Friday 15 December 2017

Writing rituals: a time and a place – by Rowena House

My favourite writing spot is the kitchen table, with the glazed double kitchen door open to the garden, and our dog lazing on the step, watching birds on the feeders and our tom cat stalking them.

It’s a central spot, a crossroads of work & life where the two can meet and sort out the day’s demands on my time and mental space.

Our kitchen is full of morning light, and also lit by ceiling lamps which imitate sunshine when it’s dull. Sitting at the table – which is from IKEA, clean, modern, waxed oak – I keep half an eye on the cat, and help the dog chase him off if his hunt looks set to be successful.

The kitchen table is also big enough for me to spread out the A2 sheets of paper I use for plotting. I weigh them down with coasters and coffee mugs, and sketch mind maps and constellations of characters. On the reverse side, I chart structural turning points: epiphanies, crises and climaxes, brainstorming options for each.

The Main Dramatic Question for a work-in-progress is written in the bottom left-hand corner, along with two core questions for my protagonist: what one thing will make them succeed? And what one thing could make them fail?

These three questions will be scored out and rewritten time and again during the course of writing a story, and if the paper plan becomes too messy, I start over. It’s a non-linear, iterative process. Fluid & flexible. Unlike typing, which is constricted & constraining.

When writing, either on the laptop or paper, I don’t have particular rituals or object fetishes, though I do love beautiful hard-back notebooks. Occasionally I wonder, if I rented an even more remote cottage without electricity for a month or two, whether I might be able to get the bones of a story down on paper without the endless editing that has become a tiresome and time-consuming habit when working digitally.

Now, nearing midwinter, the kitchen table has been reclaimed for Christmas decorations and planned family dinners, and the kitchen door is shut against the north wind, which slams hail and sleet off Dartmoor against the house.

Banished upstairs to a desk in the spare room, I can still hear the sparrows squabbling and the hoots of collared doves. I can even see the moor and a wider sky. But it’s not the same. This isn’t a place to day-dream; the spare room doesn’t feel like the heart of anything.

And the work-in-progress? Well, there’s always January. Happy Christmas, everyone.

@HouseRowena


 

 

4 comments:

Penny Dolan said...

Your lovely, undisturbed (?) kitchen sounds a very peaceful working space. Thanks for sharing your room and ritual - and hope you are soon back from your temporary desk and back where the "writing you" belongs.

Rowena House said...

Thank you, Penny. So do I! Maybe kitchen = hearth, and it's a witchy thing!

Sue Bursztynski said...

Sounds like a lovely place to work. I live in a flat, upstairs, so no garden to gaze out on or pets to amuse. While I'm at home I write in the lounge, where I can play music or the radio. I do have a study, but it desperately needs a lot of stuff chucked out, which I will have time to do now that my day job is nearly over.

To be honest, though, I work better OUTSIDE home, in the library or a cafe. No distractions, no getting up to make a cuppa or dance to Renaissance music... I once wrote a book in my local cafe!

Of Books And Christmas

Rowena House said...

A whole book in a café? Wow, Sue. I'd have exploded with all the cake I'd have eaten. Dancing to Renaissance music sounds like a brilliant way to take a screen break! Happy Christmas - and happy writing.