Embracing Creativity

Virginia Woolf told us that we needed a room of our own, and Hemingway showed that such a room could be a Paris Café.

I live on a small sailboat that roams between Maine and Florida each year with the changing seasons. While I do have my own bunk it’s not very conducive to creative work. Or work of any kind for that matter, it’s exceptionally small and is only “wall to wall bed”

Overall I am convinced that moving onto a sailboat puts me very close to most of Virginia Woolf’s recommendations. A place of my own, a bit of independence, and self determination. And while she was writing to women in a time when misogyny was even more rampant that it is today when women were denied such things as a matter of policy and law, the underlying assertions that such things are needed for creativity still hold today. And they hold for everyone.

As such I recommend moving onto a sailboat to most. Especially if you are solo.
I however am not solo. I live on this tiny little sailboat with my two boys. This of course is what brings me to Hemingway and the potential to be a café creative.

As we roam I’ve “collected” favorite cafes for getting work done up and down the coast. And the favorite places we end up being for longer periods have multiple cafe options.

It’s amazing how many problems a quiet cup of tea can solve. And it’s amazing how getting into a coffee house to sit down and let your world and your obligations and everything fall away, even for just a short time, can unlock the opportunity to get creative work done.

Day job creative work seems to move at 2X or 3X speed when I’m alone in the right cafe. And my own creative work tends to go from broken and stalled to getting in the zone and forgetting where I am.

Virginia Woolf was right. In order to be creative we need a room of our own. But that room doesn’t need to belong to just us. We can find that room at the public library, in a local café, or anywhere else we can get away from our life for just a little while.

Have you found your physical space yet? Are you lucky enough to have a private studio in your home or do you find your space somewhere else?