Darn you, Carrie Bradshaw!

So today is Blog Me MAYbe's "May I tell you something about writing?" day, and you know what?

I blame Sex and the City.

Not Carrie's brownstone, but aren't they amazing?
Image courtesy of Robert Linder, rgbstock.com

For many years, mostly because of the show's ever-so-talented (yet fictional) Carrie Bradshaw, I had the romantic notion that being a writer would mean I'd sit in my cute brownstone apartment in New York City every day, typing away on my laptop while gazing out the window at the lovely and inspiring views.

The reality? Yeah, it's not so much like that.

Every morning, I stumble across a floor littered with toys, making my way to a tiny table wedged into the corner of my only slightly bigger office/guest room. There I type away at an oldish eMachine that takes forever to warm up, and if I turn my head to the left, I'm treated not to a lovely and inspiring view of the City but am instead privileged to gaze upon my neighbor's junk pile, and beyond that, the picturesque side of her house.

Carrie, I have a feeling we're not in the City anymore.

Writers can write anywhere, of course, but I've always craved my own writing space, a place that belongs only to me. And who knows? I may well get one someday, but in the meantime, I enjoy learning about where other writers work. What are their writing spaces like? Do they like to sit at desks cluttered with knickknacks and family pictures, or do they work best with clear desks and minimal distractions? Maybe they enjoy writing in libraries or cafés--or perhaps they prefer to write while sitting in bed, their notes spread out around them on the bedspread and a cup of tea waiting on a nearby table.

Last summer I read a book that described just these things: The Writer's Desk by Jill Krementz. In her book, Krementz, the wife of the late Kurt Vonnegut, showcases photographs of fifty-six authors in their writing spaces, among them Stephen King, John Irving, and Joyce Carol Oates. And I learned that while some of them do indeed write in spaces comparable to Carrie Bradshaw's, others, like Toni Morrison, who prefers to write while sitting on her living room sofa, don't have dedicated writing spaces at all. (I posted a brief review of this book here.)

If you're interested in seeing where writers do their work, check out this site. A Twitter friend directed me to it about a year ago, and I spent half the day marveling at the pictures. (Fair warning if you decide to click the link: you may not get anything else done!)


So tell me, what's your writing space like?