An affair of one's own

When I was finished decorating I stood back to admire what I’d done

I started a Substack because I saw someone on social media say that social media is done, and long-form writing is back. Oh, I’m so glad! Because I like writing, but also because my Instagram has become one long stream of advice that I never asked for. Or did I? Something keeps popping up to say that the colours I’m wearing are completely wrong for my skin tone. (There’s an app, apparently, that can tell you “which season” you’re in. This is something I’m interested in getting right, but what if it tells me I can’t wear black? Guess I’ll just never download that app!)

Good to Get Away
I heard an interview with a great Japanese writer—so great that I can’t remember who, sorry—in which he said that he can’t write a single thing unless he’s at least 500 miles outside of Japan. This is understandable, it’s good to get away, but I don’t know that it would wash with Neill, who I would have to abandon with our children while I took off to write my next book.

My next book
I don’t actually feel like I need to leave the country to write my next book, but I do feel that I need a space of my own. I wrote the first draft of the outline one-handed, pushing the buggy, on the notes app on my phone. But as things got more complicated—the plot, the character arcs, my actual job, the weather on the school run—I decided to rent a room in a new co-working space that promised a small childcare facility attached.

Perfect on paper
This sounded perfect on paper, but the reality was that the co-working side of things never really took off, and so I found myself to be writing a book inside a childcare facility, which felt distracting at best, and, at worst, possibly illegal.

A room above a shop
I moved out, and rented a room above a shop, instead, where I set up my first proper studio space in some time. Two large windows, freshly plastered white walls, my prop-making bench, two desks—one for my computer and one for drawing—and an armchair and coffee table to be used exclusively for slacking. I kitted out the whole room in brand new IKEA flatpack. It all felt quite different to what we have at home, which is crumbling old walls and old furniture, and what I do for work, which is to make things that are supposed to look old. When I was finished decorating I stood back to admire what I’d done.

Well
Well! It looks like an upscale dentist’s waiting room. I’m so pleased. It’s just terrific.

Uninterrupted
I can’t tell you how great it is to come to this clean, bright space every day, to write and work and design and write, where I can’t be interrupted and everything is entirely modern and functional. When Neill came to visit, he said: “It’s like you’re having an affair… with a room.”

Indeed. Photo by Bryan Meade for the Sunday Times.

Not black
Not black, says the app, and now I have to put all my clothes in the bin.

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I am new to Substack, but not to newsletters, so if this is the first time you’re seeing me then hi! I’m an author and graphic designer in Dublin, Ireland. I specialise in making paper props for period filmmaking—old maps and stuff. I mostly write here about my daily life, work versus motherhood, that sort of thing. Although, my next newsletter is to be about murder, so do get signed up.

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