Glimpses Into Writer’s Rooms

Edna O’Brien’s room. I’m lovin’ it. The fireplace. Beckett and Joyce – and also the red. There’s something very nice about that red. Also, the “harvest of dregs” inscription made me laugh.

The bookcases in Kureishi’s writing room make me want to weep from envy.

And there’s something I really like in this one too. The slants, the bookshelves – and that CHAIR!

Oh, and since I’m in the “Byatt” section of my bookshelf – for the daily excerpt here is HER writer’s room. That one doesn’t appeal to me as much – too modern – that lamp doesn’t work for me (as inspiration, I mean) but I am interested to hear her words about why the room works for her.

One size most definitely does not fit all.

More glimpses into “writer’s rooms” here.

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17 Responses to Glimpses Into Writer’s Rooms

  1. ricki says:

    I agree with you about Byatt’s office. Too much burnt orange. Too much laminate. It seems kind of sterile to me. But it must work for her.

    Have you seen a book (it’s a huge beautiful coffee-table type book) called “Living with Books” or something like that? I bought a copy years ago (after taking the library’s copy out like eight times in a row). There are some rooms in there I’d almost commit a felony to own.

    I much prefer the lived-in sort of rooms – the ones that kind of ‘grow’ over time, as you acquire the just-right piece of furniture or some kind of artwork for the walls – over the ones that seem to more be put together all at once.

  2. red says:

    ricki – I drool over certain rooms, i really do. I haven’t seen the Living with Books book — but I can just imagine!

    I would say I am rather Victorian in my tastes (although I’m not precious or prissy with it – I’m not girlie at all – I’m more like a Victorian MALE, I guess) but – meaning I like overstuffed chairs, and afghans and thick curtains – My dresser is a big fat dresser that has a swivel mirror – I really like it.

    I don’t mind some clutter – anything too sleek or clean dries the creativity right up … but outright mess is distracting and upsetting. But clutter? Piles of books on the floor beside my bed? i actually really like that.

  3. red says:

    I think this one is my favorite. It’s the darkness and heaviness of the wood that really gets me … it’s old-fashioned, and some people would probably find it gloomy – but I have a tendency towards gloom myself, and such a room suits me.

  4. tracey says:

    Okay. Please excuse my assiness here. Uhm, I’m sorta surprised that so many of them have such stark white walls. I mean, for me, that would be jarring. Where is the warm soft place I can flop when I’m overcome with the vapors and such? I like — (whose is it, Bainbridge’s?) — the darker one, too. I also like the view from the window on Lodge’s. Mostly, I think I’d want a study that looks like Mr. Rochester might walk in on me at any moment.

  5. red says:

    // overcome with the vapors and such//

    hahahahahahaha I think my favorite part of your statement is “and such”. HA!!

    I myself am all about the dark. Not sure what it is. It feels womb-like … creative. I basically need ONE more room in my apartment – where I can have a chair and all my books – and that’s it. NO DESK. I am vehemently ANTI-DESK. I kept a desk for years thinking i needed it to write on – and i just used it for storage, and it haunted me. I finally got rid of my desk this past year and have written more than ever. hee hee.

    I like to loll about on the floor like a Bedouin, with the dark curtains drawn, and my lamplight glowing and piles of books around me.

    Nothing too modern and sleek, please! And for GOD’S sake, no Ikea! At least not in my writing room!!!

  6. tracey says:

    But don’t you mean “loll about on the floor like a Bedouin … and such”??

  7. red says:

    The entire world can be expressed with “and such”!!

  8. tracey says:

    True. Hahahahahaha!

  9. Ted says:

    I am an absolute sucker for artists’ work and living spaces – those coffee table books are candy for me. I don’t know what it is, but great writers’ and painters’ spaces must hold some secret about them. I guess everyone’s space does, it’s just that I don’t romanticize everyone. With a writer’s space, I want to see their writing surface, their reading chair, what books are on their shelves…I can eat that stuff! Yum.

  10. ricki says:

    I think it’s because we all, fundamentally, have a bit of the voyeur (in the non-sexual sense) about us – we want to know how other people live, we want to know what it is that gets our favorite writers writing, or our favorite painters painting, that kind of thing.

    I don’t really WRITE (not other than scientific journal articles) but I don’t work at a desk when I’m at home…I can’t do that. I have a desk but I only use it as a paper-repository and a place to set up my laptop. (I always do my writing – drafts or rewrites – longhand on legal pads). I work hunched over the coffee table in my living room, which usually makes my back hurt after a couple hours, or curled up in my big comfy chair with my legal pad on a lapdesk.

