Blogger: Wendy Lawton
Confession time: Every time somebody posts a photo of a gorgeous private library or a writing enclave overlooking woods and a stream, I have to check my green-eyed covetousness. I often wonder what it would be like to have an expansive space for an office or a huge separate room for my library– preferably with a 2nd story mezzanine all the way around the room. I can just picture it.
Of course, the reality is that I do much better in small spaces. For years my studio was the first floor of the tank house on our farm. I rarely worked in the large workshops we had in the next town. I sculpted and designed over 350 different doll editions from a space that was 11′ x 11′. I learned that I had to be organized. Everything needed a permanent place and had to be put away when the day was done. I think my love of systems and organization was born in that tank house.
The same has always been true of my offices. When we moved to town we had two rooms for our offices– a large room on one side of the house and a tiny, 10′ x 12′ room on the other side of the house. The small one had french doors and could be seen from several main rooms in the house so we knew it needed to be mine. (My husband, Keith, is what we call a vertical filer. He works from stacks all over his office. His system with french doors? Not a good match.) So I help manage the careers of dozens of the finest writers in the CBA– along with all the paperwork that entails– from a mere 120 square feet.
And that expensive library? Well I have one wall of books in my dining room. It’s like eating in a library. Another wall of books in my office. Those are the books I’ve sold for my clients. I have a wall of children’s books in the guest room and two long floor-to-ceiling walls of books in Keith’s office. You might say the whole house is a library.
I know a number of writers who write extraordinary books from a desk in the basement or in a corner of their bedroom. My friend, Debbie Macomber, started her career with a rented typewriter on the kitchen table. Every evening she had to break down her “office” to set the table for dinner. I know authors who keep the research for each book in moveable totes. And we all know writers who claim a table at Starbucks as their office.
So let me speak in defense of small spaces.
- Small spaces require us to be organized.
- Small spaces allow us to develop the habit of neatness.
- Small spaces can be decorated for a song and become a lovely retreat.
- Small spaces encourage an environmentally-friendly paperless workspace.
- Small spaces help us remember that work is just one part of our lives.
- Small spaces can be filled with creativity and dedication– just think of the work that has been done in a prayer closet or a rat infested jail cell (St. Paul, John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others).
So while we may salivate over the libraries, studios and writing ateliers that pop up on Pinterest, our small spaces and make-do corners may actually be a blessing.
How about you? What is your dream workspace? What does reality look like? How best do you work?
I dream of a small space! I love your little studio. It looks so perfect!
I have spent many an hour imagining my dream space. We have a TV program over hear all about building small space conversions. I find it inspirational (as well as enviable!)
My dream studio/office would be a first floor room in a garden outhouse (or over garage) with enough space for a bookshelf, desk under a window which looks out onto green hills and trees, a comfy reading chair. That’s all I need!
Unfortunately our house is too small for my own area and our communal computer desk is littered with the families detritus. I think that’s why I like writing outdoors and in cafes.
I think above all it is a lot easier to write when in my own space, whether that is physical or mental, although once in the flow I am no longer in this world 🙂
I got a real chuckle from your post, Chris,since the first image that shot through my mind was based on the North American definition. I am going to remember your phrase “family detritus.” What a great description of any communal work area!
Thank you! But what is the north American definition?
Mine was the UK which, for the sake of clarity is rubbish, rubble, general left over waste. But we use it a lot to generally mean a mess. For us, that is a lot of paper, school newsletters, pens (with and without lids) food wrappers (daughter!!), bits of plastic tat (pointless rubbish toys like McDonald’s ones!)
I tidy it once in a while, but only takes a couple of days to return, sigh!
Definition of outhouse: a privy. We have one on the land in Idaho, but it’s not usable since a big pine fell on it two winters ago and blocked the door door from opening. We haven’t had a chainsaw with us to cut it away.
Detritus was the word in the American fish aquarium books for that stuff you siphon off the floor of the tank. I’ve liked that word since the first time I saw it in grade school.
I have a desk–the sewing machine can be pushed back to make room for my laptop. But truth is, I usually write from end of the couch by the lamp or, on really cold days, at the corner of the dining table closest to the wood stove. On a pleasant summer evening, I might move to the picnic table.
My dream office? There’s a studio in my book: lots of natural light and a small desk. There’s an antique music stand in one corner and a sewing machine in another, along with a few plants–nothing fancy. Christ is there, and that’s all I need.
