Today I’ll tell you about the library I built and how I live in it.
Hello from my Little Writing Corner in Scotland and welcome.
We’re writers here, right? Hopefully, readers too. One thing I’m sure we have in common is a love of books, and in particular, a heartfelt love for libraries.
This photo doesn’t quite resemble my local library but it does look very like the flagship Waterstones bookshop in Princes Street, Edinburgh with its wooden staircases and cafe on the top floor with its view to the ramparts of Edinburgh Castle and the old town.
My love of libraries started in childhood and I loved one old library in particular.
I don’t write in my town’s main library. It doesn’t have a dedicated reading or writing room, instead, it has a computer room in the reference library. It does have a fantastic cafe though with a little shop selling local goods related to Fife in Scotland: pottery Wemyss cats and pigs, notebooks, coasters, gift cards, tote bags.
Here’s a photo of my own little Wemyss cat decorated with clover leaves hand-made in the Griselda Hill Pottery in Ceres, Fife. You can see where her leg has been mended - and I wrote a story about that called The Golden Threads of Friendship which will appear in shops later this year.
My local library was closed a few years ago and we didn’t wonder for long what might happen to that building. It was rather obvious from the off that it would be converted into expensive apartments.
And so I chose and built my own apartment in that building.
I chose the top floor with views to the sea at the Firth of Forth over the treetops of the local woodland park. I especially picked the rear of the building so I could incorporate part of the children’s library.
That section is where the Famous Five books, then Secret Seven and Mallory Towers series were located. The beginning of my serious reading habit.
My apartment also incorporated one end of the adult library. I decided to leave the reading room, later turned into a computer room, to another buyer.
Of course, I did not actually buy that apartment at all. I’m not sure I’d appreciate a mortgage that large at this point in my life, and I don’t think my cocker spaniel, Monty, would appreciate not having his own private garden.
I longed to be there in the library though. I moved in. I lived there daily in my imagination.
And in doing so, I wrote a story.
Here’s my name and title of the story on the cover of a magazine sold all over the UK and around the world. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to see my front page mention for The Library of Second Chances!
When the library building was renovated, I so wanted to go and have a look at those apartments, but I stopped myself. It would have been like an addiction where I may have tried to move mountains to live there.
I decided my imagination would do it better. No room for disappointment, or worries about a hefty mortgage.
I’ve spoken before in my Post You’re Writing In The Wrong Place about place and setting being key to your story.
A reader likes to imagine themselves in your story and place is key. It must seem real. To me, the library apartment was real, even though I’d never stepped a foot inside the finished renovation.
It didn’t take long for a story to reveal itself to me. As soon as I told myself I’d write about the library building, my brain got to work.
I thought about who might ideally live there.
I wrote the story I tell others to write.
I wrote a story that could only happen in that setting.
I pondered about a creative person who might live in the old library, given a second chance at life, at love. I then threw in a surprise from her past: a little freckly boy from the children’s library now all grown up. I also gave her a retired ex-librarian living in the garden flat. And I gave her books. Lots of them.
I loved writing that story. It was extremely uplifting for this character to return to the library building of her childhood, her place of safety, and I was with her every step of the way, coming home to that building. Her new home.
It felt real. I wanted it to be real.
The specially commissioned artwork from artist and illustrator Jim Dewar was just beautiful.
What did I learn about craft from this piece of short fiction?
Write from the heart, from a place of longing or joy, or both. Readers will feel it as they read.
Long live libraries - let’s hope they don’t have to continue only in our imagination.
Do libraries a favour - use them.
I promise myself I’ll use my main town library more frequently - to request titles and to spend time there. It’s a bus ride away but it will be worth it. I’ll have a cuppa there. I may even listen to some Substack audio and wander amongst the book cases. Even if there’s no longer a dedicated reading/writing room for me to write in, being there will make a difference to me. It sure will make a difference to the library.
Did you know that libraries give access via a digital app? A health issue with my eyes means I struggle with small print and can’t always read print books easily - most hardbacks are fine but digital copies assure I can alter the print to a comfortable size.
Are you aware that authors are paid for each borrow of a book? I believe its not a huge amount but it does build up with the number of borrows over many libraries. If they are borrowed regularly, it’s a nice tidy sum each year for the author.
(Bear in mind, I am in Scotland in the UK, and I don’t know how that works in other countries)
So, I’m away this week to give my library some love. I hope you do too.
Thanks again for listening and reading.
This has been Jackie, from the Little Writing Corner in Scotland.
PS Before I could press “send” on this Post, I received my fourth acceptance of this year! Yes, four stories since the turn of 2025. I will write about that one in due course because it is very special indeed, in fact for its intended audience I’d go as far as to say, almost groundbreaking!
Have a good week, love, Jackie. x
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