Guest Post – Louise Millar “Where I Write”

Paperback published 28 August 2014 by Pan

I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for Louise Millar’s ‘The Hidden Girl’. 



Welcome to My Reading Corner Louise and thank you for sharing your writing room with us

Today, on my blog tour, I’m visiting Karen at myreadingcorner.co.uk. Karen loves books so much she has TWO Kindles. 

Talking of having too many books, here is the room where I store all mine, and where I wrote The Hidden Girl…

Actually, that’s a big lie. I wrote a chunk of it sitting on my bed, which is where I instinctively head when I want to write (what that says about me, I don’t know), but I love seeing photos of other authors’ writing spaces, and last year, I decided to create one in the box-room at the back of my house. 

I call it a writing room because when I left my job at Marie Claire to work at home as a freelance journalist, I used to have an ‘office’, that looked like an ‘office’, with a large computer desk, trays for files and notes, and plenty of space for a newspaper and a Pret a Manger sandwich.

I wanted to change it to a place that would inspire me to write fiction. So I swapped my computer desk for a tiny, hundred-year-old writing table. I like to think lots of things have been written on it over the decades: letters, journals, secrets… It also has a concealed drawer which is handy for hiding things from my children, like my stapler. 

Above my desk there’s a visual board, which is a habit I picked up from working alongside fashion journalists and designers. It’s a kind of novel-ly mood-board, with print-outs of real-life images that mirror those in my head. It gives me an overall feel for the story, as well as a visual guide to describing detail. 

On the walls, I have lots of photos, postcards and pictures that have inspired me over the years to write, from Gothic fairytales, my childhood in Scotland, my travels and my friends.

When I want to read proofs I sit on this chair that my mum found in a junkshop when I was 15, and I’ve loved ever since. It looks out the window but I try not to do that for too long or I start getting distracted by things like wondering if you take pears off your neighbour’s tree if that is actually stealing.

Finally, I have my notebook by my laptop, ready to go for Book Five later in the year. I found it on a recent research trip to Amsterdam, and on the same day, saw a word in a shop that I knew would be my next book title. So I’ve written it on the first page…