I write in a former dressing-room, jutting off my bedroom, 6 feet by eight. On one side my second hand desk, an old wooden beauty, butts up against a flowery wallpapered wall. I can stare at the crimson tulips and lose myself when I’m trying to enter one of my characters’ heads.
Daylight floods in from windows across the opposite side. If I need peace I face the wall and the flowers. If I need distractions I swivel my chair and look out the windows onto the street below.
I work every weekday from 10 till 2pm. The first thing I do is to free-write. I’ve done this ever since I read Julia Cameron’s ‘The Artist’s Way’. If anyone ever read my pages I’d probably be committed. It’s very liberating and seems to create a divide between my real life and my writing life.
Once I’m done I put these in a special drawer and go straight into whatever I’m working on. At the moment I’m redrafting my first novel.
I’m a messy person. I like having things around me. My worst nightmare would be a John Pawson-style office. I use every available space to pin up pictures, map out my chapters or scribble sentences that I don’t want to be lost in a book somewhere.
I have only three rules in my writing space. The first is I never answer the phone or my mobile during writing time. Secondly I don’t allow admin in. It’s a disease that prevents me from writing if I let it. And thirdly, no-one else is allowed in either. That includes my husband and three kids. The only exception is the cat. She finds me most days and curls up on my lap as I write. I don’t mind. It saves on heating bills.
My blog is at www.forricherforpoorer.info
For information on my book go to www.forbetterforworse.info
You can also follow me on twitter: www.twitter.com/SiobhanGalvinHorner