© Brendan Moore
Have you had a good look at your book collection lately? You’re a writer, surrounded by good quality books by other writers — right? The books you read most often are those in the genre you prefer to write, but you will have others on a variety of subjects by a variety of authors. If you’re like me, many of your books will have come from secondhand bookstores because I just cannot afford to buy new all the books I read. Some of my non-reader friends are stunned when they learn I have over 1,500 books and find it very difficult to believe that my personal library is actually quite small in relation to others I know of.
But these books are all for relaxation, to escape the cares of day-to-day life. Some may be about writers, because you find the subject fascinating — learning how others have coped with the difficulties you face and have gone on to become successful at their craft.
There should, though, also be books about the actual craft of writing. I’m not suggesting you go out and buy all the books you can find about writing — it would be confusing, and many would be of no real help to you. Check at your local library on the subject, and if you find a book that grabs you, comes up with solutions to your particular problems and ideas on how to go forward from where you are, then visit your secondhand bookstore. The people in these shops really know their books. Even if they don’t have in stock the one you’re looking for, often they will put it on their list for the next time they go searching for new stock. Or they might be able to suggest another book, similar to the one you’ve found. Once you have this book, and others, on your bookshelf you will be surprised at how often you refer to it.
Other books you will need are those that specialize in your subject — historians will have history books; travel writers might have books from around the world; writers for children will have children’s books, and so on. No one can afford to buy all the new books that come out, but you should regularly visit your bookstore to just see what’s out there. And every now and then a new book will jump out, grab you, and add itself to your collection.
An important part of being a writer is to also be an avid reader. So use your library as well unless you’re like me and can’t bear to return a good book. That doesn’t mean that my collection is made up of overdue library books, it means I use the library for research and haunt the secondhand bookstores for reading material. And then I can keep the friends I make in each new book I find.