All writers need somewhere to work. Some have studies or spare rooms kitted with a desk, some curl up on the sofa with their laptop on their laps. Some, in those halcyon sunlit pre-Covid days (remember those?) prefer to go to a cafe and scribble in a notebook.
Some need absolute silence when writing, some put together sound-tracks to listen to, others are happy to write with the hubbub of every day life going on around them.
Since the pandemic struck and so many people began working from home, full-time writers (who always owned the home space during the day) have had to get used to the other half, and maybe the kids too, being there all the time. How they've managed to continue writing books is heroic. Hats off to the writers with day jobs they had to do from home, and kids they had to home-school, and novel contracts they still managed to stay on top of during 2020.
When I still had a day job, I worked from home anyway - I had done so since 1998, before it was fashionable (using a dial-up modem, no instant messaging systems, certainly no video-calls!) I'd do my day job in our home-office, then move to a sofa in the evenings to write. After I gave up that job last year, I kitted out my old work desk as a writing desk but I often still find I prefer working on that sofa. Maybe it's psychological - I equate being curled up there with writing.
We're now in the process of moving house. The large family home is too big for just two of us. When house-hunting, I was always eyeing up potential writing-rooms. I knew I'd need somewhere to put a desk, somewhere for the four full-height bookcases to go, and somewhere I could escape to, and curl up away from the TV and general husband-noise. We've chosen a bungalow, and we plan to add a garden room to it. A beautiful, wood-clad, fully insulated room, that I imagine as MY room. Something like the one in the photo below. I envisage all the books lining the back wall, my desk to one side, and a sofa-bed in the middle, facing out into the garden.
It might not be until next summer before the garden room is built, but I am looking forward to having that perfect space in which to write. Or read. Or day-dream. Or nap!
Where do you write? What's your dream writing-space?
Good luck with your move, Kath. It will be worth it in the end, especially if you have a writing room like the one in the picture. It looks fabulous!
ReplyDeleteThanks - yes it'll be no expense spared on the writing room.
DeleteFirst of all, good luck with your move. I know you'll be happy once you are settled! And I love your writing room. Can't wait to see the finished project. As for me, I'm a curl up on the sofa with my laptop writer. At least for now. One day, I'll have a she shed/office. If wishes were horses...
ReplyDeleteI'll take photos of it when we have it - but probably won't be till next summer. Still hoping to move within the next month though!
DeleteGood luck with the move!! Its always a stressful occasion (24 moves so far!) In fact, DD1 and SiL are supposed to be moving house the day after tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteYou writing room looks amazing!! Fingers crossed it works out as planned.
Thank you! Yes moving is stressful, especially downsizing. But it's the right thing to do and I am looking forward to being in the new place... when the solicitors pull their fingers out!
DeleteGood luck with the move, Kath and the promise of an amazing writing room like the one shown is bound to make all the hard work worthwhile. Wishing you every happiness in your new home.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Wondering if we'll get to move before a national lockdown starts though.... :-(
DeleteAh yes, a room of one's own. I used to write at an old school table with leg extensions which my late father-in-law cobbled together for me. But the day my daughter left home, with quite indecent haste I dragged my husband to the d.i.y. store to get a length of kitchen worktop to make a bespoke desk. I still have it, although now my granddaughter has taken over her mother's old room, my desk is now in the hall - huge glass door beside me, a smaller one to my left, and to my right a view down the hall and through the kitchen window. As no one even knocks the door now Covid is with us it truly is my space again.
ReplyDeleteI took over my oldest son's room years ago when he moved out as my office and when we moved house last year one thing that sold me on it was the gorgeous room just inside the front door which I immediately set aside for me! Good luck with the move and your dream writing room should be amazing.
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