It's the weather or the season, or the fag end of a cold I can't shake off but I want to squirrel myself away with a pile of books and just... be. Last night I was watching television and someone had to stay up all night writing a piece of work they didn't want to write. I was envious. When was the last time I stayed up all night, writing? Or reading? I've ticked a lot of boxes this week. I've entered contests, finished stories, received commissions and juggled home, work and school. But I don't feel connected to myself. I'd like to sneak away to a windowseat or maybe the new coffee shop with its nooks and crannies, sit in silence and turn pages, shape a spine or two to my hand, get comfy with the words. I have a callous on the second finger of my writing hand which comes from years and years of pen-holding, scribbling. There's a place, I'm sure, in my palm that's meant to be filled with the brim of a book. I want to read everything Patricia Highsmith ever wrote. I want to read Loot: Inside the World of Stolen Art. I want to finish A.L. Kennedy's Day and start The Silver Swan. Here's to a bleak December of blanket days spent indoors with my hands and head full of pages.
Friday 28 November 2008
Feeling bookish
It's the weather or the season, or the fag end of a cold I can't shake off but I want to squirrel myself away with a pile of books and just... be. Last night I was watching television and someone had to stay up all night writing a piece of work they didn't want to write. I was envious. When was the last time I stayed up all night, writing? Or reading? I've ticked a lot of boxes this week. I've entered contests, finished stories, received commissions and juggled home, work and school. But I don't feel connected to myself. I'd like to sneak away to a windowseat or maybe the new coffee shop with its nooks and crannies, sit in silence and turn pages, shape a spine or two to my hand, get comfy with the words. I have a callous on the second finger of my writing hand which comes from years and years of pen-holding, scribbling. There's a place, I'm sure, in my palm that's meant to be filled with the brim of a book. I want to read everything Patricia Highsmith ever wrote. I want to read Loot: Inside the World of Stolen Art. I want to finish A.L. Kennedy's Day and start The Silver Swan. Here's to a bleak December of blanket days spent indoors with my hands and head full of pages.
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4 comments:
Nice post and I totally get it. It's been a while for me too since I spent a day with an afghan over my legs--old lady style--and a good book in my hands. So long since I fell into a book I couldn't put down.
I'll drink to that!
Nik
I totally get it too - and I had a weekend just like that, read a whole book on Saturday, Mark Budman's Life at First Try. He's the editor of the Vestal Review, and it is almost a novel in flash stories, it's very funny and touching. I read Day while I was in France, I was blown away by it, one of those books I couldn't put down, and it had been a while since I'd had that. It really inspired me. Are you enjoying it?
I'd like to stay up late writing too... I still have this fantasy of writing at night, but I get too tired to do it!
I feel like you.
Thanks for wording it.
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