When I first saw the Maisonette on Craigslist the pictures made it look small and more like a garden shed than a possible home, but me being the kooky lady I am this appealed to me. Roald Dahl wrote in a shed and is my favorite of all children's writers, but he was not alone. Virginia Wolf, Dylan Thomas, George Bernard Shaw, and Philip Pullman wrote in garden sheds. Though no one comes close to having as many sheds for creative purposes as director Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick left behind thousands of boxes in numerous garden sheds built all over his estate.
Now technically the Maisonette is a shed. It's not the bare bones, one room variety but it is still a shed. It is nestled at the entrance of a larger property (and there is another shed on the property where someone else will be living besides the family we'll be renting from) with a beautiful garden and I truly mean beautiful. The family we'll be renting from own a florist shop and their home garden is beautifully planted and organised.
When we visited the garden was full of flowers in every color of the rainbow, trees, and emerald green grass. Inside their house is a makeshift hospital for plants to reflower and regain their strength and beauty. At the time we visited there were three or four phalaenopsis orchids in the recovery ward. It was our new landlord who called his home a hospital, but as he spoke I realised it was actually a refuge. Few people can see the beauty of a plant when the flowers have faded and fewer people have the patience to wait for beauty to be reborn. I myself didn't see it until that moment.
And the little house will be a refuge for writers. A place to work when we want to escape the hectic life of Paris.
I've come to the conclusion that the only way to write with success is to treat it like a job, at least for me. Whether this means sitting in front of the computer or the typewriter (we have two, one with an English keyboard and one with a French keyboard that both work perfectly) or going out into the world for inspiration it will be work. I've read quotes from interviews of famous writers (and my pseudo-sibling Donald agrees) that writers are always writing even if it doesn't translate to accumulated pages of genius. Every experience adds to my writing, every observation, and every person I speak with (or don't) is writing in my head until I find a place for those things in a story.
Yesterday we had a torrential downpour and then in the afternoon a much needed break. I went out to my terrace to see what had become of my plants. All were water logged and needed a little attention. On a balcony across the street were three little children, who always wave to me and blow me kisses. On a whim I took a plastic jar of soap bubbles and began to blow a steady stream of bubbles hoping the wind would carry them over to the children.
I filled the entire street below us with bubbles and people raised their heads wondering where these little balls of magic where coming from. For a moment the children disappeared into their house and I saw when they returned that each of the children had their own little plastic jar of bubbles in their hands. They quickly learned that blowing soap bubbles can be a tricky task, but I encouraged them and applauded them as they succeeded and watched how closely they watched what I was doing in the hopes of achieving the same results. I observed their smiles, their joy, their frustration, how their family encouraged them. When I decided to leave them to continue on their own that for them some of the fun was lost and so the bubble-making stopped altogether.
Roald Dahl went to his shed every morning bringing with him the stories he'd made up to entertain his children the night before. I will go to the forest and my little house with all the stories I've ever made up, all the things I've seen and done, and all the hopes and dreams I have for my life.
Writing is the dream I have for my life. I am happy to know I'll be following a grand artistic tradition, but since the garden shed is pretty far away, it might take some fine tuning to make it so we have time to go out there, but we did sort of take the place on the premise we'd force ourselves. Thankfully the whole little house is cheaper than a Paris studio apartment!
Here are a few pictures from Roald Dahl's shed courtesy of Roald Dahl's website.
Now technically the Maisonette is a shed. It's not the bare bones, one room variety but it is still a shed. It is nestled at the entrance of a larger property (and there is another shed on the property where someone else will be living besides the family we'll be renting from) with a beautiful garden and I truly mean beautiful. The family we'll be renting from own a florist shop and their home garden is beautifully planted and organised.
When we visited the garden was full of flowers in every color of the rainbow, trees, and emerald green grass. Inside their house is a makeshift hospital for plants to reflower and regain their strength and beauty. At the time we visited there were three or four phalaenopsis orchids in the recovery ward. It was our new landlord who called his home a hospital, but as he spoke I realised it was actually a refuge. Few people can see the beauty of a plant when the flowers have faded and fewer people have the patience to wait for beauty to be reborn. I myself didn't see it until that moment.
And the little house will be a refuge for writers. A place to work when we want to escape the hectic life of Paris.
I've come to the conclusion that the only way to write with success is to treat it like a job, at least for me. Whether this means sitting in front of the computer or the typewriter (we have two, one with an English keyboard and one with a French keyboard that both work perfectly) or going out into the world for inspiration it will be work. I've read quotes from interviews of famous writers (and my pseudo-sibling Donald agrees) that writers are always writing even if it doesn't translate to accumulated pages of genius. Every experience adds to my writing, every observation, and every person I speak with (or don't) is writing in my head until I find a place for those things in a story.
Yesterday we had a torrential downpour and then in the afternoon a much needed break. I went out to my terrace to see what had become of my plants. All were water logged and needed a little attention. On a balcony across the street were three little children, who always wave to me and blow me kisses. On a whim I took a plastic jar of soap bubbles and began to blow a steady stream of bubbles hoping the wind would carry them over to the children.
I filled the entire street below us with bubbles and people raised their heads wondering where these little balls of magic where coming from. For a moment the children disappeared into their house and I saw when they returned that each of the children had their own little plastic jar of bubbles in their hands. They quickly learned that blowing soap bubbles can be a tricky task, but I encouraged them and applauded them as they succeeded and watched how closely they watched what I was doing in the hopes of achieving the same results. I observed their smiles, their joy, their frustration, how their family encouraged them. When I decided to leave them to continue on their own that for them some of the fun was lost and so the bubble-making stopped altogether.
Roald Dahl went to his shed every morning bringing with him the stories he'd made up to entertain his children the night before. I will go to the forest and my little house with all the stories I've ever made up, all the things I've seen and done, and all the hopes and dreams I have for my life.
Writing is the dream I have for my life. I am happy to know I'll be following a grand artistic tradition, but since the garden shed is pretty far away, it might take some fine tuning to make it so we have time to go out there, but we did sort of take the place on the premise we'd force ourselves. Thankfully the whole little house is cheaper than a Paris studio apartment!
Here are a few pictures from Roald Dahl's shed courtesy of Roald Dahl's website.
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