Week 10 - My Space

When you tell people you’re a writer, the classic question you always get asked is: where do you get your ideas from? It’s a question most writers dread - and I’m going to treat it with the disdain it deserves (or I could offer my usual reply: a PO Box in Dorset).

Instead I am going to focus on a question I’m often asked, once the typical opener has been deftly side stepped.

Where do you work?

It never fails to surprise me that people have such wide ranging ideas of what my workspace should look like. Some - usually the more romantic - have a decidedly “Garret” idea. You know the thing: some poorly lit attic apartment, furnished with a rickety chair and a woodworm-infested table and probably with a view of the Eiffel Tower.

When I crush their Parisian Artists Fantasies, I almost feel a little guilty.

Then there are the business types, who seem to think I set up a “word processor” on the kitchen table and tap away while warming my feet on the Aga, only to promptly clear away all my mess once someone who has a proper job returns home.

When I crush a garlic clove into their drink, I seldom feel guilty.

As to the answer to the question, the truth depends on who you’re asking.

I know writers who can pop along to their local park, take out a notebook, and chapters flow like cider at an under 17s school disco.

Then there are the ones who have a study that is filled to bursting point with all the electronic wizardry needed to send a man to Mars. They tap at their multi screen set up and revel in their dedicated space.

Whatever works best for you is the way to go (bearing in mind your choices may be limited by family, money and power points).

Personally, I have adapted a second bedroom into a study of sorts, but still have to manoeuvre my way through ironing piles, bags of old newspapers and a collection of shoe boxes that seems to magically reproduce whenever my wife goes anywhere near a high street.

Kate Mosse’s tip number 10 is to find somewhere right for you. It’s a good point - I think most would agree that a dedicated space is the ideal, but whatever is available, even if it’s under the stairs (not in a Harry Potter way, of course), then go with that.

It’s exactly in such a space that I have just completed my next chapter. After 10 weeks of writing, it feels like the place I go when I need to write; and when I’m not writing, it sits there making me feel guilty.

A writer’s space should be a cocoon - even if it is not physically separate from the rest of the house. It’s a place to write; it’s a place to think; and possibly most of all, it’s a place to avoid people who ask you where you get your ideas from.