Walking around a library
What better place for sparking your imagination and writing
Hello again
In case you missed it, my latest chat was with nature champion Jen Lowthrop, Chair of Trustees for the Peak District National Park Foundation. Jen also wins the award for best job title: Happiness Trainer.
In other news, as well as writing this newsletter, I’m a commercial writer. I’d love to combine my experience of working in the outdoor leisure industry (tourism and running campsites and a scuba diving school) with my work in helping brands bring their voices to life. So if you work for an outdoor brand and would like to work together, or know one that needs writing support, please send me an email.
Now on with the show!
Walking
Libraries. Temples of knowledge, ideas and human creativity. What better place to find inspiration for your writing than a place overflowing with words.
I spent a lot of time in the library as a kid. On weekends, my mum and dad would take me to Hull Central Library where they’d stock up on vinyl from the music section and I’d fill my mind in the children’s section. And our local library was within walking distance, so once I was old enough, I was allowed to walk there alone to return the books I’d borrowed and pick out new ones.
A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered.
I was a quiet child. Shy, introverted and content to be alone much of the time. While other kids raced their bikes down Hull’s tenfoots or scrambled over climbing frames in playgrounds, I found my adventure in the library. In those quiet sanctuaries, safely hidden away from the kids who teased me for my shyness, I wandered Middle Earth with Bilbo and flew to Neverland with Wendy – and wondered why she chose to leave and go back home to grow up.
These days I like to seek out libraries in all sorts of places. From grand ones like the Rijksmuseum Research Library.
To humble, but no less interesting, corners filled with books that people have left behind. Like this one at Boggle Hole Youth Hostel in Whitby.
Sometimes I go to the largest library on earth – the British Library – home of the King’s Library tower and the collections of King George III. The tower holds so many books it’d take 219 years to read them all.
And it’s also home to the oldest printed and dated book in world – the Diamond Sutra.
Fun fact: The British Library is expanding at a rate of 8km of new books each year. Talk about upping your step count while you read!
And sometimes I spot a library in an unlikely place, like Schiphol Airport, which inspired Walking around an airport.
I’ve even found one that holds a secret. Like this one at Betty Langley’s Hotel…
… which conceals an unusual reading ’throne’.
And I’m always hoping to find a walking library.
Caption reads:
Critics are always remarking that we in this country lag far behind those of European countries when it comes to borrowing books from libraries. Well, this enterprising girl at Ramsgate solves the problem by taking her books in a rack tied to her back round the streets and from door to door and people can borrow them for a week at the price of twopence.
Whatever their size, and wherever they might be, libraries are universes waiting to discovered. So for your next walk, I invite you to wander around a book-filled universe and see what you find.
Writing
Here’s how to find your own writing prompt while you’re in a library.
Pick a random book
Go to page 100
Go to line 10
Write down that line
Use it as the starting point for your writing.
Here’s line 10 from the intriguing (and dark!) page 100 of one of my favourite books. I’ve counted the chapter title as line 1.
Line reads:
together: he was still harder to move and the head stuck
Please share what you find from your walking and writing in the comments. Oh, and let me know if a walking library passes your way!
Until next time,
Sarah
More from The Writer’s Walk
Check out Walking around an airport, which includes an unexpected library.
Here is line 10 on page 100 - 'In the Labyrinth', by Alain Robbe-Grillet (translated by Christine Brook-Rose) Calder Publications, 2000, then followed on a little by me:
marks made before him. His boot is a little larger but
only when he stood still and examined the outline of the print in the sand before him did he become aware that perhaps he was not alone. Grey. Steel grey. The horizon line a razor blade's edge, slicing the sky away from the sea. The tide was pulling back, as it had always done; over days, weeks, months, years. Even centuries. In pulling back, the low water line revealed the jagged outline of the reef, its raised backbone like a reptile's back, dark against the horizon, and the quick slow movement of a figure, human, stepping, hesitating inland towards the shore.
Until i was 17, I spent months every year in an isolated, fly-in only fly-fishing tourist camp in northern Canada that my parents owned. No electricity or flush toilets but, with every bi-monthly bush plane that brought in new fishermen and took out departing guests was a brown box from the Montreal library with 12 new books, three each for my parents and me and my brother. That box of books was a lifeline to the outside world. I quickly read my three books and moved on to my brother’s and parent’s—in hind-site I probably read what would be considered age inappropriate books at times. 😀 I can’t think of a more fulfilling life than working in a library. The next time around, maybe. This was a fun post to read, thanks!