Mandy Baggot

Bestselling and award-winning author of romantic fiction

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Setting the scene...

Posted by mandybaggot on July 23, 2012 at 3:40 AM

Ah ha, now you think I am going to be talking about setting a backdrop for your characters to play in don't you? No! Today I want to ask about where you writers write.

I am struggling at the moment with finding the perfect location to write. Don't get me wrong, I can and will write anywhere, but working from home most days I feel I need a spot to call my own. So what's the problem? Well, the problem is we have a lovely size study/office but I have to share the space with Mr Big and his guitars and amps! Also, despite having the neatest, cleanest desk in his office at work, Mr Big is the messiest, untidiest person I know and sharing the desk with guitar picks, scrunched up receipts, rubber bands, nails and a hammer (?) isn't my ideal location for creating strong contemporary romance and characters you'll fall in love with (see what I did there?!).

I have a dressing table in my bedroom that has been doubling as a desk but I find I'm not using the dressing table as a dressing table and trying to make up over a laptop isn't working. Besides, a Lady needs her boudoir to be a boudoir right?

Anyway, while Mr Big was away in Germany at the weekend, watching three guitar gods I have never heard of, some changes were implemented. I created what I think will be the perfect inspiring spot for novel writing.

Take one garden chair, add two giant safari print cushions, find space for it in conservatory overlooking large back garden, Sting's fields of gold and the beautiful South Wiltshire countryside, order gorgeous (and cheap) laptop table from Ebay, sit back and suck up that inspirational backdrop.

I just need the school holidays to be over to sit back and indulge! What? They've only just started? Oh.

So, I want to know your favourite writing place, or if you're a book lover, where do you like to curl up with a good book? Do you have a favourite spot or will anywhere do?

Mandy xx

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20 Comments

Reply mandybaggot
04:32 AM on July 25, 2012 
So many great comments and I'm glad I'm not the only one who searches for the perfect place! Funny how you can't write a love scene when Cartoon Network is on isn't it?!
Reply Kim The Book Worm
03:44 AM on July 25, 2012 
Hi all, really interesting to find out where everyone does their writing and glad that I'm not the only one who struggles around family life. Even just reading or writing my reviews is stressful when the TV is on, and Ollie is playing and Rich is hovering about. I love my Sunday nights, as Ollie normally goes to bed early and it's Rich's regular night out with his mates so I get peace and quiet. I normally light my candles, light a gorgeously smelly stick and I can get my laptop out and write to my hearts content. On these lovely summer mornings, i love to wake up early before the rest of the house does and sit on the sofa thats in the lounge window where the sun pours in and I read till anyone else wakes up! Fabulous!
Reply Linn B Halton
02:04 AM on July 25, 2012 
My desk looks out onto our tiny courtyard garden, in the middle is where the old cider press stood many years ago and it's now a well full of flowers. For me it's about looking up and seeing some colour - although I have to say I rarely get a moment to look up these days once I'm online!
Reply Carrie Butler
03:18 PM on July 23, 2012 
Sounds great! :) I'm afraid my writing spot is a bit boring: my desk. (Thankfully, I'm single, so no one disturbs my space!)
Reply Bonnie Trachtenberg
09:13 AM on July 23, 2012 
Sounds divine, Mandy! I tend to move around my home depending on my mood. I have a small office of my own next to my bedroom, but on rainy or cold days, I like to be cozy in bed with my laptop, or sometimes in my chaise lounge. When I'm sick of my upstairs, I occasionally head to my downstairs den and onto a reclining couch. I find that changing the scenery with my moods helps with my enthusiasm about writing. Great post!
Reply elpi
08:44 AM on July 23, 2012 
I have a similar problem back home. My study is a big room. On one end I have my desk (also bought from ebay at bargain price) and on the other end is Trainboy's play area. The theory behind the idea was that I could do some writing while Trainboy built elaborate train tracks. In practice, the theory has failed! Often enough, I do a big tidy up and then my little desk feels welcoming and a place where my ideas can really unravel. Most of the time though, the place is a tip!
As a result, I tend to move from room to room (whichever one is tidier - i can't write in a mess) from the kitchen to the lounge to the dining room. Even the bedroom has served as a mini writing spot.
I can completely sympathise with you. Hope the new arrangement works better for you. And you must definitely try to write in a cafe - the dialogue you'll pick up from nearby tables will make the trip well worth it!
Elpi
Reply Nicky Wells
08:27 AM on July 23, 2012 
Brilliant! I hope the new spot works for you, it sounds magical. X My favourite spot? I'm a bit of a roamer and I roam the house with the laptop depending on weather and location of the sun. I am very happy, however, to finally have a permanent workspace. Shared with the kids and husbands' assorted gadgets, but I don't see them when I face the desk and I have a whole three walls and all the shelves to myself to adorn with book outlines, etc. Heaven, at last. Thanks for sharing your workspace, Mandy!
Reply Janice
07:13 AM on July 23, 2012 
I have the same problem as you Lady B - too much real life going on around me to be 'in my zone'. I discovered my ideal writing space last year - it's on a small balcony at my son's apartment in Tenerife overlooking the ocean. I went out to visit while he was working there and I spent happy and productive hours each morning writing before the sun hit the laptop screen and I was forced to go and take a cooling swim. Bliss.
Reply Cathie Dunn
07:07 AM on July 23, 2012 
I have a 'home office' (aka our spare bedroom) with a lovely though slightly messy desk, a view over stables and hills, and landscape & castle photos on the wall. But where have I been lately? In the living room, sharing the sofas with my two cats. I felt a little hemmed in in the small office.

