Monday, January 14, 2008

Writers' Caves

Pandababy reminded me about Writer's Caves and the disorientation writers can experience when they are forced out of their cosy caves. Caves are not meant to be subject to restructuring. They should be sacred, permanent, immutable as granite. A place to invite the muse into and give her a cup of hot milk with honey (or red wine, if she'd rather imbibe. Evoi! Let's party.)

Like Virginia Wolf, a woman needs a room of her own to be creative. Heavy sigh. My cave is more of a nook in the corner of the living room than a fully excavated cave. It's a nice nook with a really funky feminine desk that reminds me of a waterfall because it's got three levels for the information to flow down, but my nook is a bit too accessable for intimate conversations with the muse. It does have a dark blue Indian cotton rug, cds, books, dark red filing cabinets, a stone carving of an owl a rainbow pyramid, pretty glass bottles, a crystal ball come paperweight that is too beautiful to use, and a rusty old hammer head I dug out of the garden that makes a funtional, mysterious history laden paper weight.

Anyway - Paige Cuccaro (http://www.paigecuccaro.com/html/the_cave.html) has some awesome pictures of writer's caves, including Kim Harrison, Laurell K Hamilton, Kelly Armstrong and Janet Evanovich.


What's your cave like?

2 comments:

Pandababy said...

Your cave sounds colorful, comfy and and cozy - albeit too accessible for a private conversation with the Muse. When I last had to share my creative cave space, I tried a suggestion - I think from NaNoWriMo - and asked that when I wore a hat at my desk, it meant I was working and please not to interrupt me. It worked very well for a few months, and then we got out of the habit. Now that I'm back to a shared cave again, I'm going to have to institute the 'hat policy' again - either that, or I'll get depressed from being angry at not having my own space. Do whatever you have to do to be able to lure your Muse in for time together - you deserve to have the space to write.

Marina said...

I have more of a highway than a cave, with a computer set up on a card table in the family room. Not exactly private nor, thankfully, permanent, but certainly a step upt from stealing time on my husband's computer whenever he wasn't using it, so I'm not complaining.