Thanks Always for Reading! ♥

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I say that easily more often than anything else I say. Anyone who has commented on my stories a few times has probably read it in my replies at least once. A lot of first time commenters get that reply when they don’t say much in their comment. On the surface, it seems like I’m simply thanking you for reading my story, and I’m really not. My quote, slogan, whatever you’d like to call it – it’s really my signature in a way – is very deeply personal for me, and I thought I’d just take a few moments to share why.

The most important part of my little show of appreciation is the little bit of extra punctuation at the end: the ♥ It’s an expression of the constant love I have for you as a reader and I sincerely mean that. But before I get to that, let me explain the two things that are not there.

Missing from that phrase is the word “fiction.” That’s because it’s not fiction I’m thanking you for reading. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, poetry or prose. Readers make the world go around. You give life to a story when you embrace it. You bring beauty to poetry when you appreciate it. You bring meaning to history when you share it. And you validate education when you learn it. The world of the written word is literally kept alive by your devotion.

Also missing from that phrase is the word “me.” That’s because I’m not thanking you for reading Anne Schilde. If I were the world’s only writer, it would be a lonely endeavor indeed. My stories would blanch and wither with no others to stand among, the way the human spirit blanches and withers when it has no friends. It doesn’t matter who your favorite author is, or whether or not I’ve read them. I’m blessed by them the same. It doesn’t matter how many books you’ve read or whether one of them was mine. I’m blessed by you the same.

Fiction is an amazing gift. I do love it with a passion, and I do love writing it. I don’t know where it comes from, or how. It just comes. It sparks the imagination and inspires the mind to believe in things that don’t exist, in the impossible, in the fantastical. In that belief, an impetus is born that becomes a man walking on the moon, or a real hope for world peace. But for me, it goes deeper than that. You have done more than give life to the stories I love. You have given me my life itself, and for that, I will eternally be enamored with the thirst that brings you by here from time to time to quench it.

Thanks always for reading! ♥

~ Annie

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