When the world becomes your playground

I wouldn't say that travel is one of my passions—maybe it would be if I was loaded and spoke all the languages—but I do have a desire to see as much of the world as I can with my own eyes (this includes the Shire/Rivendell, Narnia, and Hogwarts, in that order). Even if it's just so I can say "I've been there!" whenever said place turns up on TV or casual conversation. Even if I only spend a few hours there. This world is huge and interesting, and as much as I love going somewhere via the books I read and the movies I watch, sometimes you've just got experience something for yourself with all five senses.

I didn't travel much as a kid—we were very much a Lagoon and/or camping family—but that's changed in the past five years or so. I've come a long way since the days I would tell my dad "anywhere east of Utah" whenever he asked us where we wanted to go on our next vacation. A lot of my bucket list places have been checked off.

In the U.S., that is. Fortunately, the U.S. is big enough to keep sightseers busy for a while, but eventually you're going to want to expand your travel area. Plenty of things were stopping me from stepping outside U.S. borders, but the main thing was that I didn't have a passport. Money, language/cultural barriers, and lack of travel know-how don't matter if you don't have the golden ticket required to leave your home country.

With no real need to travel outside the country, I put getting a passport on the back burner. (That's me in a nutshell—avoid wasting effort on something until it becomes a relevant issue in your life.) But it made me sad sometimes knowing that I couldn't just hop on a plane and fly somewhere on a whim. (What if someone offered me an all-expense-paid trip to Europe one summer? If it happens in Gilmore Girls, it can happen in real life, right?) I would hear people talk about their exotic travels and wonder if I would ever get to do any of those things. Would I ever eat authentic Italian food, go on a cruise to the Bahamas, or see any of the sites from the books I've read? Until I hunkered down and took the steps necessary to secure a passport, I would always be somewhat limited in my dreams.

But then it finally happened—a family vacation was planned that would require a brief amount of time in Canada. Who cares if Canada is the least "foreign" country for a United States citizen to visit? I had the nudge I needed; the effort required to get a passport was now relevant to my plans for 2018. 

The process turned out to be much less of a hassle than I expected it to be, and, a few weeks ahead of schedule, my passport arrived in the mail.

As I held that little book in my hand, it was like the world opened itself up to me. I was no longer "stuck" inside one of the biggest countries in the world—I had what I needed to go anywhere I wanted, whenever I wanted, whether it was a meticulously planned trip or something spur of the moment.

The world is now my playground, and I can't wait to start playing in it.

On reading a series that's already finished

Since the day I was old enough to read chapter books, I've been a series reader. I don't think I even started reading stand-alone novels outside of school regularly until after I graduated from college.

It started with the Boxcar Children books. I abandoned those early on because of a specific writing quirk that bugged me (a very early sign that I was meant to be an editor), and moved on to the Baby-Sitters' Club Little Sister books, then the "grown up" Baby-Sitters' Club. Then it was all the Mormon fiction I could find (Work and the Glory, Tennis Shoes, Children of the Promise, etc.), and eventually I wormed my way into fantasy.

For an avid reader, series are a special kind of refuge because you get to spend more time there. Which means more time to develop love for the worlds and characters and less time agonizing over what to read next.

But all of these series shared one drawback: none of them were finished (except the Narnia books, but I read them over several years, so it was like I had to wait for new books). The Baby-Sitters' Club managed to put out about a book a month for a while, but everything else required a much longer wait. It was years before I found out how the Steeds got to Utah. The Tennis Shoes adventures still aren't done. I can't fathom what it would be like to read all the Harry Potter books for the first time through without experiencing any of the years-long theorizing that happened between book releases. I've accepted that nothing I know about Brandon Sanderson will ever be final until the day he dies (hopefully at least 50 years from now). And the only reason I haven't read Patrick Rothfuss yet is because I don't want to join the angry horde of fans waiting impatiently for book 3.

It's a joy to always have a book to look forward to, it really is. But to be able to blow through an entire series with no pauses between books? It wasn't until recently that I realized I didn't know what that was like.

I've attempted many already-finished series, but haven't committed to most of them (several were written by authors whose first name is Terry—perhaps that's my problem?)—until my dad introduced me to the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher. I finished the first book and moved right on to the next one. I finished another one and thought, "Man, it would have sucked to have to wait to see how that twist turned out." In the back of my mind I kept thinking I would take a break and catch up on some other books—because that's what I've been forced to do with every other series I've enjoyed—but I didn't need to. For once I didn't have to be patient. I didn't have to work hard to remember things. It was like binge-watching a show on Netflix, or eating two marshmallows right away without suffering any consequences.

I'm not about to jump aboard the "I'm never reading another series until it's completely finished!" train, but it has been a delight experiencing this particular reading pleasure. Two thumbs up, would recommend.

Head over to Modern Mrs. Darcy for more book talk.