Creative Space

What does your office look like?  Is it large?  Small?  Dark or sunshiny?  Do you have a large or small desk?  A comfy chair to sit in?  Music playing in the background or through earphones?

When I think back over the past fifteen or so years, I'm amazed at the different writing spaces I've had.  At one time I sat at the edge of an old floor furnace in a drafty old farm house and wrote by hand on large, lined pads of paper.  In the summers when I helped haul wheat to the elevator, I wrote on those same pads in the cab of the dump truck between loads of wheat.

There was the freezing-in-the-winter and melting-in-the-summer half-finished attic where I shared the computer with my then-husband, followed by porch which had been enclosed years before. 
When the marriage ended and my daughters and I moved to an apartment, the computer and I shared the floor of the small laundry room.  Later, I unfolded myself and moved upstairs.  I shared my mother's dining room where she had her computer and large desk for a few months, then settled into another laundry room in a different place, but at least with a new desk and chair.  Finally in one place for more than a few months, I have the converted garage, and although the view isn't of a lovely wooded area or the ocean, there's plenty of room for my bookcases, shelves, desk and file cabinet.

I work on a desktop computer and have never had a laptop.  Maybe someday I will, but only if I'm so mobile that I'll need one.  Until then, there's always that big pad of paper, and even though it's getting more difficult to decipher my own handwriting, it works well.  Sometimes it works even better than when at the computer.

Not everyone has the luxury of having a special place to write, but that shouldn't keep anyone from writing.  Outdoors in parks and even the backyard in the spring and fall can be ideal, depending on the weather and where you live.  In cold or bad weather, there are bookstores, coffee shops and libraries.  Even grabbing a few minutes while waiting in the car will bring you that much closer to typing THE END.

How important is the place where you write?  Is having a space all your own where you can go to write in solitude important to you?  Would not having that space keep you from writing?

If someone gave you a magic wand and told you that all you had to do was wish for the writing room you dream of having, what would it be like?

Don't let the lack of the perfect writing space keep you from creating.  Learn to create anywhere at anytime, and you'll never have no-place-to-write as an excuse.