Where I Write - Group Post

As a group we're often asked where we write. We're not sure why people are so interested because it's something we do every day, so we see it as just another ordinary part of our lives. However, as we've been asked, it would be rude not to answer the question! So four of us have joined forces to let you in on the secret of where we write.

Abie Longstaff

I write in my writing hut in the garden.

It's only a few steps from my house, so I have a very short commute!

Inside I have a comfy chair, a desk and some big cushions in a pile on the floor so I can curl up and read.

Pippa Goodhart

For the first twenty years of my writing career I wrote in whatever corner of the house I could. The computer was in our bedroom, and the main table always had to be cleared for mealtimes. But then - da daaa! - my wonderful husband (who happens to be an architect) built us a brand new house. What would you like in it, he asked?  Well, where to begin?!  I now have a library landing with backlit bookshelves that leads onto a balcony with rocking chairs - bliss.  But he and I also share a big studio room; his drawing board and desk at one end, and my writing mess at the other. One long wall is lines with built-in bookshelves.  But, as you can see, even now I have to share my writing space!

Jane Clarke

I've taken over the smallest bedroom, overlooking the apple tree in the back garden. Watching the birds (and the occasional squirrel) is a great displacement activity.

The walls slope so fitting everything in is a bit of a challenge and things tend to get stacked in heaps in the corners.

I use the beams to pin things on.

Occasionally I have a tidy up and clear out, but clutter is the default setting for my writing room.

Jonathan Emmett

For the first 10 years as a writer/paper-engineer, I worked in a little room at the back of our first house that looked out onto the back garden. As well as a desk, I had a huge “double elephant” sized drawing board, a large light-box and a plan chest, all crammed into the same small space.

My first office in my old house was rather like a ship's galley.

I needed somewhere to store all my books and art materials as well, so I built a big storage unit to house it all. There's a diagram of it on the right and you can just see the edge of it on the left of the photo above. There was a very practical reason for the unit’s 'grand piano' shape. It needed to be narrow at one end, to leave me enough space to sit behind my drawing board, and wide at the other, so I could have a decent bookcase beside my desk. When we moved house, the storage unit came with me to my new office which is quite a bit bigger and looks out onto the street. As you can see in panorama below, I have a silver birch tree right outside my window!

A panorama view of my current office. Click on "view sphere", then click and drag inside the image to move around.

One of the best things about moving house was that I finally had enough space for a sign-writer’s vinyl cutter. These computer-controlled machines are usually used to cut out the coloured vinyl signs you see stuck to the sides of vans and above shops, but I’ve adapted mine so that I can use it to cut out the pieces of card for the prototype pop-up books I design. The home-made stand it's mounted on folds down, a bit like a deck-chair, so that I can store the cutter under my drawing board, when it’s not in use.

We hope you've enjoyed this group blog and if you're an author we would love to know where you write. So please do let us know.

Regards,

Abie, Pippa, Jane and Jonathan.

New Year's Revolution... Resolving to do it all again -tidier house, be more organised, oh yes, and write some lovely picture books, by Juliet Clare Bell

Happy New Year!

I’ve always loved New Year’s Eve and New Year: reflecting on the previous year, and even more fun, the promise of exciting things to come. It’s such an optimistic time. I know lots of people don’t, but I love new year’s revolutions (as a child I used to think that’s what they were called –and that’s how they can feel sometimes). I love them, even if they don’t quite turn into what they set out to be...

One thing about writing for a blog is that you become slightly more accountable for your resolutions, which can be a great thing, or it can make you look a little foolish. I was thinking about this blog post and what I’d put in when I realised I’d done one last year at new year so I checked it out...

...oops. Most of the same things.

I’d posted a picture of my newly tidied desk:

I had a great weekly plan which was making me much more productive:

I had a calendar and I was determined to use it!

To be fair, for several months I did do all those things and it was brilliant. The house was tidier than it had ever been, I was much more focused... but I can pretty much sum up the whole of the rest of the year from March 12th onwards in three words: my mum died. And that was 2013.

I’m mighty glad to be starting 2014. It feels like a good time to try and get on top of things again, and actually not all plans for being more organised (and having a more sorted house and working environment) at the beginning of 2013 came to nothing. I'm going to restart my weekly plan that worked so well for a while, and I am at a better physical starting place (I can’t un-chuck all the masses of stuff I chucked out last January, so although there’s a long way to go, the house is in a much better state than it was a year ago). And good things did happen in 2013, including getting an office over the road with fellow children’s author, Leila Rasheed.

Writing goals for 2014

In our end of year local SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) meet up in December, we discussed our personal plans for 2014 and what had worked well/not so well for us in 2013. I realised that my three writing goals for 2014 are actually not even writing goals, but creating a better environment where I hope the writing will slightly take care of itself...

[1] Use a calendar properly. To many people, this seems ridiculous, but I still struggle with writing things down in one place and not carrying around most dates in my head. I spend half the time not using any calendars at all, and the other half, trying to use loads at the same time (two wall calendars –home and office; a diary; notes on my phone; the calendar on my phone; google calendar; a wall planner). Not this year! I’m going to try and master google calendar and pretty much use that and a wall planner (for all you organised people, if you’ve got any good tips, please please leave them in the comments...)

[2] Use a to-do list properly. If someone’s got the perfect to-do list system, please elaborate in the comments... I’ve just signed up to the free version of Simpleology (on the recommendation of other picture book writers) and I’m going to try using it every day for a few months to see if it actually helps (or whether it’s just another way of procrastinating).

[3] Staying on top of accounts. This has taken up ridiculously more thinking time than it ever needed to. I think I’ve realised that it’s actually all pretty straightforward –you just have to do it and keep doing it and have a spreadsheet and DO IT. And not waste time thinking about it and JUST DO IT!

I guess that sums it up for 2014: just do it. Oh, and also my favourite quote from David Almond at a talk he gave in Birmingham in November, in response to the question by a young girl on what should she do if she wanted to become a writer: "Make it lovely".

2014’s definitely going to be a happier year. There are lots of exciting things coming up on the writing front -once a fortnight, starting this month, Leila and I are hosting day-long writing retreats, where writers/illustrators can come and write in the (quiet) company of other writers; once a month, we’re doing an SCBWI-equivalent up at the new Library of Birmingham; I’m running another picture book writing evening class starting in a few weeks; I’ve got some lovely author visits lined up, including a really exciting one on World Book Day, and I’ve been commissioned to write a really exciting non-fiction picture book, which I’ve been doing lots of (delicious) research for and which I’m going to blog about in March. And Tara Lazar’s brilliant PiBoIdMo from November 2013 has left me with lots of new shoots for new stories which I’ll keep watering over the coming months...

Happy New Year! and make it lovely...

What are your writing goals for this year? Do you have any hints on doing a to do list well, or using a calendar efficiently?

Juliet Clare Bell is currently writing a picture book on Bournville, the Cadburys and chocolate, which is fascinating and very tasty...