This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Caroline Vermalle and her husband Ryan von Ruben have written their first collaborative novel together, A Flower for the Queen. Today, Caroline is showing us around her writing room.
It took me five years and seven novels to finally have what I can call « my writing room.
Before that, I was writing pretty much everywhere, from the kitchen table to my bed to the nearby café. I travelled eight months with my family while finishing a book. I remember writing on a toilet seat on a farm of 15 000 sheep in New Zealand, in a park during a (very loud) national holiday celebration in Bali, in a car where it was so hot I was afraid my computer would melt. Usually I just need to put headphones on and the world disappears.
Now we have just finished building a contemporary house in a forest, half a mile from the beach in Vendée, France. My office is on a large mezzanine over the double-height main room – so I’m hidden from everyone yet it feels I’m right in the middle of our family home. The mezzanine overlooks very large windows filled with beautiful tall, pine trees – but visitors to my writing room are rather puzzled that I turn my back to them.
Instead, I face a floor-to-ceiling library, with all the books I use for research and inspiration, all my favourite novels and story-filled objects I brought back from my travels. It’s the kind of library I always fantasized about, it sums up what I love about the path I chose; looking at it makes me happy. A great state to be in when one writes.
My library seems to make my black cat happy too: he sleeps in one of its niches. I’ve emptied a shelf just for him, but he prefers hiding behind books – so inevitably, they all drop on the floor.
But it’s ok. We work well together.