After a brief hiatus, Write Now is back – bringing you writing tips and ideas. This week, Luiza Sauma looks at the different places where writers like to work, from busy cafes to quiet home offices, and asks: does it matter where you choose to write?
Truman Capote liked to do it on the sofa.
Jonathan Franzen sometimes does it blindfolded, in the dark, wearing earplugs, drinking shots of vodka. Proust famously did it in bed, in a cork-lined room. J K Rowling liked doing it in public, while John Cheever did it in his pants.
I’m talking, of course, about writing: where do you write and does it matter?
When I was a young, aspiring writer, I thought that conditions had to be perfect for the muse to strike – whether I was working on an academic essay, article or appalling short story.
Three essential elements had to mystically align for me to be able to set finger to keyboard – from the time of day (middle of the night), stimulants (black coffee and cigarettes) and company (none). If I ran out of cigarettes, if midnight hadn’t struck or if I could hear my friends scuttling around our student house, all bets were off.
By the time I had graduated and found full-time employment at a newspaper, I had thankfully shrugged off these sullen, youthful pretentions. I did panic slightly, though, when I realised I was going to have to write and edit, five days a week, in a stuffy grey box filled with 100 shouty reporters. How the hell was I going to cope?
It was, at it turned out, an ideal setting for writing – for me, at least, being trapped in an office, with no house to clean, food to cook, fags to roll and clothes to fold (all classic work-avoidance techniques), I was more productive than ever. Within a year, I could trot out a feature having had one hour’s sleep (thank you, insomnia) or with a vomit-inducing hangover, with only a minimum of pain and fuss.
Others don’t take to the office environment as well – choosing to come to work at the crack of dawn to write their features in peace, or staying at home altogether. As a natural-born staffer, I’m constantly in awe of the productive, pyjama-clad, at-home freelancers who fill our nation’s newspapers, websites and magazines – having tried it myself, I’d probably be more productive working from a park bench.
The fact is that there isn’t a perfect place to write; everyone has their ways, and everyone, arguably, could write in most situations, if they really wanted to. But we all have our habits; our little rituals that get us in the right frame of mind.
One person’s lovely cafe with tea on tap is another person’s money-guzzling hellhole of screaming children and sickly cake. One person’s comfy bed is another person’s, well, comfy bed – to sleep in, while drooling onto a laptop.
As long as you have a computer or pen, and somewhere to sit, you’re all set. With that in mind, I’ve leave you with American author Nora Roberts – who has written well over 200 romance novels – and her three little pearls of wisdom.
The secret to her success? “Ass on chair.” Any old chair will do.
More Write Now:
Commandments for aspiring journalists
The literary canon – do we need it?