This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Okay, so it’s more of a writing corner than an actual room. I was quite happy with my little
corner, until I saw Lucy Diamond’s AMAZING writing room on Novelicious the
other week, and now I have serious writer-room envy. But the corner has served
me well.
We have an L-shaped sofa in the living room, but my boyfriend regularly complains that we can’t actually sit on the nice, wide, snuggly part of the sofa because it’s covered in my crap, if you’ll pardon my French. And he has a point. I sort of bed-in there, and over the course of the day it becomes littered with books, old magazines, bits of paper, receipts that I really should put somewhere safe for tax purposes, and empty chocolate bar wrappers. The closer to deadline day, the more empty chocolate bar wrappers.
It’s probably not great for my back, sitting scrunched up on the sofa all day, but I’ve mastered the art of writing like this. When I first left uni and was doing a rubbish office job while dreaming of being published, I lived in a tiny rented box room, and in the evenings would sit on my single bed with my laptop on my knee and write. Yes, it sounds the opposite of thrilling, and probably highlights my lack of social life, but the point I’m trying to make is that I’ve adapted to writing in the tiniest of spaces.
I don’t need anything special around me – I’m not one of those writers who demand a lucky teddy bear and a four-leaf clover and a special stone that can only be sourced from a sacred cave near Timbuktu before they can write. Just plonk me in my corner and I’m good to go.
Of course, I do dream of having enormous study-cum-library, with endless book-lined walls and a huge mahogany desk, with fresh flowers every day and a view out of the window over the Manhattan skyline/a tropical beach/the Cotswold countryside (delete as applicable, depending on which fantasy I’m indulging that day). But for now, I’ve got my little corner, and it does the job just fine.
Sophie Hart is the author of The Naughty Girls' Book Club which we reviewed recently on Novelicious.