5
Dec302010
‘Where Stories Are Made’ with science fiction author, Jaine Fenn
by Carolyn • Posted in Where Stories Are Made
‘Where Stories Are Made‘ is a regular feature here at Book Chick City. It’s where the author takes us on a tour of their writing place, be it an office, coffee shop or park and tells us about their writing day and rituals.
My guest today is science fiction author, Jaine Fenn…
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I write in a garret. Okay, technically speaking it’s a loft conversion, but it’s under the eaves, lit by a skylight, and – most importantly of all – it can only be accessed by wooden ladder. That’s close enough to a garret for me. Having a dedicated writing space isolated from the rest of the house is incredibly useful for someone with my (lack of) attention span and t’garret (as I call it) was a major factor in our decision to move here.
In keeping with distraction avoidance, the computer I write on has no internet connection. Being married to a geek, you have no idea how hard it is to keep my desktop machine downgraded to the status of a glorified typewriter and music centre.
Ah yes, music. The computer has on it fifty or so albums that I’ve found, by long experimentation, make good music to write to. They range in style from baroque through trance, from dub to grunge. The choice of music depends entirely on what I’m writing. The one thing I don’t write to is silence.
A lot of my thinking time involves either staring at my ‘daydream wall’ of interesting pictures, which you can just see in the background below the skylight, or tipping back my chair and staring up through the skylight at the clouds. At times when the words aren’t flowing I become an expert on the cloud formations of central Hampshire.
I try and keep my immediate working area clutter-free, though this gets harder as a book delivery deadline approaches; I handed in my last book, Bringer of Light, ten days ago, and my current ‘to do’ list includes tidying up t’garret before I get too far into the next book. The copies of my previous novels by the desk aren’t just there for vanity – I’m writing a series, so I frequently need to refer back to them. All right, there is an element of vanity: I could just use the electronic files, but I’m still relatively new to the life of a professional author, and the novelty of leafing through a book I actually wrote hasn’t worn off yet.
As you can see there are bookshelves in t’garret; you can also see the top of the ladder I mentioned on the left of this picture. Because t’garret is the only part of the house that’s exclusively my space, the shelves contain a fair few non-book personal items. Which at the moment includes a calender showing a farmer in the buff. What can I say, I live in the country. More respectably I’ve got assorted reference works including Gray’s Anatomy, the Writer’s Handbook and a variety of dictionaries along with guest books brought in from elsewhere in the house for the current novel. Right now this includes a Welsh dictionary and a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost; as I get to grips with my next book I expect to replace the Welsh dictionary with book(s) on code-breaking, though the Milton gets to stay on for a while.
Though the actual words get put down (and revised, and revised again) in t’garret, there’s more to the process than that. Before the words come out, the story needs to ferment. For this, I need outdoor thinking time combined with gentle exercise. Or, as I call it, a plot walk. The number of plot walks I get in a given week varies according to the stage of a novel I’m at, the weather, and the other demands on my time.
I’m lucky enough to live in a beautiful part of southern England and my usual plot walk takes me along country lanes before reaching a crystal-clear trout stream. The bridge in the picture above comes about a quarter of the way into the walk and has a conveniently placed, if currently rather grubby, railing. A fair amount of plot has been jotted down whilst leaning on that railing. You’re not seeing the view at its best right now, but in summer the surrounding countryside is glorious.
This final picture shows my favourite tree, an aspen with a wide fork in the trunk, also looking a bit sad in the winter light. This ‘thinking tree’ occurs about half way along my usual route. I like to climb up into that fork then sit with my back against the thick trunk on the right and one leg dangling over the river while I watch the fish, think and scribble the odd note. What do you mean, I’m too old to climb trees? I think not.
5 Comments
I too find inspiration from moss covered trees… Lovely feature!
xx,
E.J.
From the Shadows
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Very disciplined to have a computer not connected to the Internet! And if I had books published I would so display them all on a shelf vanity or not
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E.J – thank you. I suppose it might seem odd, given what I write about, that I love nature so much but I couldn't live somewhere without easy access to 'the green'
Laura – it's actually good for my neck and back too! I tell myself that after another so many words I can go play on the internet, and that also means getting up and stretching, which is something it's all too easy to forget to do.
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That is a very fine garret.
I am always planning to write on a computer that isn't connected to the internet, but what always happens is that I will IMMEDIATELY run into some problem that can ONLY be solved by the internet. Always. I know it's my brain going into withdrawn-addict mode and finding excuses but the excuses are always TRUE and I always really do need whatever it is. So the connection stays on.
Still, one day I will arrange my life so I at least have to cross the room to get to the web
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I love her office. I'm obsessed with sloped ceilings
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