A space of her own: How Natalie Zina Walschots found a way to center her writing — and herself

Leading up to Canada Reads, CBC Arts is bringing you daily essays about where this year's authors write. This edition features Hench author Natalie Zina Walschots.

For most of my life I wrote in the spaces between. In the back of a car at night with a notebook in my lap, my handwriting smearing with every bump, getting spurts of words down in the brief gasps of light as we passed streetlights. On my lunch break, hiding in the back of the break room. At the end of the day, with whatever scraps of energy I managed to hoard for myself. I wrote on planes and subways and in coffee shops. I wrote the first words of my novel Hench at a game jam, while my friends were working on bug fixes and I found myself with a few moments to spare.

My writing space, or lack of it, reflected this. For a long time, I didn't even have a desk in my tiny basement apartment; I eventually found one abandoned by the side of the road and carried it home, squeezing it in right next to my bed even though it was too low to be comfortable. I used a random side chair, the grey material of the cushion shredded in one corner by cat claws, with a small cushion or towel rolled up and shoved to the back in a pitiful attempt at lumbar support. More often than not, I wrote standing at the kitchen counter, or perched on the edge of the couch, or propped up in bed, bending my wrists into whatever terrible configuration was necessary to squeeze in a few lines before, or after, or between.

Despite it being a core part of my identity, an axis my life turned on, the time and space I could carve out for writing remained liminal. On the very rare occasions I could, I'd spend a few brief, intense days to finish something or begin. During one of the final pushes to get Hench ready to send to my agent and then off to publishers, my partner rented an Airbnb for a long weekend so I could work uninterrupted; there was a window right in front of me, and being able to look up and see light and snow felt like an incredible indulgence. I wondered if this was what it would feel like if I could do this all of the time.

When the book sold, to my immense surprise, I got to find out. Suddenly, I could place my writing in the very centre of my life — not work for clients, not freelance gigs, but my own. While I was settling in to have a nice nervous breakdown about it, my partner, much more reasonably, said that the first thing we were going to do while my life turned itself inside out was redo my entire office. I was skeptical — I hadn't needed any kind of specialized space up until now — but he pointed to the shredded chair with its sad towel pillow and refused to let the matter drop.

It took weeks for it to all come together. By then we were living together and had a shared office in one of the attic rooms in the house where we lived. I had barely used it, my uncomfortable desk abandoned in one corner, preferring to burrow into the edge of the couch. We replaced it with a pair of high-tech robot legs so I could adjust the height to suit me perfectly, and topped it with a beautiful live-edge wood desk top. I sat in dozens of office chairs until I found one that helped my back instead of hurt it, and effortlessly held my arms in a way I didn't know was possible. My partner spent hours researching monitors and hard-sold me on an ultrawide I was extremely skeptical about until it arrived. I bought my first mechanical keyboard and fell deep down the rabbithole of artisan keycaps. I developed preferences for types of mechanical switches. I bought a second keyboard and travel case so I could type more comfortably (and clack-ily) wherever I was, feeling like a ridiculous princess.

I'd always worked with whatever I had, whatever I could fit myself in or around; thinking about what I wanted, what an ideal space could be, and then making it happen was new and terrifying. But the space taking shape around me was functional and beautiful and reminded me every day that writing wasn't something at the edges of my life anymore — it was at the very centre.

When we had to move, my partner and I spent more time planning out the office than any other room, choosing the one with the most ideal configuration of space, the best light. The pandemic has been heartbreaking and nightmarish in so many ways, and I am profoundly grateful that if I have to be stuck in my house forever, it is at least in a space that I love, full of thoughtful, deliberate choices. It is a space that was made to fit me, instead of me contorting myself around whatever happened to be there.

Now when I write, I have the incredible luxury of long stretches of time. I can plan the work I take on with clients and collaborators around my own projects, instead of the other way around. When I get lost in something and come up for air hours later, I'm not in pain. In front of me, there is a beautiful big window that runs almost the full length of the room. When I look up, it's snowing.