Today is one of those days that are beautiful and crisp and sunny. Yet, all I want to do is curl in a big overstuffed chair with a blanket, a good book and some jazz music in the background. Maybe my book would actually be my writing notebook but it feels like a good day to write to me.
In football teams are given bye weeks where they have a weekend off from playing. Work has been so busy lately and I have been relaxing in more social ways by hanging out with friends and neighbors that it interrupted my writing a bit. In a sense I had a self-enforced bye week from my blog. While I had this week away though I wrote another poem, started another short story and got into the middle of Chapter Nine of the book. Not too bad!
This week made me think though and one word came to mind often...Location! I know what you are thinking. Wait! You already wrote a post on location. The location of your story becoming like another character with life and dimension and holders of the story. This is not about locations within your story though. This is about finding a spot, a comfortable zone, a location that brings you comfort and becomes your writing place.
This week when I would get home from a long day at work I was tired and the thought of writing did not even cheer me up. The moment I sat down in my writing spot though I would instinctively reach out for my writing notebook and feel my body relax and the words begin to flow out of me again. It is nice having this oasis where I can feel creative.
It does not have to be one spot in your life and that is the only place you should work. In fact, on Saturday I was waiting for my neighbor. I was sitting at her dining room table in an uncomfortable chair that makes me think of one of those outdoor patio chairs. I was wriggling left and right trying to get comfortable in the chair while at the same time also trying to listen to the discussion going on in the room. As I turned another time to adjust the seat again I stopped...I borrowed a piece of paper which happened to be one of those shopping lists pages that hang from refrigerators......I sat back in the chair...I found my mind buzzing and no thoughts remained about the chair but only about the idea that came into my head.
There I had been uncomfortable, out of place and yet still found inspiration but once I felt the comfortable feeling and yet strong need to find a pen and paper and write I transformed my zone into my writing place. Inspiration can be demanding and strong and overpowering but then writing it out and releasing those ideas turns your location into another world of imagination and, as in my case, transformed an uncomfortable spot into my little writing oasis for ten minutes.
So on that shopping list page I wrote down the first stanza and notes on a new poem I am working on and as I ran out of room on the page I laid the paper down. I looked up at my friend and neighbor with a smile on my face. Then...I wriggled in my uncomfortable chair.
It is nice having a spot when I feel tired or a lack of inspiration that is comfortable for my writing. Yet, don't make that the only place you can find inspiration or do any type of writing. Some of my best ideas can come when I am in strange or unknown or different situations. This may also be why I have a purse with about twenty pens inside of it. I have paper and little notebooks dispersed throughout my house. Now, I just need to learn to carry around a little notebook in my purse I guess since I have so many napkin, shopping list, receipt poems that I carry around with me currently.
Location is important and can lead to inspiration but the writing comes from an idea within and the ability to turn any location into "A Writing Spot."
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