A Place for Writing
Virginia Woolf famously insisted that in order to write professionally a woman must have "a room of her own." Yet French author Nathalie Sarraute chose to write in a neighborhood café--same time, same table every morning. "It is a neutral place," she said, "and no one disturbs me--there is no telephone." Novelist Margaret Drabble prefers writing in a hotel room, where she can be alone and uninterrupted for days at a time.
Where is the best place for writing? Along with at least a modicum of talent and something to say, writing requires concentration--and that usually demands isolation. In his book On Writing, Stephen King offers some practical advice:
If possible, there should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with. If there's a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a blank wall. For any writer, but for the beginning writer in particular, it's wise to eliminate every possible distraction.But in this Twittering age, eliminating distractions can be quite a challenge.
Unlike Marcel Proust, for example, who wrote from midnight to dawn in a cork-lined room, most of us have no choice but to write wherever and whenever we can. And should we be lucky enough to find a little free time and a secluded spot, life still has a habit of interfering.
As Annie Dillard found out while trying to write the second half of her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, even a study carrel in a library may supply distractions--especially if that little room has a window.
On the flat roof just outside the window, sparrows pecked gravel. One of the sparrows lacked a leg; one was missing a foot. If I stood and peered around, I could see a feeder creek run at the edge of a field. In the creek, even from that great distance, I could see muskrats and snapping turtles. If I saw a snapping turtle, I ran downstairs and out of the library to watch it or poke it.To eliminate such pleasant diversions, Dillard finally drew a sketch of the view outside the window and then "shut the blinds one day for good" and taped the sketch onto the blinds. "If I wanted a sense of the world," she said, "I could look at the stylized outline drawing." Only then was she able to finish her book.
(The Writing Life, Harper & Row, 1989)
So where is the best place to write?
J.K. Rowling thinks that Nathalie Sarraute had the right idea:
It's no secret that the best place to write, in my opinion, is in a café. You don't have to make your own coffee, you don't have to feel like you're in solitary confinement and if you have writer's block, you can get up and walk to the next café while giving your batteries time to recharge and brain time to think. The best writing café is crowded enough to where you blend in, but not too crowded that you have to share a table with someone else.Not everyone agrees of course. Thomas Mann preferred writing in a wicker chair by the sea. Corinne Gerson wrote novels under the hair dryer in a beauty shop. William Thackeray, like Drabble, chose to write in hotel rooms. And Jack Kerouac wrote the novel Doctor Sax in a toilet in William Burroughs' apartment.
(interviewed by Heather Riccio in HILLARY Magazine)
My favorite answer to this question was suggested by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith:
It helps greatly in the avoidance of work to be in the company of others who are also waiting for the golden moment. The best place to write is by yourself because writing then becomes an escape from the terrible boredom of your own personality.But the most sensible response may be Ernest Hemingway's, who said simply, "The best place to write is in your head."
("Writing, Typing, and Economics," The Atlantic, March 1978)
In the end, what other writers do to focus on their work matters far less than coming to terms with your own writing habits. Do your best to find or create an environment that suits you, and then at least try blocking out any distractions (cell phones, for instance, or children) that you can't eliminate altogether.
The best place to write is wherever you can write.
More About Your Role as a Writer:
- The Write Attitude and Your Writing Goals
- Your Writing: Private and Public
- The Principles of Good Writing
Image: Annie Dillard (Photo by Phyllis Rose)
Comments
I find that building positive writing associations in particular locations helps create enjoyable and productive writing environments. These locations must be somehow outside, Internet free and my BlackBerry must be tucked away; close enough for comfort but far enough away as not to be distracted. I haven’t had much luck writing in cafes, as there is too much sound in many of them here in L.A., where most people come to cafes to connect with others under the guise of doing work. Cafes are a great way to meet people but for pure writing, solitude and nature is best. My favorite spots are in a nearby park, parked in my car at a parking spot facing the Marina Del Rey channel, and on my patio that feels “above it all” and has a great view of very large, majestic palm trees.
Where is the right place for me to write?
This question caused me to wonder. Where indeed? I had never thought about it before.
Long ago I wrote at the dinning room table while drinking chain cups of coffee. My first book was written this way, along with three kids, the twins, a boy and a girl, and their big brother, running around the table playing tag. I wrote 84 one minute spots a week for KLAC propped up in our King Size bed, with the three kids, the twins and their pack leader big brother, jumping up and down on the bed…whooping and hollering.
However, I usually wrote poetry for myself after 3:00 AM when everyone had been asleep.
Now, since a Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy and a State owned Wilderness Park, three miles from our hilltop home, due to neglect, piles of debris, and no Ranger on duty, burst into flame and destroyed my cute cottage library out back, along with over 3000 research books, and much of our home, I function in a sunroom at the edge of our home that overlooks the canyon and our doves.
Mentor, my deceased artist husband, and I had attracted four flocks of doves. There are 8 in a flock. Forty in all. They are organized. First one shows up and waits on the telephone cable, and then one by one they line up … ready for the day’s activities. I don’t mind them out there. I rather enjoy their visits.
There is also a fat Squirrel who shows up every day — on time, and comes as close as he can to the sunroom windows … without falling off the deck rail. One can set a clock by his schedule. We both spend a minute or two staring at each other. He stops staring first as he is busy.
Unlike Stephen King, I can write with noise and interruptions. I could never write at a Star Bucks or an I Hop, because I am very sociable and would want to talk.
I also keep the TV going night and day turned to News. It’s always on in the back ground. The set is small and is at my left elbow, slightly in back of me. Once-in-Blue-Moon I reach over and turn it off … if I am in the middle of a tricky passage. But usually I can keep going.
“Boy”. you are probably saying, “I bet her work sucks”.
I don’t know. I think it’s pretty good. I’m not a nervous type and so not easily ruffled.
Mentor, my husband did conceptual designs for 250 Feature Films and created about 40,000 drawings; and he worked the same way I do. Neither of us ever had to be isolated or exclusive. He listened to music and I talked his ear off. Nothing stopped him.
My writing takes place in my head. What seems to be the ‘writing’ part is actually just typing. I thnk it all has been written before I start.
Oh, by the way, I write on the computer. I find writing by hand too slow. And, those long yellow legal size pads everyone always talks about, are not for me. I hate them.
I’ve had a lot of magazine and newspaper deadlines and couldn’t take time to write in the right place.
It worked out.
I guess I’m not too sensitive.
I think writers need to be a little sturdy.