Here’s my temporary Nirvannah, the place where Carol and I have come to write. Nothing but write.
And of course you’d think it would be the perfect writing getaway, wouldn’t you? I took this with my iPhone on a very sunny day so you can’t see much of the glorious glacial pond off the back porch. There’s a little dock. We can work until we’re tired, then take a plunge in the water and look back on the house. Here’s the outside:
Idyllic? But move in a little closer on the picture and things aren’t necessarily as gloatingly perfect as they seem.
The place has feas. Not enough to bother me, but Carol has always been an insect target of choice. The pond is vast, but full of fish: when you hit the water, they gather below, just out of sight, to nudge and nibble. There’s a heat wave, complete with drenching humidity, and no way to escape it.
So, we’ve started hanging back at the main house amidst the comings and goings of friends and strangers. Carol makes do with sofa space. I found a card table and set it up in the basement: no sunlight, and whirring next to me, a hard-working dehumidifier, which I empty for our hostess three times a day.
A bust? I would say so except for one thing–I’m getting more work done down in that basement than I could possibly have imagined. I’ve always worked well in basements.
In fact, I’ve always chosen unlikely “office” spaces. I once wrote an article on writers’ choice spaces and revealed my own favorite at the time, a quiet, spacious McDonald’s on the other side of town. Another favorite was a storage room in a film production company. Then there was the empty garage apartment in Santa Monica…and on and on.
Do you have a special place to work, a “magic” location that somehow–perhaps even defying logic–makes you more productive? I’d like to know. This is something that has always interested me.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Had to laugh at your saying you have nothing to write about. You wrote quite eloquently about not having the idyllic place to write ethat you'd anticipated. I am now living in the woods in Chatham County, surrounded by 40-foot-tall leafy trees, wildlife, and utter quiet. It's where I always thought I needed to be to write. Turns out I'm distracted by the beauty around me to the ponit that I can only write when it's dark! That's always been true for me. So my place to write is really a when to write: after dark! Oh, and in the air conditioning.
(Actually, it was "nothing BUT write.") Totally agree on air conditioning. What a boon to the summer mind (mine anyway).
Ooops – totally misread that. Geez. My brain must be frozen from the AC.
Currently? My bed. It's pitiful.
I like to write at the end of the dining room table, with the overhead light off and the window open. The kitchen light needs to be off too…nothing but clean, natural light flooding in through the blinds. With the laptop plugged in behind me, and a moderately comfortable dining room chair to sit in, I have spent whole afternoons at that table, just writing.
I’d like to think I could write anywhere, but my preferred place is in my home office, early in the morning before my wife and kiddoes wake up.
Although I tend to work on three different computers, off and on, so I have versions of my work in varying formats all over the place — the day job computer, my laptop, and my home office computer.
Here’s a cool site related to this topic: http://www.whereiwrite.org/
Wish I could get comments on the Facebook feed over here…sigh.
But anyway, Natasha F. said: “Currently? My bed. It’s pitiful.” But to the contrary, working in bed has a long, illustrious history. Winston Churchill did it. Rossinni was such a work-in-bed type that if he dropped a page of manuscript, rather than get out of bed, he’d start a new page. I work in bed whenever I can get away with it. My wife just moved a chaise-futon into my office and I think I’m going to get one of those rolling computer stands with an armature that swings it into working position when you’re prone.
Susan C. W. thought I’d said I had “nothing to write” instead of “nothing but write.” We straightened that out.
I’ve decided the basement here is a pretty cool place to write. Elemental concrete. No distractions. I’m even beginning to like up the dehumidifier. I think I’d get a lot of writing done in prison…
Glad I’m not the only basement person. My aunt’s wood-paneled, shag carpeted, moldy-smelling basement is the most productive place I have ever written. I flop on the sagging, single bed and go to town
BTW-love the information here!