During a writing retreat, one of the participants commented that she found it difficult to work on her book because her neck cramped from peering down at her laptop screen.
It seemed that in their new house; while waiting for his office to be built, her husband appropriated the only office in the house leaving her to video call with her clients on her lap in the living room, or hunched over the dining room table. Her new writing project delivered more of the same non-ergonomic screen time. None of her activities was going particularly well. Her writing was stalled and her neck hurt.
Where do you work? Are you so accustomed to hunching over a laptop propped up on the kitchen counter surrounded by dirty dishes and crumbs that you only manage to type out about six words before the dust on the baseboards becomes intolerable?
For millennium, the default space for women was the kitchen. Before that, the kitchen was the closed environment for the hired help. Before that, the kitchen was detached from the main house (because of frequent stove fires) and was exclusive to slaves. That the whole damn house is the woman’s domain is dubious progress. We still lacked a room of our own, having run of the house just means more linear baseboard feet to keep clean.
You are likely familiar with the story of how Jane Austen courageously wrote all her books in the main family living area, constantly interrupted by both that loving family and visitors bearing benign intentions. Louise May Alcott couldn’t stand to be in the main house to work, and because her feckless father Bronson, commandeered the only private space in the family home, she escaped to the freezing attic (hunched over, likely her neck ached) to write the books that supported the family.
Women sit in the receiving room, while their husbands retreat to the privacy of the library or study. He can lock his door, she cannot.
Lucky us, it’s all changed. We, like Virginia Woolf, can demand and create a room of our own. With a lock.
A writer needs her own space. She needs her own computer (do not share the computer, what are you thinking?). She needs a pretty desk, a live plant, and a desk light. She needs the security and confidence that no one will ever touch, let alone read, any of her work or ideas without her permission. She needs to be able to close the door, scatter papers over the floor and find no footprints.
You ask, like my client, where can I find that perfect private space? Surprisingly, it’s difficult to find the perfect space to write even in a very large home. In some new re-models, a small desk is built into the kitchen to accommodate a laptop and corkboard, all the better for parents to keep track of the family schedule. But again, not necessarily better for creative work, because again, you are sitting in the purportedly “heart” of the house. This is a very good analogy since the heart never stops beating. On the plus side, the kitchen is cookie-adjacent.
To risk sounding woo-woo, spend time in each room of your home (we are assuming our writing is very work-from-home). Is the room oriented east or west? Is there a north-facing window or a south-facing window? I worked in every room in my new house and discovered that for my most creative output, I needed to face east to watch the sunrise as I worked. Experiment in spaces. Once you find the best feeling space, consider how you can re-purpose it to your own uses. Convert a spacious closet? Pillow-up a deep window seat? Go all in and build a separate she-shed in the backyard? The conversion may not happen quickly (it takes a lot of research to find exactly the right pillows), but it’s worth the search and execution.
Where is the desk in the room? Many writers are more comfortable facing the door than working with their backs to the door. Facing the door prevents anyone from sneaking up on you. Not that a family member would do that on purpose but it’s better to see who and what is coming at you.
Do you want to gaze out the window? And of course, for all of us, what is the zoom background?
In my new smaller house, the best space ended up being essentially no space. We carved out a tiny place on the second-floor landing. Here we installed a skylight, large windows facing east, and a built-in bookshelf deep enough for a small file box. When you are considering space, remember that we do not need the same kind of office space we used to. Books can live all over the house. Physical files don’t need to be at our fingertips, seven years of tax returns can live in boxes stored in the basement. My desk is just large enough for a larger monitor and a separate keyboard. Two feet behind me is a green wall. I upload library backgrounds for my Zoom calls.
It is not just that we deserve space for our creative projects to flourish, creating and owning a specific space in the house is the physical reminder to the family that you have other interests apart from their well-being. That we deserve time to step away from the beating heart of the kitchen and find quiet for our own purposes.
During the workshop, we encouraged our friend and fellow writer to make her own space in the house, and the kitchen was not an option. We must be very persuasive; she immediately called her husband and asked him to order (because he loves to do that kind of work) a large monitor and keyboard. He moved to the half-built space that will be his future office, and she moved back to her original office space. She is delighted! She is creating new work, comfortable for her client’s calls, and her neck pain is gone.
You can do the same.
