My acquisition of writing books is running at a slow pace. Meandering really, depending on what I find that’s worth my money.

Years back I went through my fashion, jewellery, accessory and style phase of book buying. I went though a Barbie phase and a Selina Lake phase, I’ve had my Nancy Drew et al. phase for thirty-nine years. I’ve had my Jackie Collins phase for seven.

But when it came to writing books I was slow in getting going. Purely because I never really found any that taught me what I needed and the prices were out of my budget for the time. I was busy doing other things, you see, such as actually writing books and releasing them which took a large chunk of budget.

I’m not one to just go and buy a book the moment it comes out. I really don’t understand how people can go and buy five or ten at a time and then shove them in a to be read pile but never get around to reading them and then throw them out or give them away. Massive waste of money to me. I have to want or need it for a reason because I do not have the money to waste. Every last cent of my money is budgeted. Which is why I hit up Book Depository, or did, Amazon and eBay to see who has the least expensive. And with currency conversion, oi, just…no.

So without further ado, let’s get into the writing books I’ve acquired in the last year or two that I highly recommend for any writer, new or old.

Spellbinding Sentences by Barbara Baig came from eBay, and Storyville by John Dufresne came from Amazon.

Just Write, and Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell both from eBay.

I’ve been looking into screenwriting this year, and, after reading them from my local library, bought them on Amazon.

Screenwriting for Dummies, and Save The Cat by Blake Snyder.

Write Everyday by Harriet Griffey is a great resource for different aspects of writing, such as dialogue, plot, etc, and came from eBay.

Plus the books I bought last year, the Thesaurus collection by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi all came from Amazon. I’ll be using them when I edit the next novel.

I also came across these books by Usborne this year. Since there’s still a little kid who loves things like this inside of me, I checked the flip through videos on YouTube and then bought the first two off Amazon for $11 each.

The rest followed from Amazon, but I had to get Ghost Stories from eBay.

These were two freebies from my local library. As they slowly delete old books from their catalogue and put them up for sale, they’re offered to us in the writer’s group first. How to Own the Room is an interesting read.

Now, onto how I’m storing all of these books…

Years back, I sorted the top of my new cupboards into a planner shelf.

Since I don’t use planners anymore, I changed it into a writing book shelf over the Christmas holidays. This is the before pic of how it looked until recently.

This was during, after buying the Usborne books, two writing books, and acquiring my two freebies.

And this is after I had to change everything in order to put my recent acquisitions onto the shelf.

The business books went up the top. Jackie moved over to the other side of the top shelf, and the books I had there were moved into a box, because where else were they going to go while all of my planners and folios are still out. Who knows, I’ll probably completely reorganise these shelves over Christmas when I clean out the office and tidy it up.

As I said once before, the top of the cupboard is an ever-changing beast. You can read that post here.

How do your cupboards look these days? In need of a tidy up like mine?

I wish I had more space but I just don’t unless I do a complete overhaul. Again!