I once dreamed of a space in exclusively for writing. A library with shelves of books stacked so high that a an old-fashioned step ladder is a functional necessity, not just a decorative object. A desk at a window facing the ocean or a mountain range or a city skyline. Something wild and endless. The desk would be massive with space enough for coffee mugs and notebooks and pens and my laptop. The chair I sit in while I create worlds and people would be high-backed and cushioned so that I would be so comfortable I would forget my own corporeal form and drift away into the story I was telling.
That’s the dream. Here’s the reality.
I write anywhere and everywhere. In coffee shops, at the dining table, on the floor of the living room, on the sofa, on a plane, on a train, in my office on my lunch break, in the bathroom, in the park, in my bed. Mostly I write in my bed, because it is my most comfy piece of furniture at the moment. And also because I have the most interest in writing either when I first wake up or when I’m about to go to sleep. I have a day job, and so that makes it tough to write every day at the same time in the same place, which some authors recommend as the “best” way to do it.
I wonder if I had the space to just focus on writing whether that would change the routine. Would I schedule myself a few hours a day to work on writing and stick to the schedule? Would I get more words written? Would those be better words? Clearer, more powerful? Or would everything be exactly the same?
The way I write now, is a constant thing. My characters and stories are always there with me in the world, I call upon them in times of boredom. I think through plot lines on my morning commute. I imagine dialogue in the shower, sometimes speaking voices out loud (which frightens my wife and my cats). Putting the words on the page that will tell the story is the end result of a long gestation period of thought and occasional scrawling in notebooks. Would the dream writer room contain my process? Would a regimented daily schedule prevent some things from fully developing as they should?
Probably not. But maybe. I’ll let you know how it works out when my dream room is built. Until then, I will be furiously pounding my thumbs on my phone screen while waiting in line at the post office or typing on my laptop in bed precariously balancing coffee mugs beside me on the blankets. FYI, I wrote this on my phone in the kitchen...
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August Prather is Not Dead Yet
