If You Want to Write, Create a Space

     Our surroundings influence and intimately connect with us.  Whether you like noise, chaos, background blare, soothing sounds, or vast silence, your choice of writing space can make or break your writing. As a beginning writer, especially, your environment can be a big helper in the struggle to push past the early obstacles, and create a writing habit.

     I have covered three things to do if we want to write. Today I add Create a Space. Your space is at least those five to seven feet immediately surrounding you. Imagine a seven-foot bubble around you on all sides, top and bottom. Imagine stepping into a fantastic and inspiring, safe, and motivating bubble. You might like to try different spaces. Our beloved writers had their favorites. Some went to a local bookstore and sat among the musty pages, inspired by centuries of other writers there in the books. Some gathered at someone’s house, inspired by the presence of other active writers. Some went to lonely or out-of-the-way haunts—a “dive” where it is dark and strangers play pool. A fast food Chinese joint. A piano bar. A donut shop. A coffee house. A poetry slam. A sidewalk seat outside a French pastry store. You can write outside a Fire Station. A school. A zoo. A cemetery. Dante wrote after climbing a steep hill. I have climbed it myself. From the top, you look out upon stunning beauty. Perhaps it is good to walk before writing.

     Many writers make a space at home. Their “loft”, den, office, chair, or bed! I love an old wooden desk, a good reading lamp, a big window and a place for my pet. It’s good to designate a space for writing and that is all you do there. Your brain gets used to the idea, “When I sit here, I write.”  You can create rituals that “train your brain.” Turn on the same lamp, hear the familiar squeak of the chair, taste the familiar air, look out the window upon the same scene. Going through the same motions day after day creates automatic signals that tell your brain, “We’re here again, and here, we write.”  

Inspiration is the act of drawing up a chair to the writing desk. ~Anonymous

     It is also a benefit in that other people come to realize that is your writing space. When you go in there, they learn to give you time and peace. Other people often need signals too that say, “That’s the writing place.” To say to people, “I’m writing,” means little to them. They will learn that “I’m writing” means I’m NOT chatting, taking out the trash, watching TV, taking phone calls or visiting with the children. If you have a special space, and you are consistent, others will learn this is your time for you.

     Sometimes I change space. I love a log cabin in the woods, a motel for a day, sitting on the sand at the beach. I will often drive for an hour to some little town I’ve never been to or heard of, find a picnic table, and write there. For a time I walked every day to a tiny breakfast joint near my home. I wrote for 30 minutes, and left.  The library is fantastic if you find you aren’t concentrating, or you are making excuses not to write. You can find few distractions, there.

     Whether neon pink, black light or bare wood, your space should resonate with you. It should feel completely in a sense sacred, yours…unlikely to be interrupted, and completely physically safe. You want your mind to travel into vast canyons, new horizons, deep chasms, forbidden oceans. You must feel at ease, at home, able to follow your thoughts to wherever they go. Yet, keep a sense of direction and purpose.  This space should call to you. Though that may take time to develop, like an enduring friendship.

It is a delicious thing to write. To be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating.   ~Gustave Flaubert

     I’ll talk about equipping your space, next time. Meanwhile, tell us about your writing space. What is it like?  Do you have troubles finding or creating a space?

Let Yourself Bloom,

© K. Wordbird Bate

photo by myKReeve