Welcome to The Scribes’ Sanctuary — a peaceful, communal workspace where writers may work, engage in creative discourse, and comfortably defecate without having to buy a croissant to get Starbucks’ code.
After perusing your web portfolio, as well as perusing the signature on your $1200 check, we find you to be the perfect candidate to join our community. (For a six-month trial period.) We’d like to take a quick moment to go over The Sanctuary’s various rules and amenities. After which, we will provide you with your very own key — the key to unbridled imagination!
Our amenities include: high-speed Internet access, storage lockers, and not being WeWork. While our bright, airy kitchen features a Nespresso, complimentary snacks, and an unsmiling woman who always seems to be reading the same article in the Atlantic.
We also have a small rest area, where weary writers can take a break from the heavy work of moving their fingers repeatedly over a series of lettered keys, and go into a small closet to stretch out upon a cheerfully patterned communal duvet. (Here at The Sanctuary, we believe there is nothing gross about random New Yorkers sharing bedding — so long as those New Yorkers have read Gary Shteyngart.)
The rest area gives our members a place to sit in semi-darkness and relax their minds, while trying to forget the futility of existence, and that their agent still hasn’t responded. (20 minute limit to the rest area.)
With your current membership, you will be allowed 24-hour access to our space. One never knows when inspiration for that next chapter or for another ill-advised “touching base” email to an editor may strike! So come to The Sanctuary at 3 am if you wish. Once you wade through the drunken NYU students vomiting at the corner, simply place your key upon the electronic keypad to gain entry. The building will likely be dark and deserted, and yes, you may worry about being murdered by a quietly resentful janitor, but we suggest you let this fear fuel your work! Consider it the ultimate deadline…
(Please DO NOT utilize The Sanctuary’s midnight hours to engage in an intense but clichéd extramarital affair with a fellow writer. Especially not with that scumbag Xander. Please note that while Xander may have a credit in n + 1, he is also known to have crabs.)
During normal weekday hours, feel free to claim any of the available desks as your own. Get comfortable! Make the space yours for the day by loudly spreading out your work materials while pretending not to notice the sighs of Janice, who almost always sits there, and whom will later passive aggressively throw out your string cheese because you left it in the fridge unlabeled.
Of course, one of the most important rules of The Sanctuary is our STRICT policy regarding cell phone use. We STRONGLY believe in creating a gentle, womb-like workspace, where new work may be born without the violent interruption of an iPhone vibration. To that end, we ask that before entering the space, cell phones not only be switched off, but smashed with a small hammer. Should you fail to comply with our cell phone policy, rest assured that Carl will stomp over to your desk with his arms folded and then report you to the office manager like a 5-year-old tattletale, not a middle-aged man on his fourth draft of a home-brewing memoir.
Once again, welcome to The Scribes’ Sanctuary, and congratulations on this new leg of your creative journey! We are confident your YA novel about tween lesbian werewolves will really take off now that you are finally out of your apartment and no longer allowed to take “breaks” to watch Veep or eat hummus with your fingers.