Your conservatory setting sounds wonderful. How inspiring!
Reply mandybaggot
06:53 AM on July 23, 2012 
Wow I go out to Tesco and when I come back I have loads of lovely comments! Outside is good but screen glare is an issue - have done it under the gazebo a couple of times but neighbours always seem to know and start the strimmer! I do sometimes write in a notebook if I'm travelling because you don't always want to take the laptop with you.
Workmen and pets and of course Twitter - ultimate distractions as are children and the postman :)
Reply Sheryl Browne
06:37 AM on July 23, 2012 
The problem is if you are there - they will find you! Perhaps we should get an outfit made up to blend in with the curtains? I love to work in the conservatory, too, which I'm about to do now. Winter is a problem though. Writing with purple feet doesn't work very well. Not that I do write with my feet... An electric radiator is the cheapest way of heating it I found - and keeping the door shut! Good luck, Mandy! Great post! :) xx
Reply Kit Domino
05:29 AM on July 23, 2012 
My favourite place to write is sitting under a sunshade on some foreign, sun soaked beach. Failing that, the garden at home, weather permitting, of course. The garden is also my favourite place to read too. As is the bed. Now there's a thought. Perhaps writing in bed is a good alternative. Shall have to try that one myself. ;)
Reply Kimm
05:25 AM on July 23, 2012 
I have to work on the dining room table because that's the only spot in the house where I can connect to the internet. Lovely view of the garden but have to keep stopping to let the dog in and out. Also easily distracted by being in the vicinity of the biscuits...
Reply Celia Anderson
05:21 AM on July 23, 2012 
Hi Mandy - this is a timely post for me because at this very moment, even as we speak, I'm off outside to see if I can make a space for my laptop and me. The problem is my screen is stupidly reflective so I need a shady bit to hide in. More later! Happy writing,
Celia xxx
Reply Anneli
05:05 AM on July 23, 2012 
My "office" at home is where I get most of my work done, but on holidays in Mexico I wrote a lot in a little students' notebook on the beach. Later I'd transfer my scribblings to the laptop and edit a bit as I transcribed.
Reply Emma Calin
04:39 AM on July 23, 2012 
Well my favourite spot for writing WAS my bedroom - until about 10 minutes ago.. A man tapped on the back door to announce that today marks the start of the "drain improvement" works and would we move the car please as the digger is ready to start scraping... The house is built of stone on a rock and the reverberations from the JCB are quite a distraction. Apparently they will be finishing in about 12 weeks... bang goes my peaceful summer. Nothing for it now, it's note book in hand with a packet of Bics and off on the tandem to find somehere quieter. At least it's warm and sunny..
Reply mandybaggot
04:27 AM on July 23, 2012 
Wow Yasmin!! I just can't do it in bed!! LOL! Variety is the spice of life and I must give getting out of the house a try. I'm loving the sound of your balcony!

I know what you mean about writers arse - I do boxercise to try and counteract that!

Mandy x
Reply Yasmin Selena Butt
04:19 AM on July 23, 2012 
This might sound funny, but as a writer I choose my writing spots around my flat in a bid to stave off that well-known phenomenon of 'writer's arse' lol!

On a slightly more serious note I do have a bit of a fragile back and back in 2004 didn't walk for six months, that whole saga is a novel in itself. I can be massively distractable but I also need variety. If I write in one spot all the time I get a bit antsy. So i like my bed, I like the corner of my sofa, i like my study and i like the table at the entrance to my balcony with the view of the trees.

But when I am fed up with ALL of these - I like to get on a train and go to Banbury and write at my best friend's house for a week. He loves having me over and in the evenings when he is back from work we'll cook, hang out and drive to the countryside : ) He was brilliant towards the end off Gunshot Glitter and will get a Goliath-sized credit in the thanks section!!

Viz reading - bed, sofa or lying on my back on the carpet in the middle of the lounge floor all make me very happy.
Reply mandybaggot
04:17 AM on July 23, 2012 
I get really frustrated if I don't feel comfortable and there is hardly a room in the house that doesn't feature a Barbie doll or several! I'm hoping this will be my spot and my spot alone and I can just look out on those fields and the writing will flow! Right, must dash, off to Tesco for cake ingredients -author/mum/wife/maid/housekeeper work/life balance LOL! Hope you have a great day Steph!

Mandy xx
Reply Stephanie Keyes
04:10 AM on July 23, 2012 
Mandy,
That sounds lovely. Especially the Sting part. I wish he'd fly over here and walk around in the back garden here, though admittedly with three houses facing it it's bound not to have the same appeal.

It sounds like a great spot! We have a conservatory to, but we don't supply heat to it in the winter. We can but it drives the electric bill up! So there went my spot. I have a desk in the family room now, but I struggle with this also.

Hopefully I'll figure out a spot as nice as yours soon!