Your "Dream" Writing Environment

All I need is a reasonable temperature, a good chair, a working computer and no loud salsa music from the neighbors. The rest is gravy.

skelly said:

This has probably been done before, but I don't care. I'm thinking about my "dream writer's space." It has nothing to do with whether or not I think it would make me more productive, or creative, but where--in a perfect world--I would like do my writing.

I always picture myself outside of a log cabin near a lake at the center of a vast forest. Obviously, since it is a dream, I have a never-ending supply of food, water, interesting books, and beer (not necessarily in that order). Usually it is winter. There is a big, broad, flat-topped promontory that thrusts out into the lake, and from it, in one particular direction, you can see a vast gathering of mountains all blue and purple and hazy in the distance, the white tops of which are reflected in the pond through a gap in the tall trees.

I guess I forgot to mention the infinite supply of legal pads and sharp pencils. Also, I have this tiny little computer--about the size of an Ipod Nano--that has (non-Internet) access to everything ever written since the dawn of writing stuff, for when I need to do research.

That's about it, really. It's almost always winter, and I can always smell wood smoldering in the fireplace back in the cabin as I write.

There is this cute faerie girl who stops by occasionally, but I won't go into that.

I doubt that I'm the only writer who has entertained such wild fancies.

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I actually know of a place like that.

My great aunt owns a home on Lake Cumberland in south central Kentucky. We call it "Turkey Creek," named after the bend in the river below where the house sits.

It's a beautiful A-frame literally in the middle of nowhere. Yet all the amenities are there: three refrigerators, pool table, air conditioning, running water, Star Wars pinball machine.

This place is, as they say, SWEET.

I went there recently to write. Stayed the night by myself. The silence was just...immense. Loved it.

Unfortunately, since my family and I live in Louisville, which is 3 hours away, I only get access to this place once every month or so.

I really can't think of any place cool I'd want to be to write, because if the place was really cool, I'd never get any writing done, I'd be enjoying the coolness of it all.

So I guess the best place for me to write is some place totally uncool that has absolutely nothing to hold my interest, thus forcing me to write because there wouldn't anything else to do.

My fantasy writing space would include a room just for writing, with glass doors that opened onto the beach. Somewhere warm, and beautiful, that included someone to clean, cook, shop, and take care of the children. And a great stereo system.

I'm pretty happy here, honestly, in the basement, laptop on my crossed leg, TV on, preferably a House rerun....

But my dream place is definitely in Oxford, on the steps of this building...I don't even know what it was, but when I was 11 I wrote in my journal in this one spot, and I would love to go back there....get a little flat, live by myself, eat kraft dinner, be poor as dirt and write all day. I could do that for awhile.

My first choice would be a log cabin somewhere in the woods, on a mountain where no one could bother me.

My second choice is a drafty Scottish castle.

Both scenarios include ruggedly handsome dark-haired men to cater to my every whim.

My dream writing environment is anywhere that's fully paid for. Bonus if the fridge is full.

I'd like to live in the alps with a little writing shack at the edge of my property, like Mahler had.

PattiTheWicked said:

My first choice would be a log cabin somewhere in the woods, on a mountain where no one could bother me.

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That would be my choice! With a beautiful view and no one around to bug me.

PattiTheWicked said:

Both scenarios include ruggedly handsome dark-haired men to cater to my every whim.

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But then I'd definitely never get any writing done...I'd be WAY too busy! <evil grin>

My room in the apartment I share with my best friend, or else My Room in my house that's next door to my best friend's house. Location unimportant; people imperative. All I really need is my iPod to write...well and my laptop, or paper, or whatever.

As an old man

skelly said:

This has probably been done before, but I don't care. I'm thinking about my "dream writer's space." It has nothing to do with whether or not I think it would make me more productive, or creative, but where--in a perfect world--I would like do my writing.

Click to expand...

As an old man (more or less)...I find that many of my dreams are of the past.

I remember one place I did some very good writing:

An old house a block from the university in a very strange town that I had just returned to....where I had grown up and was now in Graduate School.
I rented the back half of the house and the garage and the backyard was apparently all mine.

The air was clear and clean (it was a long time ago)...life was cheap. I made a documentary movie about a co-op. I bought all my clothes and books and records used. I even bought the most beautiful all vacuum tube amplifier the world has ever seen.

For the two years I was there...all the thunderstorms were perfect. It was before global warming. Sound travelled farther and the air was unbelievably clear. The breezes were always cool and refreshing. Visitors would come to town and we would go to the mountains.

