“If you don't have time to read,

you don't have the time

(or the tools)

to write.

Simple as that.” 
― Stephen King

What are you reading now? What have you read recently?

Do you get as excited about your favorite author’s new book as you do about a new movie?

When was the last time you shared a book with a friend?

If these questions bring pleasant or passionate thoughts to mind, you may have the tools to write.

We need as many of our fellows’ thoughts and words as we can gather in and reshape into our own stories. King’s plots and Dickens’ characters. Austin’s romance and Asimov’s visions. We need Hawking’s history of the universe and Gould’s history of life.

What am I reading? Last night I finished Philip Margolin’s Gone But Not Forgotten. I’m in the middle of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities. And I just got Carl Sagan’s The Demon-haunted World  and Pale Blue Dot. Which to begin first? It’s marvelous to live in the midst of plenty.

Look beside your bed, beside your favorite chair. Check your e-reader. Are you surrounded by humanity’s discoveries and dreams? If not, then you must visit your library, my friend. Or your favorite bookstore. It matters not whether brick and mortar or virtual. Just do it. READ.