The Hidden Secret to Simple Space

My Entire Writing Experience Changed and Everything Else Did Too

By Linda Prejean

It was an ordinary Monday as I made the 45-minute commute through heavily wooded backroads of Connecticut. I agreed to the three-day assignment from a temporary secretarial service popular in the 1980s, but the drive was too far from home. Even so, I would honor my agreement for the days I had promised.

I didn’t realize until I was met by iron gates slowly opening upon my arrival that I was entering a 7-acre estate with a mansion and carriage house, and that my host would be a famous writer with an Oscar sitting on his desk.

My brief assignment turned into four years as I became his administrative assistant. I would be summoned from the carriage house to the main house where my host sat in front of a large window in the kitchen overlooking the manicured grounds. I took my spot on a large wooden chair centered in front of the fireplace. Years later the memory of the elegance and simplicity of his writing space and the warmth of the fire would lead me to back to the desire to write, something I had done throughout childhood and later abandoned when I started a family.

His gaze rarely left his view from the window except to get up on occasion and stick a fork in a boiling pot of seasoned water on the stove. Without missing a sentence of dictation he would carefully place the fork to my lips and I would bite off a plump and perfectly cooked shrimp. The rhythm for me was listening, scribbling, tasting, savoring.

He taught me about space. While he had a vast estate with swimming pool and treehouse for his children, his writing space was simple. The word that comes to my mind is “clarity,” as my host would speak volumes with focus and energy. Each treasured word found its way to brief strokes on a shorthand pad on my lap, which I would later transcribe into screenplays and novels to become the entertainment viewed on the big screen or read by thousands around the world.

Today I live on the opposite coast and he has long since passed on, but as I prepare to sit on the upper deck of my sailboat he is on my mind.

I moved with my husband onto our 45’ sailboat in 2018. It wasn’t easy downsizing from a large home, and although minimizing is the fashion, getting rid of accumulated baggage was a dreaded stretch to my ability to change. But once we set sail from San Diego and docked in the marina we now call home in Los Angeles, it was worth discovering the person I am today and to be where I have wanted to live for many years.

We’re lucky to be moored in an end-tie, coveted by boaters. I settle back against a large cushion, laptop open and ready. My gaze looks out to the sea beyond the protected channel and I reflect on my need to clear the space to do what I love the most: Write.

My mentor/Oscar winner and lover of shrimp boils would be proud.