Where and Where Not to Write

This week at Wicked Writers, our prompt was to explain what we considered to be the best places to write, as well as to describe some of the worst.

If one is fortunate, they have a private office somewhere. Perhaps it is removed from the house like a room out back. I always thought that I would love to have an office on a second floor with a marvelous view. I found this photo from one of my favorite films, Love Actually. That view isn't too bad, although I can't remember her name. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

If writing is one’s only job, perhaps a trip to the summer home or a winter retreat, all for the express purpose of getting away in order to remove distraction. Musicians do this all the time, but the successful ones can afford to do that, can’t they? They fly out to the Bahamas for 6 weeks and write and record a new album. Deep Purple famously went to Montreux to record an album and ended up coming up with perhaps the most famous song ever, due to a hotel fire, Smoke on the Water.

Speaking for myself now, I am in no position to go anywhere to write. I do have a laptop, however, so I can theoretically travel from one room to the next in my house as dictated by whatever house noise there might be. I can also take it outside and write while seated on the patio, where only the noise of the Finches will distract as they devour the food that we put out for them.

An issue that I have currently is I find it uncomfortable to write creatively on the laptop. I usually do not write anything but articles and posts on that thing. Both novels that I have written were done on the family PC with its traditional keyboard. I just feel more comfortable with that, so we’ll see. Hopefully it will simply be a matter of getting myself used to writing long works with my laptop. Otherwise, I will be having to share the family PC and that will be good for no one.

As those who have gotten to know me quite well can recall, I am firmly on record as having said that I need music around me at all times. This, however, is the one exception. Music is far too distracting, as some have commented this week. Therefore, the only time I need to resort to music is if the entire family is home and I need to drown them out a bit.

Both of my sons play instruments. I want them to get some practice time in, but when the oldest is playing his Baritone or the youngest his Sax, even if they are doing so down the hall in either their bedrooms or my master bedroom, it can be pretty loud. When my youngest isn’t on his instrument, he’s typically firmly plugged into his Xbox 360 in the first bedroom just off the living room, blowing bed guys or zombies to bits, yelling instructions into his wireless microphone to his buddies who are playing as well. My oldest is in Honor Choir as well as Honor Band, so he’s usually singing wherever he goes. All of these things, not to mention my wife potentially sitting before the television, force me to don the headphones and crank the Classical music.

If one is going to sit down to write with music, to me, Classical is the only way to go. Not only will it drown out whatever background noise you need removed from your creative mind, but it is fantastic at providing inspiration, too. Whether the scene that you are writing is sad, dramatic, horror-inducing, romantic, or action-packed, there’s plenty out there to choose from. I’m a power guy, so I’m usually listening to Holst’s The Planets or something similar.

Well, what do you Wicked Writers and Readers think? Where do we agree? Disagree? Do you have any suggestions for me or others? As always we’d love to hear them.