Everybody Needs a Little Space

In February 2018, Elon Musk launched a Falcon Heavy rocket into space and delivered a Tesla Roadster into orbit, complete with a mannequin sitting behind the wheel dressed in a SpaceX pressure suit. With David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” blaring from the car’s sound system, the dummy—named “Starman”—is making his third trip around the Sun at 75,000 mph.

Last week, Jeff Bezos launched himself and three other passengers into space on his giant Blue Organ—er, wait, no, that’s not right, *checks notes*—Blue Origins rocket. The flight lasted ten minutes, and everyone got to take off their seat belts and float around weightless for three minutes before parachuting back down into the desert.

I’m not a bazillionaire, so I don’t get my own rocket or trip above the Earth or orbit around the solar system. But I think everyone could do with a little space of their own. In our previous house, I had a giant space of my own—a writing office I built downstairs in the basement. Carpeted floors, bookshelves, a glass desk with colored LED lighting, sci-fi pictures hanging on the walls. It was awesome. Until our basement flooded. Three times.

We sold that house seven years ago and moved, and I lost my creative space. I made do with whatever patch of table or floor or couch I could grab. I borrowed space at the library or Panera or the park if the weather was nice enough outside. It was okay. It worked. I mean, I made do. But I still felt a little lost, like I was the one floating around weightless, not really attached to anything solid.

After seven years I’m proud to announce I finally have my own space again. It’s a shared creative space; my wife and I split the spare bedroom down the middle, with me and my writing stuff on one side and her and her drawing and sewing stuff on the other. It’s a temporary permanent space. My long-term plan involves building a studio above the garage to house the motherlode of all writing spaces, a writing suite that will put my basement office to shame.

Meanwhile, back down here on planet Earth, I’m happy with the space I have for now. It’s cozy. It has everything I need. It’s quietly tucked away from all the hubbub and goings-on inside the house. It has soft lighting that’s easy on the eyes. It works. It will do. Everyone—especially every writer or other creative person—needs such a space. Here are five reasons why:

Distractions Gonna Distract

Ever sit down at the kitchen table to work on <insert favorite hobby here>, start getting into it, and someone walks by and strikes up a conversation? Or maybe they spot you from the living room and ask you to come help with something. (You know, since you’re not busy doing anything important right now?) Or there’s a knock on the door. Or the refrigerator calls to you. Or any number of niggling little things.

Yeah. That’s why you need your own space away from the middle of the house. Preferably tucked away in a corner somewhere. Maybe even in a closet or, even better, the basement or garage. Someplace that doesn’t normally get a lot of traffic. Someplace you can hide. Not just for the sake of getting away and hiding though…no, no NO! After all, you are actually supposed to be getting something done in there.

But you need a place you can get away, if not to get anything productive done, then just to escape the craziness of the world sometimes. But since you’re gonna be in there anyway, you really ought to get something productive done. Just saying. Stop giving me that look.

The Clockses are Tricksy, Precious

Listen, your family is more important than whatever it is you’re trying to get done. If you think otherwise, then you, like Hermione Granger, need to sort out your priorities. However, the members of your family have been gracious enough to give you this time and space to work on the things you feel are important to you. Don’t squander the time you have. Those minutes are vicious nasty little thieveses, and they’ll get away from you if you don’t throw an elvish rope around their necks and drag them through the dust and rocks.

Realize that once you start getting deep into whatever it is you came inside to do, it’ll feel like ten minutes when, really, an hour just slipped by. It goes fast (I said it was tricksy, and so did Einstein, although he might have used the word ‘relative’), so use it wisely. Make the most of it, is what I’m saying. Don’t hop on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. Don’t play video games (unless that’s what you came in here to do—hey, I’m not judging.) Having your own space can help keep you focused. Just be aware you have to come out of there eventually, so try not to screw around.

If You Build It, They Will Come

That’s a horrible header, I know, and I apologize. But it’s also 100% correct. Listen, beds are for sleeping (and *stuff*), the kitchen is for eating, the living room is likely where you watch tv and play games, the basement is for burying bodies—unless you’re Hannibal Lecter, in which case the kitchen is likely the place for disposing of bodies. But I digress…

Your personal writing space is for, well, writing. Listen, I’ve tried writing in bed before. Know what happens? I end up falling asleep (or doing *stuff*). I’ve also tried writing in the living room. Guess what happened? People came in a made themselves comfy and flipped on the television. I’ve written in the basement before. Same thing. Lots of moaning and chains rattling and general disquiet from the people I thought I had taken care of down there. It’s all fine…it’s FINE! Please don’t call the police on me.

Your brain and your body will get accustomed to being in your writing space and, before you know it, you’ll automatically switch into writing mode (or drawing mode, or sewing mode, or reading mode, or model-building mode, or knife-sharpening mode…whatever) as soon as you sit in your space, just as surely as your eyes go sleepy-time when your head hits the pillow, or your belly gets all rumbly when you smell Hannibal scrambling eggs in the kitchen. (Those are eggs, right?)

Efficiency is Proficiency

Sometimes I open up my toolbox because I need a Philips screwdriver or a hex key or an ice pick or an egg spatula, and guess what? It’s not there! Those dirty rotten basement gremlins have once again raided my stuff and hidden the exact thing I needed. Or I left it out in the lawn again. Probably the gremlins though. For sure the gremlins.

Point is, when you have all the stuff you need right there within easy reach, the job goes much faster and—BONUS—you don’t slice your palm open trying to loosen that bolt with a butter knife. And—DOUBLE BONUS—you can use the blood from your palm as a sacrificial offering to the gremlins to get some of your stuff back.

Sidenote: one sacrifice is never enough to get ALL your stuff back.

Reminder to self: add more band aids and Neosporin to the grocery list.

Get all your reference books, your highlighters, your red pens, your notepads, your sticky notes, your index cards, your incense burners, your snacks…ALL. THE. STUFF. Keep it together in one place in your writing space, and you won’t waste time hunting all over the house or making a run to the store or wrestling a gremlin to get something you need in that critical moment.

Here’s Your Sign…

Having a dedicated writing or other creative space is a sign. No, not a sign from God—That’s holy water, Steve, not a drinking fountain. Back away. Back AWAY!

It’s a sign nonetheless to you, to your family, to your friends, to your neighbors, to anyone really who comes into your home and walks past that most hallowed of spaces. You can point to it, show them, say, “Look! See here! This is my sacred ground. My Angkor Wat. My Sistine Chapel. My sanctum sanctorum.”

Okay maybe that’s getting a little carried away.

But this is a space you can call your own, and it is special, if not sacred. It’s a place you can go and escape and just…be. It’s the welcome sign you posted to the land of your creativeness. It’s a sign that says you own this, you have real estate here, you’re invested. This is your piece of wonder and imagination and anything else you want to call it or any other way you want to define it. It’s just for you. No trespassers. Violators will be shot and buried in the basement, their soft parts scrambled on the stove and fed to the gremlins.

Show your space off, but also put up fencing and security gates and razor wire and alarms because this space is just for you. Protect it. Mark your boundaries. No, Steve, STOP! Not like that!

So if you don’t have a space, get a space. Make a space. Make it yours. And if you want to drive a Tesla through it or a giant Blue Organ, hey, whatever works for you.

Do you have a creative space? Tell me about it in the comments below. What makes it special for you?