Thinking About Voyages

I'm off this afternoon -- to Holland, then on to France. In all, I'll be away two weeks, which means I may not be blogging with my usual regularity (it all depends on how difficult it is forme to use Dutch and French keyboards!)... but I do have a couple of things to tell you before I go.

Number one, I'm still reading The Cardturner by Louis Sachar (alas, because it is hard cover, I've lent it to a writer friend, who has promised to return it as soon as I walk in the door!!). I wanted to quote a wonderful fun line that Sachar used to start one of his chapters. Here goes: "Clifff was only ten minutes late, whch was about five minutes early for him." What I love about that line is that it's a little wacky, and certainly funny, but also SO true... we all know people like Cliff (in fact, I think I'm one!!).

I also wanted to tell you what I've been thinking about VOYAGES. Years ago, when I was a single mum raising my daughter, I had a friend who was always taking long trips to exotic places... and I remember sometimes feeling a little (okay, a lot!!) ENVIOUS... only then I realized that we don't always need to travel far away to take voyages. They can happen when we go for a walk, or get into a great conversation, or read a wonderful book, or even have a super interesting weird dream. So today, before I head off to another continent, I want to wish you great voyages wherever you are and wherever you're headed!!

And I want to do a shout out to a young person who wrote to me from a youth facility in Utah. If you're reading this blog entry, B, I've put a letter in the mail to you today. And I want to encourage you to write YOUR own story, and to use your experiences in a way that will help you step inside other characters when you write. See! That's another VOYAGE -- perhaps the most interesting one of all. 

Best wishes to all of you, dear blog readers!!