Writing Spaces: K.D. Miller

This week in Writing Spaces, we take a look at the working space of K.D. Miller, author of “The Death of Me” and Four Poems in Issue #147.

Though I have trouble wrapping my science-challenged head around this kind of thing, I would have to say that my writing space is four-dimensional. That is, it has as much to do with time as with place.

I write first thing in the morning in my west-facing sun room, which measures a little over 40 square feet. Before I touch pen to paper, I sit at one of my two desks, sipping coffee and watching the neighbourhood wake up. (I belong to the staring-out-the-window school of writers.) From fourteen flights up, I spy on dog-walkers, joggers, briefcase-clutchers rushing to the office (as I did for 35 years), construction workers donning hard hats and school kids shouldering backpacks almost as big as they are.

Yes, I did say two desks. The one facing the window is for writing by hand; the other, which hugs the north wall to my right, holds my laptop and printer. As the work demands, I scoot between the two on my office chair whose wheels just manage to miss the living room rug behind me. Besides the two desks, I’ve managed to fit three filing cabinets into my 40 square feet, plus three sets of shelves, two lamps and a storage trunk. I take some pride in this Russian-doll compactness. It’s a tangible reminder for me of what good writing does – namely, the most amount of work in the least amount of space on the page.

All the tools of my trade – paper, pens, dictionaries, stapler, 3-ring binders – are nested within arm’s reach on shelves or in drawers. Tokens and totems decorate the walls: framed covers of my published books; posters commemorating book tours and literary festivals; a silhouette of a raven perched on a Celtic cross; a woven basket holding dried fronds from last Palm Sunday; a tiny corner bracket, where a figurine of my favourite saint – Jude, patron of lost objects and hopeless causes – watches over me as I write.

When I was working, there were all kinds of practical reasons for adopting a morning writing practice. Now that I’m retired, I still head to my desk much earlier than I need to. It’s not about need any more. I’m not sure it ever was. The decision to write first thing in the morning was made for me decades ago when I read Mavis Gallant’s “The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street.” In that story, a young woman who grew up in a large family confesses that she always used to rise before dawn in order to have some privacy: “You get up early in the morning in the summer and it’s you, you, once in your life alone in the universe. You think you know everything that can happen. Nothing is ever like that again.”

We’re giving you a behind-the-scenes look into the writing process – straight from the desks (and decks, docks, beds, and favourite hiking trails) of our contributors! Check out the full series here.