Happiness is a warm keyboard= I live to and love to write

There was a place I loved to go as a child… that place held a myriad of stories- in worn pages bound in leather and cloth covers-- it beckoned me to come and play.

It promised adventure, laughter, exploration and amazing magic…and it was all a child could imagine.

The building was made of large stone blocks…a refuge from the world …It protected, it taught and it comforted. An outlet to all things imagination could conjure.

In those pages I found friends---characters that made me laugh, cry and learn.

My hometown library - built in 1904– was beautiful...it had thirty or more long slate steps...it had lion heads carved onto the building’s façade. Tall windows let in the sun and twenty foot ceilings felt like it held the world….and for me it did.

After school nearly every day I entered its large oak doors and felt the power of discovery at the first whiff of the old tomes it held on its massive wooden shelves.

I learned to love to read there...the stories the school‘s teachers forced us to read were horrid affairs-- but here I had thousands of books at my disposal and I could choose any one of them I wanted to read.

I realize my take on this world was formed in those early years within those fortress walls with all those amazing stories. – Dr. Seuss led the way to Charles Schultz - Schultz to Mark Twain - Twain to Poe…Poe to Thoreau. There is no true connection in the progression of material just a growing love for reading as I grew….but at twelve, Edward Eager was my favorite author. I read Knight’s Castle, Half Magic, The Time Garden, Magic or Not, The Well-Wishers, Seven-Day Magic…..and ‘Magic by the Lake’, this  was my ‘forever’ favorite – I have a dog-eared copy on my bookshelf today and have read it to my own children when they were very little.

I cannot tell you how satisfying it was to watch their faces and know they were as enthralled with this old story as I had been…and it was old when I read it.

My children are grown and the book sits on the shelf just waiting for grandchildren to delight in its pages... but on occasion when I dust...I will find myself flipping through a chapter just because I need the childish memory of believing in something more than reality…and it never fails to enchant me.

I know as a writer I will never match the talents of those revered authors bound in glorious leather in that long lost, to the bulldozer, Library of my youth - but I understand the love those talented authors had for words and creating stories and in that we share an affinity... I too feel the happiness in creating a new storyline. I may never know fame but I care not...for I accomplish more by just finishing my own story... for my own happiness.

When I write for me…I open worlds to my imagination and I step in and enjoy…I will never regret spending my personal time writing...It’s a world I create…and you can enter if you like…there is no pressure here.

Thanks for Listening

http://www.abctales.com/story/penny4athought/antediluvian-trouble-chapter-1

http://www.abctales.com/story/penny4athought/antediluvian-trouble-chapter-8

http://www.abctales.com/story/penny4athought/perfect-chapter-1