How fitting that you mention Paul…
I have felt like I have been banished to a prison over the past decade because of the rejection of others. My house is a tiny two bedroom house. My sons share a room. My office is in the living room. But my prison, or my cave, has
become a place where I have laid down my life and decided to plant seeds no matter what my circumstances were.
My season of rejection has blossomed into a season of resurrection. I am so glad that I chose to plant the seeds by putting words to paper.
It would be heartbreaking to reach the end of this difficult season and have nothing to show for it.
Habakkuk 2:2 Write down the revelation and make it plain. So the herald may run with it at the appropriate time.
My dream workspace has windows that look out over mountains with the sounds of a stream running over rocks nearby. It’s a space filled with light and soft colors.
*My actual space is a small space. Over the summer, I repurposed my craft, I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-all-this-stuff room into an actual creative space. I purged a ton of stuff, and got rid of some of the furniture. In there.I had a table and added a wingback chair and ottoman. It’s now my favorite room in the house because it is open, CLEAN and pretty. I love having my quiet time in thee, writing, and doing some scrap booking in there.
*I love my small space for all the reasons you shared, Wendy. 🙂
I, too, like cozy spaces. My office at work is pretty expansive and I find it’s a clutter magnet. Too many nooks and crannies to tuck things into! At home, I have a desk in the corner of the bedroom. With a reading chair to my right and a window (preferably open) to my left. A few books about writing, some favorite photos and art, some reminders of WV. Just one or two things too many is immediately noticeable and I whisk them away. Much easier to keep up with, much easier to prioritize. And a peaceful place to write.
I love my writing location. It’s small with windows on two walls overlooking trees in our section of Texas country. I actually love this room, but the potential is there to love it more. I only have one problem in this room–I don’t have a closet to hide things. So I bought baskets to line shelves, and I’m not very organized yet. I’m unorganizingly organized. But I’ve got stuff in here from my daughter’s senior year right now, too–the box of remaining announcements, cards she received … I’ve got to do some work in here. I keep saying I’m going to get it fixed. I’ve never had a problem like this because I’ve always had a “junk” (office supply) closet. Anyway, I’ve got an old huge white, wooden entertainment center in here, hidden in a cubbyhole in the wall, with not-very-neatly placed books, mixed with the baskets of stuff I need but doesn’t look pretty to set out. And the “book space” (space between shelves) is so wide that lined with books, there’s a big gap at the top. Hmm. I know there has to be an easy fix for that–something to place between books or under stacks of them, utilizing the space better. You’ve given me a new mission, new enthusiasm to straighten and line some shelves. 🙂
Shelli, I like the look of baskets for storage. And I bet that view out your window is gorgeous. I’ve always thought your place was lovely from the pictures on your blog. 🙂 Nature is the best backdrop.
Thank you, Wendy! 🙂
I love your office, Wendy! I have a great office in what was intended to be the formal dining room in our house. I don’t take for granted the luxury of having my own space. But I wrote my first two books at our kitchen table (which was our only table) and each night I had to move my little Mac Classic computer and a stack of research books to the floor so we could eat supper and then breakfast before I could put my makeshift office back together. From there, I graduated to a farmhouse table (that is still my desk) in one corner of our living room, where I wrote my next dozen or so books. It wasn’t until our three oldest were out of college that we bought our first home and I got a dedicated office. And I still often write on a love seat in the living room, on our back deck, or at a nearby coffee shop. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, but I don’t think my books written on a kitchen table in a tiny duplex are any worse (or any better) than those written in a dedicated office.
What’s strange to me is that I handled the distractions of 4 kids and their friends coming and going much better than I handle the distraction of one (very thoughtful and considerate) husband working from home. 🙂
OK, my dream space is actually small, but it is cute, interesting, and has a great view. It is my grandparent’s balcony. They carpeted the space above their downstairs kitchen and put a log railing and a spare bed there. It is across from their picture windows that look out over an evergreen forest and into an alpine meadow. It is in a handcrafted log home that my grandfather felled the trees for, skinned the logs, and built with the help of friends. Oh how I would love to kick out that spare bed and set up a nice little desk right there, looking out the windows into the meadow.
My actual work space is a fluffy red chair and a half in the middle of our living room. I have a lamp and a small bookshelf and a tiny table for a cup of tea. All that I really need.
Love the office. Glad that the cat gives you space.
* Don’t care where I write. The ability of write meaningfully again would be grace enough.
