Where Do You Write?

Sounds like my house, far too noisy at times. I need my own space and quiet when I write, so being in the living room is just killing it for me when I want to get down to some writing. Some people may be able to write anywhere, any time, any place, regardless of the noise, but as soon as there is some distraction that isn't my music/movies going, i'm done for :/ ha

 

I have done, spent until 10pm last night building it. Alas i have too much to do over the next few days to put it to use, but I'm determined to use that room and space as a place to lock myself away and start writing something that will hopefully motivate me to write longer

 

Wow! Just wow!

 

Thanks @Seren , @Rosacrvx and any others that may have admired it. You're making me more appreciative of the effort put in to its construction. Can certainly vouch for the 'if you build it he will come' phrase. For souls such as mine, at least, with a procrastinatory mind set—it really does entice when you look down from the kitchen to the bottom of the garden; it's got 'hobbit hole' allure you know. This transcends species too...have had to evict the mother of all wasps with her starter-nest being spit woven to the rafters, and have humanely shooed away all manner of spiders. Charlatans, for I know they can't write!

 

Writing is like a tree falling, it only really happens if there is someone there to watch.

 

Uh, whut? Methinks you have a lot to learn about trees.

 

It depends on how my mind is working on a particular day - by this I mean that sometimes I only seem to be able to write if I use my pc (or my laptop) and some days I can only write if I use my notebook - but usually I write in my bedroom. My window is on the third (or attic) floor of the house and overlooks onto fields which sometimes have cows in them so it is usually a nice view (I say usually as it is currently pouring it down with rain so there isn't much to look at outside right now). However, if my mind is in a notebook writing mood then I can pretty much write anywhere, though if I am out and about then it is nice to write in a cafe with a cup of tea or hot chocolate

When my partner and I are able to get our own house I am hoping to be able to have a space I can dedicate to my writing time and really make it my own inspirational corner of the place. I am lucky enough to be able to have my own writing space in the bedroom at the moment - and that I get it all to myself for most of the day while my partner is at work (I am often distracted when he returns home) - but due to a number of factors (mostly to do with the awkward shape of the room/walls since it is an attic floor) I can't have it completely how I would like it to be so having our own house would allow me to do that.

 

For me, it's not a question of the desk or other form factor so much as I need isolation and some degree of comfort. Interruptions are murder on my concentration and really impact productivity.

Similar to Ms Ford, I have too compact a living space with housemates. Compounding this is that my significant other is one of those people who 'fills space' and just can't help herself. I love her, and I want to support her, so it really comes down to do I want to write versus do I want to tell her to stop doing her thing, and honestly, I don't want her to stop. She sings, she listens to the radio, watches TV, podcasts, has conversations on the phone at the top of her voice... she's in two choirs and wants to do well by them, which means she will, for example, practice four challenging notes over and over for several hours straight until she gets it right. All this in a 700 square foot dwelling, usually within 15 feet of my head.

And she's social, and I'm her best friend, so any time an interesting thought pops into her head, or she reads something cool on Twitter or Facebook, she wants to chat with me about it. There is no off switch. There is no "Can you give me one hour please," - she just can't do it, and that's the way she is.

This situation is her thing, it's what I love about her, buuuuuut that means if she's home, it's not a writer's workspace.

And I have maybe one or two hours a day to write, and my workday is longer than hers, so she's there when I leave, and she's there when I get home, there's not usually any gap for private time in the week. I've been trying 5-7am, but now she knows, and she gets up with me to chat.

So that leaves me with a problem, which is finding an isolated quiet spot to write.

I've tried the library, but it has problems. Specifically, I'm still getting interrupted by panhandlers, and I can't get up and take a whizz without packing up aaaallll my stuff into the can, then only to discover upon return that my seat is taken, whereupon I spend a good 10 minutes hunting down a free space somewhere else in the building. That's VPL. UBC library is better, but on the downside, it's about an hour's bus ride, plus 15 minutes walk to and from the bus stop. Not very efficient, since they close pretty early, which gives me about 60 minutes of writing for 2 hours' commute, if I go on a weekday after ork. I feel like I can do better.

