Where I write is always fascinating to me. I used to work 1:1 with mind body coaching clients in my rented office space. It was quiet, spacious, perfect for writing alone when I didn't have clients, but I couldn't write there, it felt too public. And in my previous house I had a sunroom office where I met clients in person and on zoom, again I couldn't write in there, it felt too exposed and open to my clients lives and stories. It didn't feel like there was room for my stories or poems in there. I also struggled to write there because it had access to our driveway and was on the first floor. I felt slightly psycho for not being able to do it, but I've found over the years I feel the most free in my writing when I'm sitting on the second floor, in my writing chair, in my window, tucked away upstairs in my bedroom. Like I'm a little bird in her nest. I feel so much better writing from the second story. Clearly my creative voice really wants a lot of privacy, almost secrecy!! I do have a desk, but usually only use it for editing, first drafts are always handwritten in my chair. It's nice to just know what works for me, to not question it anymore, to just follow what feels best
I was in the Far North (an actual place) in New Zealand when this popped up and I couldn’t respond. But here is the old school desk I was writing on (my belated new year 1000 words). In case I can’t upload, it’s a white and wood desk, with a lift up lid, in the middle of nowhere, grass growing up over the legs. A vibrant green stick insect jumped on the desk. Apparently this means the site is sacred. It’s been such a delight to follow your posts since meeting you (virtually) on the Granta Memoir course. 🙏
A trip to HomeSense and my very opinionated friend saved me from my ongoing agony about the "perfect desk." Deciding whether to buy a piece of furniture is the kind of thing where I take myself on four left turns down long streets only to find myself back on the website/catalog page/aisle where I started. The other week, I popped into HomeSense and there was a grayish blue made to look weathered desk that was a good match for my overall decor. I texted a picture to my childhood best friend (and general design consultant) and promptly walked out of the store. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, she texted "I like it. Buy it. You can always return it but it will be gone if you 'think on it'." So true. So here I sit at my lovely grayish blue desk. I adore it. :)
I love this conversation!! I’m a big fan of a wide desk, so there’s a computer/typing zone and then I can slide over 2 feet and have open space to map out ideas by hand or lay out printed outlines or research. And still have room for a few powerful tchotchkes. I had a gorrrrgeous honey-stained wood desk with squared-off legs and caned-front drawers when I lived in LA that I found at Home Goods, but sadly had to sell her when I moved. Now I have almost the same style, but from Target. The drawers are a little shaky, but they’re deep enough to hide folders for projects I’m not ready to pick up again behind post-its and chargers and glasses cleaning cloths, and that’s what really matters!
Jami, I have a Crate & Barrel desk too. It's white with X shaped legs and a drawer that can become a keyboard holder but I've filled with office junk. Unlike yours, it doesn't look special but it holds my extra monitor and my elevated laptop and my pile of notebooks. Plus, it fits in my small office, which last spring I painted pink because I wanted something fresh and inspiring. This is my fifth Crate & Barrel desk: two previous office desks, my husband's one, and one I used as a vanity in the bedroom. (I live two blocks from Crate & Barrel.)
I am lucky to have several desks in my different places to write. In the office off my bedroom, a Danish teak desk with a shelf for books running across the front of it. In my writing cabin out back, a long painted wooden table with a crescent carved to make room for one’s legs. And in my office on campus, a Benjamin Franklin desk that was my father’s and which was in my mother’s basement until 2016, protected by her for 30 years. I live a fortunate life with all of them.
My desk is one of those that goes up and down with the push of a button. It’s small and angled toward the window. My day-job takes place there. A few feet away is big turquoise chair I bought for myself - the chair itself my room of one’s own. Often though I find myself sneaking off to the bedroom to write. It’s at the back of the house and I feel tucked away, hidden, the world, gone. I can concentrate better there.
My very long desk is where I teach remote classes and do my grading and have meetings. I also use it to store my physical works in progress folders, notes, papers, books in progress, etc. It holds everything for me and I almost never write at this desk. I write on the couch, with pillows all around me or I write at coffee shops or the library or on planes.
I just love this - meeting a new neighbor to have a coffee with AND acquiring a new desk! My desk is a little one in front of a window overlooking the backyard and birdbath. Others in the house like to pile random things on it (their books, junk, whatnot). I take perverse pleasure in coming through to clear it all out and reclaim the space for myself.