I did write in the biggest Place of all – God’s Heart. Just live there now.
Novelist Mary Stewart once had a character explain the best desk for an author was a typewriter on a desk facing a wall in a small closet– anything else caused too much distraction.
I only graduated to my own office and computer 3 years ago. It’s a relief to have a room of my own, a place to leave the research out and the relief of knowing there’s a good chance my manuscript will still be there when I return.
Too many times my clever children went in search of more room on the hard drive to load their
computer games. “Who needs these Word documents?”
I’m thankful for my blessings, but I, too, never forget that creativity and art can flourish anywhere!
BTW, I have seen it and I think Wendy’s office is beautiful. 🙂
Not only can creativity and art flourish anywhere, but so too, in this sometimes maligned digital age, can community.
Wendy, I love your list of reasons why small spaces can be wonderful, and I love the warmth of the wood, wool rug, and books in your office. When I watched The Waltons as a child, I was intrigued by John Boy’s writing desk’s location in front of an upstairs window. And because I love cozy character houses, I feel at home having my writing space right where it is. The only things I would change are that the builtin shelving by the entrance way would have copies of my own books on it too, and I’d like to be able to see the mountains that are hiding behind all the trees that are in the way. Here’s a link to a page about my cozy “woman cave”. It’s also where I sew, draw, and paint.
Blessings ~ Wendy Mac
https://greenlightlady.wordpress.com/wendys-writing-room-%E2%9D%80/
Your office is lovely! I probably should take an idea from your picture and put a cat tree in mine to keep Scarlet from lap surfing. 🙂
*I love my office space! The walls are the color of a beautiful merlot, there are full size movie posters on every wall, and vinyl records on the ceiling. While I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, it inspires me when the window to the backyard doesn’t. However, my troop of chickens tend to keep me entertained. 🙂
Wonderful post! I love my office, a tiny 10×10 upstairs room with plenty of light. But for six months, my office has been the kitchen table, because unlike me, my puppy can’t be confined to 10×10. And neither can he be unsupervised. So I let him have the run of the kitchen & dining area while I work, feeling slightly sad that my office is sitting empty, but knowing I’ll be sadder when my puppy no longer needs me to watch him like this.
What kind of puppy do you have? We got a little 20 pound Newfoundland baby last summer. So much fun. She is now a big furry 90 pound princess who knows that it is her sworn duty to jump on our children in the morning and wake them up.
My “office” is my laptop on my kitchen table, so every night, I have to move it to set the table. And in the summer when my kids are home from school, I alternate between working at the patio table in the mornings when it’s still (relatively) cool and working on my bed, hunched over my laptop and rubbing my neck. I’ve written twelve books like that, and it works fine. So I look at your lovely small spaces and tinge green.
I can relate to your small space! My office is an 11×11 room (intended to be a bedroom by the builder of this house). Small, but overlooks the backyard. I call it the swanky second floor office in the pink house with the green door. 🙂 When I got married, I had to make space in this room for my husband’s work, so we moved things around a little. But I confess, I am a vertical filer like your husband. They’re neat piles, though.
11 x 11 small? That’s nearly an average size double bedroom in the UK!
Often in my small-space office, I’m forced to face the enormous heart of my God who understands the sanctity of an inner room, upper room, or prayer closet. From that small launching pad, I can jump into my stories, almost like the four children in the wardrobe, and then come home again to my comfortable hideaway.
Exactly! Davalyn, you just put perfect words to my writing world.
When my first book sold, my husband built an addition to our colonial house, and I had a gorgeous office with a huge desk, lots of bookshelves and an oriental rug…
Eventually he built me my dream house — a log home on a lake. My office was even larger with high log-trussed ceilings, a view of the lake, and an oriental rug.
Then life happened. Constant caregiving for extremely needy parents. The crash of my genre market. The family member who had gotten himself into a terrible financial mess. I mean terrible. And…well let’s not get into the rest of it. I’ll just say when you lend money, don’t expect to get it back. Even if you mortgaged your dream house to finance that loan.
Fast forward to today. My husband and I live upstairs in a metal storage building. For the first 6 months we didn’t even have potable water. Wow, talk about zooming back into the 1700s!!
Here’s the thing. I’m writing better than I have in a long time. I’m excited to “go to work” each day in my lovely – yes it’s small but it’s lovely – office. We’ve learned to lean hard on the Lord, and we’ve learned that He provides unexpected blessings we couldn’t begin to count. We’ve learned that possessions don’t matter nearly as much as we thought they did. On weary days of difficult parent care (like today!), I can only be grateful that I have less house to clean! And above all, we’ve learned, even in forgiving a huge debt owed us, we can’t come close to giving and forgiving as much as the Lord has given and forgiven us.
