Authors' Spaces: Nikita Lalwani

Continuing our series of authors giving us a glimpse into their writing spaces, Nikita Lalwani, the author of the acclaimed Gifted, shows us her beautiful, considered minimalist study...

I suppose I always liked the idea of Maya Angelou and her hired hotel room where she still goes to write, her mandatory bottle of sherry and pack of cards on the side of the rented bed where she still stretches out, right there, on her stomach and lets the longhand curl out of her heart on to her notepad like a sigh. That's a way to write, eh?

I rented a shed for a while, and had a desk, sofa-bed, oil-burning radiator and bottle of whiskey. But unlike Maya, I fell asleep almost daily, when I stretched across the futon with my laptop, and when I woke up, I had the existential shivers from hell. I told myself it was the cold (it had a corrugated tin roof), but it was more fundamental than that. I think I learnt something quite simple: that I need certain conventional elements in a study - they give me a kind of optimism, which seems to help me work.

I've been in this space for about eight months now, and I love it in a way that is slightly covetous, because it is temporary, like all my writing spaces to date, and so I'm conscious that I have it for an indeterminate length of time. Friends are often bemused by the enthusiasm with which I show the room to them - it is considered to be a cell - so small and spartan, but those are the qualities I love in it.

Like Maya Angelou I enjoy having bare walls, it brings a kind of freedom from your own preconceptions each day. You can be anything in a room with bare walls. But unlike her, I have a writing bureau and comfortable chair. The window is tall and generous in front of me, it opens on to a tree that bears examination at any time of day or night and can take all the writing moods. There is a lot of light - even at night the bright street-lamps mean you can see the world outside.

I have a handful of books in the room at any one time, which I am using closely. Sometimes I panic and bring about twenty books in, as though I want to build a life-raft with them, and then I do a big cull after a few days. There's a filing cabinet in the room, which contains bits of research and memorabilia, and a small statue of the Buddha, given to me by a close friend for the same reason that my husband gave me the karimba next to it - an African finger piano - to ease stress during moments of writing block.  In a way, both presents do bring some calm to the room, and sometimes I play a slightly demented melody on the karimba in moments of celebration and breakthrough, naturally. I also amuse myself by trying to recreate the pose of Anne Sexton in her study, from a postcard sized printout I have, sent to me by another friend who claims it reminded her of me. I consider this to be  one serious compliment, as Sexton is really taking no prisoners in that picture - even though she seems to be at ease, it is a gaze of fierce intent.