I asked a variation of this question in the early days on the blog, back in 2007 when it was written on a typewriter and sent around via telegraph. And, well, the immense variation in writing habits fascinates me, plus we have lots of new faces. So I thought I’d go back to this one:
Where do you write?
Not necessarily the city and state/country, although that would be nice too, but where specifically is your favorite writing spot?
In the winter, I love to write in my bed with my lap top and my pugs laying near my feet, keeping them warm.
In the summer on nice days, I love to sit outside on our deck and write.
I can basically write anywhere as long as it’s a laptop. I have a hard time on a console.
My laptop feels like an extension of me, the console feels so so distant.
In my study. We built a house three years ago, and the conditions were to design it with my study facing the lake and my husband’s gun vault in the center of the house. We designed the rest of the place around those two conditions. Priorities are important!
Always write by a window with a view. There is magic when the mind copes with the laptop screen and the beauty of the real world.
I’m lucky enough to have a home office, with a view across town to the Appalachians beyond. It’s small and cozy, and south-facing to make the most of the light in our long Canadian winters. The walls are packed with bookshelves, as is the closet, and chocolate has its own special shelf right behind me. A little pink monkey sits on the desk, just to the left of the monitor, keeping me focused. If I’m away on a trip, I take him along and sit him on the desk in the hotel for an instant familiar writing environment.
Kind of daunting to post when there are so many comments already, but what the hey.
I’m actually a little bit at a loss, or maybe it’s just fear: I’m afraid that if I had a favorite place, I might not be able to write as well in non-favorite places. For me, writing is a state I adapt to my circumstances. Therefore, my favorite place is wherever I can achieve concentration and I’ve learned to concentrate pretty much anywhere.
So, the real answer to this question is wherever the hell I need to write in order to meet my deadlines. I still have a day job and am a single parent, so that does add some additional pressures — but every writer has those.
I write in the car at lunchtime and during soccer practices, I write at the gym (bike, notebook or MS in binder) 45 min no interruptions! I write in waiting rooms and anytime I’m stuck someplace with time on my hands — I always have a notebook with me. And, I write at home, too.
I’ll write wherever I am, but at home in my “writing space” it’s a bit cramped. I share a room with two sisters, but I have an alcove made of book shelves. I set up my laptop on a T.V. tray in this tiny little box and write away, surrounded by books. With headphones–because siblings are loud–and a blanket, because I live in Alaska and 99% of the time it’s at least slightly cold.
Dr. Bingo,
I wish I worked in a writing related field, instead, I am in the grocery industry working 15 hours a day. Yipeee!!!!!
I write in my office at home where I cherish the time after balancing life with daughters, son-in-laws, and grandchildren. I don’t even have the time to finesse a query. Hell, the book was easier to write. I submitted the query to a certain blog- not meaning this one- and got butchered.
Bottom line, I enjoy what time I have. 🙂
I write in my head all day long. When everything winds down, I spew it all out in a well-lit closet.
I use a speech to text program because I talk faster than I type.
I like writing in the bathroom at work. Yes I’m strange.
In the early hours of the morning all i can see from my office window is the thick fog snuggling into the earth like a soft fluffy doona. Oh did i mention the kids are all snoring peacefully so the only sound is from the sheep in the neighboring paddock.
Of course I don’t always have a choice, so the car, kids gym, and manny other fun places find me trying to filter out the noise (I like the quiet) and tap merrily at the keyboard.
In the early hours of the morning all I can see from my office window is the thick fog snuggling into the earth like a soft fluffy doona. Oh did I mention the kids are all snoring peacefully so the only sound is from the sheep in the neighboring paddock.
Of course I don’t always have a choice, so the car, kids gym, and manny other fun places find me trying to filter out the noise (I like the quiet) and tap merrily at the keyboard.
At a coffee shop with my Alphasmart is my favorite place, though I do a lot of editing right on my computer screen at home. Not too much handwritten anymore, but I use to right everything in longhand first.
I write best away from home. As long as I have my laptop I can write forever, or at least until the battery dies. Somehow I manage to tune out the rest of the world, even without headphones (well, most of the time). On the bus, at work, in coffee shops.
At home, I write best in the wee hours, when everyone else is asleep. Except for the psychotic kitty; I have to lock him out or he thinks that the keyboard is prime flopping real estate. When he’s not trying to jump on my head, that is.
I write in my bed.
I write in bed, at school or just on my desk.
Thoughts come up everynight before i go to bed so if you see my wall, you would see a whole bunch of writings for my novel…
i take this one notebook everywhere i go, especally at school, during class i would sneak opened and write as every words travles by.
🙂
Hm. I drop my kid to playgroup in the morning which gives me three hours to work. I like writing on my laptop at my kitchen table. Bright and airy with birdsong outside. Sometimes a robin perches on the half door. (This is Kerry, Ireland. V. rural).
