A Room Of Your Own by Catharine Bramkamp

Let’s welcome back monthly columnist Catharine Bramkamp as she shares with us “A Room Of Your Own.” Enjoy!

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During a writing retreat, one of the participants commented it was difficult to work because her neck is cramped from peering down at her laptop screen.

It seemed that in their new house while waiting for his office to be built, her husband had appropriated the only office in the house.

She was left to work with her clientele over her laptop and now just added more discomfort while working in the same cramped position to create her new writing projects. None of which was going particularly well.

Where do you work?

Are you so accustomed to hunching over a laptop propped up on the kitchen counter surrounded by dirty dishes and crumbs that you only manage to type out about six words before the dust on the baseboards becomes intolerable?

For millennia, the default space for women was the kitchen.

Before that, the kitchen was a closed environment for the hired help.

Before that, the kitchen was detached from the main house (because of frequent stove fires) and was exclusive to slaves.

The only progress we made was, in the absence of hired help, to take over the whole house as our domain.

Which did not mean creative work, it meant more baseboards to dust.

The head of the household escaped the house every day to work.

Women stayed home and managed everything else. And everything else marched continually and loudly through her rooms, there was no real place to think or work.

You are likely familiar with the story of how Jane Austen courageously wrote all her books in the main family living area, constantly interrupted by both that loving family and benign visitors.

Louise May Alcott couldn’t stand to be in the main house to work, and her feckless father Bronson, commandeered the only private room. So she escaped to the freezing attic to write the books that supported the family.

The trope is the women sitting in the receiving room – ready to receive while their husbands hide in the privacy of the library or study.

He closes the door and demands privacy, she is available twenty-four/seven and if she can, works in-between interruptions.

We do not need to do that anymore.

We, like Virginia Woolf, can demand and create a room of our own. Uninterrupted time is precious and we deserve it.

A writer needs her own space. 

She needs her own computer (do not share the computer, what are you thinking?)

She needs a pretty desk, a live plant, and a desk light.

She needs the security and trust that no one will ever touch, let alone read, any of her work or ideas without her permission.

She needs to be able to close the door, leave papers all over the floor, and find no footprints.

You ask, like my client, where can I find that perfect private space?

Surprisingly, it’s difficult to find the perfect space even in a very large home.

In some new re-models, a small desk is built into the kitchen to accommodate a laptop and corkboard, all the better for parents to keep track of the family schedule.

But again, not necessarily better for creative work.

Although it is cookie-adjacent.

To risk sounding woo-woo, spend time in each room of your home (we are assuming our writing is very work from home).

Is the room oriented east or west?

Is there a north-facing window or a south-facing window? 

I worked in every room in my new house and discovered that it was best to face East to watch the sunrise as I worked.

A north-facing space did not work at all.

Experiment in spaces.

Once you find the best feeling space, now can you re-purpose it to your own uses?

A closet?

A deep window seat?

A separate she-shed?

The conversion may not happen quickly but it’s worth the search and later, a remodel.

Where is the desk in the room?

Many writers are more comfortable facing the door than working with their backs to the door.

Facing the door prevents anyone from sneaking up on you.  

Not that a family member would do that on purpose but it’s better to see who and what is coming at you.

Do you want to gaze out the window?

And of course, for all of us, what is the Zoom background?

In this new, small house, my best space ended up being the landing to the second floor.

Here we installed a skylight, large windows facing east, and a built-in bookshelf deep enough for a small file box.

The beauty is we don’t need the space we used to.

Books can live all over the house.

Physical files don’t need to be at our fingertips, they can live in the garage or basement.

My desk is just large enough for a larger monitor and a separate keyboard.

Two feet behind me is a green wall.

I upload library backgrounds for my Zoom calls.

I follow Instagram feeds of spectacular libraries and studies because I still love them.

But working in my tiny loft suits me and keeps me away from the bustle and work of my husband who had no problem working in a north-facing office (ahem, surrounded by my book collection).

Perhaps the best writing space is one room away from the center of the house, a physical reminder that we have a life and interests that are not central to the family.

From the workshop, we encourage our friend and fellow writer to make her own space again. She did.

She immediately called her husband and asked him to order (because he loves to do that kind of work) a large monitor and keyboard.

He moved to the half-built space that is to be his eventual office and she moved back to her office space.

She is delighted, glowing, creating new work, and her neck has much improved.

You can do the same.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Catharine Bramkamp is a successful writing coach, Chief Storytelling Officer, former co-producer of Newbie Writers Podcast, and author of a dozen books including the Real Estate Diva Mysteries series, and The Future Girls series. She holds two degrees in English and is an adjunct university professor. After fracturing her wrist, she has figured out there is very little she is able to do with one hand tied behind her back. She delights in inspiring her readers.