I live in a library.
Not as some crazy kind of recalcitrant squatting library fairy, but as an intern at the country's only residential library, a gorgeous Grade-I-listed building in North Wales. At the beginning of last November, as we pulled up to the library in my dad's car - me babbling nervously about Josh Widdecombe's debut on Just a Minute - I looked out the window and shut up pretty quickly. It looks like a little version of Hogwarts, complete with a common room that looks just like you imagined Gryffindor's would be before the films, and a beautiful set of reading rooms filled with thousands upon thousands of books. It is, in short, heaven for the bookish.
I've been trying to work out what to do with this blog. It started out as an opinions blog, became a place to moan about being an unemployed graduate during one of my lowest points, and now it needs to be dragged, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the light.
So I'm going to write about books. My whole life seems to revolve around them at the moment, as I asked for a heap of them for Christmas and my birthday, convinced my parents to let me have a second bookshelf in my childhood bedroom (where I live on my weekends off from the library), and spend my time off applying for entry-level librarian positions up and down the country. It's safe to say that books are the most powerful influence on my life, especially at the moment as I bury myself in them at every opportunity (in between devouring Jessica Jones, Once Upon a Time and Buffy on Netflix).
I could read practically fluently when I was two and haven't put a book down since. My mum and I are legendary in our family for keeping books in every room of the house, for multitasking with our nose in a tome, and for our ability to lose ourselves entirely, oblivious to anything happening in the real world if our book is good enough. I recently boxed up dozens of my childhood books - Eoin Colfer, Diana Wynne Jones, Gail Carson Levine and Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider books to name a few, blog post to follow - and am rapidly refilling the shelves with new acquisitions.
During my History degree I was constantly reading chapters and articles from books on my course list and in the footnotes, soaking in as much information as I could and endlessly writing essays and notes to try and understand it all and develop my opinions on them. Any reading for pleasure was done last thing at night to relax before bed, or on my Kindle as I waited at the bus stop, so it feels like I couldn't really sink my teeth into anything - at least enough to satisfy my appetite. After graduating I did read, but the post-degree panicky torpor hung over everything I did like a dull, constricting fog. Now I'm settled in at the library and planning my near future as a librarian (whatever may come after), I can explore books in a much more relaxed way and challenge myself. One of those challenges is taking this blog in the bookish direction; you'll find out about the rest later. Ohh, I have a lot to say...
Not only do I read voraciously, but I'm a passionate writer. So many people say they write and are working on a novel or two, so I'm perfectly aware this is nothing unique, but in giving myself a New-Year-kick-up-the-arse I'm going to stop talking quite so much about writing and spend more time doing it. The bit of freelancing I do in my time off isn't yet the creative outlet it could be, though it's only a matter of time before I can become the next Caitlin Moran, surely!
It makes sense, then, that at this point in my life the Elfie blog is dedicated to the written word, my own and other people's. Congratulations and much thank-yous if you've made it this far, and I really hope you'll join me on this latest project.
'Til next time.
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