Writing for me happens just about anywhere. I have a notebook in my purse and I’ve been known to jot thoughts down while waiting for kid activities to end or in the bathroom of a party when an idea comes up (because folks don’t appreciate it when you whip out paper in the middle of a conversation and say, “Wait! I’m going to use what you just told me for my character”). On occasion, I have even pulled out my iPhone mid-run to huff and puff into my voice recorder when a thought hit me in mile three and I’m afraid I’ll lose it before I get home. (Listening to those recordings later is always disturbing because, like most people, I hate the sound of my voice, and when you add in the heavy breathing, I sound like a really boring obscene phone caller.)
I am fortunate to have Virginia Woolf’s “room of one’s own” in which to write, but I find myself wandering to other writing locations just as often. My four primary writing spaces:
My home has a little office just for me, a lovely space with lots of light and a bookcase with reference materials and a big monitor I can plug my laptop into.
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- My writing nook
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- A signed print of Mary Oliver’s poem “The First Time Percy Came Back”
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- A bulletin board filled with things that make me happy
When the writing isn’t going well, I like to escape the house, because when the words aren’t flowing, nothing is as distracting as a sink full of dishes or the books that need reorganizing or purging the basement closet. On those days, I either go to my local cafe or our town library. I particularly like the library because it was built in the late 1800s, so sitting in the reading room makes me feel like I’m in another era, which is not a bad thing when you write historical fiction like I do. However, the library doesn’t have coffee, and when I’m writing, I want all the coffees, so the cafe usually wins out.
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- My cafe writing spot with a very handsome date who was doing his summer homework at the time.
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- My local library gives me a sense of history.
The place you’ll find me most though, especially if it’s cold and snowy or if my butt simply is sore from sitting in a chair too long, is on the sofa in the living room in front of the fireplace. I prop the laptop on my lap and I get so cozy I can lose myself in my novel for hours.
Where do you write?
I love all your spaces, especially your local library! That’s gorgeous. I’d write in mine, too, except they won’t let you bring in Diet Coke. (This is a gross tactical error on their part, because now they won’t be in my acknowledgements, which is something they probably don’t care about but should).
I totally identify with the writing in the bathroom as top secret writer HQ. Maybe it’s a writermom thing? Give me a quick moment, a locking door and an iphone, and I’ll give you a brilliant scrap of dialogue, a title idea, or a skeletal chapter arc.