Stephan King wrote Carrie and Salem’s Lot in the laundry room of a rented trailer. In his memoir, On Writing, King talks about how he always dreamed of a big desk in the middle of a spacious office. In 1981, he fulfilled that dream then spent the next six years doing very little writing. About the job of writing, King writes, “It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.”
You don’t need an office, or an entire room, or even a desk to write. It doesn’t take a computer or high-speed Internet access. To write, you need to put your butt in the chair and do the work. What you need is the tools to let you write as much as possible. If you write at the kitchen table with a laptop after dinner, that’s fine. You do need some place to put everything you will need, so when dinner’s over, you are ready to work.
If you don’t have the space or money to invest in a desk, consider investing in a small cabinet to store your blank paper, envelopes, file your paperwork, and keep things like stamps, notepads and pens accessible.
It’s very easy to procrastinate. There are a million things you can do with your time besides write. However you decide to define your writing space, make it work for you. If you have to leave your writing space to get envelopes, stamps and track down copies of your clips, your space isn’t working.
A writer friend of mine primarily used a laptop to do her work when she first started out. She put together a writing cabinet on wheels. The cabinet held all of her writing needs including a printer. When she needed it, it was ready. When she didn’t need it, it easily stored away in a closet. Today she makes a regular salary writing magazine articles and books. Her office is now a permanent L-shaped desk in her family’s under utilized dining room. She chose a desk with an open design. With no place to hide clutter, and no door to shut, the open desk helps motivate her to keep her work area tidy. In her case, her work area grew with her career.
When I moved into my current home, I had a large desk in the corner of my living room. But the desk seemed to be an open invitation for my children to raid my office supplies. I also had to keep the desk tidy since it was in such an open space. Unhappy with the arrangement, I started taking a second look at our home. Where could I move to? What wasn’t being used?
My solution was to convert my home’s formal entryway into my office. The 8×8 space is just off my living room. It used to house a closet and the front entrance to our home. But everyone enters our home through the mud room, which is also where coats and boots are stored. After more than a year in our home, we’d used the front entrance only once.
When I first moved into the entry way, I removed the closet doors, and moved my desk into the space. The deep closet space was perfect for a desk, but I didn’t like sitting with my back to the front door. I tried several different furniture arrangements over a year or two before I finally knew what I needed in an office.
After years in the space, I finally felt it was time to permanently renovate the entry way into my office. We removed the front door and replaced it with a solid wall. I installed three 73-inch high bookcases along the wall where the door had been. It gave me a great place to store my books and magazines. I placed the books I use most often on the shelves that were within my reach while sitting.
My office is now a galley layout. When you walk through the doorway, the bookshelves are on your right. To your left, is my desk. I customized my desk area using kitchen cabinets. In my case, I used one file drawer, two wall cabinets and a pantry. I used shelves to fill in between the wall cabinets and pantry, creating more storage.
On the wall opposite the doorway, there is a small stained-glass window. On this wall, I installed cork squares lined up like a chair rail. They make a great bulletin board and an interesting border. This leaves room for my office chair and little else. It’s definitely a one-person office, but the amount of storage is phenomenal.
Inside the pantry, I use a plastic 7-drawer organizer to sort various types of paper and envelopes. One drawer contains all of the cords for various electronic equipment.
In that space I have high speed internet access, a copy/print/fax machine, a phone, reference books, magazines for markets I’m pitching to, and more. I have a variety of paper, envelopes in all sizes, and stamps. It’s everything I need to get my work done, including good old fashioned pen and paper.
If you need a space to call you own, take another look at your home. Find those underutilized areas, and put it to work for you.
Make your writer’s space a place that makes it easy for you to do your work. It’s doesn’t have to win any design awards. It just needs to help you write. If it does, than it is the perfect design for you, the writer.
Whatever you decide to do for your writing space, remember it doesn’t have to happen in a day. The best spaces often evolve. Allow yourself time to figure out what will work best for you. The last thing you want to do is invest a lot of money in something that doesn’t work.
