So I’ve just started reading Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life
Since I’m new to this whole writing thing, I’m learning that she’s a pretty big deal in the writing world. Her name appears on almost every grad class I’m taking on how to teach writing, so I thought it was high time I actually read one of her books.
I’m only half way through, but she has already managed to convince me that I need a cabin. See, as she was writing, she found that the things around her distracted her from writing. So she bought a pre-built tool shed with no windows. She loaded it up with a desk and a light and a heater and shut herself in everyday. Forced herself into a writing solitude.
That’s what I need. A writing cell.
Far too often as I sit down to write I find myself doing everything but actually writing. Like the laundry. Petting the cat. Trimming my nails. Eating Swedish Fish. All things that desperately need to be done right that minute before I can possibly get any writing done.
Or, alternatively, I could actually just sit down and write.
I read once about a writer who actually buckled herself into her chair when she wrote. That would probably be a lot cheaper than a cabin, huh?
Danielle Bannister, Author 