My post from the Liars Club Blog is below. Check out the Liars Club for steady stream of info on writing and the writing life. My husband and I moved into the house intending to share the tiny, dark den off the living room. It seemed reasonable enough: couldn’t anyone who managed to share a bed and a bathroom share an office?
I would use it during the day, to write, and he would use it late in the evenings, to pay bills and catch up on emails.
The problems began immediately: I wanted to paint it a pale color; he loved the dark green. “It’s the color of money,” he smiled, and I frowned. I’m a writer, I responded, what does that have to do with money? Turns out the color was the least of my decorating worries. Every night I left him alone in the office, unpacking, puttering, and every morning I would wake up to some strange thing hanging on the wall or sitting on the bookshelf.
Paintings of ducks flying across a meadow. A carving of a pheasant he did in seventh grade. Pictures of his friends from high school. Watercolors of golf courses. A trophy he won in a sledding competition. Then, a freaking television appeared.
He was turning my office into a man cave!
I confronted him. “I can’t work in there,” I said. “It’s dark and filled with golf balls and f’ing birds!” He pouted. There was no space for his stuff, he said. He needed a place for his stuff. I struggled to understand what he was talking about – in my view our whole house was already overflowing with crap. I’d grown up in a modern, ‘60s style Brady Bunch house where there weren’t even magazines on the coffee table. I wanted less; he wanted more.
When I thought more carefully, I saw his point: he was living with four women, after all. (Even the dogs were girls.) He’d probably reached his limit of pink and lavender. And everything I liked was pale: white, beige, pale blue or green. He wanted his darkness, and there was only one room available.
So now I have no office. No desk. No tether. I move from room to room, depending on the light or the level of noise. When I’m on a diet, I stay as far away from my own kitchen as possible. When there are workmen on my street, I retreat to the local library or a coffeehouse sometimes, just to break things up. When I have to go to New York or DC on business, I write on the train, which is one of my favorite places. I make “writing dates” occasionally with other writers and go to their houses.
A lot of beginning writers seem to think they can’t get started unless they have their own office. People attach something holy to the altar of the desk. I know better. Writing isn’t done at a desk, or in a room. It’s done in your head. And sometimes that means you’re writing on a walk, or in your car, or in the shower.
You don’t need a desk. It could be argued that all you need is paper and pen. And what you don’t need is a room full of flying ducks.
Note: Kelly Simmons' new novel, The Bird House, has nothing to do with her husband's duck prints.
