Place of Work

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

My lovely desk is 9 feet long. It cost £150 from Ikea and is actually a dining table. As soon as I bought it I realised I needed two of them. One to keep completely clear and the other to cover with the papers of writing/office life. It takes up about half of my study.

Another best buy ever. My gorgeous 24 inch iMac. Long Live Apple! About 18 months old. Before then I had a very old, very noisy, very slow Toshiba laptop that was too heavy to be a laptop. I did write two of my books on it, however. When I bought this computer I realised how much I had suffered with the old one. I spend my life in front of the computer but I was working on an old crock. Doh! This is my desk in its ideal state but within minutes of working it’s covered with papers. A work-physio visited me when I had mild RSI to adjust my seating etc and she recommended this keyboard and mouse. It works.

Another love. This was a present, Xmas 2008. I’d never spend much money on a phone and people used to laugh at my previous phone. I don’t speak on the phone much. I stopped having long chats with friends sometime in the mid-90s when I realised it drained my energy and ate into writing time. I prefer to see people in the flesh. For this reason I pick up the phone to few people but I always return calls asap.

This is my memory. Honest to God can I remember what I’m doing from one day to the next? I bought this big pink leather diary as a treat from Selfridges a few years ago, I love the way it looks on my desk and you might not think it, but I love the colour pink. I never travel with it because it’s so big and heavy. It’s also convenient that I have time to think clearly at home about when/whether to see people. So any arrangements are made from home via email or on the phone.

Behind my desk are my bookshelves. Also Ikea. It would be too overwhelming to have bookshelves facing me. The burden of influence. Groan! I have thousands of books. Every few years I have a cull but they are replaced very quickly. I sometimes use 40-50 books to research one novel, which is one explanation. I also get sent books by publishers. I also buy a lot of books from Amazon and have a huge list of books waiting to be read. The chair is a Hans Mueller and ergonomic and I bought it about 7 years ago. Very expensive but again, as I spend most of my life on it, a wise investment.

Such as these above. Oh, I wish I had a free year to read these juicy works, but I find it hard to find time to read for pleasure when I’m researching and writing my own books, and I don’t much feel like looking at the printed word at the end of the day. I easily have about 50 books waiting to be read. Poetry’s easier and might take just a couple of tube journeys to read. I met Jamie Byng, Canongate’s publisher, at the Orange Prize this year, and I raved about David Simon’s The Wire. A few days later me The Corner and Homicide by David Simon, whom he publishes, were sent to me. See them there? I can’t wait to get my hands on them! I also know lots of writers who send me their books too and of course I want to read them and feel guilty that I sometimes take forever. And more….

Everything is filed. Each year I create a Gigs folder for the year, and there are folders for publishers, agent, projects, writings, publicity, reviews, nd so on. All my correspondence goes into these folders, usually straight away. I do print up work emails. I have to. I also have many boxes of folders in storage. It is my archive. Being a writer is also about being an efficient administrator.

Photos, hundreds if not thousands of them, from the days when photos were hard matter and not floating somewhere in cyberspace. I bought this trunk in Portobello Rd about 12 years ago and love it. The boxes are probably from Paperchase – my weakness. Boxes, yes, but the shop….oh.

A little bit of sky….

What’s YOUR PLACE OF WORK?

Thanks, Jay, for inspiring this piece with your desk photo under your Gigs posting.

tagged under: filing.place of work