Steampunk Quill by sokken

Most writers share something in common… a love of books. That might sound a little obvious, but when you think about it, there is a whole lot of personal history tied up in that statement. These are the people who read under the covers after ‘lights out’… who may still have their childhood favourites tucked away on a bookshelf somewhere … and probably still read them occasionally, even though the words are so familiar they barely need to do so. They will read them to their own children, nephews and nieces… maybe to their grandchildren.

They remember words and the scenes which they imprinted upon imagination. Most absorbed spelling, vocabulary and grammar as if by osmosis, and many still have more bookshelves than walls.

Even the ones who, like me, own a Kindle or another e-reader… and may also have and use the reading app on the computer…and smartphone too, delighting in carrying a library in their pocket… will probably and in true reactionary manner, agree that there is nothing like a real book…. Preferably… apart from their own where new and shiny is de rigueur….old and well thumbed, maybe sporting ancient notes in margins from people long departed, and carrying that indefinable smell between their covers.

I can take you to passages in books almost immediately… even if I haven’t read them in years… you remember the placement, the context… even whereabouts on a page the referenced passage can be found…  Books, good books, become old friends… even if you never see them again you will always have a special place for them in your heart.

I don’t get a lot of reading time these days somehow, often falling asleep after a mere handful of pages at night, and frequently reading what I need rather than what I’d like when I’m actually awake. At night it tends to be the old familiars, the grubby paperbacks or the occasional ‘find’… when I dare enter the hallowed portals of a second-hand bookstore…

I have my Christmas books to read now, and they cover both bases… want and need. Where gifts are concerned it has always been accepted that if it has words in it, I’ll be happy.

It has become apparent, however, that I have always been in a rather privileged position where books are concerned. There are a good many that I have read first, even before they were finished, as my mother and grandfather wrote them. Many were never published… though I intend to rectify that for some of them at least. With some I was part of the creative process… bouncing ideas as my mother balanced the typewriter on her knees. Indeed, the very first thing I ever had published was the artistic concept for one of her graphic stories. Others exist now only as snapshots in my memory, their creator and manuscripts both long gone.

Like many things it was something I simply accepted as ‘normal’ growing up. It is only recently that I have realised what a privilege that truly was. Now, today, I find myself in that position once again, but seeing things with a rather different perspective.

I am editing. I seem to have been doing it for some time… till full stops and commas dance a wild fandango across the page and I no longer see them breaking rank and declaring their independence of grammatical rule. Editing is not, I admit, my favourite occupation, nor one at which I am particularly efficient. I get too caught up in the story…and realise I ceased to edit some time ago and have to rewind. … Especially books as lyrical and beautiful as the one I am working with at present (not mine, I hasten to add).

But as I was beavering away, slightly cross-eyed and determined, it occurred to me just how many things I get to read from this privileged position…and not only the stories that create themselves as I type… Gary Vasey’s Last Observer, chapter by chapter… and the first pages of his latest novel ( for which I eagerly await the next instalment). There were early pages of Geordie’s War, a superb read from Alan Richardson; a beautiful work of art from Tim Judd, work by Gordon Strong, Dean Wilson’s Call of Agon  and Alienora Taylor’s gloriously funny Long Legety Beasties… and as I am neither publisher nor reviewer, to have these early glimpses really is a privilege.

On top of that there is the constant to-ing and fro-ing of manuscripts between Stuart and I… and we somehow managed to get a small flock of books out last year!… or the constant exchanges of writing for the School with Steve,  exploring the way we share the deepest spiritual concepts with our students.

I am fortunate to be at the sharp end of the creative process from so many angles, and it has crept up so quietly that I almost didn’t notice why I don’t get time to read….

My days are full of words… and it is glorious!