Thursday, September 11, 2008

Shed lit: Niki Aguirre

Niki Aguirre is a writer whose collection of short fiction - 29 Ways to Drown - includes the story, The Shed, about a man who spends his time hidden away from his wife, writing his novel in the garden shed, to funny/tragic consequences. It has already received the thumbs up from Shedworking's literary editor Sarah Salway and if you email Niki she'll send you an excerpt to wet your appetite or you can just nip along and buy it here. Niki not only writes about sheds she is also a lapsed shedworker as she explains:
"When we first moved here, I tried writing in our shed. It's an old one with spiders: a grim and dusty place - nothing at all like the photos on Shedworking. Nonetheless, I settled in with a few notebooks. It was going quite well for a while, but then came the non-stop rain. I tried to concentrate, but all I could hear was the sound of it on the roof. Then the leaking began. Then the wind. I sat there huddled in my chair, listening to it howl and imagining the roof was going to fly off. I decamped to our kitchen, which was warm, lovely and close to the food.

"My husband tried his hand at the shed. He did no better and became obsessed with writing a story about a man who spends all his time writing in a shed. He would run in every few hours and read me his new version, which in reality was the same story told over and over again. At the end, his main character, driven crazy by the repetitive sound, kills his wife and stores her body in the shed. Boy was I was glad when he gave up writing it! Our shed was like the hotel from The Shining. It now holds suitcases and garden tools. Although in summer, when it's sunny and flowers are in bloom, I'm tempted to try again."

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:36 PM

    Hi,
    I came to you through Caroline's black boxes widget but interesting because I am thinking about my writing space and what I want -- synchronicity, eh?
    Enjoyed browsing your blog -- I'm new to the game but hey, what fun!

    Orna

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  2. Oh, I'm glad you've put this up here - it's a fab collection. Although I enjoyed niki's account of her husband's shedwriting too. Think that would have more than spooked me!

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  3. I heard a guy called Kevin Langham was the guy that designed the Twin Skin Log Cabins 5.3m x 5.3m
    http://www.logcabins.lv

    ReplyDelete
  4. I heard a guy called Kevin Langham was the guy that designed the Twin Skin Log Cabins 5.3m x 5.3m
    http://www.logcabins.lv

    ReplyDelete