Rosie Thomas Talks To Bookbag About Her Writing Room

The Writer’s Room

I write at my desk, in a small corner office in my fifth floor flat overlooking the Regent’s Canal. I live alone, so the big sliding door separating it from the rest of the space usually stands open. I only close myself off if I need to feel extra isolated. I have tried other places, the London Library for example, but for actual writing it doesn’t feel as though I’m doing it properly unless I’m in my designated place in front of my big iMac screen.

It’s a simple space, with a long desk that provides enough surface area for spreading out books or maps. The wood is ash, which came from a friend’s woodland in Herefordshire. I keep a couple of shelves of reference books and current research volumes, otherwise there’s nothing much in the room except a few family photos and a sofa. I don’t like clutter. Sometimes if I’m stuck I sit there and stare at the view. It’s quite a nice one, over the canal, the rooftops of Islington and some trees that are just coming into leaf.

The only interesting object is a mountaineer’s vintage ice-axe. It’s a tiny bit Trotsky, but it was a present from my oldest friend and I like to keep it there, imagining who might have owned it and which Alpine or Himalayan peaks it might have helped to conquer.

I’m at my desk between eleven a.m. and about six or six-thirty in the evening. I drink green tea, quite often from a smart flask which was another present, but I don’t bother to eat lunch because it makes me feel sleepy. By the time I finish for the day I should ideally have added about 1500 words to the work in progress. But I don’t always manage this!

We have reviews os selected books by Rosie Thomas