A Room of One's Own

Note: I've been neglectful lately, since I've been keeping busy curing my apartment. But I've missed being here. I started making a to-do list at work this morning, and the only think that came to mind was "I need book time." I couldn't think of anything else until I wrote that one down.

I was fascinated and inspired by last Friday’s post at Apartment Therapy: San Francicso linking to this recent Guardian photo feature. The Guardian photographed around 35 studies of top contemporary writers including A.S. Byatt, Seamus Heaney, and Mark Haddon, then had the writers provide the commentary.

Observation is the power of the artist, particularly of the writer; and reliable self-observation is the power in its highest form. It’s not surprising, then, that this collection of writings should include insights of rare quality into personal style. Which should be interesting to all of us now cultivating our own spaces.

Some interesting things I noticed:

• Nearly every room featured includes red as either the primary or primary accent color (See Graham Swift's study in the photo).
  

• Unsurprisingly, many of the writers professed an antithapy for computers, so technology is rarely in great evidence. One surprising exception is Diana Athill, who, at nearly 90, expressed a pragmatic affection for the backspace key (“In one's late-80s one rather loses touch with one's extremities.”)
  

• The spaces are very real, very lived-in, very believable. Few are fastidiously tidy or exceptionally cluttered. And attitudes to clutter vary:

I just need to know where everything is before I go in search of things in my own head, and every time I look up from my desk it helps to see order, which is why the room is so crazily tidy. - Andrew O’Hagan

I don't mind working in a bit of clutter. It's your head that has to be clear. -Beryl Bainbridge

I always think of myself as a tidy sort, but this photo gives the lie to that. There is, however, method in the seeming chaos. Trust me. -Ian Rankin

From the “Know Thyself” Files

I envy people who have the ability to surround themselves with interesting things - beautiful little whichwhats that a burglar might want to steal, or amusingly whimsical doodahs, or thingummies full of secret personal significance. But it's not something that I can do, and it's no use pretending. - Michael Frayn

The objects in the room are in a way a metaphor of my mind. They are brightly coloured, or transparent, and are about intricate patterns and structures. ... Snails, towers, DNA. I like spirals. It looks like clutter but it's a kind of order. - AS Byatt

The computer desk is an ugly, ancient thing - but I don't suppose I'll ever replace it. I've written 13 books on it. And I'm the kind of person who can feel sentimental affection for a teak plank. - Rose Tremain

Roominess is my one requirement, I would happily write on a roller-rink. - Joshua Ferris

I always had a superstitious fear of setting up a too well-designed writing place and then finding that the writing had absconded. - Seamus Heaney

Only when I saw this photograph did I realise that it looks like a primary school library. … My best days do seem like a distillation of all that was best about school. Write a story! Paint a picture! Write a poem! Make a print! And my life always feels a little empty if I'm not learning something new (it's the piano at the moment). - Mark Haddon

How I envy writers who can work on aeroplanes or in hotel rooms. On the run I can produce an article or a book review, or even a film script, but for fiction I must have my own desk, my own wall with my own postcards pinned to it, and my own window not to look out of. - John Banville

Photo Credit: The Guardian.