If you've been reading my posts for a while, you'll know that I've been awaiting a "writer's dream." No. It's not making the NY Times best seller list. This dream concerns a room of one's own. A particular kind of room. This room is a place at home away from home.
Two years ago I was offered a writing shed -- an 8x8 wood paneled room with built in desktop and book shelves and a huge window and a small entry deck -- the very same shed where I wrote much of my memoir, The Scent of God, about the 15 years I spent as a cloistered nun and the unraveling of that vocation in Puerto Rico. I'd been offered this shed in lieu of payment for having acted as temporary caretaker to a writers' retreat which was closing. The shed was delivered last week and today I spent the first of what I hope will be many hours in my writing shed.
Why such a delay? Wasn't the shed installed five days ago? Yes. Five days have passed and the shed waited until today. I had to leave it behind the day after its installation to attend my grandson's eighth birthday party in Minneapolis (240 miles away). When I rushed back home that day it was not to plunge into the shed, but to make beds and clean the house. Friends were coming to spend several days. A tour guide at heart, I can't resist taking such friends on tours to our many and varied scenic areas. I'd pass the shed, look longingly inside, then off we'd go. There is also the matter of electricity. Try as we might, we've been unable to rouse an electrician to supply the shed with juice. Without electricity and with a laptop battery that lasts only two hours my time writing is limited.
Meanwhile, I haven't totally neglected the shed. It's now got an old rocking chair (for thinking and reading), a desk chair, and books -- the how to's of writing, several years of unread Poets and Writers, journals from the past 26 years, files containing research material for my next book – the sequel to The Scent of God, and materials from every writing class I've ever taken. Then, of course, are my favorite books of poetry: Haffiz, Rilke, Oliver, to inspire my early morning forays into words. What will not go into that shed is anything resembling a telephone or telephone connection -- if you're a writer you'll probably understand why.
So, have I done any writing in this shed? Only if you can call typing old journal entries (material for the sequel to The Scent of God) into the computer, writing. But today, I did actually do a bit of writing. I finished the first paragraph of the opening chapter. Tomorrow I plan to complete the first page. Oh well, maybe the second paragraph.
Beryl and Granddaughter Cassie greet the shed
Be Gentle. It is trying to look like a landscape.
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Comments: 32
I'm envious. I'd like a space away from my tiny office, which abuts the kitchen/living room (euphemistically called the "great room" by the builder) of my condo. Inside the house, it's hard to get away from the household chores and interruptions I've internalized as my responsibility during 47 years of managing a home.
This is about as charming as it gets! I love the little red shed, the smooth stone garden next to it, and the nature view out the window. This is so very inspiring. I gotta agree with you and Ed about the internet hookup. I'm finally beginning to learn that if I want to write anything on my computer I need to go somewhere without an internet hookup. Otherwise, I just can't resist email, Gather, etc. when it's all just a click away. Good for you, Beryl. Look forward to your next book! And to the next article about your shed.
It's rare that we get to own, in every sense of that word, part of who we are. I have a shed warming gift around here somewhere that I'll send your way.
i keep the upper windows open here in this flat and the tits come in and munch on the sunflowers next to me. It takes about 40 minutes to learn how to get in and out any kind of opening , including European doubled windows, to take the food off the desk.
congrats-- and such a nice form of payment, too.
I love the idea, too, of a ceremony. Now, why didn't I think of that. Actually a little party for my writing friends complete with ritual would be a great idea. I'll let you know so any and all Gatherers who can come will.
And Kevin's gift . . . perhaps it is something as delicious as his photos and cooking articles.
I am lucky I have had a great studio room in my flat here right below the Alhambra to write my first novel, and the book of poems I've almost finished "live" here in front of a Gather audience. Writing spaces are so important for a writer---Annie Dillard would never have won her Pulitzer Prize if she hadn't been fortunate to live exactly where she did at Tinker's Creek. Look at the way Victor Hugo used to have his wife and daughter lock him up in his writing room to write.
Beryl, I now know you and I were destined to meet in the warp and woof of time when I saw that you mentioned Hafez and Rilke, two of my very favorite poets. I have tried to live out the philosophy of Rainer Maria's Letters To a Young Poet on my gather pages and in my comments to other poets, and the results have been staggeringly positive.
Every article you write seems to illumine very important facets of a writer's life, especially one who sees the task (as clearly you and I do) as a holy vocation, with its own unique shrines and symbols. For that reason you are so important here in this historic highly intelligent and talented Web 2.0 pre-Simulationist blog that our benefactor Tom Gerace has devised with his team of boffins: you teach by example, and we all learn from you, no matter what level we start from.
God bless you, my dear.
Your articles on Gather give the inside look into a writer's life as great and exciting things are taking shape. Every paragraph that goes into your new book suggests an exciting, though painstakingly difficult, story. It is a kind of shared labor.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976769850
My desk is an absolute mess with papers flying around everywhere, but I like to write in chaos.
I agree about the internet, though I have it on my laptop; wi-fi, too. I made a pact with myself when I came back from Europe not to spend endless hours surfing fruitlessly and merrily wasting time. I'm actually quite shocked what i've acomplished in six weeks--20 chapters of a nonfiction memoir!!. I still can't quite believe it.
did you say sequel?? hurry I can't wait!
Oh great! Now I want one too! You may have just started a trend here on Gather and also a "revenue" stream for yourself, if you can design your own shed and place your make on it. You could call it;
"The Shed of God"!
Where do I go to order?
Nice article - how kewl!!!
How wonderful. What a great space! Virginia Woolf would be so proud.
By the way, I've noticed new shipments of The Scent of God in the major bookstores near me!
Red is a powerful color and to add it to a private writing shed. You are a blessed woman.