The Best Place to Write

Where do you write?

I write in different places.   

Sometimes, I write at home.  I have three places at home where I write: in my office on the second floor, on the island in the kitchen (where I am now), and downstairs in Chris's office (where I went recently during a period of hot weather; it's much cooler in the basement).

The next place I usually write is in the Silent Study room at the local public library.  Sometimes, the Silent Study room is the perfect place to get work done.  It's actually silent, like the name says.  The group of people in there respect each other's right to silence, and we all get our work done.   

Other times, well, let's just say I'd like to kick some of these people out.

There's the woman who wears too much perfume (that gets my nose running).  The old Chinese gentleman, who uses a tiny magnifying glass to see his laptop screen, and sucks on his own saliva, making a slurping sound (can't he hear himself?).  The overweight black guy who never turns his cell phone ringer down or off, and it rings the entire time he's there.  The large black woman who slips her shoes off so everyone can smell her feet.  The group of Chinese children, who are up and down, as the cliche goes, like toilet seats, and whose supposed whispers are more distracting than outright talking.  The young chickees who whisper and laugh constantly.

You'd never know some people are in that room.  Other people, you know every time.  You'd think they'd wake up and see the name above the door:  SILENT STUDY.  What part of that don't you understand?

Then there are three coffee shops around town:  The Starbucks at a strip mall, where I treat myself to a mocha frap about once a week (I can't believe they're $4.99 per; what's in them to justify that expense?).  The locally-owned coffee shop near where I live, that can be really noisy.  And Waves Coffee, some distance away.

On the rare occasion, I travel to an adjoining community, where the public library is new and beautiful and a great place to be.  Except there's no Silent Study room, and, at about two-thirty in the afternoon, when the kids get out of school, all hell breaks loose, and I know getting anything done from that point will be impossible.   (Oh, and there was the East Indian fellow, who sat near the study booths and promptly fell asleep, snoring louder than Chris does–and that's loud.) 

I haven't figured out the trick to being focused and productive as far as where I work is concerned.

Sometimes, I need the absolute quiet I get at home, particularly when I'm working on a more complex task, like a thorough rewrite.  But, sometimes, I find being at home boring and distracting too.  I get up too often to look out the window at a noise I hear.  Or to look in the fridge.  Or to do just about anything but work.

And, sometimes, no distractions at all is too quiet.  Like I tell Chris, I need to work around other people too.  Just because I don't have a job outside the house doesn't mean I don't need to interact and feel like I'm a part of the bigger world.  More often than not, especially lately, I need to feel the energy of other people around me.  I spend enough time at home; I shouldn't have to work on my writing there every day too.

Coffee shops are hit and miss.

Last Friday, I went to Waves.  I felt good.  I knew I'd have a focused and productive day (which I did).  But the second I walked in the place, I felt the temperature drop.  Yes, we've had a lot of hot weather recently.  But setting your thermostat at 65 degrees F. seems just a little low to me.  And I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts.  I lasted about two hours in the fridge before I had to leave.  Hours later, I still felt cold. 

The one smart thing I did was bring ear plugs with me.  Nothing in Waves absorbed the sound, so it was pretty noisy, with all the people coming and going.  The ear plugs blocked out the din of everything around me, turning it into white noise.  This was one instance where noise didn't prevent me from working.

I think writers need to go with wherever they feel like writing, depending on the day.

If staying at home today feels like the right thing to do, then that's where you should be.  If being around other people, but in a quiet environment, feels right, then the library might be the right place.  Although you never know, until you're there, whether what's going on that day will be conducive to getting anything done.  And, if you need the excitement of an energetic, noisy place, with the churn of lots of people, a coffee shop might fit the bill.  On the other hand, it could be too noisy, and you might find yourself leaving shortly after you get there, having gotten nothing done at all, and wondering where you should go next.