I wrote four published novels in what was essentially a glorified closet with no door (unless you count the one balanced on two file drawers that served as a desk). IMO, you need something to write with and someplace you can find some quiet. A paper notebook and the library will work just fine. (I know professional novelists who write their entire books out longhand. The very idea makes my wrists scream, but that's me.)

More important than specific space or equipment, imo, is carving out uninterrupted time and solitude. A fantastic office does you no good if your kids/spouse/friends/dog are constantly coming in to pester you.

I actually started out at a vanity mirror on the wall that had a built-in counter in front of it that served as a desk, between the bathroom and the closet, and eventually got the table. For me, moving into the closet was a major event -- it meant my husband finally cleared out the walk-in (he'd had business stuff in it) and I took out all the shelves and fittings, painted it blue and the trim in white, moved in a small computer desk and a bookshelf and had a 4 foot by 6 foot office! And MINE had a door. But the first four novels were written before I had that, and the last three or four were in there. My screenplays have mostly been written in a real room/office.

Hey, I haven't sold any. Maybe I need to move back into the closet....

Though I may lay claim to the title of "writer" you may want to take what I say with a grain of NaCl. With only 3 web articles under my belt I may better be an example of what *not* to do. But here goes with what gets me in the mood.

Space: Currently I have a table in the livingroom... right in the middle of all distractions: TV, kids, animals, and some random explosions. There is a proper office a mere 15" (measured) across from me which I don't use as it is a huge cluttered mass of files and computers and lousy desks and milk crates full of books. A *huge* ToDo item on my list is to organize that monstrocity so that I can have a proper writing desk which I can take my Powerbook too for the specific task of writing. And then start with a dedicated, interruption-free hour of writing a day. *Turning Off Airport/WiFi* and shutting down all Net apps. That is the plan anyway... Maybe when the 3 year old is a bit more self sufficient.

Back in the day when I was a "poet" I used to sit for hours at the local coffee shop, scamming penny refills, sitting alone at a table. I had two notebooks open: my journal and my poetry notebook. My average was 3 good to great poems a day.

Tools: I may get lost in focusing on my tools a little too much but feeling comfortable enough with them that they "disappear" and become and extnesion of myself is crucial. I have a handful of pens which are like that, and cheapo notebooks of a specific size or more often nowadays my Powerbook and TextWrangler. (The Joy of Text.)

Yes, at least where I am concerned space and tools are important but what is hardest to find is motivation and inspiration.

Now... I'm off to read the 5 Firefox tabs I have open, check my email, and play with the kids. I'll get to those 3 short stories and 2 articles *later.*

By the way, I was also thinking of this in GTD terms. If you gathered all of your writing things into one inbasket -- even your equipment -- what would be there? That includes stuff for inspiration, books, printer, etc.

If you had to eliminate everything but the bare essentials, what would you consider those to be?

I'm really not intending this to be hard, or a test of some sort. I'm mulling all this over for myself because I may give up my office and am trying to figure out what things I'd feel absolutely necessary to move into a new location. One small file cabinet with my 43 folders and A-Z folder with a printer on top, for sure. But would I absolutely have to have a desk, or would I just use the easy chair and my laptop? How many of those books that line the walls of the room are necessary for my writing, and which ones are just there because I don't want to give them up?

So for myself, I'm thinking about scaling back, and what that would mean.

For my classes, I'm thinking about staking a claim, and what that means to them.

For everybody it's a different dynamic, but I still thought it would be interesting to know what we all consider "necessary."

Rick -- of course you're a writer. Writers write. All that time you spend poetry, what else were you doing if not writing?

I started writing when my youngest was barely 3. It was definitely an adventure!

I write at the same place that I work, but when I am writing the e-mail is turned off. I also agree with carving out time to write. Currently, I am working on a 1016 page book, so my rule is that I can not turn on e-mail until 16 pages are done each morning. This takes a good 3-4 hours. But if I don't do the writing first, then e-mail steals my attention and I am sunk.

