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Tuesday, October 23, 2012

A writing space of her own...

Liane's post about proper attire for writers got me thinking about proper writing spaces, after all, I've got the attire down pat and have never worn sequins and sandals in my life, but what about the places where we write?  For a couple years now, I've written at a mahogany table set up in the living room.  The table faces one of the windows.  As you can see from the picture below, it's a pretty orderly space - everything is, basically, just so.  My pen mug is always on my right and the glass paperweight always on the left.



Below is the view through the jalousies - a couple trees to the left, a road in front and, beyond that, the ferry terminal.  The sun is usually just as bright as it appears in the picture so I mostly keep the jalousies closed.


I've learned to shut out the noise from the street as I write, the beeps as people hail each other from passing cars, the snorting of heavy-duty trucks and the roar of muffer-less scooters.  Thankfully, the horns of the inter-island ferries and the loud blare from the occasional cruise ship are not an every-day thing.  But this is far from ideal for me.

Ideal for me would be a vine-covered wooden shed, set apart from the main house, in a country which cared about such things as noise pollution and actually took steps to curb it.  All I'd want to see from my shed, when I looked up from my keyboard would be the flowering shrubs in my garden.  In this shed, all my books would be stacked from floor to ceiling.  A comfortable chaise for naps and reading bouts would be the only piece of furniture other than my desk, chair and cabinet.  Oh, and moving from the shed to the kitchen would require more than the ten steps it now takes which would do wonders for my waistline!

So, what about you?  What would your ideal writing space look like?

5 comments:

  1. I have a truly wonderful writing space, what was once a bedroom in our house, with big windows that looks out on our backyard and our bird feeders, and books everywhere around me.

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  2. A writing shed... *sigh* No vines for me, though. Too many snake encounters in this valley have made me paranoid.

    I write in bed for the most part since there's no room on my desk for me any more. :-/ And in a coffee shop on the UWI campus. A NOISY coffee shop. I so need that shed...

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  3. Valerie and I turned our son's ex-room into a home office. She is able to work from home two days a week and on those days we share a table that is six feet by two-and-a-half feet. We face each other, offset so we each have leg room. Four other days each week I work alone. Unfortunately the office is on the second floor and has a large window with a western exposure. Each afternoon it becomes so warm and cozy I'm forced to move downstairs to the shadowed dining room to avoid falling asleep.

    Before having a home office, I wrote at Port City Java (still do some days). I wear a baseball cap and studio-grade headphones to block out the world while I work.

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  4. Love the view from your window, Eugenia. Although my desk is nowhere near as neat as yours, and it usually cat-infested, I do have the same shutters on my windows.

    Ideally, however, I'd prefer something more castle-ish, perhaps complete with minstrels to motivate me with their song and dance when writer's block strikes.

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  5. Love your writing space. My ideal writing space? My bed, with my laptop on my knees. Or at the playground while the kids romp around... or at the library while they have storytime....or in the yard while they spray each other with water and get into every possible mischief. I think you got the picture.

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