Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!
Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen.
This is Jane McLoughlin.
She is an American from Minnesota who has
lived in the U.K. for twenty years. She’s written screenplays, radio dramas,
and has had several short stories published. She lives in Brighton with her
husband and teenage children, and teaches English in a secondary school. At Yellow Lake (Frances Lincoln
Children’s Books) is her debut novel.
Where Jane McLoughlin Writes
First, a bit of ancient history: I started writing when my
kids were small (they are now VERY big) and so my first writing space was the
kitchen table, where I’d bash out short stories on old manual Imperial
typewriter. A few of these were published in literary magazines, but it took me
longer to finish a story than to grow a baby and, as the stories weren’t all as
amazing as my kids turned out to be, my “career” wasn’t particularly lucrative.
Still isn’t, as a matter of fact. But now that I no longer
need to use correction fluid, little erasers with brushes, or those weird
fiddly tapes, the writing process is at least less cumbersome, less messy
(usually; see below) and less time-consuming.
Luckily, I’m still happy writing on a table in the bedroom,
or in any room of the house. I don’t need any special equipment other than a
fast keyboard and a well-lit screen. I don’t have any pictures around me or favorite
mementos. Usually, I’m just surrounded by clutter: a pair of scissors, a coffee
cup, part of yesterday’s newspaper, some loose change, a hair dryer, and even a
towel and extra keyboard because I usually spill a cup of tea over everything!
So where I write
has never been a huge issue for me. How I
write is much more important. I need
QUIET; no soundtrack, please. I need to be ALONE; no cafes, either. When I
started to write neither of those conditions were available to me.
Hey, remember how Mum used to yell at us to leave her
alone and be quiet?
Wasn’t that fun?
But there is one writing place that is special to me.
My family has a lake cabin in northern Wisconsin, and this
place--the cabin, the surrounding forests, the lake--was the setting for my
debut YA novel, At Yellow Lake. I
didn’t write the entire book there, but I was looking out at its view while I
wrote some of the book’s most difficult scenes.
It’s a beautiful place, as you can see. To use it as a
setting where terrible things, as well as good ones, happen to the teenage
characters I’d come to know and love should have seemed wrong. I don’t
consciously mine my own life when I write. In this case, though, it seemed
right to connect scary fictional events to a place where I’ve always felt safe
and secure.
Maybe that’s what I need from a writing space: a sturdy
anchor, in a calm harbour, so that I can visit dark, dangerous places and still
find a safe passage home.
Check back next week to see where Kathleen Rooney writes.