Rekindling My Passion

Tweet

Share It!

Print
Email

More than a year ago, my family began a journey that no one wants to be on. It took ten months for us to come out on the other side and even longer for us to finally get back to a place where things feel like normal. My interest in reading and blogging took a hit and my interest in writing took an even bigger one. It was more than I could handle to try to come up with interesting ideas to write about for this site so I stopped trying. Last night, the spark struck. I blame Laura Moriarty.

Moriarty, on tour to promote her fourth book, The Chaperone, was in Omaha at The Bookworm. I generally try to keep up with what authors are coming through town. They are so few and far between. I got to The Bookworm at very nearly the exact time Moriarty’s appearance was to begin…the place was empty. Not a single person sitting in the chairs the staff had set up. Did I get the time wrong? Perhaps I’d misread the bookmark I’d seen the day before when I was in the store. I had just determined to walk on down to the Broadmoor Market to grab something to eat when I noticed a woman sitting at the "author" table, signing a poster of the book cover. I took a seat and within a couple of minutes Ms. Moriarty began addressing the half dozen or so of us sprinkled among the chairs. Shortly the crowd had swelled to a whooping dozen middle-aged women.

After reading from her book and answering questions for about forty-five minutes, Ms. Moriarty thanked us all for coming out to meet her. She said she was pleased to have so many people come to the store with all of the other things people could be doing. So many? This is a woman whose new book is all the buzz among book bloggers and on Twitter. I had expected the place to be packed; I was disappointed and a little embarrassed that it wasn’t. She did seemed genuinely pleased with our little group.

After nine days on the road promoting the book all over the eastern half of the country, it would have been forgivable for Moriarty to sound like she was tired of answering the same questions bored with reading passages from the book, particularly given the turnout. Instead, she was bright, animated and clearly passionate about the book, the subject, writing and even the research. The smile never left her face. She often seemed to think she might be telling us more than we wanted to know, but she couldn’t help herself, she had to share. She told us about several interesting web sites she had referenced in writing this book and I wish I had taken out a pen and notepad. Instead I just sat there and allowed myself to get caught up in Moriarty’s enthusiasm.

Which brings me back to where I started. When I first started blogging, I "met" several bloggers who inspired me, who fired me up. When I went to my first Omaha LitFest, I was bitten by a re-found love of fairy tales that remains with me to this day.  And every time I go to hear an author speak, every time, I walk away with a renewed love of books and a reawakening of desire to write. All of this inspiration for free.

Which makes me wonder - what’s your passion? How do you keep it alive and where do you find inspiration?

Wife, mom, reader,blogger and native Nebraskan.