The Write Place

Gadzooks, it’s true! I can’t write (fiction) except at my computer in my writing room!

On his 2005 book tour for Feast for Crows, GRRM spoke of how some writers can pull out a laptop and write anywhere—hotel rooms, airports, cafés etc.—but he’s not like that. He must be in his room at home, at his (then) clunky old rig, if he hopes to get anything accomplished.

I got it then and I’ve confirmed it now.

Back at work, with momentum on the Calista/Darius story, I took myself to lunch and brought my notebook along, intending to scribble the next scene or some dialogue—anything to keep the mojo going until my first weeknight writing session on Tuesday.

I was halfway through the best salad in town (Zazu café’s house special, no onions) before I gave up on grasping anything useful for the story. Seems I can write posts or the occasional exercise during a break from the office, but anything on a work in progress? Can’t do it.

The café wasn’t busy. I had the entire loft to myself. Adele’s “Someone Like You” was playing on the stereo and she inspires me, so that was no deterrent. I had given myself permission to write loosely by hand, knowing I could polish the product later.

So what gives?

I can only surmise that the one safe place where I can lower my guard and channel the characters is in my room at home, at my clunky old rig.

There’s nothing wrong with this, of course. My hero admits to a similar dysfunction—but is it a dysfunction? Or is it a function of creativity that we must feel safe in isolation before we can open ourselves to the Muse? You’d think with a medium so portable that I could rough out entire scenes over lunch, but no. No, no, no. More than mobility, I obviously need a place where I can forget myself and silence my survival mechanism before I disappear into fiction.

Hey, like the kid in the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip once said, “Be careful, or be road kill.”