Writing Space
I began writing regularly just over ten years ago. I made myself a little writing desk in the kids' room and blogged every day and wrote fiction. I would write at night after I put them to sleep and stay in the room quietly typing as they fell asleep. In my next house I usually wrote on the computer in the dining room. I was realizing that in this house, the one I have now lived for six years, that I don't have a space of my own. I do my best writing on a laptop in the kitchen, but that's not always available or practical and I tend to get distracted by dirty dishes or packing tomorrow's lunches, etc.
We moved bedrooms around last fall with Bill and I moving to the attic. I tried to set up a writing space up there, but the chaise is really better for reading. :-) Anna likewise wanted a chair for reading in her room and needed some space, so I moved Anna's desk out of her room last night and into the small room that Bill and I are using for a dressing room and made a writing space for myself. My notebooks and manuscripts have a home. I have space to leave my laptop and notes out. And there are no chores to catch my eye and distract me.
Above the desk I hung a Wyeth print that I have always loved. The lighting is dim and could be interpreted as soft and happy or shawdowy and dangerous. The basket is on the ground with apples around it. It is a painting that has sparked my imagination my whole life. It hung above the couch in the first house I can remember and I have distinct memories of laying on the couch studying the painting and trying to figure out what time of day it is or where it was or why the basket was on the ground by itself. It was the beginning of the mind of a story-writer.
I have written my whole life just for fun. I have rejected the idea that I need to publish my novels, for example. I run marathons but don't expect to be in Olympics. I cook, but I don't want to have a restaurant. Art should be a part of everyone's life no matter the extent. But the writing projects I am working on right now have made me rethink the audience and purpose of my writing. And all of it prompted me to create a space for myself to write.
We moved bedrooms around last fall with Bill and I moving to the attic. I tried to set up a writing space up there, but the chaise is really better for reading. :-) Anna likewise wanted a chair for reading in her room and needed some space, so I moved Anna's desk out of her room last night and into the small room that Bill and I are using for a dressing room and made a writing space for myself. My notebooks and manuscripts have a home. I have space to leave my laptop and notes out. And there are no chores to catch my eye and distract me.
Above the desk I hung a Wyeth print that I have always loved. The lighting is dim and could be interpreted as soft and happy or shawdowy and dangerous. The basket is on the ground with apples around it. It is a painting that has sparked my imagination my whole life. It hung above the couch in the first house I can remember and I have distinct memories of laying on the couch studying the painting and trying to figure out what time of day it is or where it was or why the basket was on the ground by itself. It was the beginning of the mind of a story-writer.
I have written my whole life just for fun. I have rejected the idea that I need to publish my novels, for example. I run marathons but don't expect to be in Olympics. I cook, but I don't want to have a restaurant. Art should be a part of everyone's life no matter the extent. But the writing projects I am working on right now have made me rethink the audience and purpose of my writing. And all of it prompted me to create a space for myself to write.
posted by Lea at 8:31 AM
1 Comments:
Hey, happy 10 years! :)
I liked reading your history and thoughts on having a space. In each home of the last 20 years, save for one year, I have had a room of my own. I do now, but I am encountering the issues here that you have in the kitchen. Namely, distractions. It can be the fact that this room needs cleaning and organization, or sometimes it's that I have filled this space with too much sentimentality (old photos, etc) and it can be paralyzing. So, over the last week, I'm thinking of not calling this a studio any longer, keeping the craft items downstairs (already did this), and just making this a different kind of space than I have ever had.
I am so glad that you write and, most especially, that you have blogged over the years. Certainly, it is how we found one another and grew to become friends.
I so agree that we can do things without becoming them. I just giggled because, since I take photos of some things (usually stills of nature or staged photos with Silas), people think that I would like to take photos of everything or do it for a living. I guess that is fresh on my mind because my sister suggested that I take senior portraits for money. Bless her heart. Doesn't she know that I'm really W.C. Fields?
I'm in tangent-land. You get me thinking, and I type a one-side conversation.
Have an awesome day and buy yourself something that smells delightful for your new space.
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