Where do you write?

There is a great special report in the Guardian online called Writers’ Rooms – a collection of photographs and thoughts on their little worlds. I am fascinated for two reasons – mostly everyone’s writing space looks like they are hugely rich (tapestries, one or two heirlooms, huge windows, two or more computers) and of course, these are real proper authors, and it is where real proper authors work. How does my space match up, I wondered…

Through the Chair

I work out of the spare bedroom, so it’s not ideal – there is a wardrobe behind me that I do my level best to ignore, and we are not allowed to put up anything on the walls unless there already is a nail there (and they check this, the pedantic so and so’s). See, ideally I would like more pictures on the wall, more colours around me, but heigh ho. This flat came with furniture, so I happily appropriated our old dining table and chair to work on – they are both made of solid wood and are huge and heavy. I cannot sit straight to save my life, so am forever twisting about forgetting the chair does not, and end up with a ton of bruises – that table is not forgiving. I have speakers, and whenever am stuck I play a range of music that I have on the computer. Next songs up are Rod Stewart (Maggie May), The Kinks (Waterloo Sunset) and various Slade tunes - I know these sort of tunes so well that they are comforting and I can work through them, as well as sing along every so often.

To the right of the computer I have my printer, on top of that is my Top Twenty book (I like to listen to music from the month I am writing about if possible), and some research books. Propped up is my Flower Fairies of the winter book, invaluable for a bit of chilly garden research. You can hardly see it, but my chapter plan is beside my mouse, I mostly resist the urge to rest my coffee cup on it, although a few tell tale circles beg a different story.

And that is all the story this picture tells us, I could widen the camera's gaze but then you would see untidy stacks of research, tons of books banked against the wall, a sort of glitter glo-lamp thing that spins around, and my collection of old annuals, books and records. See, where I actually write is sort of the boring bit...