Reading “it seemed like a thing a real writer would do, have a desk made for themselves”, I just realized this is what I did. I live in a tiny duplex studio - when I’m not alone we sleep on mattresses on the kitchen floor, Japanese style - and to write I parked my 27” iMac on the Ikea kitchen island’s wooden worktop. Nice but awkward legroom, because it was made to chop things on, not sit at. Last summer I asked a carpenter to keep the base but make a larger table top so it could accommodate five people plus legs. Until this morning I thought I had it made so we could have proper sit-down meals, but I now realize what it is, really. Thank you!
My desk is a table that lived in my grandmother's front parlor for most of my life. I inherited it when she died in 1976 and brought it to my then-apartment on the roof of my VW beetle. Needless to say, it suffered some scratches and a serious gouge from that adventure, but I think of her often when I sit down to write.
My favorite desk was the little vintage desk my mom found that I used throughout high school and college. It was really small and made of a kind of yellow wood with open shelves on one end and a tiny drawer with '70s wallpaper glued to the bottom. I loved it much, and was sad to have to pass it on once I moved into my first apartment and didn't have the room.
A desk with a story is a good one! Mine meandered through the family down to me from my grandmother, but I think originally belonged to my great-grandmother's sister. It's from the 1930s, wooden and full off lots of secret little drawers and compartments where I sometimes still find random scraps of life from long ago, like old stamps or newspaper clippings. I leave them there, seems wrong to throw them out since they've called the desk home much longer than I've had it.
That looks like a great desk, do you pull it away from the wall to close the curtain? I write on my father's old desk, dark wood with faux green leather inlay. So many happy memories - Dad before his word processor, thumping away on the keyboard, box monitor humming! It's in a small room at the top of my house, two windows, but only sky for a view, today it's blue streaked with wisps of cirrus. Happy writing.
Have you got The Writer's Desk by Jill Krementz? It's basically this post and its comments, which i've loved reading. I'm so curious about writers' spaces and rituals! In the book, every entry has a lush photograph plus some description by the author of the writing space. One of my faves is Toni Morrison sitting in an armchair, wrapped in a dressing gown, writing in an ordinary spiral bound notebook. She says that she has to get up in the dark and watch the light come up - that's her ritual to enter the writing space. <3
Where I write is always fascinating to me. I used to work 1:1 with mind body coaching clients in my rented office space. It was quiet, spacious, perfect for writing alone when I didn't have clients, but I couldn't write there, it felt too public. And in my previous house I had a sunroom office where I met clients in person and on zoom, again I couldn't write in there, it felt too exposed and open to my clients lives and stories. It didn't feel like there was room for my stories or poems in there. I also struggled to write there because it had access to our driveway and was on the first floor. I felt slightly psycho for not being able to do it, but I've found over the years I feel the most free in my writing when I'm sitting on the second floor, in my writing chair, in my window, tucked away upstairs in my bedroom. Like I'm a little bird in her nest. I feel so much better writing from the second story. Clearly my creative voice really wants a lot of privacy, almost secrecy!! I do have a desk, but usually only use it for editing, first drafts are always handwritten in my chair. It's nice to just know what works for me, to not question it anymore, to just follow what feels best
I was in the Far North (an actual place) in New Zealand when this popped up and I couldn’t respond. But here is the old school desk I was writing on (my belated new year 1000 words). In case I can’t upload, it’s a white and wood desk, with a lift up lid, in the middle of nowhere, grass growing up over the legs. A vibrant green stick insect jumped on the desk. Apparently this means the site is sacred. It’s been such a delight to follow your posts since meeting you (virtually) on the Granta Memoir course. 🙏
A trip to HomeSense and my very opinionated friend saved me from my ongoing agony about the "perfect desk." Deciding whether to buy a piece of furniture is the kind of thing where I take myself on four left turns down long streets only to find myself back on the website/catalog page/aisle where I started. The other week, I popped into HomeSense and there was a grayish blue made to look weathered desk that was a good match for my overall decor. I texted a picture to my childhood best friend (and general design consultant) and promptly walked out of the store. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, she texted "I like it. Buy it. You can always return it but it will be gone if you 'think on it'." So true. So here I sit at my lovely grayish blue desk. I adore it. :)
I love this conversation!! I’m a big fan of a wide desk, so there’s a computer/typing zone and then I can slide over 2 feet and have open space to map out ideas by hand or lay out printed outlines or research. And still have room for a few powerful tchotchkes. I had a gorrrrgeous honey-stained wood desk with squared-off legs and caned-front drawers when I lived in LA that I found at Home Goods, but sadly had to sell her when I moved. Now I have almost the same style, but from Target. The drawers are a little shaky, but they’re deep enough to hide folders for projects I’m not ready to pick up again behind post-its and chargers and glasses cleaning cloths, and that’s what really matters!