In those days I was a poet and every good poem resulted in one more totally unexpected seduction of a series of progressively taller girls. One wondered how that particularly surreal sequence could go on or reach some point of relative absurdity. I had to stop writing and leave town obviously before my perceptions were distorted or something.

It was before starbucks (which I worship)...but there was a sort of protostarbucks a few blocks away.

Anyway...wrote a lot of poems. Some were good. After that one run of poems, I never wrote poems again.

AS for a writing environment: I had a desk and a portable typewriter and nothing to do but go to graduate school. I had a job in the library finding materials for visiting scholars.

If I were dreaming big -- well, I took a short vacation in Paris this year and stayed in the most beautiful little apartment, just one block from the Eiffel Tower. If I could afford it, I would go there and write -- quiet, comfortable, in beautiful surroundings and with a bistro just down the street for good wine and beef after the day's labors were done.

Sokal said:

As an old man (more or less)...I find that many of my dreams are of the past.

I remember one place I did some very good writing:

An old house a block from the university in a very strange town that I had just returned to....where I had grown up and was now in Graduate School.
I rented the back half of the house and the garage and the backyard was apparently all mine.

The air was clear and clean (it was a long time ago)...life was cheap. I made a documentary movie about a co-op. I bought all my clothes and books and records used. I even bought the most beautiful all vacuum tube amplifier the world has ever seen.

For the two years I was there...all the thunderstorms were perfect. It was before global warming. Sound travelled farther and the air was unbelievably clear. The breezes were always cool and refreshing. Visitors would come to town and we would go to the mountains.

In those days I was a poet and every good poem resulted in one more totally unexpected seduction of a series of progressively taller girls. One wondered how that particularly surreal sequence could go on or reach some point of relative absurdity. I had to stop writing and leave town obviously before my perceptions were distorted or something.

It was before starbucks (which I worship)...but there was a sort of protostarbucks a few blocks away.

Anyway...wrote a lot of poems. Some were good. After that one run of poems, I never wrote poems again.

AS for a writing environment: I had a desk and a portable typewriter and nothing to do but go to graduate school. I had a job in the library finding materials for visiting scholars.

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Damn, that was fine, Sokal. Wish I could read more!

My dream environment is an attic room in a beach house on Cape Cod. It would be a Mid-Cape town, like Dennis or Brewster (ideally with the lower population of my childhood), and the house would be on the bay side so I could look out my window in the evening and see the lighthouse lights all up and down the coastline. I would know each light by its color and timing, and they would be like old friends.

I wouldn't get much writing done, since I would spend all my time gazing out the window and daydreaming, but hey-- it sounds nice, doesn't it?

My dream writing environment would be an oversized closet with an outlet and loads of privacy. I would, of course, have wooden slats on the walls and the outlet would be brown in color. I would have either my typewriter or my laptop hooked up in there, and in the case of the computer I would likely be using a program such as DarkRoom as my word processor -- I love the old monochrome look of the word processor that reminds me so much of the computers I used in High School.

I would have plenty of insulation in the room, so as to keep outside noises out and inside noises in. And when I use a typewriter, it would be an Underwood No. 6 upright manual.

Everything would smack of antique, with the exception of the computer. My desk would be an ancient oak one, with the typewriter neatly tucked away in a drawer or a fancy cubbyhole in the desktop.

I would be sitting in an old wooden office chair, and wearing my pajamas and slippers for comfort. The chair, of course, would have arms, and a cushion on the seat so my rear end would not hurt after a while.

I might have a single light fixture hanging overhead, like those in my Grandma's old house, from a wire and boasting a single incandescent bulb. I would, of course, also have a desk lamp.

The floor would be bare wood, and I would have a cork board for assignments on the wall above my desk.

All in all, a pretty spartan situation, but boy would the privacy be good for my soul!

I would like to write in a library with all the reference books (and fiction) I could wish for built in some rural place with a stunning view in case I want to go out. For the writing itself. A state of the art computer, a good chair and an endless supply of food and drinks.

I'd like a little office in a sleepy rural town, preferably someplace above street level so I wouldn't be too distracted when looking out the window. No internet access, but I'd have a good laptop and a desk under the window. I'd go there every morning early to do the day's writing, leaving my afternoon and evening free--because of course I'd be successful enough in my writing that I'd have quit my day job!

The scary thing is that I believe I'm describing an office over the post office in the small town where I grew up. Not that I'd mind moving back there, as long as the office was still available.

Thanks

Ziljon said:

Damn, that was fine, Sokal. Wish I could read more!