I tried a couple of shared office spaces in town, and they didn't work for me either. Which is a shame because they're a great environment for the right person, and I liked the idea of having a meeting room available for maybe hosting my writing group as well. They both had nice bookable boardrooms. But the main problem was noise: the offices had a lot of creatives, including musicians, podcasters, and game developers. It was just constant noise, and worse: it was interesting noise! So that only lasted about 6 months. (3mos at one location, 3mos at another). Another one had a second problem: it's on the DTES, which is a very stabby part of Vancouver, and I tend to only have time to write late at night. Feels like an unnecessary risk for a family man.

I considered buying a cheap condo over on Kingsway and Nanaimo, and really regret selling my old condo (I sold it when I got married and we folded the value into our current house). But real estate in Vancouver is insane. The cheapest I've seen within an hour's drive is about $350k, and it's 400 square feet overlooking a busy street. More than I can justify spending until I actually start making money at this.

So, now, I'm still in a state of flux. I am going to try to find hourly time at home, maybe really, really late at night. I'm not sure I'll be producing my best, though. Long term: I'm going to explore buying a cottage in the southern gulf islands, which is dollar-for-dollar probably a better use of real estate funds than buying a closet sized Vancouver condo (in addition to writing retreat, I can also use a cottage for vacationing, have friends over &c). I've always wanted one anyway. I bike/camp there a lot, and the region recharges my mental batteries.

In any case, it's interesting that a lot of the other posters were describing the physical properties of the writing location; whereas, I can write on my lap with a pencil and paper if necessary. I just need some uninterrupted time.

Worth noting: I'm writing this between meetings at work, and so far, it has been 8 hours. I kept a loggers tally on my notepad, and I have been interrupted 177 times while writing this reply.

In contrast, I had a day off in the summer and wrote 5,000 words in 6 hours, went for a lunch run, came back, and rote 3,000 words in the next 3 hours, finishing my day at around 5pm, with plenty of time for a martini and to make my family dinner. I know I can do it, but need to solve the isolation challenge.

 

Noise canceling headphones with your choice of music? (They don't cancel enough to make the world utterly silent, but for me they work well enough to make whatever I'm playing the only thing I notice--including on a noisy small-commuter-size plane.)

 

I almost envy you! I used to live in Victoria, and my mom lived on Salt Spring Island, so I spent a lot of time there. The Gulf Islands are the most beautiful part of the world I've ever been in, and the lifestyle suits me totally.

My roomie is American and has to be in America for his business, but I've sold him on the concept of moving to the Pacific Northwest, north of Seattle (Bellingham, here we come! hee hee) in order to be as close as we can get to heaven without actually, you know, crossing the border.

 

It just mean she has to tap on my shoulder, unfortunately.

I used earplugs originally - but they're never fully noise cancelling, and don't make any dent in the main problem which is that my spouse likes to engage me as much as possible, since we don't get much time together each day. There was an experiment last year where I asked for a solid hour to myself and I kept one of those logger's tallys on my notepad. It was relentless interruptions, at least forty in that hour, I stopped keeping track after that. I didn't want to go all [Jack Torrence] on her, but I did remind her that this was in what I'd hoped to be a focused work hour. The epitome was when she came in to apologize for the previous interruption. You get the picture.

And I don't want to make it seem like I'm kvetching about my spouse - her happiness is my prime objective in life and I am the one who suddenly threw a monkey wrench into the domestic situation by taking up writing. So, I don't really have anything to complain about, this is my problem I created for myself.

