Space to Write

My desk in the Thomas Gunn room

This was my writing space, at The Clocktower, a simple wooden desk, nothing fancy, yet even this felt like luxury as I don't have a space just for me at home. The kids have taken over the office and all available bedrooms. I get very cold sat still with my laptop and I am most often to be found in my bed under the duvet, laptop on my legs and a half drunk cup of tea on the bedside table. Occasionally I sit at the kitchen table as this is the sunniest room in the house although the kitchen cupboards and fridge can be a big distraction here. How I long for a pretty inspirational writing space like that of fellow blogger the English Muse :

http://theenglishmuse.blogspot.com/2009/03/office-snapshots.html

or a garden shed like Roald Dahl:

but my dream would be to have an attic at the top of the house just like Jo in 'Little Women' by Louisa M Alcott, one of my favourite childhood books. In fact I desperately wanted to be Jo.

A page from my notebook: a 10 min writing exercise where I imagined my attic.

Gorgeous notebooks, pens (Paperchase style), Moleskins, all may help the creative act, the 'getting down to it' but I actually prefer my cheap Asda notebooks - I don't want to worry that what I write has to be beautiful and perfect because it is in an expensive book.

But in fact the biggest barriers in getting down to it, writing that is, are emotional and mental. You have to be motivated, disciplined, you have to be confident and believe in yourself, that you have something to say and that others will listen. Like any art you have to train to get better and you can only get better by sitting down and DOING IT! Here's to doing it in 2009.