A Writer's Kitchen

Every great cook I know values the utensils and space in which they practice their craft. The same applies to writers and illustrators. Though it’s true that inspiration and the act of creating can take place anywhere – sometimes in the most unlikely places – having a regular space in which to work, for me, has always provided a sanctuary from the greater world.

Currently, I work in an 8 X 12 foot “writer’s shack” that I built on our acreage in the forested hills west of Olympia, Washington. The largest window, in front of my desk, faces south and allows in sunlight, a precious commodity in these days approaching winter solstice. I look out upon Rock Candy Mountain (so named though I don’t believe Wallace Stegner ever hung out around these parts) and watch the weather whenever I’m waiting for the next scene to percolate from my subconscious.

At our last house, I converted an old “pig barn” into my shack. It was a little smaller than my current writing area, but that was no matter. Instead of being in the woods, where my visitors include deer and an occasional owl sighting, the old shack faced a duck pond and a field that we left natural to encourage visitation from critters. Whether it was a family of quails ambling past, a pheasant showing off for his mate, a hawk dive-bombing a snake, or a coyote trying to sneak up on the neighbor’s chickens, there always seemed to be something happening outside my window, even if it was just the moon rising from behind the trees beyond the field. It was a peaceful place except in springtime when frogs inundated the pond, filling the air with their throaty voices, all talking at once. Of course I didn’t begrudge their presence – after all, it was their pond, too, and really they were just another source of inspiration.

Naturally I would write even without a shack. I’ve done it before. Spare rooms in apartments, at the kitchen table, in a boat – anywhere will suffice, when the work beckons. One of my fondest memories remains the summer, twenty years ago, when as a financially-strapped college graduate I had a garage sale (“Everything must go, even my books – well, most of them”) and then used the proceeds to spend two months living on a small 18-foot sailboat in the San Juan Islands, eating lots of hot dogs and Top Ramen while tap-tap-tapping out my stories on an old manual typewriter. It was a cramped and sometimes undulating space, subject to the vagaries of tide and weather, but it was my “kitchen” and I loved it.