Opening Libraries...
You know, there's something immensly satisfying about opening a library. At a time when people are finding their local ones closing, to open a school library is an incredibly uplifting experience, and one I'm very honoured to have had this week at Thamesview School in Kent.
I spent a day there this week teaching kids how to create stories - although to be honest many of them managed to teach me a few things! The extent of imagination that came out of these classes was pretty extreme - at one point of my talk I create a tale, using a scene from Outlaw: The Legend Of Robin Hood as a basis, and then, asking questions, allow them to answer, each answer moving the story off in a different direction. Sometimes this works, sometimes it fails dismally - but this day it was magnificent, and out of three talks, I had three wonderful stories, so packed full of tales that by the time I'd reach the third one, I had problems remembering it.
I like school talks. And I have a ton of respect for any teacher, as I couldn't do it on a regular basis. I enjoy being the man who swans in, excites the pupils with tales of derring do and then leaves, because it means that they never see behind the curtain, they never realise that the great and powerful Oz is simply a jobbing writer, treading for water.
Except this jobbing writer has a plaque, on a wall in a library that sayd he's an author.
Sometimes there is no greater job in all the world.