A DAY IN THE WRITING LIFE, OR HOW I GOT MY WRITING SPACE: HELEN LANDALF

Nov 03, 2010 19:52





This isn't me. It's the hero of our story, my 16-year old stepson, Jonathan.




This isn't me either. It's Sunny, the villain of our story (well, not really)...




...and his sidekick, Toto.

Anyway, on with the story. I used to write in the corner of Jonathan's bedroom, which most of the time looked like this:




Then on Christmas Eve two years ago, Jonathan came up from our finished basement and said, "There's a lot of water on the floor next to Sunny's litter box, but I don't think it's cat pee." When my husband and I went downstairs, the entire floor of the basement kitchen was covered with water. Several days and contractors later, we discovered that there was a leaky pipe behind the wall, and the room would have to be completely torn apart. It ended up looking like this:




But as you probably guessed, this story has a happy ending. Insurance paid for a complete remodel, and now the basement kitchen (which we never used) is my writing office. It looks like this:




And on the wall to my right is the Christmas present that Steven and Jonathan spent hours putting together with Scrabble tiles:




And now, in case you're curious, a little bit about my schedule:
Mondays and Tuesdays, I teach Pilates and write.
Fridays I teach dance to kids and write.
Thursdays I teach Pilates and dance and write.
Weekends I do chores and write.
But Wednesdays, most heavenly day of the week, I just write.

Some writers are divinely inspired; I'm inspired by Divine:

image Click to view

a day in the writing life

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