Where do you write?
 

So, place and space. Where do you write? I write in a hammock, sometimes, in the garden, and sometimes in coffee shops, and mostly after-hours at work in a tiny victorian room-space at the top of a very old building.

Where do you write?

Sarah-Jane

Hi Sarah Jane,

Your hammock and garden spots sound relaxing and reflective for a good writing atmosphere. I sit on my futon, which is starting to sink lower now from me on it, and I’m in our loft area, usually beside my wife or sometimes alone or beside my cat. It’s interesting to know where people write. Don’t know I could in public because of all the people and happenings. Thank you for sharing.

Cats are good writing company. I've almost never written beside a person, even my wife, and I think I'd find it difficult. Kudos, Jason, on being able to write beside your wife! If only we all could do as much.

Here's Baudelaire on cats and how cool they are: https://fleursdumal.org/poem/155

And one more: https://fleursdumal.org/poem/132

Oh - I generally write anywhere in the house, but at about 3-4 a.m. A hammock sounds very nice, and attics are legendary. :)

Cheers,
John

Hi Sarah-Jane,

Sorry: boring response, lol. As I can't use my hands to write and I don't have a smartphone thing, my writing (typing) happens exclusively in my studio office, comfy in my recliner chair, at my laptop, with W.-B. perched on the left arm.

'Well, the mention of me rather lifts the answer,' W.-B. dares to hope ;>)

Best wishes,
Fliss & W.-B. :>x

I think Word-Bird is in rarefied company. The only famous bird i can think of inspiring a poet is Poe's Raven. Oh well, Catullus's sparrow. And Fliss's Coo, as any fule kno.

Cheers,
John

Anywhere I can, really. But, on good days, at nights, sitting on my bed -- I have no fancy desk or anything so professional. Writing at night is best for me because I both feel somehow imaginatively free, almost half-asleep and therefore more open to my own thinking, and because it is quiet, silence being something I cherish very deeply. The thing is, when I write at night, often night slips into my poems, as a mention, a presence all its own. I've always felt that night is alive in some way.

Hope this helps.

I used to be a great believer in writing things out longhand, mainly because before I got a laptop (in 2014) I had to sit at a desk to type, and as someone whose arms are asymmetrical, I don't enjoy resting my arms on a desk. But now the typing happens where the longhand scribbling used to happen--while sitting cross-legged on my bed.

I mostly compose without literally writing, though--just in my head, while I'm on my morning walk, or vacuuming, or weeding. This partially explains why I have so little output, as I forget a lot of it before I make it back to the computer to type it. But this doesn't trouble me. I figure that anything not compelling enough to remember that long is probably not compelling enough to keep, anyway.

I'm very keyboard oriented. I find the act of wielding a pen or pencil to be hard, slow, and unpleasant labor, but I can wave my fingers effortlessly across a keyboard and make my thoughts appear on a blank screen as if by magic since typing is so natural that it draws no attention to itself and is not a physical strain of any kind the way pen-writing is for me. And with computers I no longer write "drafts" but poke and tweak and fiddle and play with the text as if it were a hunk of clay I were shaping and adjusting. At times, however, I write short poems in my head because something occurs to me while I am out, but when that happens I am in an anxious state until I manage to get the gist of it down (smart phone to the rescue) since my memory for such things isn't reliable.

Only one high-school course ever mattered for me: touch typing. And the best gift I ever got was a portable Royal typewriter when I headed off to college. Ditto on the rest of what Robert-Bob says. I write wherever there's enough space for my laptop on flat surfaces clogged with "important" papers.

Yonks ago I learned court shorthand, still remember and use it - entire shopping lists can get dashed and dotted on my hand. So I jot things down wherever I'm at. Puter. Or a red light. Isn't that what palms and inner forearms are for? Highways are a nuisance though. No reds.