WRITING
Where Do I Write? Anywhere
Day 28 Preptober writing prompt challenge
Day 28: Describe your favourite location to write from.
Question from the Preptober 31 Day Challenge from the Character Collective.
Much trickier than it seems
My favorite location to write from? Man, that’s a tricky one. This one shouldn’t actually be as hard as it is but because of my quite unique and specific situation, it’s super difficult to answer. What I mean by that is that I’m a house and pet sitter, so I travel around. I don’t have a permanent place of residence — yes, that’s right, I’m technically homeless. I sit full-time and live at other people’s houses while they are away to look after their animals and house. It’s an amazing lifestyle (I highly recommend it), but it does mean that with every new sit, I need to find a new location to write.
So, I’m going to have to answer this not as in what is my favorite location to write but kind of, I guess, my favorite environment, what I look for, to anchor myself into writing. What I mean by anchor myself into writing is that whenever I get to a new place, one of the first things I do is work out where is going to be the place that I can sit and write. That becomes particularly important during NaNoWriMo because I know that I’m going to be writing fiction every day.
Give me the basics
Writing from a fictional space of allowing the characters to come through is slightly different than writing on here. So what I look for is a place with lots of natural light, preferably outside if the environment is conducive to that. The ideal setting is a comfortable chair and a table outside where I can have a coffee beside me with have my microphone on to record my audios knowing that I’m going to get a clean recording. That’s not always available. Sometimes, I have to deal with noise or there’s not an outside position available or there’s not somewhere undercover to account for weather.
When I can’t have the ideal writing space, my basic backup plan is a chair and desk. That could mean simply a dining room table or a breakfast nook. If I really need to, I can sit on the lounge and rest my computer on my lap. It’s not ideal for the length of time that I’m writing, but it works when there are no other options. Ideally, what I need is some way to have my laptop in front of me so that I can read my prompts and my dot points, and my microphone near me to record everything. That’s it. That’s really it. Sometimes, I do like to go to a cafe, but it’s difficult to do audio recordings there.
I need my laptop and microphone… and quiet
Shhh, I’m writing
The key thing with NaNoWriMo is to find somewhere that’s quiet where I can audio record and make do with whatever I can. So, my basic requirement for a location to write from is somewhere quiet. If I have that, I’m good. But all things considered, my ideal and favorite location is somewhere quiet and outdoors; somewhere I can allow the characters to come through and get my recording. If I could do that in say, a park, that’d be amazing.
One of my favorite places I’ve ever written was when I was sitting in Queensland, on a large property. It was very quiet and I sat outside on the covered balcony, the dog at my feet, at a huge marble table, in a wicker chair, with a drink beside me, looking out over the grass, and most mornings, watching kangaroos. That was amazing. Let’s do THAT again!
Don’t miss any of my daily Preptober Challenge responses. Follow this link to join Medium for access to EVERYTHING right now. That’s an affiliate link. It means that if you join, Medium thanks me in monies. Thank YOU for feeding the writer!
See all my Preptober Challenge responses here:
© KP_the_writer 2021