The other day I was thinking about the whole reading and writing entity. When I was young, reading, writing, and arithmetic were huge things in the school systems. But even with that as a guide, for some reason I didn't catch on until later in my life.

Though I can remember vividly, in my minds eye, the picture of my mother with her children sitting around her on the couch as she read one story after another to us. Mother loved to read: she read every time she had a spare moment. Indeed, she regularly read the Ensign to Daddy as we drove down the road to destinations unknown. She read and read until she put herself to sleep. (Hum, did I inherit this trait too?)

As my own children and grandchildren came, I took Mother's policy and read to them every chance I got. I discovered that I LOVE to read! I not only read to them, but I added life to the stories and even a word here and there—the kids loved it. When my kids were young I read all the Mother Goose rhymes to them so often that I could have won a prize for knowing the most rhymes and riddles from memory. I read classics like "The Enchantress of Crumble-down" and many others to them.

In Deuteronomy 17:19 it states: "And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear that Lord his God,…" I fondly remember a time when I was sitting on my own couch, reading the scriptures aloud to myself, when all of a sudden I had four little ones sitting next to me listening to my reading with the power of the Lord in my voice through His verses. It gave me goose bumps!

Then as time passed, it seemed like every time I would sit down, I would find a little one climbing onto my lap and saying, "Read to me Nana." And we would sit there and read with flair some of their favorites like: "Are You My Mother" and "The Digging-est Dog" and other such fun 'literary epistles'.

So, the question is - What does this have to do with writing and becoming a true-to-life writer/author? I answer, from what I know, by asking, how do you become a writer, if you never have read or don't enjoy reading now? How do you create a book with true-to-life characters, if you've never read aloud and made that persona come alive for the children in your life?

Is reading important to writing? Are they synonymous to each other? Do they truly go side by side? In my mind the answer to these questions is a resounding YES! Sisters, I think we should: read, read, read. Read in our closets, read to our kids, read until we put ourselves to sleep! (I think my mother should have become an author.) Let's get out there and get going. How can we be authors if we don't participate in the one thing that will sell our craft? So sisters, let's get reading and let's get writing!