A Room of My Own

As if I had not borrowed enough from Virginia Woolf, now the title of this blog and the title of this post are both hers. Wish I had a husband like Mr. Woolf, who opened his own small press to publish his wife’s books. But anyway, I have a different husband, as previous post indicates. And yet he did take time yesterday to put together my new desk. The desk to the left is 35 years old, not a great desk anymore for many boring reasons.

I use my desk all the time. I check papers at my desk. I enter grades into my little book. I write novels and blog posts and tweets at my desk. It is an important part of my writing room, maybe the most important, although I really love my bookshelves. Also my credenza. I know it looks like an antique hope chest, and at one time it was. Now it holds files.

Al has not started a small press in my honor (I did that myself) but yesterday he put together my new writing table. It is not called a desk and does not much resemble one. It will still function perfectly, as the old desk file drawer had been broken for several years.

Writers need a room where they can chat on Facebook while pretending to ponder profound themes for their novel-in-progress. Virginian Woolf, bless her heart, said every woman should have a sum of money and a room of her own, writer or not. She wrote the famous essay in reaction to not being allowed into the library at Oxford.

I really went to work on my room, cleaning my books, hauling up another bookshelf from the basement, rearranging pictures. taking the old desk, piece by piece from the room. I will spare you the image of my foyer now. Let’s just say it’s a big mess. I’m leaving it like that as proof for  hardworking Al (Yes! He is at the plant, putting in overtime, even on Sunday!) that I too worked hard today. So while the room right next to it is a disaster zone, my writing room, with its new writing table, is sitting pretty.