Bestselling South African romance author Takalani M knows how to write wherever inspiration strikes. With eight bestselling books and TV adaptations in the works, the Venda-born author balances writing with life as a financial analyst, wife and mother of three. While working on Divine Arrangements, however, she finally reclaimed a writing nook of her own after years spent moving between coffee shops, playgrounds and restaurants. Here, Takalani invites us into that creative space, sharing the rituals behind her writing process – from coffee and Afrobeat to her treasured succulent and vision board – and how food and her Venda homeland shaped her latest novel.
“Moving into our home in 2021, the first thing I asked my husband to help me with was building a library to house all the books I buy – collecting books is one of my hobbies. In the same room, I was meant to have my cosy writing nook beside hubby’s workstation. I only managed to have that writing nook for just a year. As soon as my second son learnt to walk, it became a mission to get into my writing space unless he was nowhere near. He was clingy, and if he did not see me anywhere in the house, he’d come to the office door and bang on it until I gave in to his demands. When my youngest son was born in 2024, I finally gave up on my writing nook and opted to rotate coffee shops surrounding our home. This not only allowed me to meet deadlines but also added to my coffee addiction and had baristas calling me by name when I entered the coffee shops.
For two years or so, I wrote like a vagabond, running away from my toddlers until it became impractical. Coffee shops have operating hours, but the creativity urge does not; my writing nook needed to be returned. When writing Divine Arrangements, I often found myself so excited to add to my chapters that I relocated my writing nook to a cosy corner in our bedroom, where our boys can only reach me when I want them to. I abandoned a dressing table for a writing desk and I have never been happier.
Stationed against the wall, my writing desk carries a potted succulent that I have had for years – I wouldn’t call it my good luck charm, but it has been with me for so long that it wouldn’t feel like my writing desk without it. Above my desk is a large enough picture frame mounted on the wall, carrying my 2026 Vision Board. For the first time in almost forty years, I decided to create a Vision Board and have it on my wall to visualise my plans every single day. So, whenever I am seated at my desk, writing, and need a moment to think, I am faced with all the things I wish to achieve this year. Among these visions are my wildest dreams for my catalogue of novels and my wishes for Divine Arrangements – the novel that was the hardest to write. With my other novels, it didn’t take too much effort to do research; however, with Divine Arrangements, where my main character is a master chef, I found myself immersed in the life of a foodie, studying cookbooks like study guides. For that, and the fact that this book paints a vivid picture of my homeland, Venda, I can only wish for readers to fall in love with it the same way I am.
My ‘vagabond’ days taught me to pull out my laptop at any quiet place I can find, as long as I have my noise-cancelling headphones on. With headphones in place, you’d think I have a perfect playlist for my writing. Well … nope! If I am not listening to my character’s favourite artist, I am playing a random fast-paced afrobeat song on repeat – I don’t need to understand the lyrics; as long as the song is fast enough to keep up with my flying fingers.
And, as a mother of three, a wife, a financial analyst and an author, I had no choice but to learn to write in random places. I have often found myself with my laptop on my lap at a playground, or moving plates of food aside in a restaurant, just to fit in a chapter or just a paragraph. My journal is always in my bag, for times when I am bitten by a creative bug in random places. However, whenever I get a chance to have a perfect writing routine in my writing nook, it always starts with a steaming hot cup of coffee with oat milk while I search for an afrobeat song to put on repeat before my fingers start dancing on the keyboard.”
