I love to read but ...

To be honest, I had just about given up on reading. It is almost frightening that the only novels I have read in the last few years are the Harry Potter books.

Yes, I admit to reading them.

First, I do enjoy them. I'm a big girl now who can safely read them with discernment. I do have reservations about children reading them who are emotionally not capable of reading with an ability to discern story from reality. And that is another reason I read them. I know children who read the books and I want to be able to talk intelligibly with them about the stories, the events and characters that populate that "world." (I don't want to make a major mistake like I heard at church, and call JK Rawling "he" or make blanket statements about how evil the books are without anything to substantiate my opinion.)

Imagine, ten years in the making, an entire world of characters and larger-than-life plot and storyline. An entire generation of up-and-coming young adults have grown up with these characters and the plights and perils they have faced.

I admit, I'm still reading book six. I had decided Harry was becoming a bit of a "snot." He was the arrogant little creep Snape accused him of being. I know the end of the series. And decided I want to know how Rowling wraps it all up; how she brings everyone to that conclusion.

Whether you agree with her use of magic, witches and wizards, she is a successful author. That has nothing to do with the fact she has sold a gazillion copies of her novels and made enough money to make Scrooge McDuck's vault look puny in the process. She has created captivating characters that the reader actually cares about and gets caught up in what is happening to them. To me, that is a successful tale.

I've partially read a couple of non-fiction books. Static by Amy and David Goodman. And a book whose title eludes me at the moment but is about magically thinking in America today.

When it comes to fiction, well, I usually gravitate to the art or craft section of the bookstore these days; the fiction I see on the shelves just doesn't draw me right now. I must admit, Wicked sounds very interesting. But I wasn't sure I wanted to know about the Wicked Witch of the West that much, (from the Wizard of Oz fame). And it has been a while since I was in a Christian bookstore to look at the fiction. I went looking for Tommy Tinney's book that the movie A Night With The King was based on, but the store owner had no idea what I was talking about. End of that search.

The last time I had looked through the shelves at a Christian bookstore of decent size, nothing -- absolutely nothing -- sounded interesting.

That nebulous, hidden, conspiratorial "Committee of They" says that a writer should write what he or she would like to read. So, when I can't find what I want to read on the shelves of the local bookstore, or not-so-local Christian bookstore, I better get writing, right?

Then, I discovered blogs, finally. Blogs are amazing. Finally, something that the Internet is actually good for! I love blogs. Especially now that I have found ones that are kept by writers and wannabee writers who freely share their thought and writing processes and stories of what is happening in their lives now -- just to prove they really are ordinary people like the rest of us, they just have imaginations that may be a tad more fertile than the "average" ... and they don't mind being servants of that imagination.

I have discovered a renewed desire to haunt the bookshelves of the nearest Christian bookstore, or regular chain bookstore where I can suggest they carry more of these books that sound so wonderful. The nearest Borders is over an hour away. But the nearest Christian bookstore of any size worth spending my time in is even further away. Well worth the trip, though, if I can find these authors and their works on the shelves there.

When all else fails, there are Amazon.com and ChristianBook.com to turn to. As a writer who hopes one of my books will one day turn up on a bookstore shelf and will become someone's impulse purchase on a whim, this is a case where the hour trip to the brick-and-mortar store sounds like a very good use of my expensive gasoline.