I am in a doctor’s office waiting room with my computer on my lap as I begin this blog. It’s certainly clean: a neat row of chairs, two stacks of magazines, some pamphlets in plastic displays and some laminated informational flyers on the walls. A plant in the corner. When we imagine having clear, organized spaces for our creative writing, though, we never picture just this kind of institutional, swept-clean order, do we? So what is it we are fantasizing about?
If I were at home, I’d be sitting at my great-grandmother’s desk, now mine, in a little nook of an office with a pointed and beamed roof, just off the living room. I have shoved no fewer than four bookshelves in this small space and filled them with a fraction of the books I own. On the desk, which is mahogany or some grand dark wood, a smattering of bills and miscellaneous mail covers the green felt that lines the writing area. Is this my idea of the perfect space for writing? Certainly not. I would prefer that bills never made their way to my desk, my writing desk, but at present, I do not want them to get lost or escape my attention, and so there they land. There are a few boxes in this tiny space, too, that I have not unpacked because they contain memorabilia that probably need not be unpacked or office supplies that have not come in handy and found their homes. (We moved two months ago, and many things are still in boxes in the garage.)
These are not, then, directions for how to organize the physical space of your writing. I have a book of gorgeous photographs of writer’s spaces. Some are magnificent: a wooden expanse with a view to the sea; a rich library carpeted in thick Oriental rugs and hung with original art. But Toni Morrison is in her bathrobe on the couch. Someone else sits among stacks of books and papers.
Our fantasies about organization are not fantasies about what we need to write. What we need to write is the will to habit. The willingness to get it wrong, to play on the page, to see what our minds and imaginations have to say when we engage in the physical act of writing or typing. None of this has to do with how clean our writing corner is or should be.
What you do need, at minimum, is the ability to keep track of your materials: your manuscripts, your notebook, your computer itself. If you can keep track of your keys, you will gain valuable writing time (instead of searching for your keys time).
I will admit that I am that worst of all creatures: a not-particularly-clean-or-organized person who thrives in clean and orderly environments. But here is the first rule of organizing your physical space for writing. Ready?
Rule #1: Do not use your writing time to organize your physical space for writing.
This is one of our favorite tricks. I want to write, we say. We sit down to write and notice that we meant to hang that picture and pay that bill and wouldn’t it make all the difference in the world if we had one of those accordion files? It would be worth just jumping online and finding the one, because then everything will come into order and the next time we sit down to write, our minds will be clear, our bills paid, and the characters will spring, joyous, to life . . .
No. We all know how this goes. Writing is hard, especially if you’ve had a break and are getting back to it. That critical voice pops in, and reminds you that your story is likely boring, especially compared to the one you heard the other day from your friend, and your writing is terrible, and shopping for an accordion folder is so much easier and contains the promise of a future with no disorder, to boot.
After you do your writing—your 500 words, your hour, whatever it is—and after you find a place to send that other story, and you upload it and hit send—if you still have time left at the end of your workday, then you may tidy up your space or even buy that accordion folder that will make all the difference. By then you will find that the lure of the folder is not as strong. The writing has happened without it! You will be buoyed along by the fact of having written, and tomorrow’s writing will call to your buried ideas and bring them to life. And neatening your desk will become an ordinary task, a way to thank your writer self rather than to inspire her.
If you cannot bear your desk or office or bedroom or kitchen one moment longer, go to a café and sit there and write. There is nothing you need besides a working pen and a page or a computer. And if you don’t have a pen, borrow one. The time to buy a new pen is always, always after you’ve written for the day.
Tell me about your writing space: How do you want it? Do you let fantasies about organizing it get in the way of your writing? How do you use your workspace effectively to keep you writing?
I have no choice but to share writing space with work-work space. Presently my $$ are earned from bookkeeping, not writing. What I’ve done to make the space mine as both writer and bookkeeper is get three big and pretty boxes. At the end of my work-work and my writing desk I immediately put the job (or manuscript) in progress in one of the boxes and close the lid. Anything related to one manuscripts it’s own box. By clearing the desk, closing the box lid, my office is ready for whatever may come next.
Is this working perfectly? Of course not. I’ve accepted the rather blatant fact that organization will always be a work-in-progress. As long as I hold to your tip of doing the writing first, I’ll get to use the words ‘the end’ often.
Susan–I love your system–both the clarity in it and the lack of perfection. That’s the ticket! Keep your eye on the prize–the writing itself–and let the rest evolve. Thank you for sharing such a great example.
At the moment, I’m sitting in a busy café at a small wobbly wooden table barely large enough for my computer and cup of coffee, the din of conversation and music all around me, the door opening and closing as people come and go, but somehow as always on Tuesday mornings when this is my writing place, this is the first time I’ve looked up from my writing in two hours, for a quick check of my email and my phone. At home I write at a small gray desk in my daughter’s old room, books, half-filled journals, and notes I’ve scratched down on the backs of receipts, envelopes, and scraps of paper scattered around me on the floor within arm’s reach, curtains closed in front of me so I’m not distracted by what’s happening out the window, door firmly shut behind me. Sometimes all that hermetic quiet is just right, but often it’s so much harder to focus! It could be that since I started my writing life as a journalist in a busy newsroom, I had no choice but to tune out noise to meet my deadlines, so maybe sometimes the quiet and familiar disorder is actually distracting. But I do think that for me there can be something not only about variety in physical writing spaces but also the pressure in a pubic place of being forced inward to create a psychological writing space that can be so conducive to getting the words out!
I completely agree, Jean. I love writing in cafes, and for some reason find the “distractions” of other people and background noise much less compelling than I find the lure of email and social media when I am alone in my office. I think that feeling not alone in the bustling world of a cafe allows me to focus in on my own task, whereas feeling lonely in my own office can send me out in search of virtual company . . . always a dangerous distraction. Thanks for sharing your spaces with us so vividly!