My Own Space

Recently, instead of writing or grading, like I should be doing, I found myself researching sheds. It became something of an obsession and occupied my time. Now I'm not talking about the kind of sheds most of us have in our back yards, filled to the brim with lawn supplies, tools and old Christmas decorations. No, I'm talking about a comfy place sequestered from the rest of the house just for myself. A place to get away and write. It's really a romantic but completely unfeasible notion. But a boy can dream can't he?

I like that it has a porch.

This all started when I read online that Wes Anderson had replicated to the tiniest detail the writing hut of Roald Dahl for his Netflix short films. I started to wonder about writing places and, as is my wont, fell down a pretty big rabbit hole. There's a lot out there about writer's sheds. Names like George Bernard Shaw, Dylan Thomas (who inspired Dahl in the first place), Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf and, of course, Henry David Thoreau (even though his mother did his laundry and brought him sandwiches) all had sheds, shacks or huts where they wrote. Neil Gaiman has his gazebo. Chuck Wendig has his "mystery box." Yann Martel has his back yard writing studio. Eoin Colfer and David McCullough sought refuge from busy families in their own writing sheds. Michael Pollan wrote an entire book about the entire enterprise of building a shed for his writing on his property. And it's made me want one of my own. I just feel like I need a writing space all to myself. 

I'm fascinated by the idea of writer's spaces in general. There's an entire Instagram account and hashtag about writer's spaces and I can't stop looking at it. I want a cool space to work in. I don't really have one now or maybe it's that I just don't use the space I have properly. I do most of my writing from the comfort of my couch and I wonder if that's part of the problem (though it worked for Truman Capote and Stephen Sondheim). Maybe I'm not a couch writer. Maybe I need to be at a desk or a table. I've found great success writing at my kitchen counter, though that gets uncomfortable after a while. I do well in cafes and I wrote most of this sitting at a rickety table in a cold room at the back of the school. 

I do have a great little desk/alcove in my study that's perfect for writing.  I haven't used as much as I should, for no good reason. Maybe it's time to change that. I mean there's no way my wife is going to let me plop a fourth shed in our backyard (and who could blame her?), so I'll have to make due with what I have. Plus, who wants to trudge across the backyard on a cold, snowy kind of day like today? I need to make that space my own. 

I started this process before the holidays. I bought a really nice chair  that I'm not putting together until I finish a few other around the house projects. I can't use the folding chair that's in there now because of my back. I still have to finish tidying it up and organizing a few things. I'll be sharing the space with my daughter so I won't be alone in the room but at least I won't be on the couch. It's not perfect and I'm sure there will be some bump along the way, but I think in the long run it'll work. It'll focus me on what I need to do, be that writing or grading. Speaking of which, I have some grading to do. I suppose that the kitchen counter will have to do, for now.