When I was eight, my favorite game was Authors. Each card in the deck had an image of the author's face with the title of one of the author's books. You had to collect all five of an author's titles to win. Of course, I loved Authors because I wanted to be a librarian.
Game of Authors was created by Anne Abbott, a preacher's daughter, in 1861. A few years later, Parker Brothers published it. There were twelve famous authors in the card deck.
•Louisa May Alcott
•James Fenimore Cooper
•Charles Dickens
•Nathaniel Hawthorne
•Washington Irving
•Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
•Sir Walter Scott
•William Shakespeare
•Robert Louis Stevenson
•Alfred, Lord Tennyson
•Mark Twain
•John Greenleaf Whittier
I remember the faces on the cards looking stately and old. The men had dark or white wigs and wore coats that were red, gold or black. Maybe this is true, maybe it isn't. I was eight. They looked smart. I'd never read anything by Sir Walter Scott, James Fenimore Cooper or Shakespeare, but I loved the exotic titles like, "The Last of the Mohicans." I had read the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, but I didn't care so much for them. Louisa May Alcott's, "Little Women," was my favorite book. The character of Jo was a kindred spirit: hard-headed, free-spirited, a writer who didn't need a man.
Jo got a job. Jo sold a story. Jo had opinions and wore pants. Jo became me. For thirty years, I lived alone, writing. And then, at 51, the love of my life asked me to come and live with his family.
What would living with a man and his kids do to my writing? Not only the voice, well yes, hell of course, my writer's voice would be affected, I'd probably be happier, softer and more kind, less edgy and sad, but also it would affect my writing time.
What about my writer's daily life?
•Make coffee.
•Feed cat.
•Buddhist prayers.
•Check email/FB/social media - and then turn it off!
•Write.
•Grab something from fridge, go back to writing.
•If blocked, go for a hike.
•Write again.
•If still blocked, read or watch a movie (check email/FB/social media)
•Writing group/read/watch movie/write.
See the problem? My writing life had been perfected through years of practice. I know what I need to write a novel. I need space. Uninterrupted, quiet, peaceful space without time constraints or people who need me to check in when I'm on a roll or stuck on a sentence. I need to be unaccounted for, for many hours of the day. Could I do this with a new family? Didn't I love them more than writing? Writing has never loved me back, really. It's lonely and hard, often with little financial reward. Writing is a bad one-sided marriage I should trade in for this good new love.
And Larry is very, very supportive of my writing. But, well, it's mine. My voice. My work. Mine.
Jo got married, right? I blocked that out until recently. In fact, I had to Wiki just to see, and yes, she married an older gentleman named Mr. Behrer. And Louisa May Alcott did write more books about her. I remembered that I couldn't get through "Jo's Boys," or "Little Men." Why should I have? Jo got married, inherited a mansion and turned it into a school for boys. She abandoned herself.
Did I have to abandon the woman I had fought so hard to become for Larry and his family?
I really cried over this. I agonized. I wrote and wrote. And then one day during my Buddhist meditation, I remembered, "a woman must have a room of her own."
In 1929, Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own," was published. The book is a collection of essays that Woolf delivered to two women's colleges in '28 emphasizing the importance of women creating their own space literally and literary. How frustrated she must have been, how earnestly passionate she must have felt, how angry and determined to make certain a new generation of female literary voices were heard. How could Louisa May Alcott have been the only woman in the Game of Authors?
I'd read "A Room of One's Own," in my twenties. I can't remember who gave it to me. Maybe my sister. It echoed my own feminist views, but I didn't relate to Woolf in the same spirited way that my eight year old self had taken to Jo.
Now, I did. Virginia Woolf was 47 years old when "A Room of One's Own," was published. The wisdom she gleaned from her writer's life experiences showed me the way. I went back to Larry and told him that if I moved in, I could no longer write in the dining room surrounded by activity and barking dogs. Nor the living room which is also open to the whole house. I would need a room of my own. He agreed.
Last weekend, we went furniture shopping and I bought a beautiful new mid-century modern desk. I also chose a beautiful color (bright metallic blue) for the walls my office (formerly the guest room). There are big windows and an outside door with a lock.
And every morning, I will enter the room and shut the door (feed the cat) and sit down and write. When someone knocks (and they will), I will open the door, or call out "in a few minutes," because I also need the people in this house.
Even if my work never earns a six-figure salary, or a flashy review, even if the writing never receives a PEN/Faulkner or an Academy Award or an EMMY - my woman's voice in this world matters. I have to continue to believe that what I want to say has value and meaning. Especially now at 51, I must hold this space for myself.
Women's voices, individually and collectively, must be half of the game of authors. We are more than one voice in a deck of eight. Now, more than ever, we must keep writing for those who follow next.