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The artist's studio I worked in just off the Kings' Road was used by Peter Blake to shoot the cover of the Beatles' 'Sergeant Pepper' album. Over the years we'd get students and Beatles fans dropping in, hoping perhaps to miraculously touch the past. It was a great place to work - round the corner from Chelsea Town Hall with its confetti strewn steps and lovely old library. Do you use yours? The children love going each month and choosing a new bag of books (I convinced them early on it was a 'treat' ...) Gone are the days when I could spend all day doing research in the subterranean library of the Courtauld, or hanging out in Chelsea - you'd invariably spot a writer in there, someone like Anita Brookner or Laurie Lee. It was in the library I started writing 'All the Lovely Ruined Things', snatching half an hour at lunch. Later I started getting up an hour before work, or scribbling on the top deck of the number 22 lurching its way home down the Kings' Road. As we've said before, no matter how busy you are minutes add up - a novel can be built a page at a time.

What's on your to-read pile (not your Amazon wish list, but the books you have physically waiting in the wings)? You know by now I can never knowingly leave a bookstore empty handed, so in addition to seven library books on the Spanish Civil War I have biographies of Billie Holliday, Catherine Deneuve, Katharine Hepburn, novels by Philip Roth, Barbara Trapido, Kate Atkinson and Bella Freud waiting to be read ... I could go on. I once read an interview with an artist who when asked why he started painting said 'I like the smell of paint'. Why did you become a writer - do you, like me, love the tools of the trade? Ink, journals, libraries, bookshops? Until they invent an electronic reader that has the sensual quality of a beautifully printed book I can't ever see them disappearing. Dog eared, highlighted, creased of spine and annotated every book in the house has a tale to tell. Why do I write? Loving books has a lot to do with it.

TODAY'S PROMPT: Andrew Marshall wrote recently: 'we have to accept the things over which we have no control and concentrate on what we can influence: our own behaviour'. Good advice in the current climate. What one thing can you change about your behaviour today to help you with your writing? Are you a member of your local library? If not, why don't you join up today? Yes, you can search for texts online but there is nothing like browsing the stacks and finding something you didn't even know you were looking for. Ever heard of library angels who help you find just the book you need - think of Wings of Desire/City of Angels? Who knows what you might find today.