Writing Room

The place where we write is important. Every writer needs their own room. It doesn’t matter where or what it looks like or how big it is but you need your own room. Stephen King writes about writer’s rooms in his fantastic non-fiction book ‘On Writing’ which any writer or wanna-be writer especially should own a copy of. That and The Writers and Artists Yearbook are the two Bibles for any wanna-be writer.

I love looking at writer’s rooms, there’s a great section on the Guardian website

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/writersrooms)

that looks at writer’s rooms. Some of my favourites are posted below.

Back when I lived with my parents I actually had an office. I know right – a seventeen-year-old who had his own writing studio. I had a picture of it on my phone but I got very drunk one night and lost that phone thus it is now a memory stored in my brain but the room I know write in is my bedroom in my student house. It’s the largest room in the house with two windows that look out onto a mirror image of the houses across the road – terrace houses, however, can be inspirational in certain circumstances. King says in his book that writers shouldn’t have grand views out of their windows because it would distract them. I disagree with this. When I buy a large house I want a nice view to look at. I think great views inspire rather than distract. Alas my view is of the Indian family across the road and countless students that walk to and fro their lectures.

(A room I enjoy, or as my friend Vicky would say 'brings me joy'. Every writer has to be surrounded by books in their room, no?)

I am lucky to have such a big room, a room where I can store a few books – I’ve bought so many since I’ve lived here that the shelves are crammed with copies of 2 for 3 books from Waterstones or buy one get one free from Tesco and, of course, loads of picture books that I bought from Amazon when I heard those two wonderful words in my children’s writing class. The desk is a large wooden desk – lucky, once again to have such a nice desk – where my laptop, papers and books sit and rest. As well as this is my lamp – a green, lawyer-like lamp that my Grandmother gave to me – most likely stolen knowing her and her batty ways.

(An attic office is cool but I think when I have one I'd more a Terry Pratchett office kinda guy. I couldn't find a picture of his but if you look at his Alzhimer's show - which was very interesting - then you'll see it then.)

My roommate Dom said I have a lot of nick-nacs. I have to agree. I feel some writers work better when they have their nick-nacs around them. Audrey Niffenger said that she is chaotic when she writes, that she writes when she’s on book tours and very rarely writers at her desk. I couldn’t do that. Sure I write everywhere – don’t we all? – but I prefer sitting at my desk, in my space, with my things around me. Just a brief list of the nic-nacs I have lying around range from: a bola hat, a slinky, an Underwood typewriter, a treasure chest from Turkey, pebbles from Cornwall, a flask that me and my friend Elly wished we had taken to the Lake District so we could have gotten drunk on a mountain (not a very good idea now I think about it), a Nightmare Before Christmas mug, a Saw figurine, a book worm and a Dominos box (no, not the Pizza).

I like looking around and seeing my personality reflecting back at me, just like it is reflected at me in my writing. And on that note I thought I’d put the opening to a short story I finished a few months ago called ‘The Love Season: A Fairy Tale’ which tells the tale of a man who is in love with two women. As they say – you can’t help who you love!

One day, in the middle of Spring, when there was a strange heat lurking around the campus of the University of York, Jacob Fox realised he loved two women. It happened so inexplicably, without warning, that Jacob reacted the only way he knew how – he wrote it down. Cooped up in his small student room he poured glass after glass of vodka, threw it back and wrote a short story called Madeline – just how the real writers do it, he thought. Madeline, the story of a mysterious woman, a woman he loved but who possessed only half of his heart.