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| foundations for a writing office |
I’ve been tweeting about the lovely little getaway house my husband and I have been building for the last three months. I am pleased it’s coming along, but what I really care about and am excited about is my office. Sure the house is going to have bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, two baths, but I am going to have my own office, and that is what’s important. The room is about 10×9 at the back of the house off the kitchen and dining room, but it’s an open floor plan, so I can look into the living room if I want or close the door.
I wouldn’t care if it was 6×6. It is my space and will contain my things and has a door. It is the only room in the house I will not have to consult or agree with my husband about if I don’t want to. I have a few ideas.
- A desk ~ probably my current old oak desk, though my husband talks of replacing it. I don’t mind it. The desk doesn’t write, I do.
- My desk will be right in front of the window with the amazing view of the lake through the trees.
- One whole wall will be blank, though in the plans it shows a window. My room ~ no window needed on that wall. We’re talking 10×9 here. What do I need with three windows? Two are fine. That wall is my story organizer whether I use sticky notes or a white board or printed sheets of paper taped together. It will make it possible for me to see and alter the arc of each of my stories.
- Behind me is a storage cabinet running wall to wall, hopefully built in with a counter for the printer, shelving above and cabinet doors below.
- To the right is the wall with the door as tight to the cabinet wall as I can make it. So there will be a small wall immediately to my right when I am at the desk. Pictures, plagues and such will go there. I can start with all those diplomas I have so it does not begin blank. I’ll shift them out as I go. Somewhere in this lot will sit a file cabinet. We actually own three cabinets but only one is dedicated to my writing. The other two can go begging for space elsewhere. Files not writing related will not be welcome.
So we have been building. My husband is a do-it-yourselfer, and this includes my having very little to do with the placement of building materials in the form of a house. I hold a nail in place, and he carefully avoids hitting my fingers with the hammer. I locate the hammer when he misplaces it. And a lot of the time I sit in a chair with my Kindle reading. But I sit in my office, okay, for precision here, I sit beneath my office in the crawl space as the decking for the floor is not in yet. Still, I cannot explain the absolute peace and satisfaction I feel sitting in the space, my space, my office-to-be.
When I am not sitting and reading or holding a nail, I stare off at that view, my elbows balanced on the ledgerboard mounted on the stem wall. I am usually standing rather precariously on some concrete overflow from the stem wall pour as I am not quite tall enough to look out without the added inches it gives me. But as I stand there, the book I am writing comes to me in splashes of scenes and dialogue. I keep running them through my mind adding imagery, direction, character details.
My office is already useful, already generating ideas. Just standing in it is enough to make me want to write. What will a floor bring? Walls, a door, my chair at my desk? So much to imagine and look forward to.
If you can design your office, what would it be like. Is it just a little space of your own or a full blown library? Does that desk need to be something special or is any flat space your computer or writing pad can lay enough? Will a window add or detract from your island muse?
#writing
#imagination
#inspiration
#officespace
