This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Taking inspiration from The Guardian's 'Writers' Rooms', Sky Arts' 'The Write Place' and Book Chick City's excellent 'Where Stories Are Made'; My Writing Room is a fabulous fortnightly event, in which some of our favourite authors show us where the writerly magic happens, and tell us a little about their routine.
This week it's the lovely Milly Johnson – Enjoy!
My Writing Room by Milly Johnson
I ‘stole’ a bedroom in my house to make an office from and decorated it in wallpaper with bees and hives on it simply because I liked it when I saw it in the shop. In fact I loved it so much that it inspired me to write book 2 ‘The Birds and the Bees’ with its heavy-honey imagery. My writing room is at the front of the house, south facing, so all my four cats lay in the window soaking up the sun – and my dog snoozes at the side of the door on the landing. I bought a huge old battered L-shaped Partners desk from eBay which I love to work on. That side of the room is designated my fiction area, the desk fitted to the wall at the other side is used for doing accounts (yeurch) and plotting and craftwork. My boys love it in here too and use the computer in here most evenings (even though they have their own in their bedrooms!) My chair is a huge, comfortable swivel, wheeled affair – and totally cat ravaged!
It’s important to have a separate room for work and this one has plenty of storage and places to spread out, but still remains cosy whatever the time of year. I don’t have a kettle in the room because then I can stretch my legs and burn off a few calories when I go downstairs for my many cups of coffee of the day.
It’s beautifully light in here and I’ve fitted a daytime bulb in my ancient anglepoise lamp (which was with me during my O levels!) I have hundreds of pens and books and the drawers are stuffed with stationery.
I have a tiny TV on my desk which I watch Jeremy Kyle on whilst I’m ‘warming up’ in a morning, answering emails and updating my website. I switch it off though when I start working properly, because I prefer to write in silence. My screen saver is a picture of me snuggling up to WWE wrestlers – I think they’re gorgeous and so they’re an inspiration when I’m writing about hunky men! I don’t tend to have pictures on the walls – although I’m looking for a huge pinboard so that will change.
This is the perfect writing room for me and it’s a friendly space that all the family use. I know where to find everything and it’s got a lovely feel to it whether I’m working in it or trying to find more bargains on eBay!
