Welcome to another edition of ‘The Write Tools’: a blog series featuring authors, artists and their favourite tools.Today's guest is writer and editor, Karen Andrews. Karen is the editor and publisher of the Miscellaneous Voices anthology, and blogger at Miscellaneous Mum.
I feel at home in libraries. Each time I walk through an entrance I quietly praise and thank all powers – past and present – that have made such a structure, such a triumph of space and thought, words and matter, exist. And while I realise that a library isn’t really a ‘physical’ tool for writing, there is, for me, in them, whenever I visit, a quiet recognition of home and purpose. I love them, for they are built for me.
I feel similarly in a bookshop, but I must admit that feeling is soured slightly because they are built for the consumer, a buyer. Alas, that cannot always be me. There knowledge is available at a price, whereas in libraries you can (mostly) join for free and if you can’t you can still sit there, for hours or days, researching. For book-nerds like me, they are paradise.
And like most centres of cultural and social experiences, libraries have rules; one being a call for quiet. Personally, I like the irregular bursts of conversation and chatter that one inevitably hears in a library. While doing my Masters, I spent days at a time at a certain isolated desk on the second floor (near the Russian Literature section, from memory) and was grateful for the occasional drift of voices that floated past. It reminded me that I was not alone in my toil; that there were other people engaged in whatever subjects they were studying, striving to do well.
So if libraries are my inspiration, and its fellow occupants a comfort, silence is my trigger for action and thought. I haven’t written a novel draft since my children were born, so my work has been limited to short stories and poetry. I’ve found that it is possible to work with their chaos whirling around me, but this is only once I am well into a writing project. It is impossible to stare at the blank page or screen (it varies, but mostly I draft on paper) and begin a piece when I am in company – anyone’s company. I need to be alone, to swear if something doesn’t work, or squeal and wiggle – or something similarly embarrassing if I were to step back and watch myself – if it does. I am quite fidgety at the best of times; for example, I bite my nails and can overuse my arms to gesticulate when I talk. I’m afraid hunkering down over a computer keyboard does nothing to suppress these ticks.
Libraries also serve my swinging-to-compulsive personality. I visit my local public library two, sometimes three, times a week and rarely leave empty handed. If I do, I can’t help but take it as a failing on my part, my inability as a prospector to find anything on a shelf. But it is these piles which I bring home, that I read, or sometimes just flick (if I’m honest) – they inspire and help; they keep me sane and satiated.
Then, in that lovely state of mind, I try to write.
And like most centres of cultural and social experiences, libraries have rules; one being a call for quiet. Personally, I like the irregular bursts of conversation and chatter that one inevitably hears in a library. While doing my Masters, I spent days at a time at a certain isolated desk on the second floor (near the Russian Literature section, from memory) and was grateful for the occasional drift of voices that floated past. It reminded me that I was not alone in my toil; that there were other people engaged in whatever subjects they were studying, striving to do well.
So if libraries are my inspiration, and its fellow occupants a comfort, silence is my trigger for action and thought. I haven’t written a novel draft since my children were born, so my work has been limited to short stories and poetry. I’ve found that it is possible to work with their chaos whirling around me, but this is only once I am well into a writing project. It is impossible to stare at the blank page or screen (it varies, but mostly I draft on paper) and begin a piece when I am in company – anyone’s company. I need to be alone, to swear if something doesn’t work, or squeal and wiggle – or something similarly embarrassing if I were to step back and watch myself – if it does. I am quite fidgety at the best of times; for example, I bite my nails and can overuse my arms to gesticulate when I talk. I’m afraid hunkering down over a computer keyboard does nothing to suppress these ticks.
Libraries also serve my swinging-to-compulsive personality. I visit my local public library two, sometimes three, times a week and rarely leave empty handed. If I do, I can’t help but take it as a failing on my part, my inability as a prospector to find anything on a shelf. But it is these piles which I bring home, that I read, or sometimes just flick (if I’m honest) – they inspire and help; they keep me sane and satiated.
Then, in that lovely state of mind, I try to write.
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