What writers need and what they want (again)
So the things that I want are an iPhone, so that I can download the Ether Books app, not because I have stories on it (although I do) but because, having seen it, I would love to have essays and stories downloaded to my mobile that way – it’s like having a portable literary sweetshop!
And the other think I want is Jill Tattersall’s painting of Hove Seafront which I saw at The Wolf At The Door open house last week – it was so exactly like Hove on the cold still days that are the best days of winter that I could almost feel the champagne sting of the air as I breathed it in.
But …
I am the kind of writer who has to work in a corner of the room, with no pictures on the walls. Above my desk I have a bookshelf. On it are my backup files, my accounts files and some dictionaries. There used to be novels there, and a thesaurus, but I just keep taking them down and reading them instead of working. If I had pictures in my sightline I would spend all my time gazing at them instead of writing. And if my phone had predictive text (let alone apps) I’d probably create longer texts than I would sentences in my work in progress.
So while I want these things, I shall not have them, because however lovely they are (and they are lovely) I am the kind of writer who can’t be trusted with even the tiniest distraction, let alone great big gorgeous ones!
The photo is lavender lemon cupcakes, just to prove that my procrastination is also creative …
1 Comment
Jim Murdoch
9th May 2010I was watching The Book Show or some such thing a couple of days ago and there was this writer on who sits and writes in front of an open window. And I remember thinking: What torture! I couldn’t do it. If I had room for it I would have a writing room that was empty apart from a desk, a chair and a PC with as few wires visible as possible. And maybe a coaster for my coffee cup. All books would be in the library which would have a spiral staircase up to a mezzanine – always wanted one of those. And a butler called Bodkins.