I write everywhere – MG Leonard
Lots of writers have a special space where they go to pen their books. Roald Dahl would write in a shed at the bottom of his garden. Not me. My shed is full of gardening tools and spiders. I write everywhere.
Right now, there’s no point in me having a designated writing space. I have a full time job at the National Theatre, a husband, two children and two cats, which all demand time and attention. I write where and when I can.
I do have a desk in a study full of books, but if I sit at this desk at the weekend. I become a powerful magnet to young children and cats, who come and climb on my head, sit on my lap or ‘help me type’.
I have tried to write at night, or when the house is empty, but there are things you have to do if you’re a writer, like accounts, event planning, and replying to emails. If I sit down at this desk all of those work type things are waiting for me, and they bob up and down waving for attention. It’s very distracting.
Very little writing gets done here, however lots of plotting and planning goes on behind my back.
The wall behind this desk is big and was once blank, but now is a constantly changing collage. I use it like a noticeboard of ideas. Things go up and come down all the time. When I’m in the process of pulling a book out of my head, I like to have images in plane sight that inspire me or might spark an idea, or a strong description.
I stole this way of working from the rehearsal rooms in the National Theatre, where they will often display costume designs and set designs or visual research on the walls, to help the actors immerse themselves in the world of a play.
I have to leave the house to write.
I have a bag, a black rucksack, which contains my writing equipment and is always ready to go. In it you’ll find my laptop, and on that a computer programme called Scrivener, made especially for writers. I save everything to cloud storage, so nothing is on the machine. This is just in case I lose the computer. Thankfully, this has never happened, but you never know!
I like to scribble when I think. For each novel I have a series of notebooks full of drawings, scraps of prose, and character descriptions. These travel everywhere with the computer until the book is finished and then they go up on a shelf in the study, tied in a bundle.
The only other things in the bag are my pencil case, which is filled with all sorts of pens and pencils as I like to play with colour, ink and lead when scribbling, and headphones, as when you write everywhere you often need to block out the sound of chattering monkeys and squawking parrots.
I always listen to Philip Glass when I write.
Where exactly is everywhere?
Everywhere is cafes, and libraries, and foyers, and parks, and hotels, and airports and planes, but especially on all sorts of trains. The entire first draft of my second book, Beetle Queen, has been written on a train.
I do dream of having a writing shed, but I suspect I will always have to do my writing everywhere.
M. G. Leonard
M.G. Leonard’s debut children’s book Beetle Boy is published by Chicken House in paperback at £6.99 and is available on our shop here.
M.G. will be taking part in the Great Stag Hunt for endangered stag beetles this spring. Find out more at www.ptes.org/stagbeetle
To make the story last that bit longer, there are also some fantastic Beetle Boy activity sheets here.
(All images property of M.G. Leonard)