When I am in the office, I write on a pair of computers. (typing Word document on one computer while shooting Excel screen shots on the other computer).

However - on an airplane, I use a Bic roundstick pen and a spiral notebook. Vast chunks of my books get written on an airplane in longhand. My usual commute is a 1:05 minute flight. Do you realize how much time is wasted on a flight? You board 20 minutes beforehand. Taxi to the runway. Spend 7 minutes climbing to 10,000 feet when *ding* you can now use your laptop. 23 minutes later, we descend below 10,000 feet and all the laptop users have to quit working. I can keep writing through the landing, through the taxi, and while everyone else jumps up to grab their carryon luggage so they can wait 5 minutes for the door to open. My spiral notebook is legal for use for at least 1 hour and 25 minutes plus additional time waiting at the gate to board. My laptop users get maybe a third of that time to work. Plus, there are very few distractions on a spiral notebook. No Outlook pop-ups saying there is a new message. No FreeCell. No browser. I never would get anything written if it weren't for the spiral notebook.

Three books and a couple of hundred magazine articles have come out of a 4x8-foot corner of the living room, with nothing more exotic than a computer, three inbaskets, two file drawers, a phone, a printer, and 18 feet of bookshelf space, half devoted to standard references (Chicago Manual of Style, Roget's, Strunk and White, etc.) and half devoted to a revolving array of references pertinent to the job du jour. The only non-writing stuff allowed in the space is a 3x5 pad for the running shopping list and another to track the week's cash expenses. And they're only here because the "office" is next to the back door and the coat closet.

The key is to have a regular bit of unallocated time where you have the space entirely to yourself, with no interruptions and no messing around with stuff you know you need to do, but which you don't need to do right this minute (email being a prime example). My wife works out-of-house three days a week, and on those three days I write from 5am until noon. The rest of the week I'll squeeze in an hour or two each day when I can, and if a deadline is looming I wear a pair of those sound-deadening headphones aircraft groundcrews wear on the flight line. Whatever it takes to tune out interference and get done what must be done.

Because ideas arrive where and when they will, I've got index cards stashed in stragic locations--favorite chair, bedside, winter coat pockets, the terlet (probably a male-specific thing)--to grab them before they go, and I always carry a Moleskine caheers. These notebooks (much more portable and rugged than the spiral-ring 3x5 Meads they replace) tend to be project specific and get filled up as needed wherever, whenever--airplanes, boats, front seat of the pickup parked down at the wharf--then torn apart when appropriate and filed by category, and the better stuff gets keyed into the computer. Non-project-specific ideas go on the back pages, which are perforated, or on index cards stuffed in the little flap folder on the back cover.

So writing is an ongoing process, pretty much around the clock, pretty much wherever and whenever. But the sit-down part, the important part, the rewriting and rewriting and yet more rewriting, where ideas become manuscript and manuscript becomes articles or books, happens at a certain time in a certain place, just like a real job.

Which it is.

ahab's got it all down exactly right, imo.

Thanks, these are really useful, especially since there are so many different approaches.

For me, I often have to leave home and go to Starbuck's to write. It often helps me focus in a way that being home doesn't, believe it or not. I go there specifically to write, so in my mind it's almost like going to "work." Once there, nothing distracts me. (I often wear headphones -- sometimes they're plugged into music, and other times I don't have the music on. But people are unlikely to bother me when I'm wearing headphones, and other times they may ask me about the internet connection, about my computer, etc.)

Anything that happens -- it's not my problem. At home, I'm surrounded by things that I might need to do, or might get sidetracked thinking about. Once at Starbuck's I have a routine I go through to get in the zone.

When I'm there, I have my backpack with computer, headphones, a CD if there's something in particular I'm listening to (although now with iTunes that's not an issue), and plug. I may have a pad and pen, or some print-outs or a reference book or something if I'm working on a particular scene that requires it, but otherwise, that's it.

Oh, and my venti latte.