I read an article on the About.com website recently called "Choosing a Writing Space" by Ginny Wiehardt. I'm always curious to know what other writers do to produce their best work and one thing that some writers point to is a specific writing space or place. Maybe it's a spare bedroom turned into an office. Maybe it's a table in the corner of the living room. Or maybe it's the fantasy of most writers--a cabin on a lake.
I've never felt like I needed a specific place to produce. The idea of having a spacious cabin on a lake with a fire going seems about as far fetched and unrealistic to me as actually being able to afford such a place. The real world of writing demands that a writer produce nearly any where, any time.
Wiehardt says this in her article: "The first year I worked on my novel, I wrote on the subway ride home because I had a roommate and couldn't afford to go to a coffee shop every evening. Something about the anonymity of the subway and the set period of time must have inspired me. As I edited the novel a few years later, I noticed that some of the best writing in the book was done on that ride home."
When I was writing The Experience of Christmas, I had a tight deadline. I took my laptop with me one night when I met some friends at a local Borders. While they browsed books, music, and magazines, I wrote the entire introduction of the book before they grabbed a coffee and sat down with me. I made do in a Borders coffee shop and it worked out just fine.
I just reached over and grabbed a copy of the book. Here's the first couple of paragraphs from the intro I wrote that night:
"Every year the Christmas season seems to come and go more quickly. In spite of our best intentions and deepest longings, any hope of slowing down to enjoy the real meaning of the season fades with each pressing commitment. We have presents to buy, Christmas parties to attend, food to prepare, and Christmas cards to address.
"While we may dream about sitting down with the family in the living room to enjoy beautiful Christmas music while gazing at the tree, in truth, year after year we starve our souls. As Christians, our souls long to drink deeper of the things of Christ--and still we yield to the other demands for our time. In short, we are missing the essence of Christmas.
"This year can be different."
It won't win a Pulitzer Prize, but it captures what I was thinking as I wrote the book.
If you've been waiting for the perfect time to write, or the perfect place to write, or the perfect fill in the blank--stop waiting. Just write. Writing during a study hall, or a coffee break, or in a waiting room at your doctor's office. Write on the subway, write in a cab, or write during halftime of Monday Night Football.
You might be surprised by what you produce if you stop waiting for perfection and simply get to the task of actually writing.
