Tuesday 5 February 2013

No Room with a View by Savita Kalhan


It’s gone, my cherished writing space. Up until Christmas I worked at my laptop in the dining room. I used to have the whole of the dining table to spread out in, surrounded by a chaotic array of files, piles of paper, notebooks, post-its and an assortment of pens and pencils. But I’ve had to vacate the dining room while the kitchen and dining room are being knocked into one room with an extra three metres added on. I’m looking forward to the end. However, in the meantime, icy gales rush through, making a cup of tea requires me to negotiate an obstacle course. I need to wear several layers of fleeces inside the house to avoid frostbite, and I’ve had to stack my WIP and all the notes and various versions of the manuscript in one teetering, homeless tower.

I’ve had a garden room built, completed just before Christmas, which will be my new working space. It’s sitting there gazing at me, (or maybe that's me gazing longingly at it!) To reach it, I would have to cross a ten foot ditch, a quagmire of mud, and fight off a plague of rats, and even if I made it there alive, there’s no space for me and my laptop and my tower of notes as it’s doubling as storage space for everything that was in the dining room and much of the kitchen that there’s no space for in the living room. I won't be able to get to it until April.

So I’m back in the box room, where there’s no room to swing my hair never mind swing a cat, and there is no view. I’ve been trying to convince myself that it’s cosy, that I can shut myself up inside it and pretend I can’t hear the constant banging and drilling and other noises emanating from the building site outside my non-existent back door. It’s not working, yet. I've hit a block with the WIP too and I'm wondering whether it's because I'm not in my usual writing space, physically and in my head. I know I have to make it work or find another temporary home for writing. I’ve never been a coffee shop writer. Coffee shops are for meeting friends, chatting, drinking coffee, nibbling on a slice of cake, idling time away. I can’t see myself sitting at a table with my laptop and being creative. People-watching and eavesdropping yes, but writing? Probably not.

I didn’t think I was such a creature of habit, tied by routines and patterns, but now I realise that I am. All this building work has probably been a good thing for me in that it’s forced me to realise what a stuck-in-the-mud person I am, and how changes in a writing space might actually be a good thing. So if the shoe-box room doesn’t work, I’m going to try a different room, and if that doesn’t work, I might even venture into a coffee shop or a library. I’m sure that I can write anywhere – I just haven’t had to write anywhere for a long time! Does anyone else have this problem, or can you write anywhere?

I’m in the shoe-box room right now. Hopefully I’ll be writing...

14 comments:

Lynda Waterhouse said...

I used to think I needed a certain space but the other day I found myself scribbling away furiously whilst waiting a hospital appointment. The end result was the best writing I've done in ages! Your new space will be wonderful when its finished.Love the trees

Anne Cassidy said...

I can't write anywhere but I do rise to the challenge when I've got building work on. The noise and the mess are so awful that there's nothing else to do but write! I wrote one of my best books when i was having a loft extention!

Saviour Pirotta said...

Funnily enough, I can write different things in different places. I spend a lot of time waiting for trains [or so it seems to me], so I find the coffee shops in St. Pancras ideal for working out plots, redrafting and correcting continuity mistakes in short stories. Most of my full on writing takes place in a shoe-box room, which does have a view of my yard if I ever get to moving my desk. Your garden room looks awesome.

Savita Kalhan said...

Lynda, I do carry a notebook around in which the occasional paragraph or idea gets jotted down. And being surrounded by trees is wonderful!
Anne, someone said to me how on earth could I possibly not be creative when so much creating, by the builders, was going on around me? Maybe it's not the loss of my writing space but the block that's holding me up. High time I got over it!
Saviour, my short story writing often happens in lots of different places, but not so my novel writing. I'm going to take these next three months to experiment with moving the laptop around to different places and see what happens. The garden room will be awesome - once the garden has been reclaimed!

Sue Purkiss said...

I have a hut, which is a lovely place to write in. The trouble is it's easy to wander out of. Yesterday I was in the office I have for a few months as an RLF fellow, and had no students to see - and got loads done, because there were no interruptions or distractions. Your hut looks lovely!

Savita Kalhan said...

Thanks, Sue. There are distractions located in close proximity to my new hut too - the woods, the allotment, the tennis courts... I'll have to lock myself in!

Emma Barnes said...

Think your box room actually quite appealing! And enviously tidy.

Savita Kalhan said...

Emma, I did make it a little easier on the eye for the photograph. And what you can't see is the fact there is no space behind the chair, to the right of the chair or the left of the chair!

Stroppy Author said...

Oh, but you don't need much space if you are cosy. I am writing two books at the moment - one I write downstairs on the PC and the other I write either upstairs in my office or in the university library on my laptop. It's odd - I often write more than one book at once, but I've not felt the need to separate them like this. Can you find a good library space to work, perhaps?

Penny Dolan said...

I do think building work on your home sets off a kind of subtle internal panic - my cat runs around unable to settle at such times and I feel much the same. Maybe you need to go and hide somewhere to work until its all over? However that looks a v. fine garden room so no wonder you.re impatient penny

Penny Dolan said...

I do think building work on your home sets off a kind of subtle internal panic - my cat runs around unable to settle at such times and I feel much the same. Maybe you need to go and hide somewhere to work until its all over? However that looks a v. fine garden room so no wonder you.re impatient penny

Savita Kalhan said...

Anne, it should feel cosy, but it actually feels claustrophobic. A library would be perfect except my laptop no longer functions without being plugged in and it weighs a ton. I should replace it, but it feels like an unnessary expense.
Penny, I think I feel like your cat! And, yes, it's a fine garden room! I can't wait to move in.

Nicola Morgan said...

Savita, are you coming to the SAS conf at Peterborough? I'll be talking about some of if this and how the brain responds to cues around it....

Savita Kalhan said...

Nicola, I'd love to hear your talk, but I'm not sure I can make it to the conference - I keep promising myself that I will go to the next one, but something always gets in the way. If there's a last minute cancellation, I will try to make it.