A Room of My Own

Today, I want to introduce you to one of my new(er) bloggy friends, Francesca. I always head over to her blog for a refreshing look at another writer's life. What can I say? I'm a bit of a voyeur. ;-P


Take it away, Francesca.  


A Room of My Own

I dream of a large desk in a clean, sunny room. The French doors are ajar, and a gentle breeze stirs the long white curtains. Outside there is a garden without weeds, and lots of lavender in bloom. Somewhere else in the house, someone is playing the piano. There is a glass of very cold Pinot Grigio next to me, and I sit at the desk, elegant and calm in white linen, and I write.

When Virginia Woolf writes about the room of her own that a creative woman needs, this is the image that comes to my mind. An extravagantly separate, magical space. No laundry in sight. No piles of bills, No dust. No inconvenient children and their times-tables or abandoned half-empty cups of juice. This imaginary space is a blank slate, and I alone am the writing on the wall.

It is utter fantasy. Even if I had such a room, within minutes, I would have spilled the wine down my front, or thrown a half-finished Friday crossword on the floor in frustration. Bees would fly in through the half-open doors and dive bomb my spilled wine. The piano-player would get fed up with Chopin and start banging out Chopsticks. I would remember something I absolutely had to do. Or I would need the bathroom. Or coffee.

Point is, there’s no perfect space and time to write. Waiting for that space – either physical or mental – is futile. You write in the moments between making peanut butter sandwiches and googling Uglydolls. You daydream while driving to the supermarket, and maybe catch the tail of a really yummy new idea. You call writing twenty words success, if that’s all there was time for. Twenty words is something. It’s not waiting. It’s doing.

As I write this, my eight-year-old daughter has crawled into bed beside me. “I won’t talk to you,” she says. But she is wiggling around like, well, like a child in her parent’s bed, and it’s distracting as hell. But I’m still writing. I am so tired my eyes feel like frying meatballs. And I’m still writing. Earlier tonight, I watched the episode of Doctor Who that Neil Gaiman wrote and felt inadequate as a wordsmith and storyteller, and jealous that I will in all likely never get to write an episode of Doctor Who. And I’m still writing.

No desk. No lavender. No white linen. Lukewarm tea and sheets that could probably stand to go into the washer. Yet, I dream of a large desk in a clean, sunny room, and know that I carry that room with me. It is my permission to write, And it is all my own.

Thank you for such a lovely post Francesca! 

If you are interested in a Guest Post Friday slot, all you need to do is follow my blog and send me a post related to writing, books or the literary world. From July, all Fridays are open, so contact me at mishagericke(AT)gmail(DOT)com if you are interested. I can't wait to hear from you!