Tears

I am devastated. While researching a horse breed for my work-in-progress, my thoughts naturally turned to one of the top-five nonfiction books of my life: Sacred Horses: Memoirs of a Turkmen Cowboy by Jonathan Maslow. Released in 1994, my copy of this unbelievable book has survived multiple moves, marriages, and pregnancies. It has been packed and unpacked, and though I am a chronic book-giver, gifting my hardcover and paperback books to anyone who wants to read them, it is one I have never, EVER even loaned to another human being. I read it. I re-read it. Sometimes, I just touch the cover.

So while researching, I decided to see what this wondrous author was up to. And I found out he died of cancer two months ago.

I am literally in tears. THAT is how much the book has meant to me. It is out of print, but believe me, so worth tracking down for his humor, his edge, his beautiful writing. I feel utterly bereft. Like losing a friend. That he wrote about nature makes it even more poignant. He was writing about nature and the rain forest before most of us even began to worry about "going green" or global warming. His writing was witty, alive, vibrant.

So my friends, this blog post is dedicated to one of the most brilliant writers I have ever had the pleasure to read. And it's with the hope, the idea, that his writing lives on.

I am including a "sacred horse" in my Magickeepers series. I believe the horse has just been named Maslow.

Thanks for reading this. Only other lovers of words can understand, I think.

Peace,
E

Book People

I spend so much time on this blog talking about the process of writing fiction. I love writing. Even when I appear to be daydreaming . . . I'm actually often thinking about writing. So it's kind of like I am working.

I "hang" with mostly writers. Writers, editors, artists . . . I always feel like other writers kind of get me. Not that I am particularly easy to understand, but at least with writers I don't ALSO have to explain why I like to comb the internet researching strychnine poisoning, or why I find people with unusual jobs--like funeral home workers--fascinating. Why I can't sleep when I am on a roll with a manuscript. Why I like to be alone most of the time. But love meeting new people.

But I forget that I am not only a writing person, I am a BOOK person.

Tonight, Baby Girl and I went to Barnes & Noble. I had a caramel macchiatto with soy milk; she had a hot chocolate. She went to HER book section (she's in 4th grade but reads on an 8th or 9th grade level, so she reads later YA, no longer middle-grade fiction, and then I peruse her choices to make sure they're not TOO racy--or don't have too much violence). I went to MY section (physics). I pulled one book after another down. Books on physics. Books on math. Books on the cosmos. Not cosmos as in vodka and pink stuff, but THE cosmos. I ended up buying THIS by THIS GUY. Other women like HIM (so do I) but I am, admittedly, a physics groupie.

I wandered from stack to stack. I went over to the comparative religion section. I checked out books by him. I looked at cool covers over in the sci-fi section. I went to the children's section. I looked at crossword puzzle books. (I am also a groupie of THIS MAN.) Are you seeing what a geek I am?

I went over to the coffee table books and looked at great photography. Then I checked out some memoirs. Baby Girl wanted three books. I whittled her down to one hardcover.

Oldest Daughter has a wardrobe Posh Spice would envy. She digs clothes shopping. I break out in hives at the thought. But send me to Barnes and Noble without Demon Baby, and I could literally spend all day. I don't have to speak to anyone. I don't have to do anything but browse.

There are all sorts of stats on how we're reading less as a nation. But I don't care. I am an unabashed book person.

So who else? And what are your trips to the bookstore like? Where do you browse? Let us peer over your shoulder at your bookstore life for a moment.

Before & After

Life as I know it has changed. Baby #4 has learned to climb out of the crib at will. I will think I have him settled down for the night and can FINALLY write. And voila! There he is, peeking his head around the corner.

Yeah. There is life BEFORE he learned to do this.

And life AFTER.

And, I will say, my other three kids were a LOT . . . less . . . wild. So not only is he out of the crib, but he is likely finding his sister's drumsticks and trying to break the glass coffee table by "playing" it; raiding the dog food and flinging puppy chow from end to end in the kitchen; or otherwise causing mischief.

But life is like that. There was life before I gave birth. And life after. And the difference has less to do with stretch marks and more to do with an immense outpouring of love like nothing I had ever experienced before. Then I did it three more times, each showing me that love is boundless and eternal and can grow beyond what you thought was possible.

And there are books I feel that way about.

There is life BEFORE I read The Little Prince . . . and life after. Life before I read The Sun Also Rises and life after.

So . . . before and after? Seminal event? Book? What reading experience changed you forever?