Building Out a Writer's Space
Because "lacking a creative vibe" is starting to sound like a cop-out.
Growing up, I had my own bedroom, and my parents were gracious enough to give me a lot of creative freedom with my bedroom. For a long time it was painted very bright pink, because that was my favorite color. Then in my wild teenage years we changed it to lime green. I spent hours jamming to ZoeGirl on my boombox while I composed scrapbook pages of pictures, stickers, and quotes to hang on the walls, doors, and every angle of my vanity mirror.
Years later, in preparing to move out, she would douse that mirror in windex in a mad attempt to rid it of sticker residue, only to fail.
My favorite place, however, was my closet. It was a large walk-in, long enough for me to lie down comfortably on the floor. It was here that I spent my hours of dramatic phone conversation. It was here that I rehearsed vocal solos for competitions and determined melodies to the lyrics I penned. And it was here that I filled composition notebooks front to back with poetry, essays, journal entries, and revisions of the same stories again and again. I learned to become comfortable with writing and rewriting as I figured out where I wanted my story to go, who I wanted my characters to become, and how each plot point helped them get there.
I still have most of those notebooks, and I’m slightly embarrassed by the rollercoaster of teenage emotions that guided those stories; but I’m also really proud of the girl that dedicated so much of her time and being to writing them down.
Over the last six months I have pursued that girl- I want to be her again. I want to be comfortable with messy rough drafts and over-writing the simplest plot developments because I just don’t know what they are yet. I want the notebooks filled with poetry, essays, and silly stories, even if they amount to nothing except a drawer stuffed with full notebooks.
Do you know what I’ve allowed to get in my way, though? Space.
When I started my Substack I made a goal in my head that with my first paid subscriber I’d come to the coffee shop an extra day each week to write. Months later, I don’t have any paid subscribers, and I’ve allowed this to be the reason I don’t write more often. Oh, well, when that paid subscriber finally comes along, I’ll be a real writer who spends multiple mornings a week at the coffee shop writing.
What a cop-out! I’m calling myself on it. As I reminisced on my childhood bedroom (prompted by The Artist’s Way), I realized that in my own home now, I have a walk-in closet that is just mine. No, it’s not as big as the one from my childhood, but it could serve the same purpose.
This is not a finished thought. Rather, it is me informing you, dear reader, that it is my intention to make my closet my space again. The limitations of a small space will actually work to my advantage, pulling the problem-solving brainstorm into my mind and releasing creativity.
I’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, I welcome suggestions and ideas. How have you made your own creative space?
Chat next week (or sooner…),
Robin