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A Question for Writers
pooks | Mar 2 2006
Do you have a writing space? A home office? A desk? A particular chair? Do you share it? If you do, does that cause any problems for you? What do you consider necessary to have around you when you're writing? Bare minimum, and then, what do you actually have? I'm asking for several reasons. But for starters, I'm putting together a handout for a class I teach, a handout that tells them that if they want to write, they need to carve out a space (time and/or place) for writing and make it happen, not just think about it. When I first started writing we didn't have any place for me to put a desk, much less an office, so I had to physically find a place to put a very small table, put a dictionary, etc. on it. It could also be the opposite problem. Maybe you have a home office and it's filled with everything you need for all sorts of projects, jobs, etc. Do you have some specific items there because you're a writer, or do your writing tools just blend in with everything else? Do you think it's important to claim a space, or am I making too big a deal out of it? (I'm assuming a lot of people just keep pushing their dreams aside to some vague future when they Have More Time For Such Nonsense, and I try to snap them out of that. If they've signed up to take a class, you'd assume they're making it a priority, but many are still too embarrassed or hesitant to really think of themselves as writers or make any claims on time or space, because they feel rather silly.) (I know I sure did.) Thanks! 27 Comments
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 I write at the same...Submitted by bjele on March 2, 2006 - 8:06pm.
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. » POSTED IN:
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