This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
This week's GORGEOUS writing room comes courtesy of Ruth Saberton. Ruth's latest novel is Amber Scott is Starting Over and you can also visit her website here.
My Writing Room by Ruth Saberton
I would love to say that I have a dedicated space for writing but really my office is for the admin side of my work. It's where I check contracts, answer emails and do the mundane financials. We've made it look nice with all the framed pictures of my book covers to inspire me!
I am incredibly lucky to live in Polperro in beautiful Cornwall and have a lovely home with various nooks and crannies where, depending on the time of day and the piece I am working, on I can hide away and let the light, sounds of all the birds from wrens to seagulls and people passing provide a gentle backing track to my writing. Sometimes I like to write in bed – one of the best bits about being a writer, especially is it's blowing a gale across the sea!
I often write outside and sometimes I take my notebook up onto the cliffs where my horse has paddock. There I can write while gazing over Polperro and out to sea. Sometimes, I can be found at home in my garden in a shady spot with a coffee, the only downside is my wi -fi reaches me and I end up checking emails and just occasionally get lost in the worlds of Facebook and Twitter!
Last year, after "Ellie Andrews has Second Thoughts" was released, I treated myself to my ipad and although a little sceptical as to exactly how much writing versus browsing I would use it for, I'm pleased to say that this has also expanded my writing space even further. I found my self tweaking a couple of bits of Amber while being driven to London recently but I don’t think I could ever get immersed enough to write properly as the motion of the car makes me feel a bit queasy!
Lately I have taken to writing on a super squishy second hand sofa that I bought for £40 from a kick boxing Buddhist. This sits in my living room window and from this vantage point my cat Freddie and I watch the world go by. With all the lovely weather recently we have seen so many wonderful people wander past our window that I am never short of inspiration for characters.
I used to take my my laptop to the local cafes or sometimes to my friend's pub and just enjoy a coffee, or sometimes a pink wine, and write in a quite corner but as my books and I are becoming a little more well known I often end up chatting to people asking me about my work. I tend now to just enjoy these places socially. I meet so many interesting people in Polperro and I hope that they find me and my work as interesting as I find them and their stories.
Three or four times a year I run a writers’ retreat. I look for a peaceful venue where I and my fellow writers can lock ourselves away. Once I have got my writers settled, fed and busy writing I can take an hour or so for my own work. There's something about being in the company of other writers that seems to generate a creative energy that I hope we all tap into and benefit from. I think that I can pretty much write anywhere.
But do I have a writing room?
In a word, no!