A Room of One’s Own

I am grateful, therefore, for one last guest column from the author of Soulmates, Professor Kanchana Ugbabe. Her thoughts on writing spaces makes me think of my locked cubby in the university library, where, surrounded by books, I finally “gave birth” to my PhD dissertation. I also think of author Maya Angelou, who passed away […]

I am grateful, therefore, for one last guest column from the author of Soulmates, Professor Kanchana Ugbabe. Her thoughts on writing spaces makes me think of my locked cubby in the university library, where, surrounded by books, I finally “gave birth” to my PhD dissertation. I also think of author Maya Angelou, who passed away after Prof Ugbabe sent me this piece. Angelou told Oprah about her writing process: “I keep a hotel room in my town, although I have a large house. And I go there at about 5:30 in the morning, and I start working. And I don’t allow anybody to come in that room. I work on yellow pads and with ballpoint pens. I keep a Bible, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a bottle of sherry. I stay there until midday. About once a month, the management slips a note under my door and they ask, ‘Please, Dr. Angelou, may we change the sheets? We know they must be moldy.’ But I’ve never slept there. I just go in and sit down and work.”
Although the last few columns have been far from Boko Haram, my prayers are with those who have lost loved ones, with the people of Gombe and Gwoza who have lost emirs to illness and terrorism, and with those over two-hundred girls and their families who continue to be terrorized by their captors. – Carmen

Is it a luxury or a necessity for a woman writer to have a room of her own in order to write? In her book A Room of One’s Own (1929), Virginia Woolf declares it a necessity, along with some money in the bank. What is it about space and money that releases and fosters creativity? The British woman writer of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (long before Virginia Woolf), often wrote her journal and the occasional novel amidst the hustle and bustle of the drawing room or in her bedroom. Jane Austen’s novels came to be called ‘drawing room fiction’, mostly because the focus of the novels is the conversation, incidents, and domesticity of the drawing room. Sometimes the woman writer sat in the garden or in the woods to write. The very nature of creativity demands retreating into a private world even if a personal space may not always be available. Emily Dickinson, the American poet is called the ‘reclusive’ writer. Further, women tend to be self conscious about writing – the poem, short story or parts of the novel have to be written in absolute privacy before it is released to the world. Among the first generation Nigerian novelists, Buchi Emecheta is an interesting case in point. Emecheta wrote her novels in the kitchen with five children playing about and crawling all over the place. When the novel was finished she gave her husband the manuscript to read. His opinion of her as a writer was so poor that he burnt the manuscript in the fireplace! Rather than being discouraged, Emecheta was ablaze with the determination to succeed as a writer. She went on to re-write the novel, In the Ditch and wrote another ten novels besides!
Money in the bank signifies security and lack of worry about day-to-day living. This should contribute positively to a conducive environment in which to write. But Emecheta was desperately poor and separated from her husband. Added to that she lived in a sub-standard housing estate in London, and moved from one Council house to another with her children. It was the hardship that gave her the impetus to write. Like Knut Hamsun who wrote the brilliant novel Hunger. It couldn’t possibly have been written by a man who had had a meal of steak and potatoes and had money in the bank! Phillis Wheatley, the African-American poet owned very little. In fact she didn’t even own herself because she was a slave! Is it possible that a well furnished room and a substantial bank account can bring on the writers’ block rather?
There are special places where great books are born. Alice Walker needed a complete change of environment to hear the voices of her ancestors. She travelled from coast to coast, rented a small house in California and settled down to write The Color Purple. The book ‘really blossomed in the space that I made for it’ says Walker. Her characters took shape, jostled for attention, spoke, wept, laughed and became her companions throughout her stay in the one-bedroom place. The novel was finished within a year.
A writer’s room is often a refuge from the rest of the household. Famous authors have sought nooks and crannies, shacks, sheds, log cabins, and caravans in which to write. Some need large tables to work at, an open window to look out of, others need to be surrounded by family pictures, mementos, and other evidence of love. Milton, we are told wrote most of Paradise Lost in bed. Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote his great novels in a closed room enveloped in cigarette smoke. Alice Munro the Canadian, Nobel Prize winning novelist has a small table in the dining room with a manual typewriter on it. This is where she works. Her dining room is lined floor to ceiling with books. Antonia Fraser who wrote The Weaker Vessel admits that her work space is ‘rather untidy’ but goes on to say that ‘that gives me a sense of security. I want my mind to be the only orderly thing in the room.’ J K Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books writes regularly at the Elephant House Café in Edinburgh. Many women writers structure their writing-schedules around children and family. Toni Morrison saw the value of writing at 5 am before the children woke up and demanded her attention. She made herself coffee while still dark and drank it slowly as the light filtered in through the window. It was a ritual of preparation that enabled her to gather her thoughts. She also encouraged her students in the Creative Writing class to think about the writing space. ‘What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity? What do I need in order to release my imagination?’ In the writer’s space, the woman creates a persona, she leaves behind the mother, daughter, wife, and becomes the ‘writer’, a disembodied spirit that soars into the realm of the imagination.
Palestinian women like Suad Amiri and Sahar Khalifa write from a sense of displacement and alienation. Afghan and Pakistani women write to have their voices heard. Indian women like Shashi Deshpande write about the subtle oppressions, the lack of communication, and the stifling obligations of domesticity. Some women writers use pseudonyms to hide their identity and gain acceptance. Writers find inspiration at all hours of the day and night. Maria Ajima (Nigeria) is visited by the Muse at night. The day dispels her thoughts.
Night is the time for me
When the mind unfolds
Giving out thoughts of unthoughts
Daytime closes a chapter on them
Night
Time of the muse.   (Cycles, 1996)
What does a woman writer need today? An iPad, a laptop, an iPhone, perhaps? I travel the world on my iPad visiting tourist destinations in Peru, Chile and Iceland. A room with a view is a definite plus with a steaming cup of coffee on hand. An internet modem helps me connect with other women writers. These are days of networking, so it is useful to know how the sisters are faring with their careers, children, and writing. A book-filled room inspires me, personally, to write. Seeing what others have accomplished makes the creative juices flow. My writing room has floor to ceiling bookshelves. There are books stacked on the table and even on the floor. Surrounded by books I get the feeling I am contributing to a massive heritage, a literary tradition in the T S Eliot sense of the term. More importantly, my husband is the first person to read everything I write. His approval/rating gives me the confidence to go ahead. There are places where great books are birthed.