This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
I usually start my day with a run along Brighton seafront with my husband and sometimes writing partner, Emlyn Rees. Then we have a coffee by the beach and come back to the house to start work. Ever since we first wrote Come Together and got together as a result, I’ve been lucky enough to have Emlyn at home writing in the daytime with me. Knowing that he is upstairs stops me from chatting on the phone for hours, or doing the never-ending list of household chores. I doubt I’d be very motivated at all on my own and it’s lovely to have someone to share lunch with. When we’re in the writing zone and each working on our own books, we get quite competitive about daily word count.
I work in the study at the back of our house, over-looking the garden. It’s freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer, but I love looking out of the window and seeing the seasons change and hearing the birds sing. I’m also the daytime guard, shooing away the cheeky neighbourhood cats that nose around at the guinea pigs in their run outside.Emlyn recently bought me a new Mac, as I’d written 13 novels on the old and she was getting a bit cranky. My new iMac still astonishes me every day. The best thing about it is that in Word, I use the ‘Focus’ setting in View, which blacks out the rest of the screen. It’s brilliant.
My desk has always been the household dumping ground for all letters and piles of paperwork. The accountant sometimes rings up and asks me to dig something out from ‘the pile’. It doesn’t look very tidy, but I know where everything is. The kids always end up using my computer to do their homework, so there’s often a forgotten homework diary and various latest offerings of their artwork, which I always put on the walls. I love having pictures of my family around me and a general sense of happy chaos. I can’t write if everything is pristine and tidy.
The Key to It All by Joanna Rees is out now.