The WRite Life, A Life of Conscious Purpose full of Joy, Tears, Laughter, and Stories
Creating space to write, or work on your art is crucial. It tells you that you value what you are doing. Yes, I have a desk, a chair, a table. These tangible items say now let us get to work, let us create.
In Virginia Woolf’s book A Room of One’s Own, she writes, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” (We will get to the money part in another story.) Her book dives deeply in the reasons why a woman must honor this place, this place where she can escape all the reasons she cannot and should not write.
Over the twenty years that I have been writing this is what I have come to learn about creating a place to write. The reasons for creating this place, this room, or desk, or table to write,
1. Your writing space doesn’t have to be an entire room, an entire office. You can place a small desk in any room. Your space can also be a chair and a side table. I recommend that the place isn’t the room that gets a lot of traffic from the others that you live with. This might deter you from working.
Having a physical place ready to work, will help you fulfill your dream to write. Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck observed, “In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write.”
2. Make the place your own. On your desk, or table place items that are meaningful or inspirational to you. For me, I often light candles to place on my desk, and have flowers and plants nearby. I also like to use a sand hour glass to keep me focused. I have conditioned myself to work until the last grain of sand falls through. I always have a few books that I am reading, ad stack of papers that I am editing. I also think lighting is important. Natural light for me works best. If it is dark, I use lamps. I find overhead lighting distracting.
3. What not have in this place would be anything that zaps your energy. For instance, I do not have my bills on my desk. I try to keep this area clear of clutter or anything that does not feed my inspiration. This is partly due to distraction. If you are like me, I can get distracted. My mind does wander, and I think having your mind wander is great when creating, but about the increase cost of utilities.
4. Why is having a space to write important?
a. When you sit in the chair where you work, you are telling your brain that this is your time to create. This is you meeting your word count, page count that you set out to do.
b. It shows others that you live with or comes into your home that writing is what you value. You value it so much that you have taken the time, energy, and resources to create space for it.
On some level moving furniture around to make room for your writing or buying a desk and a computer may feel easy, and doable. But what I have found that writers, and artists do struggle with this. Maybe it is the money. Maybe it is asking one’s family for a bit of space of one’s own. More times than not it is an inner struggle of deciding this is who I am, and this is what I want to do. I want to write. This is my space of my own to write.
I have a FREE Teachable class where I talk about this further. Join me. Creating Space of Your Own to Write. FREE class.
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