Places to Create

A writer needs a place to work. Somewhere safe, secure, and with adequate room to spread out. I’ve written in my share in public places: restaurants, coffee bars, grocery stores, and parks. These locations serve for a moment, but eventually we need to return to a home base. Since 1974, I found many of them, including my drill sergeant’s office at Fort Jackson, S.C., an apartment not far from the Mississippi River, in the lower level of the first place we lived after our wedding, and others. Five of them stand out.

Five main places I wrote, where I felt I had a writing space, are as follows: In my Bachelor Officer Quarters in Mainz, Germany; my apartment at Five Points in Davenport; my apartment on Market Street in Iowa City; in the garage behind our house when we lived in the Calumet; and finally a very long spell, maybe 30 years, in the room I built on the lower level of our home in Big Grove Township. All of them afforded reasonable quiet, and freedom to write what I wanted. I took advantage of the spaces as best I could.

After seeing the Pablo Picasso retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1980, I became enraptured by his artistic process. Before his 1973 death he was exceedingly successful. David Douglas Duncan’s 1980 book Viva Picasso: A Centennial Celebration 1881-1981 depicts Picasso as he created his work. From these photographs I took inspiration for my own studio stolen from small spaces where a busy family lived.

When I lived near the main railway station in Mainz, Germany, my apartment had two large desks which I pushed together to use as a writing place. My apartment was at the end of the hall in a building called the Bachelor Officers’ Quarters. As a corner room, it was fairly quiet. My schedule had me away from garrison for two to three weeks at a time so part of what I did there was spread out mail and make sure what needed addressing was. I received and wrote a lot of letters. I had a big map of the region pinned to the wall. Next to it was a large bulletin board, and then an American flag I used when we road marched with armored equipment on the German Autobahn. While I wasn’t there much, I felt like a writer when I was.

I left the Smith Corona portable typewriter Mother gave me to use at university in storage and bought a new Olympia portable typewriter in Mainz. I used a blue three-ring, loose leaf binder to keep my journal. The chair had a straight-back, dining room-style. Behind the desk was a bookshelf I made from planks set on wine bottles I had emptied out by drinking the contents. My source of news and information was a multi-function AM-FM radio that could also receive short wave signals. I was still trying to be a musician so I bought an inexpensive guitar at a local music store. In the early years I had no telephone or television. About year into my tour of duty I went to the German phone company and had a land line hooked up, not that anyone called me while I was there. This writing space was my escape from serving in the military.

The image above is my writing space at Five Points in Davenport. I wrote previously about this apartment where I pulled my life together after serving four years in the military. I was determined to be a writer. Note the oak desk. I purchased it when I arrived in Davenport after living in Germany. It followed me until the present day, although it is used mostly for storage and layout space today.

I recently described my apartment on Market Street in Iowa City here. It was a transitional space from youth into marriage, although I had no idea that’s what it was when I lived there. I did know I was a writer.

When we lived in Indiana, the house we bought did not have space for my writing. I moved to the garage. This was problematic when it was cold because there was no insulation. I bought a construction heater and had a local propane service deliver a bottle which I leaned up against an exterior fence. It was very noisy as it burned the fuel.

I’m reading my journals from Indiana and more than any other prior period, I produced writing that stands up to the years since then. I developed the idea that a creative person had to integrate all aspects of their life into one continuous band of creativity. My garage was an escape, yet it brought together my work life, my home life, and everything else I did in the Calumet. This was a significant change.

In a discussion with our child we came up with a name for the place, The Deaton Family Workshop. I did some of my creative work on the word processor we brought from Iowa, which was located inside the house between the dining area and the living room. Still, the garage was my main creative studio.

Finally, There is my current writing space. I use a chair I bought for a dollar at an auction, and a library table inherited from the father-in-law’s estate. I described building this place in a post called, A Place to Write. It has well-served the writing process.

Each place I wrote is important. The hard part was to envision that I am a writer. Working a career in transportation and logistics distracted me from that. Now, though, I can focus on the actual writing. In the main, given a space, that’s what my life has always been about.