as an individual. According my mother, when I was very young we had a Bambi picture book that I adored. Very young as in, couldn’t read yet. So instead, I made her read it to me enough times that I memorized the words and the pages they were on, and could sit and pretend to read it by reciting what I’d memorized.

I have no memory of this, but I suspect it was the beginning of a long career of

1. Remembering bizarre snippets of information no one else does, which has always served me well and been a boon in any job, and
2. Doing things differently than everyone else around me but still getting the job done

But books have done so much more for me. They’re a safe-haven. A place I can experience new wonders. An escape. And when I write, a way for me to recreate people and worlds and universes I’d like to see and know, and hope that others feel the same way.

It’s why I write. It’s why I’m taking this journey (blog title, A-Z theme, etc, etc). Books have inspired me and few things would make me happier than to be a part of doing that for someone else.

That and now that I’m actually writing, books have introduced me to some amazing people. I’m not a people person. I’m a hard-core, proud introvert with anxiety issues. But the bloggers I’ve met…the writers I’ve met…two of my favoritest real life people are former coworkers I found a common bond with because of our love of books. At home, we line our walls with books, and have discovered some amazing authors over the years because of it.

I figure with as many books out there as there are, I and my small circle of friends can’t be the only people who adore them so. What have books done for you? Maybe it was a favorite author or story that changed your life. Or a desire, like me, to create your own, or something else entirely. How have books inspired you?