Image of Michael Scott from The Office with text that reads "An office is a place where dreams come true."
Brandy Bellittera has been a Kindergarten teacher for 15 years. She finds daily inspiration in her students, as well as her own three children. Brandy is an unwavering Gryffindor who possesses a huge nerd heart. If you quote lines from The Office while wearing a StarWars or MARVEL t-shirt, you are instantly best friends. She has studied her craft of writing at the Institute of Children’s Literature and is a member of SCBWI. She is also an active member of the Writing Community on Twitter and Instagram. She has been published in Little Thoughts Press magazine twice, (August 2022 and October 2022) and has a piece forthcoming in Cricket’s Spider magazine in September 2023. You can find her at @inkedauthor31.
“Writing stories is a kind of magic, too.”
― Cornelia Funke, Inkheart
Setting up a writing space was one of my favorite tasks when I decided it was finally time to pick up the pen and never put it down again.
Luckily for me, I had just the space. We have a fourth bedroom that has been utilized in many different ways over the seven years we have lived in our house. It’s been a “junk” room, guest bedroom, LulaRoe closet (when I was a consultant many moons ago!), “Junk Room 2.0”, a playroom, and then a den.
Just as I was looking around Pinterest for ideas on how to create a home office that suited the space (and getting super excited about the possibilities), I was given the best gift God could give me.
After not feeling well for a few weeks, I discovered that I was expecting my youngest kiddo, Maverick. Needless to say, I was quite surprised by this development.
Even though I was overjoyed to add to my family, it meant I had to halt my office plans. Designing his nursery became a priority and I stored most of the furniture I had been collecting in the garage. The nursery is still a very special project for me as its creation is the last project I was able to do with my momma before she passed.
It still looks exactly as it did before he was born. Even though he will be turning four this year, Maverick doesn’t seem to mind. I am grateful for that.
After Maverick was born, I gave myself some time to acclimate to being a mom of three kiddos. But those long nights provided plenty of time to scroll Pinterest and think about what I could do now that my office space needed a new home.
After talking to my husband, he agreed that I could take a corner of our primary bedroom and convert it into a small writing space. This allowed me to not have to get rid of all of my furniture and still have enough storage to keep all of the things I would need for my journey without losing my style. It takes up a good portion of the room, which was a challenge at first, but with some careful rearranging, we are making it work!
I still have a few furniture pieces tucked away in the attic for now (before I know it, my kids will be grown) and I will find myself in that spare bedroom again.
For now, I love my cozy little author nook. It has everything I need when I have time to work from home. My favorite piece is my navy/teal hutch to house works-in-progress and mentor texts, along with some fun trinkets that make me smile.
So…
TADA
Here it is in all of its cozy glory. And lucky for you, my Editor in Chief was feeling photogenic today. With the zoo I have, there is ALWAYS a fur baby lurking nearby. Hedwig just happens to be the boss.
Photograph of the author's writing space.
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