I got a new chair for my office just yesterday. I put it together last night (might still have a few screws loose, you decide if I’m talking about me or the chair), and today is my first full day of sitting in my new, giant, posh, comfy chair.
I’ve been following some tweets this week about how some people out there think that it’s a pretentious thing for a writer to have a dedicated space, desk, or room in which they ply their trade.
I’m glad the secret is out. It’s about time the world at large found out that the writers of the world, all of us, by unanimous vote (we can say it was unanimous because we offed the naysayers….shh), long ago decided that we were going to carve out our own little spaces in which to write, create, and expand the world of the written word.
I think that’s enough people for a conspiracy.
And while the #writingroom hashtag continues to grow on Twitter, one has to wonder where the pretentiousness of writers will stop.
Today we demand our own spaces to freely write, beyond the corner table at Starbucks. The audacity! Tomorrow, who knows?
But all of the arguments and outrageous hyperbole of the above line of thought has already been dealt with elsewhere on the internet. No, I’m not going to link it for you. If you want to know, go find out on your own. I’m not going to repeat another author’s work just you, either.
We have a special word for that in the writing community: Donemessedinanotherauthorsstew
Or is it plagiarism?
It’s one of those two. The point is, I won’t do it.
So what will I do?
I’m going to ask the tough question. The one I have yet to see anyone else ask, let alone even attempt to answer.
Are you ready for it?
I’m not even sure I should say it.
Okay, here goes….
Have you done anything to help the authors you know personally, who don’t have a pretentious writing room, get one?
Even better, have you done anything to help a writer keep their pretentious writing room?
Imagine for me, if you would, a doctor without a border.
Imagine for me, if you would, a teacher without the oppressive and unnecessary weight of administrators (from principals all the way to politicians, the lot of them….also, you want to talk about pretentious, have you spoken to a school administrator recently?).
Imagine for me, if you would, a rescued animal that has been released into the wild to hunt and survive and thrive as nature intended.
Writers need all of those things. Writers need the total freedom of being locked in a (usually) dim room, surrounded by walls and a ceiling, providing limited contact with the outside world.
You see, to a writer, total freedom can only be achieved by trapping them in a room. Maybe they want to be there. Maybe they don’t. But either way, outside the room, all writers are prisoners of “the freedom to move about the world.”
Save a writer today.
Trap them in rooms outfitted specifically for the purposes of writing their books.
Don’t let them out.
To do so would be cruel.
Are you cruel?
No, I didn’t think so.
D.G.
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