a room of one's own

I love gaining an insight into other people's lives - particularly writers as it always challenges me to take myself to a new place in my work. When I became a full-time freelancer over a year ago I knew that I'd need to revise my working practices. I used to spend ages researching, then I'd write, walk away, re-read the draft, walk away, and finally I'd manage to send it off. A single article would take almost a week to complete. I don't have that kind of time now, but I still need to ensure that I supply the same, if not better, quality as before.

I don't send off a piece until I know it's the best I can offer. I need it to be easily understood and for people to walk away after reading it knowing they've learned something.

One writer who inspired me was Jodi Picoult. The day that I read that as soon as she finished a book she IMMEDIATELY started on the next switched something on in my brain. I knew that I could work smarter.

Now seeing the space that one of my favourite authors, Siri Husdvedt works in has inspired me to spend more time tidying at the end of the day. My punctuation mark at the end of my day will be to ensure there's nothing superfluous in my line of vision that can distract me from what I need to do. So thanks apieceofmonologue.com for the insight into Siri's world. I'm blessed with plenty of work at the moment - let's see what I can do to ensure it's all excellent.

"A room to write in isn't like other rooms, because most of the time the person in it doesn't see it. My attention is on the page in front of me, on what the people in the book are doing or saying, and my awareness of the things near me is muted, part of the vague sensual information that comes and goes as I mull over the next sentence. I do feel the light in my room, however. My study is on the top floor of our house, which has four storeys, and the windows face south, so the sunshine streams through the panes, and even on a bleak winter day my workplace is luminous.

I usually sit down at my desk around eight o'clock in the morning and write until my brain begins to dim - around two o'clock. My morning mind is far better than the blearier one that arrives in the afternoon so I take advantage of the early hours. I have lots of reference books near me, various kinds of dictionaries - bilingual, medical and psychiatric, 34 volumes of the Grove Dictionary of Art, style manuals and handbooks, the Bible, Gray's Anatomy, some poetry anthologies, and when I'm deep in a project there are often piles of books on the floor to which I refer when needed.

'Writers' rooms: Siri Hustvedt'

guardian.co.uk, 26 October 2007