Jami, I have a Crate & Barrel desk too. It's white with X shaped legs and a drawer that can become a keyboard holder but I've filled with office junk. Unlike yours, it doesn't look special but it holds my extra monitor and my elevated laptop and my pile of notebooks. Plus, it fits in my small office, which last spring I painted pink because I wanted something fresh and inspiring. This is my fifth Crate & Barrel desk: two previous office desks, my husband's one, and one I used as a vanity in the bedroom. (I live two blocks from Crate & Barrel.)
"She loves Crate & Barrel" better be in your bio, Lorrie.
I am lucky to have several desks in my different places to write. In the office off my bedroom, a Danish teak desk with a shelf for books running across the front of it. In my writing cabin out back, a long painted wooden table with a crescent carved to make room for one’s legs. And in my office on campus, a Benjamin Franklin desk that was my father’s and which was in my mother’s basement until 2016, protected by her for 30 years. I live a fortunate life with all of them.
My desk is one of those that goes up and down with the push of a button. It’s small and angled toward the window. My day-job takes place there. A few feet away is big turquoise chair I bought for myself - the chair itself my room of one’s own. Often though I find myself sneaking off to the bedroom to write. It’s at the back of the house and I feel tucked away, hidden, the world, gone. I can concentrate better there.
My very long desk is where I teach remote classes and do my grading and have meetings. I also use it to store my physical works in progress folders, notes, papers, books in progress, etc. It holds everything for me and I almost never write at this desk. I write on the couch, with pillows all around me or I write at coffee shops or the library or on planes.
I just love this - meeting a new neighbor to have a coffee with AND acquiring a new desk! My desk is a little one in front of a window overlooking the backyard and birdbath. Others in the house like to pile random things on it (their books, junk, whatnot). I take perverse pleasure in coming through to clear it all out and reclaim the space for myself.
Reading “it seemed like a thing a real writer would do, have a desk made for themselves”, I just realized this is what I did. I live in a tiny duplex studio - when I’m not alone we sleep on mattresses on the kitchen floor, Japanese style - and to write I parked my 27” iMac on the Ikea kitchen island’s wooden worktop. Nice but awkward legroom, because it was made to chop things on, not sit at. Last summer I asked a carpenter to keep the base but make a larger table top so it could accommodate five people plus legs. Until this morning I thought I had it made so we could have proper sit-down meals, but I now realize what it is, really. Thank you!
My desk is a table that lived in my grandmother's front parlor for most of my life. I inherited it when she died in 1976 and brought it to my then-apartment on the roof of my VW beetle. Needless to say, it suffered some scratches and a serious gouge from that adventure, but I think of her often when I sit down to write.
My favorite desk was the little vintage desk my mom found that I used throughout high school and college. It was really small and made of a kind of yellow wood with open shelves on one end and a tiny drawer with '70s wallpaper glued to the bottom. I loved it much, and was sad to have to pass it on once I moved into my first apartment and didn't have the room.
I can really see that tiny drawer with wallpaper!
A desk with a story is a good one! Mine meandered through the family down to me from my grandmother, but I think originally belonged to my great-grandmother's sister. It's from the 1930s, wooden and full off lots of secret little drawers and compartments where I sometimes still find random scraps of life from long ago, like old stamps or newspaper clippings. I leave them there, seems wrong to throw them out since they've called the desk home much longer than I've had it.
That desk is beautiful! What a great find. Changing up my space can zhuzh my writing practice. Or even tidying the clutter on my desk. Lol
That looks like a great desk, do you pull it away from the wall to close the curtain? I write on my father's old desk, dark wood with faux green leather inlay. So many happy memories - Dad before his word processor, thumping away on the keyboard, box monitor humming! It's in a small room at the top of my house, two windows, but only sky for a view, today it's blue streaked with wisps of cirrus. Happy writing.
Have you got The Writer's Desk by Jill Krementz? It's basically this post and its comments, which i've loved reading. I'm so curious about writers' spaces and rituals! In the book, every entry has a lush photograph plus some description by the author of the writing space. One of my faves is Toni Morrison sitting in an armchair, wrapped in a dressing gown, writing in an ordinary spiral bound notebook. She says that she has to get up in the dark and watch the light come up - that's her ritual to enter the writing space. <3