In the next of our series, this year’s guest Tracy Chevalier tells Steph Mackentyre why she doesn’t write novels in her home study
‘I have a little study, a very small room in our house, and it looks out over a very tiny garden. You would think this is where I would write, but actually I hate writing at a desk.
‘I write by hand in a notebook and then I type it into the computer at the end of the day, and so I end up gravitating to the sofa in the living room, curled up in one corner writing.
‘I often feel a bit guilty, like, ‘Tracy, you have a study, you should really be using it’, but the desk is for work work, like paying bills and reading things that I have to edit, and using the computer, whereas writing for me, writing novels, is very much about pen to paper.
‘It takes me longer to write than to type. I think a sentence out slowly, and that seems to fit the time that it takes me to write it out by hand so I really prefer that.’ ‘I can’t really write in cafes the way other writers do. Sometimes I go to the British Library and write, and that’s really good because you’ve got all these people around you, really silent. Everyone’s really focused, like one big community focused on work –and that can be very helpful – but mainly it’s on the sofa in the living room.’
Tracy Chevalier will discuss her new novel, The Glass Maker, with Esther Freud on 28 June at 1pm
