Write what you love

“You’ve got to love libraries. You’ve got to love books. You’ve got to love poetry. You’ve got to love  everything about literature. Then, you can pick the one thing you love most and write about it.” Ray Bradbury

I love libraries – all those books on all those different topics, all those wonderful adventures to be enjoyed and pictures to be enjoyed. In fact, I love libraries so much that in another life I was a librarian for about eight years. I loved buying new books for the library – especially seeing it wasn’t my money buying the books!

I love books too. I have a huge collection of books. I can’t bear to get rid of any books. Throwing out  a book is akin to loosing a child. Talking of children, I love visiting my adult children, especially my daughter, so that I can become reacquainted with a part of my library. To be fair, some of her books grace my library shelves – only on a temporary basis of course – until I’ve read them.

I always loved poetry too and I’ve written my fair share of poems, from the slightly ridiculous, to the positively banal and some that are absolutely brilliant (IMHO). This year my skills at writing poetry have had a great boost while doing my Master of Arts in Creative Writing course.

But back to the quote from Bradbury.

Writers must be readers. Read widely and voraciously. Love and cherish books. Get your hands on as many as you can; read, read, read, devouring books in numbers.

Then you can pick the one genre or form or discipline you love most, and then write what you love.

Good reading and writing.