Today is a very commercial holiday, but in a weird way, it always reminds me of Thanksgiving. Each and every Valentine’s Day I find myself reflecting on the number of wonderful people in my life. Friends, family, loved ones. I am truly blessed. I can’t help but feel incredibly lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing people, blog readers included!
It always warms my heart to see some of you here post after post, always leaving a comment, always chiming in. Thank you for listening to my random thoughts and being on this journey with me. I’d send you a Valentine’s card, but in the sake of saving some trees, I figured I’d share a few digital things instead.
FIRST. A truth:
I’d be lost without my book-loving friends. I adore you all for gushing about novels with me, for talking about Harry and Katniss as though they are real people, for obsessing over their stories and personalities and character arcs. You get it. You really do.
SECOND. A snippet of prose:
They say you never forget your first love, but in my case, this is an understatement. The phrase would probably be more accurate as “You’ll never move past your first love”, or “You will obsessively pore over your first love until your heart stops beating and your lungs are still.” This is me. This is my first love. This is my relationship with books.
And there is so much to love. The smell of a new volume, or better yet, an old. The feel of crisp pages beneath your thumb. The thickness of a spine in your palm. But even better still are the words, those colorless letterforms within the pages that somehow manage to take life before your eyes. Strung together they become moving illusions, captivating people and places and plots. They pull you into a world in which you do not belong. They allow you to escape. You can lose yourself thoroughly in a book and yet, at the same time, know yourself so surely.
No wonder I can’t forget my first love. How natural that I refuse to move on. And why would I? Why would I ever turn my back on that magic, those plots that freeze my pulse, characters that melt my heart, and words – those simple inanimate words – that persuade me to pause and reflect, to laugh and to cry, to feel so deeply? That is a profound relationship. That is love.
I was going through some old writing journals and found this among mountains of loose, exploratory prose. It seemed very fitting today and I figured I’d share it.
THIRD. A sneak peek at TAKEN!!!
I’ve been pinning like a madwoman lately. This is my inspiration board for TAKEN, a visual glimpse into Gray’s world, if you will. It is a rough springboard for my muse, so nothing should be taken too literally, but I wanted to share this today. Because I love this novel. And I love Gray. And I love the fact that — terrifying as it is — his story will one day be out there for you all to read. I hope you love it as much as I do.
Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! May you eat copious amounts of chocolate with your loved ones. Oh, and conversation hearts. Those too.
<3 <3 <3
