Category Archives: Virginia Woolf

The Writer’s Place

It’s Saturday, May the eight… a cold day, which screams for a cozy corner.

Last week towards the end of the class (yes, I’m finally taking a creative writing class), we were given a subject to write about: “A suitable place for writers to work”, and here I am now, at one of my favorite cafés in the city, watching people moving slowly under the rain, and hearing the bearded, long haired guy who’s playing with his guitar strings on the other end… I’m convinced that this is the place that I’d like to be left alone, quiet and calm inside and ready to put my pen to this little piece of paper of mine; well, at least on the eighth day of the month.

Funnily enough, this morning just as I woke up in the coldness of my own room, my eyes got pinned to Virginia Woolf’s “A room of one’s own” essay… oh dear lord, this had been sitting there forever, all dusty and craving attention… I curiously picked it up and started leafing through the pages… in her essay, she says: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” and I thought to myself, today is a good day for me to start, not as a real writer, but as a woman who seeks a room warmer than hers to write her assignment journals; with or without money.

As much a cliché this may sound, I usually write, or would rather write, in a corner café where I can dream… where I’m surrounded with others and where it serves my caffeine addiction… my brain usually becomes more creative when I watch people of different races, talking in different wondrous languages… whether I understand or am left puzzled by the strangest words coming out from their mouths… in a place where I see the stunning artwork of an unknown artist hanging on the walls both behind and in front of me… and when the coffee stains on my notebook papers inspire me to fill the rest of the blank papers with the words of heart and imagination… with the past and with the present… with at times nonsense yet honest thoughts.

I am told there is no right… and there is no wrong… they’re all my true thoughts from deep inside.

S

“I have no time to describe my plans. I should say a good deal about The Hours, & my discovery; how I dig out beautiful caves behind my characters; I think that gives exactly what I want; humanity, humour, depth. The idea is that the caves shall connect, & each comes to daylight at the present moment.”

Virginia Woolf, in her diary, August 30, 1923