Immersion

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I wanted to write a novel set in the seventeenth century. I wrote one scene and with each word I found that I needed to learn more. So I borrowed a couple of books from the library and then discovered that I was fascinated to learn about what had gone before, in the previous century. So I took out a few more books and some fictional novels of the Tudor and Stuart period. Then I ordered all the series of The Tudors and now there seems to be no limit to the books I want to read and films to watch.

For a long time I have not been able to settle to anything and now suddenly I find myself happily immersed in Tudor and Stuart England. It feels a bit like time-travelling crossed with obsession. It makes me want to return to University and start all over again.

My husband often talks about an inspirational welcome lecture he attended on his first day at Bournemouth University. The lecturer told the new students that University was all about reading and here was a once in a lifetime opportunity, three whole years devoted purely to reading for your degree. How I wish I had my three years over again I wouldn`t bother reading dry old law reports!

This love of reading often brings to mind a colleague from my office who reads as he's walking to and from work. I used to think that was crazy, that he must be desperate for reading time to risk getting run over by a bus because he has his nose in a book. But I'm really starting to feel the same way. There just aren't enough hours in the day to read and absorb everything that I want to learn.

I feel as if I am embarking on an unofficial University course of my own in which I choose the topics and the reading material and decide what essays to write. Part of me is insisting that I can't possible study without learned lecturers and tutors, and so imagine my relief when I visited the website of Alison Weir (a popular and prolific writer of historical non-fiction) and discovered that she hasn't attended a single history course in her life, instead she followed her enthusiasm.

I am in the first flush of enthusiasm myself and realise it`s early days yet but I can`t help but think even if I spent the rest of my life reading about this period of history it wouldn`t be any hardship. Lets hope the gremlins don`t try and distract me with oughts and shoulds. Immersion should be about the joy of diving in, not the fear of drowning!