How incredible is our God. Life is good. Even without an oriental rug!
Sue, you are hero. If I grow up want to be like you.
You make me smile, Andrew. If you knew how many pity parties I’ve thrown for myself, you’d know I’m not a hero, but, if you’d fill your office with stray dogs and refugee families, I think I know who the real hero is.
Sue, pity parties is part of life. You are still my hero.
* my doors are open to everyone, but no hero. I have simply seen hell, and i will stand between the fire and the innocent because I can. You have to draw the line somewhere.
What a testimony, Sue! 🙂 Thank you.
Thank you, Shelli and Andrew. Strength to your pen! (An old English blessing given to me so I could pass it on to others. Now it’s also yours to pass on to others!)
You’ve got more space than I do and I agree, it takes a bit more effort to keep it organized so the chaos doesn’t squeeze you out. I do have a view of the ocean – does that count? The ambiance is terrific and any time I need inspiration or I’m stuck, I go for a walk on the beach and work the problem out in my head to the sound of the waves breaking around my feet.
I did tell The B that I’d love to have a big expansive airy office to write in.
* She said, “No way. Before I turn around it’ll be filled with more stray dogs and a couple of refugee families and you’ll be writing in a corner with a laptop on your knees.”
* Yeah, so?
Sounds like good workspace use to me, Andrew.
The best, Carol.
*Let me be their shield, O Lord, and let their broken hearts heal in the shelter of my broad and strong back.
* May any harm to them have to deal with me first, and may that harm learn the fury of a thoroughly pissed-off Mongolian. The rage of the Khan never dies.
* The defense NEVER rests.
That’s why I can’t have a horse. Because it would be pawing on the back door and sleeping in a bed. Lol.
When we built our house, we made one bedroom into a library/computer room. My husband built glass-door bookcases (8’x12’) to fill one wall and more (4’x10’) above the computer desk. There’s a recliner sofa in there where he watches movies while I write on my laptop. (He says I look incredibly life-like while writing).
*But that isn’t really my author office. My “office” is mobile. I have my Roman history books packed in clear plastic boxes, sorted by general topic, where I can easily find what I want. (The bookshelves were already full and the overflow is in clear plastic boxes in the garage). I haul a box or backpack holding what I want that day to different locations. That might be the dining room table where I can give my eyes a rest by watching deer at the corn feeder or the sofa looking over the valley where I can glance up to watch up to 4 dozen hummingbirds sucking down the sugar water. It might also be the front seat of the car or truck when we’re traveling. I need to spend more time riding the exercise bike equipped with my hubby-built laptop tray.
*I like moving to different places to work. I’m not easily distracted by anything going on around me, and the flexibility stirs up my creative juices.
I would definitely love to have more room! From dorm rooms with boards on concrete blocks for bookshelves on through the years, I seem to have a knack for landing in small spaces. I currently have boxes of books in a storage shed, notebooks full of genealogical research in a deacon’s bench in a closet, and on and on! I currently have my “office” on one side of my bedroom. I work on a laptop on a large folding table in the middle of the room. Sometimes I have to turn sideways to get to a spot. It’s definitely difficult for my personality type (whatever that is!), but it has meant being able to help my parents in their senior years. My mom has passed, and my dad has cancer, so I may have more room in the future. But all I can think of is how empty the house will be. I guess even in this, “all things are relative” still applies!
Wendy, I agree with you one hundred percent on small spaces. A couple of years ago, we built the large house that everyone thought a family of our size needed. (Admittedly, we kinda sorta thought we needed it as well.) Now, we truly use only about half the space. We made sure to have an office, but I’m never in it. I discovered how much I love being in our upstairs library, and quite frankly, I get lonely in that big office by myself.
Your office is beautiful, and I love the bookshelves all over the house.
My dream is to have an office that is separate from my bedroom and does not double as a catch-all for what won’t fit in a closet or the garage. It doesn’t need to be big or overlook anything spectacular (I keep the blinds shut during bright sunlight hours anyway), just a cozy room with a door on it that fits my desk, bookshelf (it would be awesome if I could add a second one!), giant magnifying screen, and maybe a file cabinet.
