In my travels over the years, I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to visit the homes of writers and see their creative spaces. I’ve taken pictures of writing desks and tables belonging to C. S. Lewis, Jane Austen, William Cowper, the Bronte sisters, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Charles Dickens, to name a few. Not all of these writing spaces are as impressive as you might imagine, judging from the works that took shape there. Jane Austen crafted her novels at a tiny little table that looks as if it would barely hold one manuscript page and a cup of tea. Some of these writers wrote in sun-filled spaces by a window. Others wrote in dim inner rooms with no view other than their bookshelves and their four walls. C. S. Lewis wrote in an upstairs bedroom at the Kilns, with a staircase leading to the ground off one side so he could go out and stroll through the woods without rousing the rest of the household. It’s easy to imagine how his walks through that forest sparked his imagination and helped him populate the land of Narnia with such memorable, magical characters.
One thing I’ve learned from observing writers’ creative spaces is that it doesn’t take luxurious comfort and beautiful vistas to write a good story or poem. It’s more about imagination, effort, dedication, and perseverance than about the place where creativity happens. If all those writers hadn’t faithfully gone to those desks and tables to struggle through another couple of pages, we wouldn’t have some of our favorite books and hymns today. So maybe finding a space to create is more about something that happens in the mind and heart. Maybe it’s more about daily prayer and persistence, about a determination to use your God-given gifts, than about an ideally-appointed, spacious writing desk with a window on a mountain vista. Maybe it’s about faith and joy in a calling, and about a persistent hope that never stops pursuing it.