Near Perfect Writing Space

If you’ve followed any of this blog you will realise that I am fascinated with my writing space.

Not that I’m obsessive or pernickety (hum, don’t think I’ve ever written that word before).  It’s just that I always hanker after a garret in Paris, although having gone their a week ago and been frozen to my bones it would have to be a Parisian garret where I now live, on the French Riviera.

A garret like Gene Kelly had in ‘An American in Paris,’ with a bed he could suspend from the ceiling, table, chairs and even a jug of flowers hidden away in a cupboard, all to give him enough space to fulfil his passion of painting.

An American in Paris (1951) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have less need of space, just my trusty old laptop and the resources of the world upon the internet.

Now, at last, I have arrived at almost my perfect space (I won’t call it perfect, nothing is while I can still dream.)

Courtesy of two very simple technologies, an extension lead for my laptop and a blind to shade the screen from the sun I can now sit on my terrace overlooking the roofs of Menton and theMediterranean Sea and pound away to my heart’s content.

Incroyable as my French friends would say.

A Passion for Finland

We’ve just been to Paris and visited the Musee d’Orsay.  It was my first visit and I found it to be a marvellous art-gallery.

What made it a real joy, however, was their exhibition about the Finnish artist, Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

I had seen some of his work in a part-work I used to collect.  As a young teacher I used some of his painting to inspire my students’ writing.  However, I never knew anything about the artist nor did I know much about his work.

This exhibition brought the man to life.  He was incredibly skilled technically and his imagination matched this wonderfully.

What I loved most, and what inspired me most, was that he changed his style and his approach as his interests and passions changed.  You would hardly think that the same man was creating such varied work.  Yet each one was charged with a passion and intensity which took my breath away and made my heart hammer. 

If you want to see about the development of one of the unsung great creative artists and you are anywhere near Paris go and see this remarkable exhibition.

Other People’s Lives

When I was 16 I saw a sad looking girl on a bus. She had eyes of constant sorrow; eyes which were overwhelmed and overwhelming.  She could not have been more than nineteen or twenty.

The bus she was on drove off.  I stood at the bus-stop, wondering what it would be like to be her. I’m still wondering.

What must it be like to be someone else?  To see with their eyes, listen with their ears, think with their mind? What must it be like to wake up as another person? I have puzzled over this ever since.

This is the joy of being a writer, of course. We can play at being other people. I wonder how many of my characters are merely facets of myself. Or me as I might act if I were in different circumstances.

I don’t want to be anyone else, I’m quite comfortable with myself. But if I could….?

Gene Kelly would be a good choice.

Or a great traveller, voyaging across the oceans to discover new lands.

Or some poet in a Parisian garret who pretended to be tormented but really loved life.

I look at a picture of myself when I was 19, pretending to be a poet. I was actually standing in a field full of cows.

Who was I then? Have I voyaged much since then or discovered what I may have wanted to do all those years ago. And where did my hair go?  

Do we get older or do our dreams?

Actually my dreams were the same then. To be a writer and enjoy it.

And now I am a writer and enjoying it even more than I dreamed I would.

Related articles

• Gene Kelly (dancingdowntheave.wordpress.com)
• Why The Tormented Author? (ayeshaschroeder.wordpress.com)