have you ever fallen off the tracks...

tiny

riding the sun
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 25, 2005
Messages
4,813
Reaction score
1,565
Location
Southern California between the Desert and the Mou
Website
www.facebook.com
Have you ever fallen off the tracks and not realized it until you looked back and saw the train wreck behind you? That's what I did a couple weeks before Christmas. Almost a year ago I gave up my office so husband's daughter could move in. She needed help, we tried, it didn't work out. In fact, it turned into a huge mess.

Just before my train tipped off the tracks I'd finished the first draft of a novel that I felt was incredibly important for me to write. I'd been working on it for a while and the goal was to give insight into living with PTSD but not in a clinical informational way. I wanted to convey how reality and fantasy mix so seamlessly for someone who has it. I wanted to create that confusion felt.

I got involved in the novel area, posted up in some threads. Did a lot of reading. Started to get involved in other peoples stories. I felt like I was reconnecting with the community. It felt good.

Things changed suddenly and I spent nine months walking around the house trying to find a place to set my coffee and computer down so I could write. I kept setting up spaces and finding they didn't work.

I feel like I've been lost for all this time wandering the desert unable to find a pencil and paper so I wrote in the sand. Every time I found a quiet moment, the words flowed but only in my head.

I'm sitting in my reclaimed space this morning, the walls a beautiful shade of tan instead of the clown shoe blue hidden beneath, and I'm wondering about those of you who can sit in any space afforded and crank out thousands of words. How do you do it? How do you curl up your legs underneath you and write with life buzzing around you?


(I guess I should have put this somewhere else instead of OP)
 
Last edited:

Maryn

Sees All
Staff member
Super Moderator
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
55,442
Reaction score
25,462
Location
Snow Cave
OP is a perfectly good place for this, IMO. (But hey, what do I know?)

I'm among the people who needs a physical space meeting certain minimum specs to set my mind free to write. I need it to be pretty quiet, and I need few visual distractions. No matter what view the room might offer, I face the wall.

But I know people who haul notebook or laptop to coffee houses, the beach, a park, just anywhere they happen to be going, and when they get there, they can write. Yippee for them, but so what?

Shape your environment to give yourself what you need. That might mean preparing a space, or making time each day during which you ignore life buzzing all around you. It'll still be there when you get back.

Maryn, luckier than many
 

kayleamay

I'm on the phone.
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 29, 2009
Messages
15,143
Reaction score
4,250
Location
Vantucky, WA
I have an office. I share it with my husband but he works days and I work nights so I do most of my writing in the day when he's gone. The door locks. I too am lucky. I don't think I could hack much more than repsonding to e-mails from a coffee shop or even my living room.
 

firedrake

practical experience, FTW
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 19, 2009
Messages
9,251
Reaction score
7,297
I can't work anywhere but at home, but it can be noisy, quiet, it doesn't matter I can write. After all the upheaval of last year, I've learned that my main requirement for getting things written is that I have to be 'settled'.

When the weather (and thus, the house) warms up a bit, I'll be working at this space:

newdesk002.jpg
 

tiny

riding the sun
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 25, 2005
Messages
4,813
Reaction score
1,565
Location
Southern California between the Desert and the Mou
Website
www.facebook.com
My view is a fence, so I don't have to face the wall but right now I am.

167112_172068552829140_100000779892679_301217_1702255_n.jpg


163114_172068569495805_100000779892679_301218_1589942_n.jpg


Soon the desk will be moved to make way for french doors opening into the front room. I'm trying to spread light and openness around the house with still being able to close the doors. Oh, it's super clean because I just got the room back.

I'm still a bit surprised I can't write with distraction anymore.
 

whacko

Keeping up with the class
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 20, 2010
Messages
1,209
Reaction score
177
Location
Glasgow
I fall off the tracks all the time. But it's only a conscience thing, so painless.

I fell off a train once. Now that hurt. Nothing worse that waking up on the lines, drunk disorientated and in pain, and realising the only way home is to follow the railway.

I'll never forget it. I trudged along the line with a broken ankle and finally got to the platform.

As I was struggling up, I got a tap in the shoulder. Ah, tears came to my eyes. I'd found a helper.

But no.

Have I missed the last train to Barrhead, the ba... fellow asked.

Bust ankle or not, I still tried to kick him.:D