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skelly said:

Sokal, that was a great read! Sean...you know what, I actually wrote in a closet for awhile, many years and one wife ago. We lived in a little one-bedroom apartment and I emptied out the bedroom closet. It was a largish closet, but not a walk-in. It was nice and quiet, but rather stuffy. I only lasted a few days, then it was back to the kitchen table. Make sure your dream closet has some good air circulation

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Thanks!

Interesting topic. There's a lot of Oxford associations (not for me, but for the thread)....Shady Lane's mysterious building, the Alice Avatar and the Lewis Carol dreams of such things as good places to write.

Other things peope seem to include: mountains and libraries. I would add: a lot of natural light and coffee shops and used clothing stores.

Saanen, you just described my second or third-choice fanatasy. I've always loved the idea of a sleepy little town and a second-story studio in a mom&pop storefront merchant district.

As for my first choice, it also involves a second-story perch.

About five years back I used to frequent a small collection of country village shops all built into what used to be a barn along the side of a major road (one of those major roads that is now a single-lane state highway).

There was a yoga studio, a deli, a pottery shop, and a bakery. The barn still looked pretty much like a barn. The deli was located in the taller section of the barn (the other shops were all crouching in a one-story attachment building that was once a cow shed I believe). So when you walked into the deli, there was a hay loft way up above to one side. All the walls were the original wood from the barn. The floor was the original wood from the barn. Little cafe tables everywhere. Lots of windows. As for that hay loft, I used to sit at a cafe table by the deli counter, eating my sandwich, writing my manuscript, and I would sometimes look up at the loft. There was a window up there. And a nice rustic ladder leading up to it. The ladder had a little sign reading "No Adimittance." I wanted to so much to climb up that ladder, set up a table beside the window, and do my writing from up there.

I became a frequent enough customer that they all knew me. And I almost braved asking if I could go up there. But I knew better. Insurance regulations. Injuries. Law suits. I didn't even bother. But I wished so hard.

I eventually began to fantasize about buying the entire business and becoming a silent partner with the current owner.......... with this one stipulation: "You handle the business, I just sit here and write. And I can go up into that loft anytime I feel like because I own the joint."

Since then I have relocated further north, and a local Starbucks is now my regular writing haunt. And they have a huge two-story foyer. To try and describe it--this Starbucks is located in a strip shopping center, and the store is situated on the end/corner of the building. So the corner of the building itself has a castle-like turret built into it. The turret is the entry for the Starbucks, and that turret is two stories high. There is no actual second floor, but if they wanted to, they COULD build a balcony or a loft of some kind up there. (And I have been to some Starbucks that have such lofts). So my loft fantasy has transferred itself to the Starbucks now. My latest aspiration is to become independently wealthy, buy a Starbucks franchise, and custom design the Starbucks so that it has just such a loft in it. And a fireplace (gotta have a fireplace in a Starbucks). And that second-story loft would be MINE exclusively. No customers allowed up there, just me.



Don't know what it is about a second floor, but I find it a very attractive situation for writing.



Some of you might say I should just go to the second story of my own house. And, truth be told, I already do write in the second story of my house. BUT ..... there's something about being in a PUIBLIC place, or at least looking down at the public from a second floor window (be it a mom&pop second floor apartemnt, or a Starbucks loft), there's something MORE there that I can't quite describe. I'd be in the midst of the public, and yet in my own exclusive spot of privacy that the public can't get to where I can see and hear them and just watch life in general. So many here are describing solitude in the woods. I like solitde also, but my fantasy is a sort of an "ammended solitude" where I am still with people, but they cannot reach me.

I would have a little office up there, with scriptwriting books and several flatpanel computers, and my headphones, and my window looking outside would be MASSIVE. I'd have my own restroom up there too. Maybe even a fridge. Oh and coffee. LOTS of coffee and croisants. And I don't have to do any dishes because my Starbucks employees would be doig it all for me. And when Stephen Spielberg comes to visit, I would usher him upstairs where we could chat in private over capuccinos.


::EDIT::

Here is what the shopping center with the Starbucks kinda looks like. Notice the SUBWAY shop on the end and the turret up above. THAT is what the design of my local Starbucks looks like (except there are actual windows up above in my Starbucks--windows located at the correct height for a second story, even though there is no actual second story, just a VERY tall foyer that soars upward with open space when you first walk in).

My dream involves no children screaming in the background.

I don't need much .

All I need is a Starbuck's (the shop, not just a coffee), a laptop and my memory stick.