As a creative- it can be hard finding a place where you can sit down and focus with your creative co-conspirators. Don’t get me wrong, I love a cafe, or even a pub where I’m huddled in the corner sipping a ginger ale (cos wine does NOT help my creativity personally). But sometimes, the cafe doesn’t allow laptops out. Or there is a particularly rowdy bunch in the pub sloshing drinks dangerously close to your brand new Mac. Not ideal. Likewise, these places can be productively detrimental since your brain doesn’t associate them with work and focus. Cheeky pints can be all too easy when meeting your writing group at the bar for a script discussion, right?

Finding a space has been a bit tricky when trying to maintain my focus alone, and in a group setting. A large number of people find concentrating on work alone hard, and have started utilising the ‘body doubling’ method to keep on task. There’s just sometimes too many distractions in these third spaces- what I need is a quiet, focused, tailored space for this sort of thinking, collaboration and accountability. I used to get it from my university when studying for my masters, but you can bet my student card doesn’t work there anymore.

Luckily, at Anomalous Space I managed to find the perfect goldilocks zone between creativity, focus and accessibility. From this I have hosted numerous writers room evenings for me and my peers, all of whom have struggled to find somewhere to focus on their writing whilst simultaneously having someone to talk to if needed. We’ve even hosted a writers networking event where we delved into the struggles writers are facing today, and looked at what activities and events would be useful for future enterprise. From this I’ve now partnered up with Charly, an immensely talented filmmaker who recently showcased his work in our space, The Home.

As a writer who struggles to work at home, having this as an alternative space has saved me so much stress. I’ve been able to collaborate with my friends and work on projects in a unit built just for that purpose. Most recently, I’ve been able to host a Director/Producer, to start working on our first feature together. Previously, we’ve only been able to meet up in cafe’s- and one time being told off for having our laptops out (oops). But now we’ve been able to brainstorm and come up with our plan for the film, using the wipe boards, flipcharts and endless cups of tea (that are free!) to map out our plan.

Using the space for rehearsals has also been integral, one of our other ASC Nights was a play’s preview - before being performed up at Edinburgh Fringe festival (and sold out!) It was a really interesting time for myself and a large group was able to attend and give feedback to the writer, which he then used to inform his edits for the final draft. Feedback is an essential part to any writer's trajectory and the ability to use the space was a welcome one.

Also another creative writing project myself and Charly (A recent Anomalous Social Club facilitator) have been looking forward to bringing you another ASC night; Where writers, producers, directors and actors can all come together in a relaxed atmosphere, where the main aim is to get that oh so necessary feedback for your ideas, hearing them acted aloud, and that very scary and daunting task of NETWORKING (gasp!)

Last time was great fun, we had one to ones where we got to speed date other writers to see if there was anyone we particularly gelled with. We got to moan to each other about the problems we face as writers and comfort each other in the knowledge that they too struggle with imposter syndrome, writer's block and executive dysfunction.

Some other really interesting exercises that were thought up I’ll put below, let me know what you think and if you have any brilliant ideas for our next one. Or better yet, you can come tell us yourselves at our next one.

• 5 minute story crafting, making a narrative out of a limited artistic inspiration.

• Workshops from experienced writers explaining how they go through their process.

• Agony Aunt corner: A space to moan and lament the issues of the filmmaking world. 

• Bad idea circle: People give you purposefully awful suggestions to make you defend your ideas of why your story is how it is. 

• A talk on how to get your film made/funded

• Practice pitching

• Ask an Agent - get an agent in to tell us all the ins and outs of the agency world.

Written by Aislinn Furlong