A Writer’s Room: Mark Haddon

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(photo c. Rich Gilligan)

I begin most weekday mornings circulating between cafes, writing on a laptop with the distraction-blocking software Freedom running. I need some outdoor air and the hubbub of strangers to give me a connection to the real world. I return home around lunchtime and retreat to my office in the basement. It’s sufficiently subterranean to give it a comforting burrow atmosphere, but with windows big enough to make it spacious and light.

I can write productively for five hours a day at most. After that it’s diminishing marginal returns all the way. Then I need to do something that involves no words at all. Sometimes it’s running. (The Thames footpath and Wytham Woods are nearby.) Sometimes it’s music (viola, though not terribly well). Often it’s art. These days if I’m not doing something creative with my hands I feel wrong, like an underwalked dog.

Read more from the NY Times website here.

Mark’s new collection “The Pier Falls and Other Stories” is available in May. Read more from the Publisher’s website here.