I’ve got this incurable urge to look inside writer’s rooms, so I was quite pleased to discover a great little video series on exactly that theme. Produced as a serial feature on the Book Show (a Sky Arts channel programme), the Write Place takes the viewer on a short tour around the writing environments of a number of UK-based authors. The four minute episodes feature the authors themselves fronting the tour of their working environment, during which they also provide a valuable insight into their writing routine.
I’ve only seen a couple of the episodes on TV, but as I found them so incredibly insightful I set out on a ‘grand’ Internet quest to see if I could find any more Write Place episodes online. Thankfully I did as the producers of the Book Show, in their generosity, have provided the series online via YouTube (direct links after the jump)…..yay the producers!!! 
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Listed below are direct links to all of the episodes that I could find. I’m presuming the Write Place feature isn’t in every episode of the Book Show so I think this accounts for all of them (please let me know if you discover any more):
- William Boyd (The Book Show Episode 11)
- Claire Tomalin (The Book Show Episode 12)
- Jacqueline Wilson (The Book Show Episode13)
- Jenny Colgan (The Book Show Episode 14)
- Iain Banks (The Book Show Episode 15)
- Alexander McCall Smith (The Book Show Episode 16)
- Lisa Jewell (The Book Show Episode 17)
- Tracy Chevalier (The Book Show Episode 18)
- Blake Morrison (The Book Show Episode 19)
- Anthony Horowitz (The Book Show Episode 20)
Some episodes appeal to me more than others. My particular favourites are the Iain Banks one (aside from the eclectic layout of his sprawling study, I love his informal warmness) and the one featuring Jenny Colgan (you’ve got to love her motherly ‘juggling’ routine and her use of Costa staff as temporary babysitters ))
What I found most interesting about the majority of these authors though, is how they shun technology in favour of tradition. Most of them obstinately stick by the routine of scribing their first drafts (as a minimum), using only pen and paper. That makes me wonder what they know about the existence of AlphaSmarts? While a few of them openly admit to using the traditional tools of writing in order to connect with the classic writers, I wonder how many of them choose pen and paper over anything electronic, simply for the purposes of reliability and convenience? For these authors, I wonder if any of them would change their working practices if they knew just how reliable and convenient an AlphaSmart could be?
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