The lovely Lynne Shelby is with us today. Tell us about your writing cave, Lynne …
For years I wrote anywhere – on a kitchen counter while cooking, in the car while waiting for daughters to come out of ballet lessons, in the staff canteen at work – but when my eldest moved into her own flat, what had been her bedroom became my Writing Room, and it was here that I wrote my debut novel, ‘French Kissing.’ There’s still a bed in the room (eldest daughter does still visit the ’rents and sometimes sleeps over), but it’s disguised as a chaise-lounge with cushions and throws, and makes a great place to sit (or recline!) when reading through a typescript.
I made my wooden writing desk myself from a kit, only discovering after I’d built it that it was far too high for me (or, bizarrely, anyone of human proportions) to write at. The thought of sawing the legs shorter and managing to keep them level was somewhat daunting, so the solution was to acquire a high bar-stool to sit on while I write (I won’t repeat the comments this seating arrangement suggested to friends and family, but most of them featured wine), which also gives me a great view out over my garden. I live in a town, and most of my stories are set in cities, but I when look out of the window, I see flowers, trees and birds – and the occasional urban fox (It’s no coincidence that some crucial scenes in my WIP take place in the garden of a London house).
In easy reach on the window sill, is a small bookcase (made by my father in a school woodwork class over 80 years ago) which contains notebooks (I can never resist a notebook with a beautiful cover), a dictionary, an ‘A to Z,’ and a much-thumbed thesaurus given to me by my then boyfriend, now husband, when I was eighteen and he was nineteen (he knew I wanted to be an author).
On my desk is my laptop, a box of index cards on which I’ve noted my characters’ age, appearance and so forth, a loose-leaf folder containing research notes, and that most vital tool for a writer, a coffee mug that is refilled very many times throughout the day. In the morning my desk looks tidy and organised, but by the afternoon the smooth wooden surface has disappeared beneath scribbled sheets of A4, newspaper cuttings, reference books, and a scattering of pens and highlighters.
To the right of my desk are bookshelves containing books by some of my favourite authors (the moment I put a paperback copy of my own book on my bookshelves was wonderful and quite surreal), and various objects like rock crystals and sea glass, that I’ve brought back from my travels. There’s a small carving of a bear that came from Alaska (we didn’t see any bears, but we did see whales), a horse from Iceland (where we saw many herds of small, sturdy Icelandic horse) and a stone owl from Rhodes, which took up temporary residence on my desk when I was writing a short story set in Greece. The wolf is there just because I like wolves, rather than because it is attached to a memory. As is the dragon. The statuette of the Eiffel Tower (a souvenir of my first ever trip to Paris) was on my desk when I was writing ‘French Kissing,’ and makes a guest appearance in the book.
Directly behind my desk is a chest of drawers with a mirror on top of it that reflects the light from the window and makes the room bright and airy. The chest of drawers is empty apart from some decades-old typescripts that I can’t bear to throw out (Well, you never know when a paragraph you wrote years ago come in useful for a new story), and propped up in front of it is a cork notice board where I pin up images that inspire my current WIP, such as photos of my story’s location or postcards or pictures torn out of magazines. When I’m writing my first draft, the noticeboard also gets covered with post-it notes as I think of details to add to chapters I’ve already written, have a sudden idea about a plot twist yet to come, or make a note to remind myself of something factual that I need to look up.
As a writer of contemporary romance, I also get inspiration from the images I’ve hung on the walls of my Writing Room. Just inside the door is a picture with the famous quote ‘When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew.’ The romance theme is continued on the opposite wall where there is a small poster of one of Jack Vettriano’s passionate couples, and Klimt’s ‘The Kiss.’ There is also a poster of the Eiffel Tower – Paris is definitely one of my favourite cities.
There are still times – train and plane journeys spring to mind – when I write in other places, but I write best when I’m in my Writer’s Cave, with my laptop, perched on a bar stool at my giant-sized desk.
And here’s a little info about my guest:
Lynne Shelby writes contemporary romance because that’s what she most likes reading. She enjoys travelling and is inspired to write by the many wonderful foreign cities she’s visited. Her debut novel, ‘French Kissing,’ which won the Accent Press and Woman magazine Writing Competition, is available as a paperback and e-book from Accent Press and Amazon.
And you can find out more about Lynne here:
Website: http://www.lynneshelby.com/
Twitter: @LynneB1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LynneShelbyWriter
Thanks so much for dropping by Lynne – and sharing your writing space!
Love the sound of the new book and these peeks into another writer’s hideaway are like nosing around but with permission!
Lovely post. I particularly like you wooden romance quote … and the fact that your husband was already supporting you in your dreams when you were both still so young 🙂