On the weekend, I set myself a small mission, which turned out to rather large. It was to tidy up our room. You see, Mike and I work long hours, and we spend a lot of travelling time to get there – the downside of living miles out of town.

The upside is that we have an amazing wee house that is extremely close to the beach. But as of late, our bedroom had become a ‘do drop in’ area for sleeping only. Not good feng shui, if you ask me.

Not all writers out there are this lucky… (Some are even luckier!) but I am lucky enough to have two writing spaces in our home. One space is my library, and as some of you would have read in my interview with Kim Koning, I also have a space in our bedroom. It’s an old antique bureau writing desk. 

You are probably wondering why I am talking about this alternate space. Well, our bedroom has been a touch messy lately with it becoming a dumping ground, which I had to clean it up to start utilising the serene writing space in there. The reason why I am going to start using this space again is because winter is drawing closer and closer each day. Our days are already smattered with gorgeous autumnal light, breaking chilly dawns in the mornings, and getting dark early in the evening with incredibly red sunsets. I feel as though summer has really come to a close now. My favourite Cherry-blossom tree outside our bedroom and library in the courtyard has started turning from a brilliant earthy

green to a deep vibrant red with the seasonal change. I know that in our coldest season, I quietly phase into my alter-personality – the writing hermit crab, so I thought it best that I sort out my space for that before we actually hit winter.

The other wonderful thing about writing in our bedroom is the fact that it’s a ‘do not disturb’ zone for our flatmate. She’s one of the biggest, bubbly social butterflies that I have ever met in my life. She’s a DJ by trade, and I often find that when I am writing in the library – she’ll bound in, steal my sound cable to my system (irrespective of if I am already listening to something), plug it into the other computer, and try and blast my socks off with a ‘new’ song she has found on YouTube. And this is usually where she asks for my opinion. I try to be politely objective… as she is a creative as well, but on inside I’m screaming to get back into my writing zone again. So I figured, that to get some serious writing done over the winter months, then I need a good space to do it.

I have managed to give our bedroom a really good tidy up… but I still need to sort the rest of the desk out. But I know that I can do this now that I don’t have any mess distracting the daylights out of me. And it means that for at least a little while, our flatmate can utilise the sound system space for her work in the library – while I whittle away at my manuscripts in our bedroom, sitting at a desk that I absolutely adore, while watching the seasons change my favourite tree. Heaven.