In all our real estate, city, country and mountain bungalow, I have yet to claim a room of my own. Virginia Woolf said that is the fundamental need—that and a steady income, preferably the interest on a hefty inheritance.

In my case, it is not for lack of space. Our river house has a bedroom we save for houseguests, for example. My sewing machine is housed there and sometimes I refer to it as my sewing room. But I am not a seamstress nor a fabric artist. I am a writer. Why not have a writer’s room?

A friend, who is a writer, lives in a compact log house in the woods near a pond. When she gives a tour of her home on your first visit, she stands in the center of the large room and, pivoting on one foot, presents her living room, kitchen, bedroom, sewing room and office. Each of these functions has a space, though there are no walls separating them. She truly has a room of her own, as she lives alone.

When I write, I like to be alone. My husband, who is also a writer, thrives in noisy crowded spaces. He will sit at a table in our local tavern, with a few sheets of blank paper and a pen and scribble prose for hours in the midst of mayhem, only occasionally stopping to chat with a friend or to check the Knicks’ score—usually down by three in the fourth quarter.

Recently, I carved out a dressing room for myself in our city loft. It is in a room that once had been my husband’s office. Its proximity to our bedroom (and the modesty that grows with age) made it irresistible to me. I have yet to install proper closet rods, but a mirror, a small radio and the glider rocker that I sat in to nurse my children, have made it a cozy retreat, as well as a useful dressing room. His old bookshelves now hold shoes and neatly folded sweaters.

Another friend, who is a magazine editor, recently wrote about her short-term sublet of a pied-a-terre above Central Park. Such luxury—a whole apartment to herself—would have been prohibitively expensive if not for the combined graces of an absent landlord friend and the deep pockets of her publisher. The sublease is over now, but the glow of pleasure from her few months of daily jaunts uptown remain.

My idea of perfection for a writer’s room is realized in another friend’s home. With a double-height ceiling and numerous windows, it is light and airy and lined with her collection of fiction, poetry and reference books. A comfortable chair and the necessary computer and printer give her everything but inspiration for her work, and maybe that, too.

Woolf’s premise in her essay on creative independence was that men lay claim to so many of the ‘big ideas’ precisely because they have the wealth and property that enable them the luxury of creative thought. While I don’t agree with all of her thinking on the subject, I do agree with the fundamentals. A place to work goes a long way toward accomplishing that work.

So I have a vision of my ideal space. It would be a stone and wood structure, like Yeats’ Thoor Ballylee, with a winding inner staircase leading to a lofty room with views of the river and sky and trees. Inside, thick walls would keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. There would be only one chair and a few pillows for an afternoon nap.

Now about that income....