Years ago I stayed with a writer and his wife in Hamburg. I always remember the writer removing himself from the breakfast table as soon as he had eaten. Off he went, to cloister himself in his study and write. At the time, I found it mildly ridiculous or sad.
But recent events in my own life have encouraged me to revise my opinions about what it means to be a writer.
Over the summer in France, I wasn't getting as much written as I had imagined. What held me back? “Too many visitors” is part of the answer. These were friends I was glad to see, whom I had encouraged to visit either to do some writing themselves or to join us in enjoying house, garden, good food, walks and swims in the river. The trouble was we invited too many people. The result was nearly two months of uninterrupted social life and hardly any time or space for writing.
I should explain that the rooms our guests inhabit happen also to be our writing spaces. In effect, both of us were shut out of our studies for most of the summer. Not a great idea.
My husband, Jean, had felt the tension between visitors and space much sooner than I. He had been quietly expressing his concerns for some time, but for some reason I hadn't wanted to act on them until recently.
The absurdity of the situation started to reveal itself to me in August when I found myself googling “garden sheds” (or “abris de jardin”), in a slightly crazed attempt to solve the problem. Jean, meanwhile, had no option but to set himself up in the bedroom at a small table uncomfortably close to the hand basin.
By summer’s end, I was emailing friends back in the UK saying that I had spent more time in France changing bed linen than writing.
What had motivated me to create this situation?, I asked myself. What assumptions and values were lurking in the background? This is what I realised: all my adult life, I have believed that friends and conversations were paramount, more important in a way than work or the many other things that I “ought” to be doing at any given moment. Perhaps my desire to have people around ultimately went back to the house I grew up in. I was proud of having four interesting and different siblings, and my mother was an exceptionally relaxed and hospitable hostess. I remember many gatherings, discussions and laughter wherever she lived.
But nowadays I am struck more and more often by how short life is. I want to devote a good chunk of it to writing and publishing.
Last weekend, we happened to visit Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s home (Monk’s House) near Lewes in Sussex. Seeing the wooden writing hut in the garden with its sweeping views of the South Downs brought home to me how vital space is for writers. A room of one’s own, no less.
But recent events in my own life have encouraged me to revise my opinions about what it means to be a writer.
Over the summer in France, I wasn't getting as much written as I had imagined. What held me back? “Too many visitors” is part of the answer. These were friends I was glad to see, whom I had encouraged to visit either to do some writing themselves or to join us in enjoying house, garden, good food, walks and swims in the river. The trouble was we invited too many people. The result was nearly two months of uninterrupted social life and hardly any time or space for writing.
I should explain that the rooms our guests inhabit happen also to be our writing spaces. In effect, both of us were shut out of our studies for most of the summer. Not a great idea.
My husband, Jean, had felt the tension between visitors and space much sooner than I. He had been quietly expressing his concerns for some time, but for some reason I hadn't wanted to act on them until recently.
The absurdity of the situation started to reveal itself to me in August when I found myself googling “garden sheds” (or “abris de jardin”), in a slightly crazed attempt to solve the problem. Jean, meanwhile, had no option but to set himself up in the bedroom at a small table uncomfortably close to the hand basin.
By summer’s end, I was emailing friends back in the UK saying that I had spent more time in France changing bed linen than writing.
What had motivated me to create this situation?, I asked myself. What assumptions and values were lurking in the background? This is what I realised: all my adult life, I have believed that friends and conversations were paramount, more important in a way than work or the many other things that I “ought” to be doing at any given moment. Perhaps my desire to have people around ultimately went back to the house I grew up in. I was proud of having four interesting and different siblings, and my mother was an exceptionally relaxed and hospitable hostess. I remember many gatherings, discussions and laughter wherever she lived.
But nowadays I am struck more and more often by how short life is. I want to devote a good chunk of it to writing and publishing.
Last weekend, we happened to visit Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s home (Monk’s House) near Lewes in Sussex. Seeing the wooden writing hut in the garden with its sweeping views of the South Downs brought home to me how vital space is for writers. A room of one’s own, no less.
Above: writing hut at Monk's House.
Related reading
Website of Virginia Woolf’s house in Sussex: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/monks-house/
BBC item about George Bernard Shaw’s writing hut: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/158193.stm
Website of Virginia Woolf’s house in Sussex: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/monks-house/
BBC item about George Bernard Shaw’s writing hut: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/158193.stm