A writer should never install himself before a panorama, however grandiose it may be … Like Saint Jerome, a writer should work in his cell. Turn the back.
– Blaise Cendrars
Can you work with a view? Do you need silence or do you like a little noise? Where is your preferred place to write?
I wrote my first book in a room so small that if I reached out both arms I could touch the walls. It looked out onto our neighbours brick wall.
Since then I have moved twice and been in bigger rooms and I’m finding myself much less productive. I miss the cell.
And music, always music when I work. Movie soundtracks.
I wish I could write to music, but I need quiet – lots of it. I live in two rooms in my daughter and SIL’s house. They are TV freaks and it gets switched on at 7 in the morning and doesn’t go off until at least 1:00am the following morning. I do my best writing sitting on my bed with my laptop – with earplugs firmly in place 🙂
At our old house, where I finished my first novel, the only view was the communal car park and I struggled. We moved a year ago and now the view is of the mountains – well Snowdon and also Portmeirion (where The Prisoner was filmed). Now I’m more productive, despite a few neighbours from hell.
I can write with or without a view, but I can’t write to music…except that I can also write in environments with lots of distractions (e.g., coffee shops, ferry terminals, bus stations…). In my own home, I like quiet.
My household was multi-generational, with my husband and I caught between my teenaged daughter and my mother. I was most productive, sitting in bed playing Vivaldi Four Seasons, because if I came downstairs, I was fair game. My daughter has moved out, but my husband now works from home, so there is still distractions from the two remaining members of the household unless I stay in my bedroom. The only view I have up here is my neighbour’s front garden.
I can write almost anywhere. What’s going on is inside my head, not outside. The exception is if family is around. For whatever reason, I’m ‘tuned’ to them so anything they say/do/sigh catches my attention even if they’re in a totally different part of the house.
Music is almost always in the background and varies by type of story.
Now, nerd moment. When I went to the authentication block it had “.9-3=” and my first reaction was “Cool, decimals and negative numbers.” Apparently, you can’t enter a three or four character answer. It was a spot on the screen, strategically located. 9-3 just isn’t as fun.
My office has a view of the Intracoastal Waterway and I love it. My husband is a newspaper reporter who works at home and his room has no windows and a lot of bookshelves. I’d be claustrophobic there, but he says it has no distractions. We both like to write in quiet.
As I type this now I am sitting in my home office. I’ve placed my desk so that I can always see out the window directly to my left. I love music too much to listen to it while working. In no time at all I’ll be concentrating on its nuances instead of my own work. I can’t work in public places at all. I don’t understand how – or why – people do it.
Like Paul above, I can write most anywhere~ I even manage to get things done on an airplane on in the airport~ maybe it’s strangers not being curious or having a chore or favor to ask since I’m “not reall doing anything”.
A view is nice, bit nonessential ~ music, though, is a must-have~ well, maybe not a deal breaker, but preferred at all times.
I must have silence to write. I can’t write if my partner is strumming the guitar, the radio or TV is on. My two favorite places: out on my deck on a sunny day-pen and pad, and in my finished basement nicknamed “the hole” where I have my computer, books, and a view up the hill to the forever wild.
Frances
My office is my tiny bedroom in a small two-bedroom apartment, where I live with my friend and roommate. My desk is a card table set up right next to my bed with a very narrow path between to get in and out. Since we are both disabled, we are usually home 24/7 and most of the time the TV is on in her room, which is right next to mine. I have tried to write with music, but I just can’t. I close my door and do my best to tune out the noise. I never thought of earplugs (duh!), so I will try that. I have tried writing while out, in a coffee shop, etc. and I can’t really concentrate. I have been successful a couple of times when I went to the park, but without a car, it is a bit difficult for me to get there, so I stay home. I’m open to any suggestions.. 🙂
I’m the oddity here – but I’m the oddity almost everywhere I go. I CANNOT work in the silence. Most of my professional life I have worked in newsrooms, which are not noted as calm, soothing places. When after many years of that I got a job as a PR writer at a university I was given my own office, and discovered I couldn’t work with the door closed. Even with it open, I found the department office too quiet and I was constantly falling asleep. It just wasn’t a good fit. Between the clamor of the newsroom, with a dozen people all talking at once, and the fact that I grew up in a family of eight kids, I am addicted to noise. Not any particular noise, just noise. So when I need to get work done I have to flip on the TV and ignore it. A couple of hours of “Law and Order: SVU,” and “Bones,” and I can whip out a thousand words without much trouble. But in the silence? I’m lucky if I can write 20 meaningful sentences.
It all changes with each book for me. Sometimes I want total and complete quietness, but after a while the silence is too much and I want music. Sometimes the music becomes too much and I revert to silence. Sometimes I want a view and light and breeze, and other times I want closed windows and complete darkness.
It’s never the same for me. Always changes.