room for inspiration?

I was just watching The Book Show (in the UK), and they have a section where they look at a writer's room. William Boyd was on today, and he has a fantastic room to work in, as do most of the people featured. I love looking at these, and really envy them in that they can shut themselves away and create. It is fascinating to see how they work, as some, (like Boyd) write in longhand, with a specific pen, while some use a computer, others a typewriter. They are surrounded not only by books, (as you'd expect), but by artefacts which can either help them, or mean something important to them. Boyd said that you can often find a manuscript in the fridge, as if there was a fire, it would be safe! Michael Rosen our Children's Poet Laureate, is surrounded by all sorts of weird and wonderful things, some of which relate to his dead son. Some like to be secluded and shut away in silence, others like music on, and a view. Some people don't even need a room, but write wherever they are, on planes, trains etc. I just wondered if any of you who write have a special room, or study which is sacrosanct, where you can be alone to create, and how you work.

I would really love to be able to write for a living. Unfortunately real life intrudes, with having to earn a living to keep body and soul together. I have the room in my house to make such a wonderful study, but I would never get to spend the time in it that I would like, shutting myself away from the world. I also have a tendency to gaze out of the window a lot :D. I would need a secluded windowless room I think, if I was reliant on getting stuff out to survive on. I know that's a cop-out really, as a real writer would move heaven and earth to do what they love, like Trollope, getting up early every day to write his novels before he left for a day's work at the Post Office. Oh well, we can but dream.


http://thebookshow.skyarts.co.uk/the...liam_boyd.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/writersrooms

I always used to like the thought of an old-fashioned study, in all its Victorian-style grandeur, and it looks better when it's cluttered and disorganised, (as that's how I tend to work), but I'm warming now to the modern world, with its clean, bright style and the aid of technology. I always used to love the actual physical act of writing in long-hand, but I am moving into the 21st century now :D. I haven't written anything for years though, much as I'd like to.

What do you think?

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Originally Posted by wessexgirl

What do you think?

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Unlike you, I'll never like to live out of my writing. My writing is posterity. It's my mentality, and it's a matter of personallity. This is my way, and I respect others'. (Though I don't usually consume them.)

You spoke of the indoors part. I'd never be a ... man who thinks about writing if it weren't for the outside ... I write the outside. Specially the human being. And, well, it's kind of late, but I'm beginning to find out that I'm not the only human being that there is (true!, cause I used to behave like this ... I'm an only son, and there's more worse than this social fact, which is related to character, not personallity ...).

And nature. (Strolling in a park. Children, which I don't have at home ... Cats, at the building stairs.)

(I happen to have two little trees, one here, at home, another at the office.)

People I work with are usually one of the main source of .. literature. Of character making. Daily situations, turned into epic. (This is me as well, I write "epic" (...).)

And yes: there's a lot of ... "weird" things in my room. Plastic swords, wood sticks I took when I was out, strolling about, stones I took somewhere, miniatures of many kind, books & lots of papers of course, nowadays a computer (which I take to the office, during the week; I decided to do so for two reasons, main one is NOT TO have it at home, at week nights, which I'd like to dedicate better to other afairs ... reading, for example), musical instruments which I can play and which I can't ... I don't have a tv at my room. 'Banished it. An old type machine, which was my father's, and was aside, because he has his own computer room, now ... Musical instruments need names (one of them has it). The typing machine has its name. Computer ... I'm working on it. [Trees have their names, as well as cats, no matter they don't belong to me ... I still have e]mpty bottles of [few, very few] special occasions. One half full bottle of wine. Closed packages of food. Open boxes of tea. [A pot of chocolate, very important. Btw, I'm a (very) thin guy.] Mess. Pens & Pencils, lots of'em. (Organized) closets, full of stuff. Dusty shelves, with cds and a few dvds (not many ... good thing I don't have more money). Another upper shelf. One painting at a wall. Another in the closet, still to be put on proper place. (It's a kind of a myth that whenever I have the room complete, it'll somehow fall apart!) More paper. More mess. Lights. During the day, no lights! From around five-six, up to eleven p.m., it's main upper light. After eleven, abat-jour ... lower light. Sometimes a candle "instead" of (civilization (?)) lights. I don't use air-conditioning, which is common in Rio (middle-class population, not poor populations ...), I abolished it long ago (about 2001, when I came back to my father's), and I have a ceiling ventilator, which I usually run at exhausting movement, only to move the air. I feel the heat of the land, and I like it, even when the body doesn't. I fight heat with (drinking) water (not cold, but natural, most times.)

This is my indoors. I'm not famous, nor will be, while I live. Not by my own effort, on the contrary: in what I can, I'll avoid it. It must be awful (to me) to be famous.

(Oh, pencils [brushes, not pencils, sorry; two painting brushes], to clean the keyboard ... Important to live in a tidy mess. It's almost acceptable.)

My mother learnt (with great effort of mine) to respect when I (wish to) have dirty pot and mug from breakfast at my room, during the day, and they learnt as well (idem) to respect my different times to eat. Except on Sundays, which I take to have supper with them ... At the dining table. Important to have some family time, even as a ... "child". (Parents!)

(Sometimes my mother steals one pot or mug, when I'm not around ... It's bad, but I .. have to respect it.)

My room isn't very big. let's see ... about 4x4 metres.

There are things I didn't describe, and won't. Nor will I put any pictures. It's my privacy here. (Nor would anyone ask, of course!)

On Christmas, I leave it for my grandma, who usually comes, from another town. It's an honour to do so, and I usually move some things, and put a tv for her ... Not ev'rybody is me. People need a tv. haha!

Then, I sleep at the living-room. It's my own anual camping.

Life is life. I don't believe a man needs a detached life to write. Of course, if I could simply not work, but ... I like to work. Not that I like, but ... I think and actually I believe that I need it. So I want it, and, well ... Writing isn't my money-making work. Nor wish I it to be, ever! Oh no!

So, these are a few thoughts.

People are always different from each other. Have different lives, and history ... I lived in other places, countries, as a youth. Now, I'm back in Rio, since 1993, here to stay. Unless I'm exiled, for some reason. Or something else happens, which I can't expect.

This is kind of it.


A livreiro, that's what I am,
me, and the theatre director, tiny Tim, so, me

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Originally Posted by wessexgirl

I also have a tendency to gaze out of the window a lot : I would need a secluded windowless room I think, if I was reliant on getting stuff out to survive on. What do you think?

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I think that for the majority of writers, distraction is the thing they would most readily avoid. Somerset Maugham said that when he bought the villa Mauresque on Cap Ferat he had his writing desk facing the window looking out to the Mediterranean, but the sight was so beautiful that it interfered with his concentration, so he turned his desk to face the wall. One thinks also of Dylan Thomas and the boathouse at Laugharne where he would shut himself away from the world, and the hut in the Austrian lake district, where Gustav Mahler would compose while on holiday and which his wife and children were forbidden to enter.