Writing in an Office Makes Me Feel Like a Grownup

When it comes to writing, space matters

I wrote my entire dissertation at a small brown IKEA desk facing a small window in the upstairs master bedroom of our Cape Cod style house. I had two bookshelves filled with books I owned and books borrowed from the university library.

In the morning, after the kids were out of the house, I would take a cup of coffee upstairs to the bedroom and start writing. I only had enough room for one book to sit beside my laptop on the desk. I’d pile books in my lap. I’d finagle them in various directions to hold them open while I tried to type that quote that evidenced that really important point I was trying to make. And I would do all of this barefoot and in my pajamas until noon.

I graduated and got a job at another university. Now, I have an office. A real life office. With windows. And a big desk. And this view:

I had a pigeon visit me.

And my writing has changed. My dissertation was intimate. It was my one big project.

It was my alpha and omega.

Now, though, in this office with its view and its pigeon, the projects are multiple. There’s the book, the article, this post, that other article.

In this grownup space my writing has grown up. It’s work now. Or, put better, it is labor. I used to write a dissertation for a degree. Now I write as labor for money.

Now it’s my job.