    Unlike some folks here, I need a lot of natural light. I can’t work in a room that feels too stifling or too much like a cave. (But no Ikea for me, please, either. My living room is kind of like a fantasy-version of a 1930s British cottage – simple light wood furniture, lots of pastels, botanical prints on the walls. The walls are painted butter-yellow and I have LOTS of lamps. I need light, but I need WARM light.)

  11. red says:

    For me it’s not so much a voyeuristic thing – although that is part of it. I like to walk around in the West Village and look thru people’s windows – you can see some of the most amazing spaces down there …

    But that’s not what this is about for me. This is about my artist self, I guess.

    It’s that I feel like a secret will be revealed when I look at all of these spaces – a secret that will help ME. The look of James Joyce’s writing table, for example – it’s just … Thinking of him at work there, the crumpled manuscript … the work process …

    Bah. It’s not about peeking thru a keyhole at him. It’s about trying to get at the source of creativity itself. And what will that be for me? Where will I go to get such inspiration? Does my room suit that imaginative need I have to transport myself into OTHER places?

    When i went to the Alexander Hamilton exhibit at the NY Historical Society – the thing that struck me most, that gave me the most goosebumps – was not the manuscript of the Federalist, or his notes on creating the bank.

    It was the desk. The DESK.

    I could not stop staring at it. I felt overwhelmed – literally overwhelmed staring at it, knowing that that was where he sat … that was where he wrote all that stuff that has changed our lives so profoundly.

    What can the desk tell me?? If I squint at it hard enough … will I see him there? What was his source of energy, creativity, ambition? I felt like I coudl almost SEE it in his gleaming desk. God, it was great.

    That, for me, is what looking into those rooms is like.

  12. red says:

    Oh and ricki – yes yes yes with the “warm light” thing. I have the same taste.

    Do you have the same aversion I do to overhead lights? Ceiling lamps??

    I have lived in my apartment since 2003 and I think I have turned on the overhead lights twice? Maybe 3 times? They just GRATE on me!!

  13. red says:

    Oh and ricki: where did you get your “lapdesk”? Do you have any specific recommendations? I definitely need one – my writing style sounds similar to yours …

  14. ricki says:

    My lapdesk is just one of those little el-cheap-o beanbag-backed ones that I think you can buy at the big-box office supply stores. It’s basically a little plastic writing surface set on a beanbag back. (Sometimes I just use a big hardback book as my lapdesk if I can’t find that).

    If you want to go upscale and nice, Levenger has (or at least used to sell) some very nice lap desks. My dad has one that’s kind of a big kidney-shaped piece of wood that sits on top of the armrests of an armchair.

    I use overhead light SOME but I definitely prefer lamps if I’m working or reading. (Right now in my office at work I have a little gooseneck desk lamp – left over from grad school days – and I turn it on and turn the overhead fluorescents OFF if I really need to concentrate on working on something, like re-writing a journal article. Which I am supposed to be doing now and just can’t get motivated to do…)

  15. red says:

    ricki – hahaha I find that if I really need to concentrate – and get down to some real writing (and I’m like you – I’m all about the long-hand, and the legal pads … sometimes just looking at a blank legal pad is enough to make my fingers start to itch!) – but anyway – I need to be away from my computer, because I just get distracted. Even the thought that an email MIGHT come in is enough to pull me out of my concentrated moment. Weird. i wish it were otherwise … but so far it’s not. Concentration is a weird thing.

    And the kidney-shaped thing that rests on the arms of an arm chair is just the thing I am looking for (even though I don’t have an armchair yet – but I will!!)

  16. tracey says:

    I never use a desk either. Somehow it’s the very structure of it that feels confining to me. I instantly feel less focused, less relaxed. I’m always wriggling around in the chair or rearranging things on the desk because there’s always some type of clutter or something. I become completely ADD. I can’t do it. So my laptop is literally that. For my LAP. I put a pillow on my lap — a regular bed pillow because it’s flatter — and put the laptop on that. The pillow protects from the heat of the bottom of the laptop — although now I think I need one of those lapdesks too. Sounds really comfy and cozy. I need to feel cozy and nestled about the whole thing, I guess.

  17. Denise says:

    Sheila, Byatt’s writing room reminds me of her description of Maud’s apartment: white with interruptions of vivid color (or something like that). And that very chair is sitting across the aisle from me here at work. Everyone loves it and when they see it say, “What a cool chair!” Then they sit and say, “But so uncomfortable.”

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