There is no greater pleasure, next to loving making and intimacy, than reading and allow ample time to day-dream.

Daydreaming is a necessary precursor to being a writer. The mind has to be free so an idea, the germ of a story, can come to you.  It is in the act of daydreaming that I get to examine my characters, explore the plot and learn the direction of the story.

This is where I learn what I know and I realize what I need to know, and it is where I am often surprised at who is in my head and where I am been led — without permission.

Many writers talk about being a vehicle for their respective stories, but it is more profound than that and someone should undertake this examination. What exactly is going on between the writer and a story, and where do these stories come from?
I am to be writing a romance novel and a collection of poems about my father, but God’s Child, a woman I don’t even know, has entered into my life and has guided me to write five stories now about her, when she isn’t on my list of books to write.

How did she so easily usurp this place, so that now I am writing a short book about her life? I am thinking about her. I am asking people about her. Who is God’s Child, this mad woman, this woman in pain and why did she select me to talk with, to interest and invest me with telling her story?

Where are the psychologist, theoretician, etc.…? This is important stuff, a writer and her craft, a writer and her relationship to her characters.

From I was a child, even before I knew that I could and would be a writer, I was preparing myself to write. Well life was preparing me. Rather than playing with dolls, I would wander off to daydream by myself. I would crouch and listen to people’s stories. I would hear and remember things no one said or remembered having done.

I have not been writing a lot these last weeks, too much noise and people and remodelling going on at the home front, but I have been reading, about child abuse for my new play and other things.

This morning I got up, a little inertia, a little okay what’s going on with me, then I picked up a book, made myself fresh hot cocoa, put my feet on the African hassock, turned on the fan and read… equilibrium returned.

I was where I needed to be, doing what I needed to be doing, despite the hammering and sawing and painting going on downstairs. I was made to read and write and live a live of leisure, and I dear anyone to challenge my claim.

Although in the last fiver years I have donate more than four thousands of my personal books to various institutions and individuals, I still have more than I have place to store – 49 boxes in storage…those with which I am still reluctant part.

This year I have really jumped in gear and I bought only books on my Kindle, yes I have succumbed, well actually I did buy three books that weren’t on Kindle, but I am going the tech mode…I think.

Whatever the format, I love reading, and I love writers and am curious about where their stories come from and the various techniques they use to hook readers, myself included.

I am a writer. I am a reader. I am a writer, reader.