What I Owe to Jane Austen

Today is the birthday of my favorite author in the entire world (she'd be 238 if she'd lived to today!) and in the spirit of It's a Wonderful Life, I got to thinking about how much different my life would be today if Jane Austen had never existed.

So if Jane Austen had never existed...

~ I might never have developed the lifelong love for classic literature that I have now.  I read Dickens and Orczy before I picked up P&P, but it was Jane Austen's novels that really cemented my love for classic novels.

~ I wouldn't have been half as inspired to be a writer myself.  This sounds like an exaggeration, but it's true-- Pride and Prejudice and (to an even greater extent) Sense and Sensibility made me want very badly to write books of my own, for real.   (Ever since I was little I've wanted to be an author, but it was reading Jane Austen in my early teens that sealed the deal.)

~ I wouldn't have gotten interested in Regency clothing, and possibly by extension historical costuming (so, if we really extend that, I never would have started my business).

 ~ I wouldn't have quotes such as these to turn to when I needed to hear/read/say a bit of wit, truth or humor.

~ I would have a far smaller collection of favorite movies, that's for sure. :D

~ I probably never would have started this blog.

~ In which case, I never would have met this girl and traveled to her house to spend a week and a bit with her that turned our already-best friendship into something even better.

(yes, the book we're pretending to read is P&P)

~I never would have met this girl or (though she won't admit it's thanks to Jane Austen :D) made plans to meet this one. 

~ I never would have written my novel.  (yes, that was a shameless plug, and here's another shameless plug for the fact that it's twenty percent off in the CreateSpace store {with the discount code 3QH797U5} until January first!  Christmas special, you know.  :D)

~ I never would have virutally-met any of you wonderful people who follow this blog... and that would be a sad, sad thing indeed.  

Thank you, Jane Austen, and a hipy papy bthuthdth thuthda bthuthdy to you.