Books are magic.
This childhood belief is still with me today. And since books are found in the library, libraries are magic, too. At the main branch of my hometown library, I would trot down those white steps to the Children’s section, where they had all these books JUST FOR ME.
When I was a little older, I would ride my bike to the local library branch. It was only as big as two and a half garages, but I loved going in there. It was intimate and I knew where all my favorite books lived, which only reinforced the feeling that IT WAS MINE. My Camp Fire Girl troop decorated it for Christmas every year, and that bolstered this feeling of possession.
Even in college, when the library was on a much grander scale, I would walk though the doors and a peace would settle on me. The library calmed me, sheltered me, and educated me. I felt, in a word, WELCOME.
Libraries have always evoked a sense of belonging. That they belonged to you and you somehow belonged to them. Before the Internet, I spent hours there, as did my peers. Libraries were a community hub, and even today they reach out to the community in various ways and try to fill the needs of their patrons.
When I lived in Chincoteague, VA, last year, one of the first community events I attended was the dedication of the new wing of the library. My baby girl and I were frequent visitors there, always welcomed warmly into the beautiful children’s room the addition housed. That gorgeous addition, built to echo a lighthouse, was the direct result of years of support and fundraising from the local island community.
So for me, books and community have always gone together. Independent bookstores, too, have always evoked this feeling in me. I think that what makes most indies comfortable to me is their size, which is usually on the smaller end of the retail scale. They are eminently browseable, and permeated with the love of books. And so many of them are active supporters of their local communities, as well as hosting book-related groups and author appearances within their walls.
Even though I am a book-lover from way back, when I first heard about the Collingswood Book Festival from author friends Keith Strunk and Marie Lamba, I had my doubts about going. What could a sprawling 6-block bookfest offer to someone like me – shy, easily overwhelmed in crowds, and toting a toddler? Wouldn’t it just feel like a huge garage sale? But I decided to go to support my friends and their fellow Liars Club members Merry Jones, Gregory Frost, Kelly Simmons, Solomon Jones, and Keith DeCandido.
I loved it.
It was book overload, but in a great way. I could have spent the entire day there, browsing, listening to panels, and just enjoying the community. Did I say community? Yes, I did. The Collingswood Book Festival was a community affair through and through, with kid-oriented LoompaLand as well as music and the usual fest-type foods. Unfortunately, I could only stay a short time because of my toddler, but I will be back next year, hopefully toddler-free, to browse the day away. For another view of the Book Festival (with pictures!), visit my friend J. Thomas Ross’ blog.
Books can transport you to faraway places—and they can bring local communities closer together.
Books are magic.
A Change of Place: Creativity and Location
So many things can impact our creativity—how we feel, what we eat, time of day, how much we’ve slept, outside worries. But one major component of creativity is place. Where we write. How does where we write influence what we write?
I’ve often read advice that we should have a specific place where we write. Perhaps an office, a local coffee shop, the library, or even a spot in our home. I’ve even heard that if you write on your sofa (as I do) you should write at one end and watch TV, etc., from the other. The idea behind all this advice is that having a dedicated writing space triggers your creativity because it trains your brain to write when you are in that spot.
This week I had a much larger change of place than the opposite end of my sofa. I spent some of the week in North Carolina, in a small rural town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Over the years, I have noticed that this change of place triggers a change in mindset for me almost every time. For some reason, genealogy obsesses me when in North Carolina.
Now, it doesn’t take much to get me chasing down rabbit holes for genealogy. But for some reason, the past feels much closer to me while I am there. Perhaps it is because the town often feels like it is from a bygone era, and the surrounding mountains have a timeless quality. The many farms could be from a hundred years ago, and the pace of life is slower. Not everyone knows everyone, but the community is close knit. In the way of rural communities, many earlier generations had more than the 2.5 kids families have now, so kin networks sprawl across the land. The past is still very present here.
Maybe part of the mindset shift is because we come here specifically to visit family, so family is very much top-of-mind. Whatever the reason, it ramps up my genealogy obsession and I want to chase ghosts for hours.
This got me wondering what kind of stories I would write if I lived there. Would I still write fantasy and science fiction? Or would I be drawn to family dramas and small-town conflicts? What stories I would write if I lived on Chincoteague Island, as I did for 8 months one year? Would I be writing stories of wind and sea and sky?
Your location undoubtedly influences your writing, from topics to characters to theme. While a temporary relocation may not fundamentally alter what or how you write, a change of place can shake up your creativity and dig you out of a funk, break a writer’s block, or give you a new perspective on some element of your story.
Do you have a specific place you write? Have you found your creativity influenced when you have a change of place?
by William T. Gans, Sr.
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