A – A story is a letter that the author writes to himself to tell himself things he would be unable to discover otherwise.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón – The Shadow of the Wind

I first read The Shadow of the Wind, wow, maybe 20 years ago? I don’t remember much about the characters, nor the plot. What I remember though, is that for the first time as an adult, I finished a novel and all I wanted to do was hug the book. So many feelings. It was as if even if I never read another novel again, it would be fine, I had read The Shadow of the Wind and I would be fine.

My son started a new job a while ago, and there was down time everyday, so while his coworkers played on their phones, he raided by book shelf and ended up reading The Shadow of the Wind. He reported the same feeling after the last pages.

As I began to think about what quotes I wanted to use for this Commonplace Book project, I looked for some overarching theme. One quote to rule them all, as it were. I came up with nothing. So, I just pulled quotes from books I am currently reading, and have already made index cards for most of the letters. Will these be the best quotes for the coming days? Maybe, maybe not. Will they all wrap into some common, life-changing theme, prompting publishing houses to chase me down to convert my blog to a book? Sources say no.

But this quote leads me to look for how these quotes made me feel when I first came across them. To let this month tell me things I would be unable to discover otherwise.

(Welcome to my latest exercise in an attempt to reach my goal of being a prolific writer in 2025. So, in addition to writing 1 short story each week (Because Ray Bradbury said you can’t write 52 bad ones – challenge accepted!) I will  post an entry from my Commonplace book and a short note on why the quote spoke to me on that day. I can hear you now – sucky stories and random quotes? Sign me up.

For more information about the blogging challenge, see http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/)