WRITING SPACES - MSLEXIA

As part of her Writing Motherhood series for Mslexia, writer Carolyn Jess-Cooke has featured several women's writing spaces, including mine. The post is here on the Mslexia blog.

THE BEDROOM DESK

Well following on from this post, the bedroom desk has arrived and is in place. Excitement!! Let the new writing regime begin :)

THE WRITER'S (BED)ROOM

Miranda Seymour's bedroom and desk

In a timely post, Apartment Therapy has a feature on writers' bedrooms. See where, among others, Plath, Hemingway, Victor Hugo and Flannery O'Connor slept and, sometimes wrote. See above for Miranda Seymour's desk in her (rather lovely) bedroom.

I have started a new novel and the combination of that, ripping out ugly built-in units, and the gorgeous light there has decided me to try to write the bulk of it in our bedroom. The corner of the dining room where I have my desk is decidedly dark and cluttered. Which on these bright days is unappealing.

Further inspiration came from a panel of commercial women fiction writers at the Waterford Writers' Weekend last Saturday. What a contented, happy tribe they are! I was struck by their confidence, their smiles, their positivity. Literary panels are often quite gloomy and doom-laden. I imagined each of these five sunny women writers in five sunny rooms, writing happily. And I wanted some of that.

So, yesterday - mostly because I was in an upside-down mood - rather than write, I took the train to Athlone to wander. I couldn't face my desk. First stop was, as usual, the antique shop. And there I spied a beautiful old pine table. A slim table. A desk-like table. I wasn't expecting to buy a desk so I hadn't measured the newly available space in my bedroom. But I bought the table on spec and my husband is going to nip up to Athlone on Saturday to bring it home and install it in our bedroom.

We have the four-poster bed but, other than that, our room is nothing like Miranda's. It is a work-in-progress that I am hoping will be finished soon. But the new desk - which will remain a minimalist, notebook-only haven (I hope!) - is one step towards a fresh approach to both our bedroom and my writing. I hope it all works out. I may even post a pic :)

Truman Capote's rather gorgeous bedroom

WINNING WORDS - WRITING SPACES - MY DESK!

My desk is featured at Michelle Teasdale's Winning Words site today. Go here for a pic and some waffle from me.

WINNING WORDS - WRITING SPACES

Michelle Teasdale, over at Winning Words, has started a lovely series on writers' workspaces, which she will post each Friday. First up is London-based writer, Debi Alper. My desk will feature next Friday the 24th June. Go here to see and read about Debi's writing space.

MOVING YOUR DESK HAS BENEFITS

So I moved my desk into the dining room to make way for magnificent red bookshelves in the sitting room and in preparation for Babykins heading off to creche and me having time to write (real, actual time!) come August 31st. I bought a fabulous desklamp in Arnott's (before that beautiful shop disappears into some bank-induced black hole, weep, gnash).

I've cleared the shelf beside the desk to make way for my thesaurus, dictionary and piles of 'urgent' papers. Urgent as in I am meant to be dealing with them but, because they are in a scruffy pile, I forget, until I get a frantic email about a looming deadline. I'm looking for a nice intray so that they can be a neat, neglected pile but have yet to source the correct, aesthetically pleasing one. I may use an old wooden winebox but it's already full of utterly unnecessary but nonethless jammed scrapbooks. Sigh. I hoard therefore I am.

I have found that because the laptop is away from me, I'm on the net less and writing longhand more. Result! Also while decluttering our books for the new shelves I came across ones I will re-read and ones I can safely get rid off.

This afternoon I sat at my newly located desk waiting for a radio interview about the novel that never happened. I stay awake half the night worrying and hoping I'll be coherent; I get the baby asleep in time for the interview; I warn the other two to be silent; I think about lofty things to say (!?) and they DON'T ring. Harumph.

Anyway next week (Weds 18th)  I'm going to be on Arena, so I can look forward to more sleeplessness until that's over. And I posted a link earlier to an interview I did in Dublin last week for WDA Radio.

Right, Babykins is screeching and putting all my stuff in the bin. Gotta go.

KENNY'S POETRY MS EVENT - CÚIRT & MY DESK (?!)

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I was at the launch of the Cúirt brochure in the lovely Meyrick Hotel last night in Galway. My novel launch is there in technicolour on page 54 - woo, the thrill! I was delighted to meet fellow writer and blogger Jessica Maybury there - it's always great to put a (friendly) face to a name. Anyway, wine was drunk, chats were had, and I made a special request of Cúirt Director Maureen K, more of which anon...

As always there are lots of fantastic events on the programme: Colum McCann and Amy Bloom are there, Joyce Carol Oates and James Lasdun, Paula Meehan is reading, there's the Ropes launch, a New Yorker event etc etc.

One event, for budding poets, caught my eye: Kennys Book Shop are hosting a trio of fantastic poets who will assess poetry MS's from unpublished writers. Unheard of opportunity!! Pat Boran, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Caitríona O'Reilly will be in residence and you can pitch your MS to them.
It's on Saturday the 24th April at 11.30am in Kennys, Liosbán. Phone for more info: 091 709350

The full Cúirt 2010 programme is here.

And why the pic of my desk? Our woman in New York - writer Eimear Ryan - posted a pic of hers and wanted to see others. There you go.

DESK: BEFORE AND AFTER

OLD DESK click on pic for bigger view:



NEW DESK click on pic for bigger view:




I knew that I was getting a new desk for Christmas because I picked it myself from the stock of a very fair and reliable dealer we know (my Ma). It’s a lovely desk: small, old, compact with a handy drawer (a drawer, imagine!). It was made/sold by Beverly Smyth and Company, South Anne Street, Dublin, many moons ago. My old desk was a rickety kitchen table covered with a gingham cloth to hide its ugliness.

What I didn’t know is that my beloved man was also buying me a fabulous, shiny, fast and beautiful new laptop to go with the desk. Score!

My intention with the new desk was to declutter my workspace and start afresh in 2009, all clear-headed and ready for writing action. But the fact remains that I am a clutterbug. There’s no getting away from it and no matter how hard I try to streamline, it just doesn’t work.

As well as clearing my desk, I had intended to strip my noticeboard and have some blank space on it, as well as new, inspirational images. But when it came to it, I couldn’t get rid of half the stuff that’s pinned there. I think I did well with tidying the actual desk, though...

Einstein once said: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk?” So, I think I will embrace my (semi-)cluttered desk and trust that old Albert was right.

So what is your work space like: clean and mess-free? Or cluttered with extraneous junk?