Rite Rum
Mir from Dim Sum Diaries had a post from a couple of weeks ago on Guardian Story
Writers' rooms | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Books. The writers were mostly Brits and Irish, the Guardian being a UK newspaper, but it was good stuff. I'm always fascinated by the environments and work habits of people who manage to write for a living. I'd have written this sooner if I could learn to write through being tired. I've been worn out the entire month of September. This seems to be continuing on into October. It's the eight unsympathetic hours I endure at work every day that I suspect. Well that and riding the bike to and from work.
The Guardian piece had no obvious connection to the book
How I write : the secret lives of authors [WorldCat.org] I saw last month, but the theme is similiar and some of the same authors are involved. Curiously no one is credited with putting this piece together although some editor must have. It is quite minimal in its own way. Each writer is in a separate link. A picture of a writer's workspace and a few paragraphs by them describing it. The piece is lengthy, there are about 37 authors included. One can see Will Self's Post-it notes. Nearly as I can tell Mr. Self blocks out and locates incidental notes for his novels entirely with Post it notes. I can never get those things to stay stuck on anything. If I tried this I'd find a note years later behind a file cabinet. "Oh yeah" I'd say "I suppose that book would have made much more sense If I had remembered this." After I had looked through the lot, there seemed to be some natural dichotomies or choices that stood out. Of course if you just looked at the pictures alone you could tell the rooms of women writers from the rooms of men writers, but not all of the time. Always; however, it is a room of their own. Then there is table or desk? I was gratified to see that a large number of these writer wrote at tables rather than desks. Desks are fine things for paying bills, but it's always seemed to me that if you want to write, a large table is the best surface to work on. Even notwithstanding what is the next basic choice: Pen and paper, or the computer (there is a further desktop | laptop breakdown, there were people in both camps but no one seemed to make a issue of it). Nearly every one of these writers had a computer though several claimed to never have used it. I've written in longhand a fair amount in my time. I don't recall ever entering into mystical connection with the spirit of the muse by inflicting bent glyphs onto a sheet of paper. As far as the "smell of the ink goes" as the Joey Ramone once observed "Carbona not glue", that's your man. Between typewriters and longhand; once you work out how you deal with corrections it's not all that different. I suspect many of those who hold by the cult of the crayon were possessors of merit stars for penmenship in elementary school. They probably never had guidence counselors tapping their fingers on little pamphlets as they pushed them across the desk to you with titles like Living with Dyslexia, saying "you should read this, paul." There is the Maximalist | Minimalist breakdown which basically covers the question: How much stuff is in the room with you. The writers in this piece work in places they variously describe as an office, study/library, or studio. Generally with a decreasing level of formality and materiality. I used to think it made things much more distracting to try to write in a place that had a lot of books. That particular avenue of distraction has dissapated over time. Across all the types of workspace runs the clean or clutter issue. I side step that by looking less at what you have, and more at what would you have. A couple of writers brought up the important issue of facing. Window or wall? I would have a wall in front of me, but not directly in front, the window I would have at my shoulder rather than behind me. Reminds me of fifth grade math class, I suppose. I learned nothing that year. Where in the geography of the house is best is something else people focused on. Not much of an issue for those hammering out the next great 21st century novel in a bed-sit, but many of theses people where succsessful writers and asked: Basement, first floor, second floor, or attic? The real question may be unitary or multi entrance, Can you get by with an open but non throughway alcove, or do you need a door? I'll have to come back with with a picture of this room at some point. At the moment it is somewhat south of optimum, and hinders activity. By this I mean to invoke that moment in Caddyshack when Bill Murray gets out the leaf blower. Currently I start everything on the Neo passing things through to the Macbook for the final draft. I only deal with TextEdit on Macs and WordPad on PCs. Writing is text. The presentation layer is just that, another subsequant layer. Even if it's your responsibility it's a separate concern. The TextEdit document for web log posts is a template (wrapped in html) divided into sections: random observations, rough, and final drafts with a list of what hypertext links I want for the post between. When these draft documents have served their purpose I place them into a folder infinitely deep within the file structure of the Macbook which I am sure I have never opened to examine.
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