Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Where Writers Write: Frank Coles


Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where some of TNBBC's favorite authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen.


Frank Coles is a word pimp and media pro (hehe, his words, not mine!) with nearly 20 years experience working across TV, radio, news media, marketing, branding, publishing and the internet. He's a trad and indie pubbed author and has his own National Geographic and YouTube web channels. Frank has lived and worked all over the Middle East, SE Asia, Europe, and as far north as the pole.


Frank is a TNBBC newbie, and he's breaking himself in here by showing off his writing space(s):



Where Frank Coles Writes


I've been lucky, for years I worked as a travel journalist and copywriter while learning how to write books. My offices have been wonderfully exotic and occasionally, well,  shoddy crap holes in the arse end of nowhere. Here's the opposite of that. My favourite writing place has to be this jungle house called Leela on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand.



Note the papasan (bowl) chair for reading drafts in, the bed, and the plastic side-wall that rolls up when the storms disappear. And, oh what storms! Sideways rain and forked freakery. Inspiring? You bet, like an electric shock to the nether regions.
My desk was the kitchen table behind the curtain.

I had three lovely months there with massage, sea and healthy food on tap. A tom cat did find its way in one night and sprayed my face while I slept, but hey, beats the hell out of the other more poisonous things that creep out of the jungle.

On the road your desk is nearly always temporary, and, because of that, often clean and devoid of the usual carnage that makes up my current more permanent desk. Here's another Thai desk. Note the lack of detritus. Cool, huh?


 After a few years in the Middle East I headed back towards my UK homeland and the desks definitely got bigger. Here's one in a 17th Century French farmhouse I looked after for eight months. Low overheads, great food, a ten person dining table to lay out manuscripts on, happy days!


  So what do I write on now? Here's my two-screen beast with its daily pile of to-dos cluttering up the surface as well as all the caffeine, water, spent .45 cartridges and business cards that need throwing out the window. Ah sorry, I mean filing of course.


But my favourite place to write still has to be at my tiny little 10 inch laptop (see the clean Thai pic) or a notepad - a real pen and ink one. You can write with those babies anywhere. Well, almost anywhere. Here are my feet on assignment at the North Pole. Sadly it's only pencil and paper up there. Electronic devices just give up and hibernate, even ink has its troubles.


 But these days, with a young family and a need to stay closer to home, the most exotic place I get to do my writing work is breakfast and a proofread at my local pub. Do the exploring thing while you're young. Definitely. And when the young are a little bit older, do it all again!



Happy writing, wherever you are.


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Check back with us next week to see where Christopher Moraff writes.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. What a gorgeous writing space! Beats being holed up at a desk in the corner of an office!

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