By Joe Moore
I had a discussion at a recent luncheon with a couple of my fellow authors about our individual writing environments and where we prefer to work. One likes to take her laptop to the local coffee shop while another prefers the library. A third writes at home like me. It seems to vary as much as our stories do.
I work from my home office—a commute of 20 or so paces from the kitchen counter where I’ve had coffee and read the paper. It’s an environment in which I feel comfortable and have yet to tire of. Here’s a photo:
My home office has blackout curtains that I can close if I want to set a mood or maintain a constant light level throughout the day. I’m a neat freak so my desk is usually well organized. I’m very impatient and don’t like to wait for programs to load or items to process, so I use a Dell super gaming computer with Intel Quad Core processing. Although I don’t play games, I find that it makes things happen in a blink of an eye.
I also use 3 flat screen monitors allowing me to have my email, word processing and Internet all open so I can see everything at once. Sometimes I sit and 
stare at my fish tank. So does my cat—his name is Patio. But I convinced him that the tank is really a small TV always tuned to Animal Planet. He bought into it and leaves the fish alone, choosing instead to curl up on a nearby wooden chair and sleep his life away.
I have a large collection of movie scores converted to MP3s that I play while I write to set a dramatic mood. The back of home office is full of bookcases containing all my reference books and favorite novels.
I enjoy gazing out my window as I ponder my next plot point. I have a number of golden coconut palms in my yard and a ton of ferns—there can 
never be enough ferns. In the mornings and evenings, the palm trees are filled with (non-native) Quaker parrots who like to squawk at rock-concert volume. The rest of the day, I listen to the cardinals, nightingales and blue jays discussing the best worm-infested hunting grounds. At certain times of the year, dragonflies zoom past my window at sunrise like miniature Apache gunships hunting for mosquitoes. In the evening, the motion detector lights turn on to illuminate a passing raccoon.
I live a few miles from the eastern edge of the Florida Everglades, so it’s common for me to see a long-legged white egret, a flock of ibises or a great blue heron wandering across my lawn.
All in all, it’s a great writer’s environment; one that I’ve worked hard to make into a comfortable environment in which I can be creative.
What about you? Where do you like to write? A busy Starbucks or a quiet space? Have you done anything to your writing environment to encourage creativity?
Isn’t funny how writers differ on this? For years I did most of my writing at Starbucks. I like a bit of activity going on around me. I have a home office now but still like to slip out to my favorite table several times a week.
My desk would drive Joe crazy, I fear.
Thanks for sharig that, Joe. I love seeing other writers’ creative environments. While I travel a lot, and therefore do a lot of my writing in hotels and airports, I’m never more comfortable or creative than when I’m home in my office. I’m not a neat freak by any means, but I do like my trinkets. There’s a page dedicated to pictures my writing space on my website: http://www.johngilstrap.com/writingspace.html
Jim, I’ve never tried writing at Starbucks. Since I don’t have a laptop, it would look so tacky setting up my desktop PC and multiple monitors on one of those tiny tables. 🙂 But I might try it just for laughs.
John, your office looks so presidential. If you decide to run for congress, you have my vote. And wow, a TV in your office. I know, it’s for . . . research, yeah, that’s it.
I have a small extra bedroom I converted to an office on the second floor of my house. It faces onto my back yard, so I can see the trees and birds and woodland creatures–well, squirrels–when I need to look up from the keyboard. Wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Of course, all I see today is snow.
I may evolve into a hybrid–part office, part somewhere else. Now, I write in my home office with a soothing view of rolling wheat fields and Idaho’s rising mountains. I’m eying a nice little coffee shop, thought, across the street from a large coffee shop where university students, readers, writers and poets sip java. Time will tell.
Dana, good luck with the snow. We had a cold front pass through last night and it plummeted down to the mid-50s. No complaints here.
Mark, your view sounds great. That’s one thing we don’t have in SF is mountains (except for the huge landfills.) This part of the state is flat–I live 10 miles inland from the Atlantic and the elevation is 12 feet above sea level. A few hills would be a nice change.
Thanks so much for sharing Joe! I love to see other writers’ working environments. Great idea with the 3 screens!
I for one have a toddler so it’s a stay home writing day EVERY day:)But I’m ok with that.
Your office is gorgeous, Joe! I write on a laptop so I can move from one room to another. Most of the time I use the couch in the family room (near the woodburning stove) or a table in the sunroom.
Dana, we’re buried in Pittsburgh, too.
I’m a migratory writer, like Joyce. I usually start off on the couch in the living room, with the laptop set on a TV table. Then at some point I move into the bedroom. When I have to print stuff out, I use the dining room table, which usually functions as a work space rather than a dining space. We have an office downstairs that has floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a corner desk, and a bar. But I never use it for writing, for some reason. I think because it feels too formal.
We converted our garage into a writing studio – so I have skylights and french doors and a bamboo floors – all very conducive to writing. I have a suffragette poster, and a huge wall sized cork board with newspaper articles, maps and historical cartoons on it to encourage creativity. It’s also a complete pigsty – books overflowing everywhere, papers piled on my desk…my husband is horrified! I can’t write in coffee shops or anywhere in public – far too embarrassing. I don’t tend to write in the studio at night as my boys press their noses to their bedroom window (which overlooks the studio) and cry for me to come inside…
Joe, your desk looks like my IT Admin desk at work surrounded by PC’s and monitors. Comfortably High-Tech.
For writing though, my office is decidedly low key. It consists of a wingback recliner, a lamp, a side table and my laptop. Kids and wife use the real office for school. My writing mostly all occurs at night, with the lights off except my lamp. Bose noise cancelling headphones pipe either new-age ambience or techno-beat softly into my head. Summers I write out on the back deck with a blaze in the firepit to stare into for reflection.
I like low key informal spaces. My recording studio consists of a couple thousand dollars worth of equipment neatly setup and organized in my walk-in closet. Amazing how well Liz Claiborne and Docker’s absorb sound.
http://www.basilsands.com
Since I’ve been known to read in a gym full of kids running around and playing ball, I don’t think I would have any trouble pretty much writing anywhere, if “the mood” hit me.
Thanks for all the additional comments. One thing’s for sure, writers can always find some place to work. I just wish we could get some of those mountains down into South Florida.
I write with a pencil on a chunk of bark while sitting naked on the front steps with a .22 leaned against the door in case something needs killing.
Actually I write on the couch on my laptop, or in my office in my son’s art gallery.
John, everything would have been believable except for the naked part. That’s just plain scary.