I’ve been marking assignments solidly all this week, when I would much rather have been working on The Outcast Chronicles (the trilogy I have to hand in early next year). Twelve hour days of marking leaves me feeling mentally drained. So what do I do to revive myself?

I feed my brain with beautiful images. I have books on art. Here’s some of my faves:

The pre raphaelites. I have several books on them and when the TV series came out I looked forward to every episode. It didn’t worry me that they played around with the timeline. I felt they’d captured the essence of the group. (Having lived as a passionate young artist with a group of artists the TV  series made me laugh). Such romantics and the women are so beautiful …

John Willian Waterhouse,  Lady of Shallot

John Everett Millais, Mariana.

Leyendecker’s art. You know how you see a piece of art by someone and it stays with you and it might be years later before you discover that artist again and work out who he is and where he fits into the  world of art? Maybe you don’t if you’ve grown up with the internet. But before that, when I was a child, I’d glimpse an image somewhere and it might be years before I was able to put a name to the artwork. My husband bought me a book on Leyendecker.  So stylish.

And one more because I can’t resist …

Of course I have more favourite artists. I’m a visual person. If I go to the art gallery, I come out  feeling like I’m walking on air. Other writers I know play music. Many will have a selection of music that they play specifically when writing a certain book or a series. I collect images which float around in my mind as I write.

Are you a music person or an image person?