Where We Work (part three)

Three more Authors Electrics have recently tidied up, and so are prepared to share their working-space with you.

My writing space has a double purpose. When I moved into my flat six years ago it seemed obvious that the third bedroom would become a study. As a present to myself I had a custom-made suite installed, which I love. A working surface over which I can shove all my rubbish, a computer I can slide out of the way, most of my books within reaching distance on lovely new shelves: marvellous. And at the end, full-length double-glazed windows and, just out of sight, a French door onto a balcony. They are important, because when Kay arrived she needed studio space with light and this room provided it. So it’s not just my study now: it’s a mini-studio as well and we looked forward to days of companionable creativity. Every evening Kay would show me a marvellous, still-wet painting and I would read her my fire-new deathless prose. Funny how things never quite turn out exactly as you forecast, but the mirage is still there and one day it will be a day-by-day reality, it will, it will.
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Bill Kirton - visit website

It would be great to have large, clear work surfaces for the various notes I make, books I consult and incidental things I need from time to time – stamps, a stapler, flash drives, in and out trays and the like. And, as the picture illustrates, I do have such surfaces – a desk and a table – but they’re not clear because they’re cluttered with just those incidental things I need from time to time. If I’d taken shots of the rest of the room, they’d simply have confirmed that all the other clear surfaces for putting stuff on have already got stuff on them.

So I clear a space for my keyboard, put my feet up on one desk and write. The big poster for the film of one of Zola’s masterpieces reminds me of the power of books, but rather than write one, I stare at it or else out of the window beside it which looks onto the garden and a few scattered objects I’ve carved out of wood. It’s all conducive to getting lost in that lovely Scottish word – a dwam.

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Susan Price - visit website

This is a photo of the tiny spare bedroom I use as my ‘office’. I took it a few months ago, after an intensive tidy-up. It is still almost as tidy as this, but not quite.

Out of shot, to the right of the desk, is my filing cabinet which is topped by a display of birthday and Valentine cards given to me by my partner over the years.

The brown bookshelf at the back holds various reference books – such as my copes of Briggs ‘Folk Tales in the English Language', a thesaurus, dictionary, and books on the origins of place-names.

Stuck to the end of the shelf is a shot of the Gokstad ship, and one of the sun shining into the Neolithic tomb of Newgrange on the Midwinter Solstice.

Behind the desk I’ve stuck up awards, post-cards, photos, greetings cards – anything which appealed to me for its image, colours or humour. (There is a cartoon cat saying to a dog, ‘I was a dog in my previous life, but I came back as a god.’) At the moment they are partly overlayed by a sketch map of the territory in my WIP, Sterkarm 3. It’s loosely based on a real area, which I peer down on using Google satellite, but altered to suit my purposes.

It’s my favourite room in the house.

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Now we've shared where we work, we'd love to find out about where you work. So please do tell us.