However my 73-year-old Aunt, who lives next door, has a habit of dropping in and asking me to drive-to-shops-for-cigarettes / talk-to-man-doing-work-in-field / join-her-for-cup-of-tea-with-garrulous-neighbour.
One does not wish to be rude, so this week I retreated to a new desk upstairs in my bedroom. A little darker, but still airy with the window open.
My Aunt retaliated by inviting the most talkative of our neighbours to have a cup of tea and a chat at MY picnic table just under MY open window. On the basis that as I was not visible downstairs I must be out.
This meant no cups of tea from the kitchen and no concentration for Ego.
What do I do next?
With my alphie in coffee shops or in the flagstaff gardens around the corner from my work (in Melbourne CBD, Australia)
or on my macbook on the couch, with my two schnauzers, Bertie and Oliver, who tap the keyboard with their paws when it’s their turn to write on their blog. (they are such ‘puter hogs!)
There is a bookstore/coffee shop nearby and I love to plop down in one of their big, leather chairs on a Sunday morning to write.
I also write in my bedroom, propped up on a dozen pillows. I like this because I can wear my jammies and make my own coffee!
https://deidrawrites.blogspot.com/
I need relative quiet to work – natural sounds I don’t mind, but the sound of a television really grates on me (I don’t own one and rarely watch anything). Because I live with my father, and his hearing isn’t what it was, his often has the television on loudly and it irks me. I write at my desk, in a small box room, sometimes with classical music playing, mostly with no sound at all, with pen and paper for the first draft and then type it all up later. I like the feel of pen in my hand, the ink pressing onto the page, there is something much more communal about it than typing onto a computer screen where everything seems too polished. I also have a fondness for writing on trains and sometimes book five / six hour train journeys just to do this. I think the rhythm of the rails soothes me into another place.
At work, and at home, between 12 to 1 am, when the baby sleeps 🙂
In my room, on the Tube during my commute, in Costa Coffee during afternoon tea, on the green after work, sometimes in the archives DURING work, and – of course – in my bed at unholy hours of the morning, when I’ve had an absolutely fantastic idea that I need to write down RIGHT AWAY.
I almost always write at my desk, which is probably really typical. My weird quirk is that I find I’m most productive writing a couple paragraphs at a time while I’m getting myself (or my kids) ready in the morning.
I’ll sit down for long stretches later in the day, but some of my best ideas come while I’m sipping my morning coffee.
With the story that I am writing now, I can write anywhere. I keep a small notebook with me and will write on the train to and from work… I come home and type everything onto my computer that is on a very cluttered table in a corner of my living room, in Japan!
New job includes a 2-hour commute into Boston, the first hour on a train. I get two hours of guaranteed writing time five days a week. On the weekends, I write at the counter of my favorite local diner, Jackie’s (if you’re ever in New Hampshire, you have to go there; it’s required). –Joe (who can’t post logged in for some reason)
In a small town, in my small home, in a small room, on a small desk.
BIG words, though 🙂
It’s a combination of at my office during the slow times and at home on the weekends when there aren’t any interruptions (fiancee/TV/internet) to contend with.
Salem and Maynard, Mass.
Glued to my desk in my home office/library near Atlanta, typing on a keyboard with worn-off letters.
Because I work on a laptop I write everywhere, but my favorite place is at my desk in the middle of the night. I put headphones on, blast music. The selection depends on the scene I’m working on. The energy is different at night. I can lose myself easier in the story.
When I was twelve, I first started writing at the bowling alley. My mom and dad would drag me to their stupid bowling tournaments. I brought a notebook and pen, and I would go somewhere else in my head so I wouldn’t be bored out of my mind.
I write wherever I find an outlet next to some peace and quiet. Most of the time that’s late nights at the dining room table, the only drawback being the cat’s get the biological call in the darkest hour. Or maybe they just like to share.
Used to have a 'desk' in my favourite local pub. A sticky table hidden behind a beam in an old Tudor building with the best rock jukebox in the world.
Last year it closed, now I am a nomad. Any work I do in the day is in similar lurking spots – tucked away corners of bars & cafes where I can people-watch undetected. Have no laptop so notes from the day are typed up in a concerto of crashing & correcting in the wee hours when the world is asleep.
As a half right-brain, half-left brain person (about 43/57), I need to quiet the left side while my right side has a chance to create. So after many years I came up with this: I write my first draft of EVERYTHING on a pad of paper using a pen. Any old paper or pen will do. I just gotta keep old lefty (aka nasty inner critic) occupied with something disciplined (like stay between the lines, mind the margins, hold the pen properly, etc) while the right brain creates without critique.
Bliss.
Anything after the first draft gets typed into the laptop and the left brain takes over with editing duty.
