My Writing Space

'I've wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember, and along with that came a very clear vision of where I'd write. Though I read many books in which people wrote in secret, magical places -nooks in elderly oak trees, in wardrobes, while stowed away at sea - my own vision was rather more grand.

As a child, I would write in exercise books, at the kitchen table, and sometimes I'd dream of being a proper writer, and how, when I was, I would write where a proper writer would. I would write in a big house, set high over parkland (I was reading a lot of Jane Austen), and would pick out my words on a kick-ass, hefty typewriter (they hadn't invented computers yet, of course) which would sit in the centre of an enormous mahogany desk.

This, in turn, would be situated on a suitably thick carpet, in the centre of an elegant high-ceilinged room, which looked out - via French doors, where gauzy floor-length panels billowed, obviously - onto a wide expanse of perfect emerald lawn. Beyond the lawn would stand conifers, pointing skywards, like pencils, and the only sounds, bar my tapping, would be birdsong and bees.

And in my imaginings, I would be quite, quite alone. Bar an elderly gardener who‘d rumble past on a ride-on lawnmower from time to time, it would simply be me; me and my imagination, the contents of it constantly bubbling over...'

Lynne Barrrett-Lee, author of 8 novels, including Julia Gets a Life and Barefoot in the Dark
http://www.andrewlownie.co.uk/2016/11/09/my-writing-space-by-lynne-barrett-lee