Book Love

My Dad passed on to me his love of books. He was always a book lover and seemed to be regularly down at the local library with his nose in some book that took his fancy, and had a stack of them beside his bed waiting to be read. We used to sit in the living room and my Dad would read to the whole family, we read the C.S Lewis series of The Narnia Series, my favourite being; The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I must have been only 7 or 8 and I think back on those evenings very fondly, when we would all sit around the open fire and listen to my Dad read. There have been quite a few books that have been an inspiration to me. One of the first books that I read all by myself was, Danny The Champion of the Word by Roald Dahl. It was one of those magical reads that I just didn't want to end, I was sucked into the story, I couldn't wait to go to bed at night so I could read in peace without any disturbances and just let the story devour me. I still love the ability that books have to take me out of the present and bring me to another world where my imagination is brought on a journey that is addictive and fills me with longing and sadness when it is finished.

The same thing happens me when I become focused on a piece of work that I am trying to create, it seems like time stops and nothing else matters. I have this feeling of panic if I have to be torn away from a piece that I am engaged with. It's like I'm afraid that the inspiration that I'm working off will leave me if I leave the piece for any amount of time and when I return to it I will be drained of my creative output. I tend to have a run of reading a few good books in a row and then theres a drought and I can't seem to pick up anything that fills me with inspiration to read. It's the same with my own work, have these huge bursts of energy of creating and am quite prolific and then I come to a stand still and my creative process comes to a temporary end. The thing is my mind never stops, I may not physically be creating anything but, so many ideas and thoughts are flying around my head that it feels like it's playing creative bingo with me, until the idea pops out and I begin to act on it. When that happens there are very few words I can find to describe it!!!