What I have is a half of my bedroom dedicated as “office space.” I had an office while living in Reno that almost always doubled as something else (Nathan’s room when he was a baby; the catch-all described above; a place for my then-husband to work when he was taking online classes…). I missed it for a very long time after I moved! But you know what? I love my bedroom/office! When I made the decision to move, my parents and sisters spent two months coming up with creative solutions that would provide me with a place to write. They bought me a great desk at a consignment shop, and put a dresser in the walk-in closet so I’d have room for a book shelf and the cabinet that holds my giant magnifying screen. Every time I catch myself grieving over leaving my office behind, I remember that the space I have was created with love and presented to me as if we were on one of those home improvement shows. It forces me to de-clutter on a regular basis and provides a valid reason to give the entire room a book theme.
If I ever do get my dream office, I have a feeling I’ll miss what I have now.
For years I wrote longhand on the living room couch, then typed the novels into the computer in my husband’s office/guest room. When he came home from work, I lost my computer time 🙂 After I received my first contract, I got a laptop and graduated to the dining room table – but had research materials in another room, and the printer in a third – not terribly efficient. So when our oldest son went away to college, it was time to redecorate! His room began double-duty as guest room, and I got my own big L-shaped desk with plenty of cupboards and drawers! And my husband put shelves in the closet for the office supplies and built a bookshelf for my research books. Six years later, and I still love it!
I don’t really have a dream writing space, always being satisfied with whatever I had. Our computer “room” in the basement is a partial alcove off the large basement family room. I call it The Dungeon. It’s actually not dreary at all, but telling the wife “I’m going to The Dungeon now” has a nice ring to it. It’s a walk-out basement, with two good sized windows in front of me, and a glass door with adjacent glass panel just around the alcove corner. I look out, through vertical slat blinds, on the oak forest that surround our house, and it’s quite beautiful. The family room and the alcove include about eleven bookcases—no, 13, including the two small ones—with probably 1,600-1,800 books on them. Slowly I’m migrating books from other areas of the house to this “library”.
.
I have work tables on both sides of me, and the computer desk in front of me, forming a U. My computer is an ancient Dell, running Vista, with dual monitors. I hope to replace this before the end of the year. Purchased in 2009, I think it’s fully depreciated now. I have a notebook computer but not a laptop. I don’t think I could use either for composing. The work table to my right is loaded with notebooks that include the safety printouts of my books/stories, in case all digital back-ups fail. I have enough room to scatter a few papers or lay out a couple of reference books right next to me.
.
As to how I best work, I’d say something about that, but this post is already too long, and I don’t have time to make it shorter.
Thanks for sharing your office space. Mine is my parlour. While my kids cringe at the antiquated term of what had been the living room, there’d been no “living” in it. A dull, dreary, oppressive space, really. I took over, painted a few years ago, painted the walls a pleasing, rich wall color, added coordinating window treatments and have allowed my faithful Fox Terrier in to sit at my feet and shed only on her designated white blanket. Adequate lighting filters through the windows over my desk. I inherited my mother’s writing desk, upon which my laptop sits. And in that relatively small parlour space is where the writing magic happens!
Hmm…my dream office space is quiet. Right now, I have a separate office in my home (and it’s quiet when I wear my noise cancelling headphones 🙂 ) but I usually end up writing in the kitchen or the living room around my children. It can get pretty noisy. So a quiet space is the main thing for me.
It’s so difficult to find “quiet” in our busy world, Preslaysa! The office I have now is blessed with a stout door! That has helped so much. The two people most a part of my life now are my husband and my father-in-law, and both are hard of hearing. When the tv is blaring, I LOVE my DOOR!!
Dream Workspace? Anywhere silent and cozy that doesn’t involve visual reminders of chores. I love my farm table, even though it sits in the corner of our family room.
Reality: I bond with my laptop on the second floor of my son’s high school library in Baja, MX. It’s open to the public, overlooks the Pacific and has free Wifi. To avoid a higher gas bill and wasted travel time (40 min. each way), I stay here all day while classes flow in and out. When I’m in the writing zone I can tune out the Spanish, but the white noise gets interrupted when bilingual students giggle, flirt and play chess in English. It’s not cozy, but I am grateful.
A farm table would be perfect! I have a small desk now, but I put up a folding table when I’m working on locations, so I can keep maps handy. I love to spread out stuff. It gives me a sense of control, especially during those “sprawling times” when completing the novel is like trying to fold fitted sheets!