This is what a book looks like before it becomes a book. It looks like an open laptop, a pile of other books for research, a mess of loose and bound papers and a million little scribbles so you don't forget all the things. It is a thousand fleeting thoughts bound together and put (hopefully) in an order that makes sense!
And for me, none of it would be possible without a library. I can't really quantify the amount of time, effort, not to mention money, saved by using my local library. Actually, I can because at the bottom of every checkout slip, my library gives an estimated amount of money saved on all the books I've checked out from the library. I'm well into the thousands of dollars.
My first book, Rabbit Trapped, got put all in order and partially written at the library (also partially written with a laptop balanced on my washer so I could write and also keep an eye on my daughter in the bathtub because CAN'T STOP WRITING NOW!...but that's another story). The second one is no different. I am sitting in one of many small rooms available for anyone who needs a quiet place, a free service of the library. I regularly check out DVDs to watch with my family, another free service of the library. Just two days ago I invited friends over and cooked a Vietnamese dinner armed with a cookbook I got -you guessed it- from the library. My daughter is in school now but up until then, we were regulars at a host of events held free by the library. And when school is out for summer, you can bet we'll be back. And when I feel like a vacation, but can't afford one (haven't we all been there?) sometimes I take a little trip via a book from the library.
So I may be a little biased, but...
LIBRARIES ARE AWESOME!
Inside are shelves and shelves lined with little doorways to other worlds all bound up in paper and ink. I can still remember getting my first library card as a child. I can remember scribbling my name in over-sized letters on the back and clutching it in my little grubby hands. I bring my daughter to the library and let her wander the aisles, touch all the books and know that she will feel the magic, too.
There are times when the writing gets stalled. Any writer can tell you that sometimes you just get stuck. And a lot of writers pick each other's brains about how to get unstuck. I try what a lot of people try, writing in a notebook instead of a computer for a spell, asking the characters questions (we aren't crazy, I promise...), looking at the story from a side character's view. But another trick in my bag is to just wander around the library. Sometimes I convince myself that I have no business writing books, that I'm never going to succeed. When that happens I touch all of those weathered spines and think, "All of these books got here because someone managed it. I can too." And if I'm well and truly stuck, there are books about writing at the library to read as well.
So the question is: have you been to your library recently?