My idea of bliss

I usually take Monday’s off.

I like working at the weekend’s when it’s quieter; the office of the publishing company tends to be less full of hustle and bustle and I get more done which leaves me with Monday to myself. Sometimes it’s a day of getting stuff at home done, other days I will go to the movies, but this week was perfect. I practised my sloth routine: I went from the sofa to the kitchen table back to the sofa and even had a lie down, but it wasn’t just sitting down that I indulged in. No, for me it was a day of reading.

Just a geek

I read in Stephen King’s book ‘On Writing’ that reading is just as much of the writer’s art as actually putting words to paper. I have taken it to heart. Before I wrote I always read, but now I write I read even more. I learn from the page, the structure of a sentence, the way that grammar is used. I’ve become a font junkie and judge a book as much by the font as the words the author uses. I go to the legal page and try and find out if they’ve used Helvetica, Giovanni or Electra LT Regular. I’m taking geek to the next level.

She wrote a book that quick

On Monday three books took my attention: Roald Dahl’s biography; what a life that man lived. I began reading ‘The girl on the train’; a bunch of thoroughly unlikeable characters and finally, ‘Absent in the Spring’ by Mary Westmacott, otherwise known as Agatha Christie. I wanted to read this title because she wrote it in three days. It’s a full length novel and she wrote the whole thing in 72 hours; I find that incredible. Her ‘Mary Westmacott’ alias allowed her to write completely different stories than her usual Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries. I found it a fascinating book.

Three different worlds

By the end of the day ‘Absent in the Spring’ was done, Roald Dahl had chugged along from the Second World War to writing his first book and I was now into ‘The Girl on a Train.’ What I loved most about the day was the absorption into the different worlds. To lose myself with the words of the author, a hot drink and biscuit or two. To re-energise; to leave behind the stress and not think about my own book or work in general. I slept well that night and can’t wait for the next day of words and imagination.