My Love for Judy B.

Growing up, I loved reading books by Judy Blume and listening to her talk about her books brought back sweet memories of lying curled up on my bed reading the days away.

She's probably best known for Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., which I still remember for Margaret and her friend's chest-increasing exercises and the chant that went along with it; "I must, I must, I must increase my bust." ROFL!

However, my favourite book of her's, by far and away, was Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. I loved Sally's vivid imagination, which saw her making-up stories about the people around her; imagining their lives to be something very different from what it was. That's something I did too, so I really identified with her. It's a really long time since I read the book and I've long lost my copy of it, so I'm fuzzy on much of the story now.

As an aside, I've found that sometimes when I'm not reading as much as I would like, listening to interviews of the authors can leave me feeling almost as satisfied as if I had just read their books. Almost, kind of, though not quite. Especially when you come across nuggets of wisdom from the author that so powerfully speaks to something in your life (this could be writing related or not).

Judy Blume mentioned that "Sometimes, the more you know, the more you feel the critic on your shoulder, or the censor on your shoulder, the less well you are going to be able to get inside and write what matters...... It's better when you don't know anything. It's better when you are fresh and spontaneous and don't know ..."

I think how true this is in so many situations in life. Preparedness is key, but frequently when we know so much about a project we're planning on embarking upon - especially about the challenges involved - we tend to limit our belief in what we can do and chastise ourselves to "be realistic." And when you really think about it, many of the exciting and innovative things in this world have come out of minds that were being totally 'unrealistic' and perhaps 'naive' according to the standards and expectations of the world.