This is the quote that I need when my writing dries up, my characters sound like one more item on a long to-do list, and nothing in my imagination captivates:

Learn your craft, by any and all means. ... Then practice it with all the art and magic you can muster. Be worthy of your vocation, which is, after all is said and done, truly a career of danger and daring. -- George Garrett

That--like so many other quotes in this series--could be an entire writing class.

It reminds me again of just what is possible between the covers of a book.

And it shows me that I've tamed my vocation again. I turned it into something undernourished and miserable and bleak and grey.

Instead of a career of danger and daring.

Daring?? Sitting there in my pajamas thinking through the next few paragraphs?

I'm homesick for reading.

Usually I have a book glued to my hand 99% of the time. Always reading. As a kid, I mastered the art of pinning an open novel under my chin, so I could read while I made up the bed, read while "cleaning" my room, read while pulling on my pants in the morning.

But lately, it's been hard to get around to reading. And I miss it. I can tell, because I catch myself staring at my bookshelves. I'm daydreaming about rainy days: a sure sign that I need 1) a cup of tea, and 2) a stack of murder mysteries. Or poems. Or YA fiction. Or essays about cooking.

One of my reading heroes is a woman named Mary. I met her at the gym, years ago: we were in the same early morning workout class. One morning she announced that she had run all her errands the day before, she sent her dog away for the day, and she had completely cleared her schedule.

"So I can read!" she said. "I got everything else out of the way: I'm having a reading holiday."

I stared at her. This woman has discovered the secret of life. A reading holiday.