Couldn’t get my post through yesterday. Is there a cut off limit?
I write in the back room which opens onto a breezeway so my dog can wander in and out. I have a desk cluttered with notes, pictures to do with my latest project (old mansion, scenics etc.)My laptop which I have never put on my lap. Unicorns which are my muse and a hummingbird I watch to rest my eyes and who cusses me if his food runs out.
I write on my roof if I need to avoid distractions. If I’m looking to people watch and get some ideas, to let my mind wander, I go to the crowded university library.
I can write anywhere. However, when the kids are in bed and the house has gone quiet, I can sit with my laptop, in my comfy recliner and go to my other world without interruption. I have to pull myself back sometimes, knowing that the morning and responsibilities will come whether I’m prepared or not.
I write in my office. My computer sits on a corner desk and I consider this my little working cubby. I rarely use my laptop when I write as I prefer the big pc and all my paperwork around me. Plus, it is upstairs away from the hulabaloo of the rest of the house and affords me less disruptions. I need quiet to work.
After I sold my first book (which was written at the kitchen table), we remodeled a spare room in the house into a writing room. It’s the only room I’ve ever remodeled and decorated from scratch, and it’s a perfect space for me — I’ve written 2.5 more books there! It even has a tiny private porch (though this is attracts hobo cats who stake their claim in the way that hobo cats do, unfortunately). I’ve never had luck with writing at cafes — too distracting.
The occasional “retreat” to a lonesome house at the Oregon coast can be very productive, though. One is coming up, and I hope to get a lot of work done!
I “write” in bed, while I am trying to fall asleep and just before I get out of bed in the morning. My mind is clear. It is easy to make connections, and I keep a pad and pen on the bed table to scribble notes.
With my asus, I can write anywhere I like since it fits in my handbag. Favourite place though is on my bed, so I can look out the window, watch the sun set in the evening, watch the birds fly and the clouds change speed/shape at other times. (With a house on a hill, the view I’m getting right now is the tops of roofs, trees, fields and 3/4 sky).
I write in the office on the computer or in my sunroom in my journal. I have all my notes and files, dictionaries and synonym finder within reach. I write better when it is quiet and wouldn’t be able to write at Starbuck’s or anywhere else with other people around.
At the top of the stairs, there’s a second living area and the hallways and bedrooms branch off from there. A little L jogs off of this living area, hanging in space over the stairs, at eye level with the treetops showing through the ’80’s style arched window that graces the 2-story foyer. My desk is there in the L. It’s not as formal as it sounds – laundry is in piles around me, work papers cover the desk, my office laptop is beside the monitor (thankfully quiet now). But it’s the only space in the house that is *mine* alone.
I’ve always done my best work in coffee shops. Maybe it’s the chi.
Mostly, at my desk at home from 5-7 in the AM, but sometimes at night if I’m excited about something I wrote long hand durinng the day. (I carry a small spiral bound note pad everywhere.) I usually edit during the early part of the evening – warm days, outside on what passes for the deck.
Saint Fool, who is too lazy to log in.
I write emotion in silence but with music for atmosphere.
My Music-to-write-too list on i-tunes has unusual glitches as it records the numbers of times played – 32 17 49 245 23.
Some track are indespensible when writing – I put them on repeat.
I get a lot of writing done in my summer house. I sit on my bed, with a pillow on my back and one under my laptop. Every once in a while I watch the sailboats going by on the bay. I need quiet and peace and I get it there.
I used to write all over the place from a 1959 Airstream trailer using a 1924 Underwood, to scribbling on the back of envelopes with a crayon. I’ve written in Thailand, Alaska, Germany, Turkey and Libya when it still had a king instead of a colonel. Now in my old age I have a basement dungeon with a recliner and a laptop, however I don’t do much writing anymore. Some one introduced me to blogs, damn their souls to eternal flames. Now all I do is sit, read and dream.
Word Verification: bourinni. Kinda describes this post.
I write in one of three places: my office, with a wonderful sound system to blare music, my comfy recliner on my laptop, with a cat usually drapped across my legs, or at Barnes and Noble with a never-ending cup of tea.
I write anywhere, any place, and anytime I get all in a sketch/writing journal. Rewrites are done on my laptop.
I’m like everyone else out there who just doesn’t have the time so I steal it every moment I get.
My first handwritten draft and typed edit are often written at my favorite dive bar (before it gets to crazy). I tend to like people and music noise.
At the kitchen table, with a cockatiel in my lap and two dogs asleep on the floor.
I write in body. If I’m floating in the ether of idea, the fingers don’t hit the right keys.
During rough draft and deadline days, I go in the writers cave for a marathon of word only focus. Sometimes there’s music, there’s always a chair and keyboard, sometimes a table or desk.