Every edit from a walk-in clinic floor gets Catherine Hernandez closer to her dream writing office

Leading up to Canada Reads, CBC Arts is bringing you daily essays about where this year's authors write for our series Where I Write. This edition features Scarborough author Catherine Hernandez.

I wish I could tell you that the place where I write is some romantic office in the eaves of a glorious mansion. And that I place my freshly sharpened pencils in the same antique vase as my freshly picked roses from my own garden. And that vase sits on the sill of a window overlooking rolling fields and babbling brooks. But no. 

I have always written under stressful conditions. I've submitted articles while rocking babies to sleep. I've conducted interviews in hospital rooms. More recently, I sat on the floor of a walk-in clinic to edit my second novel while the Scarborough movie crew filmed scenes around me. 

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Although things have been considerably more comfortable since I've become a full-time writer, having a dedicated space to work is still a dream that has yet to come to fruition. 

I remember working at Factory Theatre. On a day when there was a lull in my duties as head of publicity and outreach, I was asked to schlepp several boxes of old programs from the ground floor to a storage closet inside of the playwright-in-residence's office. I made my way up the several flights of stairs from the haunted administrative offices to the even more haunted upper floor to find Claudia Dey's name printed on a piece of paper and taped to the wooden door. When I entered the office, it felt like I had walked into a sacred space. Other than prying open the storage closet to place the programs inside, I touched nothing. I had never seen a space for writing before.

Since then, I have longed for an office where I can sit and think in quiet the same way Claudia did in that room. I came pretty close. A room in my home was declared an office. Furniture was bought. Plants were placed above windows where I could look out at those Scarborough townhomes and rest my eyes. Then the pandemic started and my partner and I reconfigured our lives so that we could work safely from home. I am thankful for that safety.

Now we have moved out of Toronto and are setting up our rural home in Napanee. There are boxes everywhere. I still haven't found my goddamn reading glasses. Where did I pack them? It's fine. I will just squint and type. Too many deadlines to reach. The wifi (which I desperately need when writing for television and film) is prehistoric.

But the ancient spruce and eastern red cedar trees that surround our home tell me that my dream is within arm's reach, for there are windows to look out of and quiet to sit in. There is a river beside us where I will kayak when I am between paragraphs and farmland to wander when I am between scenes. The office will exist one day. I am almost there.

Read this year's Where I Write essays every day this week on CBC Arts and read more of Catherine Hernandez's writing for CBC Arts here.