No, not to INK. I mean, to the piles of books on and around
and under my desk.
This happens with every book I work on, and I’m sure others
can relate. As I research and write and revise, I gather growing piles of books
– real, dusty, old-fashioned books. I keep thinking I’m done researching, but
then I come across another obscure source I’ve just got to have. So the piles
keep growing.
But eventually, when all the revising is done, and my editor
assures me I can no longer alter so much as a comma, there comes this slightly
sad moment when I realize I don’t need to keep the books at my desk anymore.
That’s what happened this weekend with my upcoming book, BOMB. The advanced
reader copies have gone out, and at this point I don’t even want to look at
them, ‘cause I’ll just find things I want to change, and it’s too late.
So why are all of these books I used as sources still lying
around my desk? Because we have no bookshelf space left in our house? Yes,
that’s part of it. But I think the real reason is that putting the books away
feels kind of like turning my back on friends. Every book in the stack is
packed with amazing characters, scenes, and details, and I only mined a tiny
fraction of the riches. After I put the books away, I’ll move on, and maybe I’ll
dip back into them at some future date. Or maybe not. What a terrible friend I
am.
In the spirit of thinking aloud, as David Schwarz did so
compellingly last week, wouldn’t it be cool if there was an INK library? That
is, one central location where we could keep the books we’ve collected over the
years, and make them available to curious kids and teens and teachers. I can
imagine it would be an incredible storehouse of fascinating and lesser-known true
stories and primary sources. And in each book there’d be an inscription by the
author who donated it, saying which book he/she used it for. And it would have
an online catalog, and even digital versions of some non-copyrighted sources…
Anyway, just something I got to thinking about while I was
supposed to be cleaning up my desk. Now, back to work on the next book – and
the new stack of sources.
