Friday, August 03, 2007

A shed of one's own

Chris Routledge, whose shedworking lifestyle we posted about earlier this week has an excellent article on The Reader online concerning where writers write and naturally it includes plenty on sheds and shedlike atmospheres. Here he is on the early days after having built his shed:
"That first week, listening to the Lancashire rain pounding on the roof I made, and not coming in, I felt connected with something very old and very human. That feeling is also there in the process of writing itself. There is the construction, collecting materials and shaping them into something new, but there is also something more elemental: the need for shelter and to communicate are part of what we are. Perhaps for that reason writers have always been escape artists, constantly seeking a place where they can connect at a deep level with the world outside. For many that has meant running away to cabins in the woods, distant islands, and garden sheds."

Other writers namechecked include Cheever (not a shed man), Orwell, Chandler, Faulkner, Twain and of course Thoreau, the last two very much shedworkers. Well worth a browse.

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