If you’re a writer, admit it. You have always wanted a “writer’s hut.” According to a source close to me, a writer’s hut is a little structure set apart from the bustle of home life, dedicated to eliminating distractions and focusing the efforts of the writer’s mind on the business of writing. So, it’s a lot like Facebook in that way. The writer’s hut is small, often spartan, and does not, in most cases, include a Wii. It looks much like the micro-machine version of a house. The picture above is George Bernard Shaw’s hut which he called “London.” This was so his staff could, without falsehood, tell annoying callers he was away “in London.” I call my bed “Work” for the same reason.
The idea of a writer’s hut has always been a romantic notion for me, right up there with a fire, a pipe and…oh yeah, I almost forgot…a book in print! (Small details.)
I’m sure if I did have a cool writer’s hut I would transition from failure to success as fast as you can say Henry David Thoreau likes Ralph Waldo Emerson and self-mandated, adult time-outs.
Acclaimed children’s author and hutless coveter Jennifer Trafton pointed out this site which features several famous writer’s huts. She referenced it on Twitter with the statement, “I want one.” She succeeds, no doubt, in producing the selfsame envy in others. ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s writer’s hut’ means nothing to acclaimed children’s author and hutless coveter Jennifer Trafton. Nothing.
Here’s Roald Dahl’s hut. Spiffy. I assume he spent most of his time in there learning to spell his own name.
Remember when we helped Evie name her studio/workshop–“The Hatch”–and then that same studio was featured in famous (and as far as I know, hutless) radio sensation Jason Gray’s video? That was fun.
What would you name your writer’s hut? Not like, if you owned a writer and you kept the writer in a hut–like a kidnapping kind of situation–what would you name the hut. I mean if you were, or are, a writer and you had a hut to write in, what would you name it?
I might buy the house next door. This is not a lie. It has a hut and I might write in it and you might end up having named it. Aaaaaaand . . . I might write the great American novel in there (or a really funny tweet) and wouldn’t you feel special if you named it? Yes. Yes, you would.
So, what’s a good name for a writer’s hut?
Arthur?
Do any of you have such huts and can you share pictures and names with us?
(I’m just going to go ahead and say–cough, Aaron Roughton–that Pizza Hut doesn’t count. So don’t even try it.)