Writing room

A little while ago, I was interviewed by the literary magazine Kill Your Darlings about where I like to be when I write, and my writing habits more generally. Like many others I know, I find routine and repetition are key to being productive as a writer: in this, writing is like sport, in that you can develop fitness simply by being consistent. You even come to feel a little impoverished if you don't get your daily writing time, much like after skipping exercise for too long.

But I think there's also something to gain in changing routines, for different spaces suggest new ways of thinking; even change itself can come to constitute a space that encourages openness to the new.

Over the past of couple of months, I've spent my days working in various libraries and reading rooms in Oxford University. Like most universities, this one communicates its attitude to knowledge in part through its buildings and grounds. In a college-based system like Oxford's, where teaching rooms, halls, and libraries are often shielded by gates and imposing stone walls, that communication can seem to emphasise separateness and exclusivity. 

But Oxford's architecture also expresses an extraordinary commitment to how spaces create new ideas and approaches: the optimism of spires that reach heavenwards, the warmth of sandstone walls, and the care taken in how reading room are furnished, lit, and encased by high bookshelves and windows. In their beauty and age, Oxford's buildings ask you to take the time to process and develop your thoughts with equal care, and seem to assure you that you'll get there if you do.