Writing Rooms and Good Parenting Tips

I have my own Writing Room. It was partly the reason we chose this house. A spare room in the attic where I could write any time I wanted. Five years on, it’s still a junk room with a computer somewhere in the corner. It was tidy for a couple of days and I made the most of it by using it to write a short story about a girl who slowly turns into a marionette puppet. Then it soon returned to the purgatory for household items and clothes which we can’t quite throw away. The room has now become so inaccessible that I have bought a laptop so I can write anywhere else, but the Writing Room.

So I sit on the bed next to an antique writing desk, where not a single word has been written. This is partly because I don’t have a stool or chair to go with it. At the moment I have to sit on the bed and lean forward at a 45˚ angle. It’s currently home to the laptop, a pile of books on medieval literature, sunglasses, my daughter’s pink hair clips, The Little Book of Cockney Rhyming Slang, a duster, a lace scarf and a copy of Camberwell Beauty by Jenny Eclair. In between these objects is a light covering of dust, highlighted by the afternoon sun.

My husband has taken the girls out to ‘give mum some peace’. The closest I get to silence is the dog snoring and low level Tinnitus, leftover from a particularly bad ear infection. Even so, I usually end up falling asleep. Today has been different. I feel I’m ‘in the zone’. I have spent three hours deciphering The Miller’s Tale in Middle English and I’m now wondering what it would be like to speak Middle English and perhaps write some kind of time-travelling thriller/horror. Cadfael meets Life on Mars with a sinister twist?

I have been reading ‘I Remember’ by Joe Brainard, which almost reads like prose poetry. I have found it quite inspiring and will try something like it myself to trigger memories and see what comes out of it. We did a similar exercise in the poetry module in Stage 1. I like its style. The lack of details say so much more than the actual words.

4pm. I’m now reading an excerpt from Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit.’ I’ve come to the conclusion it’s an advantage to have crazy parents if you want to be a successful artiste. Something to do with childhood trauma setting off new neural pathways into the creative part of the brain. I feel like the weight of guilt has been lifted. I’m not a bad parent, just a bit lazy and perhaps a little selfish. They’ll thank me for it one day. Perhaps Caitlin will give me a mention at the unveiling of her new painting: The Girl Surrounded by Nude Barbies:

‘If it wasn’t for my mother refusing take me and my sister to all the music and dance classes all our friends went to, because she believed spoon-feeding activities was the killer of creativity, I wouldn’t be here now. I was given a choice of an HB pencil and cartridge paper; or a musty oboe she found on Ebay, which came with a Tune a Day book for Beginners and said “Take your pick and teach yourself, I’m off to finish an assignment”. So I picked up the pencil and never looked back. My sister now teaches music in secondary schools. The oboe still plays.’