This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
A writing room? What the dickens is one of those? You mean a room, a whole room, in my house dedicated to the pursuit of novel-writing? Where laundry piles and bits of Lego are banished so that I might have a clutter-free space with a desk, pencil pot, lovely array of cheerily coloured post-it notes and even a healthy potted plant?
Nah. Not at Casa Knight I’m afraid. I did try that but it didn’t last. The Lego and laundry were a force mightier than me plus the desk chair (it’s actually more of a deck chair) gave me a numb ass. Throw in the imminent arrival of our next little bundle of Lego-loving joy and the spare room is now a shrine to newly-delivered Moses baskets, sterilisers and boxes of breast pads. Oh, the glamour.
Actually, I would love a writing room, well a writing space, I should say. Since writing my first book last year, I’ve secretly harboured dreams of a Roald Dahl-esque garden shed with a comfy old armchair and blanket for my legs. I’m a bit of a nature lover so the ideal retreat for me would be something hut-like hidden away in the garden, or the ultimate – a bona fide treehouse with a little tea station and Wi-Fi so I could tweet (gloat) about my fabbo writer’s hideaway. Alas, until the bambino arrives and we finally get ourselves into gear and move house, I’m going to have to stick with my nomad-about-the-house writing habits.My writing zone tends to be wherever I’ve decided to perch for the day so could be the kitchen table, the lounge sofas, sometimes even my sister’s house while she’s at work. The main problem with this is that if I’m not at a point in my writing where I’m completely pumped, delving into a scene I feel really strongly or brilliantly about, then I can get distracted really easily by what’s happening around me. The house phone ringing, the dishwasher bleeping to be emptied, the sunshine beckoning me to put a load of washing on the line – it all starts to impinge pretty rapidly on productivity.
So, this is the point where I grab my stuff, trek upstairs with my laptop cable trailing behind me and revert back to Old Faithful – the best place I’ve found to get in the zone and concentrate – my bed. This is where I hide out in the day with my packet of biscuits, then slurp copious amounts of tea through the night when the kids have gone to bed and the hubster’s downstairs happily watching all the sport his little eyeballs can drink in.
Of course, you’re not getting a picture of my bed. It may be where the majority of the magic happens (I’m referring to novel-writing, btw, not babies), but it’s rather unremarkable and un-authory looking. Plus, at nine months’ pregnant, there seems to be a suspicious dink where the memory foam on one (my) side appears to have developed amnesia.
So, I’m leaving you with a pic of one, very small, not-at-all-staged-for-this-article pocket of my lounge, all neat and tidy and sunflowered-up, just to tide you over while I find myself that treehouse.
Since You’ve Been Gone by Anouska Knight is out now.