Insights into writers and their personal lives are only interesting when truly tied to their work and inner craft. From writing routines to dedicated writing spaces, these writers all differed in what they needed to carry out their work and create enduring classics.
Roald Dahl
Many young readers are first introduced to writers and the importance of their writing space through Roald Dahl. His famous writing environment showcased the magic of simplicity. The Parker Knoll chair proved that to write, one must simply have somewhere to rest pen and paper.
The emblematic chair can be found in the Roald Dahl Museum, in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, England. His sanctuary is now a popular attraction at the museum, which was founded by his widow, Liccy Dahl.
Jane Austen
Much like Dahl’s writing ‘desk’, Austen’s limited space reflects a certain austerity in her writing environment. A small writing table and a chair. That was all one of the greatest writers in literary history needed to produce classics. Free of distraction, the upper-middle-class writer who was left with financial uncertainty focused on the craft without detailed splendour. Her mind, and her ability to express it, calls into question the need for unnecessary supplies.
Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway’s writing space took up an entire floor above the space he simply lived in to avoid disruptions. His work alternated between Key West and Finca Vigía, Cuba, and between standing and sitting at his desk. Both places were designed to avoid distractions and to allow his thoughts to flow from one place to another. Both homes held a dedicated space for his craft and included influence and inspiration from his travels and work.
Jonathan Franzen
Unlike Hemingway, Franzen got rid of any distractions. With a bare wall which he faced while writing, and a computer unplugged from the external world, Franzen worked in tranquillity and solitude. A lack of frames, pens and ornaments around his desk, a lack of internet and little evidence of a household make for a fascinating set-up.
Virginia Woolf
Woolf turned a garden shed into a writing oasis. Cluttered with paper and ink, Woolf used wooden planks to lay out her supplies. The woman behind A Room of One’s Own, and the idea of financial independence and privacy as leading factors in whether one can write, is the reason behind this series. Freedom sat at the core of one’s ability to follow the craft, and her writing space represented that freedom.
Toni Morrison
Morrison dedicated a corner of her room to her work, yet often wrote at her kitchen table. However, she prioritised the routine behind writing over the space in which it was carried out. Waking at dawn and writing in the early mornings prepared her for hours ahead at her small desk, surrounded by proof of her craft: books, candles and stacks of paper.
Agatha Christie
Christie’s space was determined by the will to write. It was never a fixed environment, and she could write on the go. In hotels, she would write sitting on the bed. When travelling, she could write on trains and draft her early work on notepads wherever the idea found her. It wasn’t until 1934 that she wrote in a dedicated writing space at Winterbrook House in Wallingford. Nothing stood between her and the paper on which she would note down thrilling mysteries, and silence was never a condition of her work.
Henry Miller
Similarly to Agatha Christie, Miller wrote anywhere he could as long as he had a simple desk, his dictionary and notes pinned up for structure. Miller worked from cheap hotel rooms in Paris to his settled home in California and merely needed a routine he could settle into. The environment was never the priority, as long as he had the tools and time in the early mornings to occupy himself.
James Baldwin
Baldwin wrote his first works at his desk in a study he deemed a “torture chamber.” The fragility of temporary spaces left much to be desired when it came to continuity and routine. It wasn’t until he moved to La Maison Baldwin that he dedicated a room to his writing. His new office became, in contrast, the welcome table, an established environment he could return to every night when he was most inspired.
Stephen King
I was pleased to know that one of the greats wrote while sitting at a children’s desk. If you’ve read my work before, you’ll know that I accidentally purchased the wrong desk online and was hopeful it would grow in size once I had finished building it. It didn’t. Rather than valuing the size or quality of his environment, King put the spotlight on isolation. Anything that would interfere with his focus became the factor worth tackling. Like many writers on this list, a place to fit his writing supplies sufficed, even when writing in a laundry room. Silence took over as the best writing environment. Seven years later, he spread his work across a spacious studio, pictured above.
Isabel Allende
Allende’s value of structure and time is what makes her writing space truly fascinating. Allende begins each new book on January 8 and retreats into her office for between 10 and 12 hours in order to connect with her characters, plot and structure. Right before the date arrives, Allende works on clearing her space and ridding it of any lingering pieces from her previous novel. A rebirth takes place at the beginning of the year, and she settles in for what appears to be a marathon she rightfully prepares for in advance. Her discipline and rigour make for a writer who has many novels left in her. I will be looking at this date differently from now on.
George Bernard Shaw
Shaw designed the perfect environment by placing his garden shed, named London, on a turntable. He was able to rotate it to follow the light and could write across all hours of the day. Being removed from daily chores and noise mattered more than the space he actually utilised for writing. His small desk, tucked into the corner of his “office”, allowed for comfort and convenience.
Anne Sexton
Sexton’s ability to hoard books spilled onto her writing space. Her cluttered desk and poignant details took over as she sat with her feet up when working. The freedom to write was apparent in every detail, and her own comfort wasn’t an exception. The only other furniture, besides the bookshelves and desk, was a sofa where her daughter, Linda Gray Sexton, would sit and listen to her mother’s drafts.
What these writers reveal is that there is no universal formula at all. The conditions that each one constructs are what allow them to enter their work and be welcomed into their craft.
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