A room of one's own

A room with a view.

My view is the forest of fir trees, the field, and the mountains across the Gorge.

And my room will look out on them.

Last weekend I bought three more books for my shelves that will be in my room. On one wall, above one arm of my L-shaped corner desk, there will be desk-to-ceiling shelves. On those shelves will be my books. When I look up from writing - or reading - or thinking - or just sitting - I will look up at a place where all my most dear pages and covers will be. Fiction and non-fiction, and only the favorites. The ones that tell me who I am. Those books will be on that wall, in the triangle between the window and the sloping ceiling of the roof, above the surface of the desk. On the bottom shelf, closest to hand, will be the books that speak to craft. Books like Making a Literary Life, and Madeleine L'Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life.

One of the books on those shelves will be How To Write, by Richard Rhodes. (Did I buy it because there is a typewriter on the cover?)

Writing is work, hard work, and its rewards are personal more than financial, which means most people have to do it after hours. But if writing is work, learning to write isn't necessarily painful. To the contrary, silence is pain that writing relieves. Our uniqueness isolates us. Writing, we make our way out of isolation onto the commons that we share.