What's on your desk? #5

Introducing Sarah Best from The Best of Intentions with Sarah Best

Welcome to What’s on Your Desk? An idea that originated from reading an excerpt from American poet Louise Bogan’s autobiography, Journey Around My Room.

Each month-ish, I’ll invite a writer to talk about their workspace. And for this month, I’ve asked Sarah, who I connected through newslettering, and I want to say we connected fairly quickly, too.

What I enjoy about Sarah’s writing is she’s straightforward, open-hearted, and curious, traits that I used to think everyone had, but now I realize is not necessarily the case!

Where are you writing from?

I share a two-bedroom apartment with my husband. And I work between the second bedroom, which we turned into a study with a sofa bed, and the dining table in the main living area. Although you can also find me on the sofa too. I don’t really have one preferred area for working and will move around the apartment depending on how I am feeling at the time. If my husband is working at home, he uses the dining table.

We moved into a two bed apartment during the pandemic, which was probably the best decision that we could have made to protect our sanity! Previously, we were in a one-bed and while this was fine when we both moved to remote working during the pandemic, it wasn’t ideal to have me teaching online and him taking meetings in the same space.

Hong Kong has one of the most expensive housing markets in the world, which means that it can be precarious for renters. You are, much like in a lot of the world, at the whims of landlords and the market. Fortunately, our current landlord has been good to us and so we have lived here for over four years. I have a lot to say about the housing situation in Hong Kong, but that’s not perhaps what you are looking for!

One of my favourite places to write is a café that is located across the road from where I live. The staff are awesome, and the food is great. I can easily sit there and write for hours. I even have my own table now!

What does your writing routine look like?

Currently, I am on a career break/sabbatical, which means that I largely have the luxury of being able to write when I want. But until recently, I was working in a school on a short-term contract (for three months) and found the restricted time and flexibility that I had available in the day hard. I would have ideas about things and wouldn’t be able to whip out my laptop and get stuck in. But I adapted and began using a notepad or scraps of paper to note down my thoughts during the day – when I wasn’t teaching, obvs!

Since I left my last permanent teaching role in 2023, I have been involved in several freelance writing projects for an online education company where I have co-authored some resources and completed some editing work. However, I am returning to the classroom in a full-time capacity this summer, so I trying to stay mindful of not letting writing slip down a list of things to do when things get busier again.

I am pretty self-motivated, although my attention tends to flick between projects, which can be annoying. Therefore, while I wouldn’t describe myself as a procrastinator per se, I jump about a lot. I am not sure if this is a good thing as I can start a writing project and not finish it. I read somewhere that this can be a sign of perfectionism (we always have to attach labels to things!). Yet in some ways this makes sense to me, if I start something and don’t finish it, then I don’t have to worry what other people will think about it, because it won’t see the light of day!

I enjoy writing personal essays, as well as doing research for topical pieces. Certainly, for topical pieces and in a world of misinformation, I think that it’s imperative that writers do their research. The lines have been blurred between opinion and fact, and the distinction needs to be clear to readers.

I also enjoy writing fiction and have attended a few creative writing courses, but I didn’t have a great experience on the last one. It was held online during the pandemic (2020), and it was based in the UK, meaning that I couldn’t join the calls live and so the feedback was limited.

What are you working on?

Aside from a fantasy Harry Potter knock-off type story that I wrote years ago, I have never finished anything else fiction-wise (see point above about perfectionism ). I am still tinkering with an idea focusing loosely on the theme of home, and I am considering searching for a writing group, but then I would have to share my work - God forbid! But speaking of writing groups, I am a silver member of the London Writer's Salon and have been for a few years. There are various writing hours that you can join, although I wish that there were more that accommodated those of us that don't live in the US/Europe.

What's on your desk?

My desk is a mess. There is a plastic Muji stacking thing that houses old wires, random business cards, and coins. It needs clearing out. I have a bunch of diaries, planners and notepads for different purposes. Some are for daily notes e.g., buy eggs and bread, while I have a pad for jotting down different writing ideas. I also use my phone when a pad is not close to hand. I bought a keyboard and mouse when I was teaching remotely, and I use a metal frame that I found in our bin area to rest the keyboard.

I don’t drink coffee and prefer herbal tea. And I drink water by the gallons when I am getting stuck into something. I also like to chew mints. I got this tip from reading Louise Doughty's 'A Novel in a Year'. When I get distracted and find myself staring out of a window, I grab a mint.

---

Thanks, Sarah!