My first dedicated writing space was a closet in the entrance way of the apartment I lived in with my husband and toddler daughter. This was the mid-eighties. The interior was just large enough to hold my typewriter ( yes, typewriter!) on top of a cardboard box and for me to sit on the floor in front of it. It was small, but it was mine, and when done writing for the day, I could close the door and keep all my messiness hidden away. Received my very first rejection letter via that closet.
A few years later, we moved into a condo, and unlike the apartment, there were three bedrooms instead of two, so I claimed one. Just as I settled in, we adopted a five-year-old little boy. My writing room became his bedroom, and I moved into our unfinished basement—under the stairs next to the water heater. I live in Michigan, and winters underground made me layer up to stay warm, but I became a published author while shivering down there. In February of 1995, PEOPLE MAGAZINE came to call. In the article, there’s a picture of me sorting pages on the basement stairs, and in the background, my son’s kiddie basketball hoop and the washer and dryer.
When we moved out of the condo and into our first real home, there was a very large room in the finished basement that I turned into my office. It had heat, eliminating the need to dress like Nanook of the North, a closet inside to store all my stuff, and plenty of room to hold the three bookcases of history books and all the other things I’d accumulated over the years. I was one happy writing woman.
As I write this, I’m in the same home, but have the place all to myself. Hubby is playing golf and tennis in heaven. The kids are grown and living their own lives. I’m no longer underground. The daughter’s former bedroom is my “official” office. However, I’m still a messy author, and writing two books a year doesn’t leave much time for housekeeping. As a result, the place resembles a landfill. For the past three or four years, I’ve been using my bedroom to write in. And now, it is beyond messy too, with books, files, paper and the rest. So, I’m doing the big clean up.
I’m determined to move out of the bedroom and back into my office—soon. Wish me luck.
Beverly Jenkins is the recipient of the 2017 Romance Writers of America Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as the 2016 Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for historical romance. She has been nominated for the NAACP Image Award in Literature, was featured both in the documentary Love Between the Covers and on CBS Sunday Morning. Since the publication of Night Song in 1994, she has been leading the charge for multicultural romance, and has been a constant darling of reviewers, fans, and her peers alike, garnering accolades for her work from the likes of The Wall Street Journal, People Magazine, and NPR. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, and her website.
