This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
A handful of not-so-very-far-away years ago, my husband (then my boyfriend) and I were having an argument about our one-room apartment. My wobbly Ikea table that held my computer was in the bedroom; I hesitated to move it into the (much bigger) living room, even though the arrangement made more sense. I wanted my husband to have a nice living room, since it was one of the two rooms we had. I felt my writing desk with clutter it up.
But my husband has always been an incredible supporter of my writing, and even though it wouldn’t be pretty, he was convinced I would be more comfortable writing in the living room. And so one day he helped me move the whole set up – and he was right. It didn’t look great, but it was better. That might also have been the same year he popped the question. And you can bet I wasn’t going to hesitate to marry a man who was willing to let me move my office smack in the middle of his living room. He’s a keeper!
Flash forward. After we got married, we moved into a larger apartment. My book The Wishing Thread was under contract to come out in a year or so, and I felt like a wild, dazzling celebration when I bought myself a “writing chair” for my brand new office. It’s a chaise longue that lets me recline and write and relax – because for me, writing should feel like fun, not work, and be as comfortable as possible. That silly chair was nothing shy of a dream come true.Now we’ve bought a house. I’m blessed with an office on the first floor, and I use it all the time! But to tell that truth, the office is not actually where I do most of my writing. My office is (mostly) dedicated to the work that’s necessary to be a writer that isn’t actually writing. My happy place for day dreaming about stories and characters is our heated/cooled sunroom, where my aforementioned writing chair now sits.
In the summer I see green treetops and sunshine from the second floor windows of the sunroom while I’m writing. In the winter, after the leaves are gone, I look out to a beautiful icy lake that peeks through the brown trees. Quite an upgrade from the one desk I had crammed into our living room all those years ago!
My writing journey isn’t over – and as it goes on, it may be that my writing space will change again. But in the meantime, I’m enjoying every day (and every sentence, line, and paragraph) for all it’s worth.
The Night Garden by Lisa Van Allen is out now.