My writing room

I think I just realized why I’ve not been writing much lately: my writing room has declined from a disgrace to a veritable shit pit. (Thanks to my wife Sharon for that oh-so-descriptive phrase).

The Guardian has been running a feature on writer’s rooms in their Saturday edition. Some of these rooms are gorgeous. My room has nothing in common with them.

One problem is that my writing room is multi-functional: it also serves as a music studio, a computer room, and a general dumping ground for junk that we have no room for elsewhere in the house.

Another problem is that I’m a disorganized slob who smokes and drinks too much. Smoking is a messy, disgusting business, especially if you roll your own. Bits of tobacco and a layer of ash cover every surface. The keyboard probably contains enough bits of tobacco to roll an entire cigarette. It started off as beige; many of the keys are now almost black.

I’ve been sick the last few days, so the floor is littered with snotty tissues. I don’t even have a trash can in here. From where I’m sitting I can count 5 empty scotch tumblers, 3 empty beer cans, and two used cups of tea.

Papers are strewn everywhere amongst the music mixers, microphones, speakers, and other electronic devices. Wires criss-cross my desk. The blue-tack has come unstuck; maps and posters hang in a crumpled mess.

My tools have nowhere to live, so they sit in a disorganized pile in the middle of the floor, ready to trip me when I come through.

My desk is against the window, so at least I can usually ignore the horror behind me. We just raised the ceiling in the front hall, thus losing valuable storage space in the attic. All that useless crap now sits in untidy piles behind me. I keep meaning to go through it but the thought is depressing.

The sick family that lived here before us had painted everything in various shades of blue and purple. We’ve since redecorated the rest of the house, but the walls in my writing room are still a nauseating baby blue. But I can’t just paint them; I’ll need to strip the wallpaper too. The floors are a kind of cheap prefab synthetic pine laminate that leaves me cold. I’ll have to get a carpet in here too. I keep meaning to get on with it all but the thought is too depressing.

Surely a nice, clean, organized space would do wonders for my motivation and peace of mind. Surely I could summon the effort for even a wee once-over? Everything tidy, in its place, a few nice things on display, all ship-shape and ready to go. Surely the words will then come flowing out in a joyous click-clacketing symphony. Scrumptious paragraphs will arrive whole and fully evolved. Entire pieces will form beautifully without any of the pain, self-doubt, and other dark thoughts that are the staples of my process.

Hey, a little optimism can’t go wrong can it?