So, I realized something this morning after a long walk on the beach snapping over 100 pictures of the sunrise. No, I don’t know why I had to take so many, and since I forgot the cable to download them, I’m not going to know which six are any good until I get home. Ah, the mystery!

OK, I realized two things.

#1 God meant for me to live at the beach. I thought I needed to live between the beach and the mountains so I could have a choice. Screw that. I’m meant to be here. This is where I run whenever life gets me down. Luckily, life tends to get me down in the winter when the rates are good and the cold breeze reminds me of Northern California, so it’s not a huge hit to my wallet, and I get to stay in nice places with great beds.

#2 You can’t be a writer and stop reading. You have to make time for both.

That’s hard to do. Between the day job, the writing I haven’t been focused on (hence the trip to the beach), feeding the kids, running errands, cleaning… well, you get the idea. During the week, I spend 11 hours a day either at the day job or commuting to/from it. By the time I get home, feed the kids and hear about their days, and do physical therapy (for a few seconds of stupidity on a ladder), I have, at best, 2 hours to pay bills, check email, write, work out…. And weekends are spent with at least one full day of errands that couldn’t get done during the week.

But reading has to be in there too. Turns out, that’s part of the job requirements of a writer. But lately, I haven’t been filling the creative well. I haven’t been reading blogs, books, or anything more than the headlines on CNN.com. Small wonder my creativity has dried up.

So part of my “home” work this weekend, you know, at the beach, is to find blogs worth reading, and catch up with some authors who always make me laugh. Jenny Crusie and Susan Elizabeth Phillips, don’t fail me now!

Who are the favorite blog and book authors you turn to when you have to escape?