And it is interesting to compare to other people's real problems... I have a friend whose wife is an acoholic, and we have this bare bones thing in common: we have politely asked the other person to stop indulging their impulses where it comes to affecting us, and they have proven they can't do it. So now the question is about what am I going to do to make it work. It's just who she is, and it's not destructive, it wouldn't even be a topic if I wasn't trying to write

 

Sorry, I meant noise canceling headphones at one of those other places, such as the rented office space. Presumably the people there aren't tapping your shoulder.

 

I get distracted easily so I can't have people around me or a lot of noise. I usually write at home, either with my laptop on the bed while I sit on the floor or sitting/laying on the bed. Sometimes I sit by the kitchen table. And I need to be comfortable, or else I can't create anything.

 

I am, I suppose, what you might call purist. I do all my serious work at my desk. If I have a reason to I might write a bit on my phone or whathaveyou, but real work is done in my office in ten thousand word chunks.

 

Gotcha. It's more than just noise, unfortunately. Especially the one that was operating a studio, the sound vibrated through everything. Earplugs just didn't block out enough distraction.

And I was reconsidering the cost as well. To get access evenings and weekends, both offices charge a higher rate in the $500/mo range, or $6k/yr just to write a few hours a week just off of knife alley. This is what got me to thinking about buying a condo on my commute route just for writing, instead, as monthly payments would be in that range and I'd have more privacy.

 

There's a good Washington State ferry network to the US equivalent of the Gulf Islands - the San Juans.
And actually, I think at least one route goes to Saanich, where you can connect to the BCFerries island routes.

 

Remember, I'm talking about noise cancelling headphones, not earplugs. They don't just block noise, they counter it. I think, since you seem prepared to spend money on the problem, it might be worth buying a pair and testing them in various locations.

 

Sound advice there!

 

Good point.

I had poor results with previous versions of noise cancelling headphones, but maybe the technology has advanced. I was trying some in the store last winter. The earbud models I tried out at Best Buy didn't do anywhere near an acceptable job, so that's why I was still falling back on the earplugs. (I have a practically unlimited supply of foam earplugs left over from a previous job working in a factory)

But I didn't try any over-ear models, which could possibly produce better results. I'll read some reviews and pop by stores on the weekend.

Did I mention I live a couple of blocks from a hospital? Beyond the ambulance sirens, they have a helicopter pad, the vibrations from one of those air ambulances flying by at 100' in the air is enough to loosen my dental work, so the solution may involve a combination of finding a private space and good sound dampening. This would put, say, cafes back into the list of possible writing locations.

 

I've used a big over-ear pair (Audio-Technica QuietPoint, apparently, or those are Himself's; I'm not sure), and I now have a Bose earbud pair (probably the QC20, but the actual headphones don't say). Both have worked well enough to make it possible to be absorbed in music or podcasts while in a small, noisy, commuter airplane--a plane where with normal headphones, I would be hard pressed to even know whether the music/podcast was turned on or not.

But, yeah, they're not going to stop the building from shaking.

 

Raymond Carver used to do that (pen and paper - he was working in the pre-laptop days). He had a wife and small children in his small apartment, so for peace and quiet he'd go out to the driveway and write in the car.

He's dead now.

(I don't know if the two statements above are related in any way.)

 

Until recently, it has always been at my desktop. But my wife and I recently moved into a garden apartment complex that has a lovely tiered garden with lots of teak lawn furniture. And my wife and I have started spending time there. She reads, I bring my laptop and write. I still like the desktop, but the garden is a nice change of pace.

 

As long as I'm not being bothered, anywhere! I've written in cafes, on coaches, in the waiting area of a car dealership, in the load area of a Volvo estate, my Gran's conservatory, a shed...You get the idea.

 

ChickenFreak, I owe you a beer. I tried on the Bose over the ears in the store, and it does a better job than the last pair I tried out a few years ago. So the technology has advanced quote nicely, almost to the point of being what I'd call 'good'. I'm holding off for a few more weeks to compare against the new Beats Studio 3 Wireless since it has a W1 chip, and I've found it makes a big difference in other headsets I've used with that tech.

Will report back with the results in October.