Hi.
I love photography and I love going away. Traveling.
So, I added a column of pictures this morning. They’re down the right-hand side. I’ll add to the column as I find and scan more places. For now- sorry- limited menu of destinations. (These were the ones saved on my laptop.)
I could live in a long series of hotel rooms located in places I want to see, and be perfectly content for a long, long time.
For now, with family, that’s not gonna happen. But when I’m away, I make the most of what I have when I have it. I love to write when I’m there, wherever there is. I feel less constrained. I know it’s only perception, but it’s also more than a little bit of reality.
One of my favorite “writing books” is The Forest for the Trees, by Betsy Lerner.
Here’s a quote from it (she’s quoting Joyce Maynard who is in turn quoting or paraphrasing J. D. Salinger, speaking to the then-nineteen-year-old Maynard):
“Some day, there will be a story you want to tell for no better reason than it matters to you more than any other. You’ll stop looking over your shoulder to make sure you’re keeping everybody happy, and you’ll simply write what’s real and true. Honest writing always makes people nervous, and they’ll think of all kinds of ways to make your life hell. One day a long time from now you’ll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say about you. That’s when you’ll finally produce the work you’re capable of.”
Words that struck me, for a set of very particular reasons. I think about this quote and try to remember it when I’m writing - most especially when I’m writing and I’m fortunate enough to be gone.
How about you all? Do you like to write in one particular place, or all over the place?
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Writing Away
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25 comments:
Nice to see you chugging along in your boat again — reminds me of many happy hours spent cruising the Dart Estuary looking for Agatha Christie's ghost.
I've written stacks of stuff with people in mind, and although some of it was OK (and necessary in the case of best man wedding speeches high on bawdy lewdness), none of it holds up too well in the light of the present day. I can hear myself screeching through the words like an invisible sub-plot.
Analogy? Chrismas songs, I suppose. Monofunctional and fuck all use the rest of the year.
So - it's the Anonymous Receptive Audience for me.
Love the photos! You should get a flickr account! I love flickr!
I have that book and have never really finished it. Had to read it for a class. I should pick it up again.
In general, I am very mobile about where I can write from. I just need time, space, a plug and the ability to hear my own thoughts. Noise doesn't bother me as long as it isn't too loud. I would love to write in nature but I know the bugs would drive me batty so for now I will stick to home, library and bookstores. But I do take my laptop with me whenever I travel!
Love the photographs. I could swear the last one said "Beer outside..." but that must have been wishful thinking. Though the idea of a couple of bottles of brew wandering free in their natural habitat kind of appeals.
I like travelling, but I'm not good at writing when I'm away, 'cause I'm too busy being away. I kepp a notebook to hand.
Business trips, though, to the same old, grey places, are perfect. It's just me, my computer, and a dismal grey hotel room. Outside away isn't so appealing then, so away inside is where it's at.
I try to get away when I'm writing by plugging in headphones and listening to music that no one else can hear. Then it's like I've got my own little bubble of privacy, which is nice considering I write sitting on the family room couch.
I love your pictures--someday we'll travel.
We meaning Hot Stuff and me, but honestly I wouldn't mind traveling with you, either...something tells me it would be very entertaining ; )
All of us drunk on a rickety old bus speeding round Norway — that would be travelling....
However - back at the computer now, I like to make the distinction between thinking what to write and actually depressing the keys stroke writing longhand. So, in that sense, some of the raw material gathering can take place anywhere, and it's then a matter of finding somewhere to get it all down — and nothing beats a notebook.
Current favourite writing places:
Bed
Kitchen
Desk
Living Room
Mooseback
Actually — I made that last one up.
I love the photos.
I thought you said you weren't technically savvy? It looks very good.
Hey guys - I'm just checking in quickly- about to go to the blog-free zone -(which sucks - utterly and totally)known as 'the office'.
I'll be back on around 5:30 Eastern to read you guys and say hi back.
Hope you have a really good day - even though it's freakin' Monday!
Those are beautiful pics!!!
In answer to your question, and quite honestly without being funny, anywhere my kids and husband aren't. If I get "the look" or "Mom!" then my brain freezes. This could turn into a rant, but I'll stop.
:-)
I have found that I actually produce pretty well in cafes. Also, late at night after the kids are in bed. I can't write with music at all unless it's classical--I find myself singing along otherwise. Also, I agree totally with ril about business travel. Oh, and about the beers, too.
Hi!
Tonight,I've been working my ass off on a chapter reviewing.
Sorry to take so long to come and say,thanks for coming!
Whirl - I promise you, I'm not talking about the truth as in a play-by-play blow-by-factual-blow. A different kind of truth - the truth underlying what is typically told - that's more what I mean. Not that maudlin scab-pickin' crap.
El, I hope you pick the book back up again when you have some quiet time - it's well worth the read.
I don't know about flickr- but I am gonna try the thing Pete has - the thing Phoenix had on EE's anniversary blog- that slideshow thingie.
Yeah ril, we do have beer outside. In the aformentioned (maybe once or twice too often, I'm guessing) hot tub from hell. But- usually- it's a more wine-friendly place at our house. JB likes his beer thick - Guinness. Big surprise. He usually drinks it when we're out - he likes it on tap better than in the cans.
ril and Pete - I like the idea of writing in hotel rooms- grey (or gray) or not. Sometimes I travel for long weekends with JB - and I kick him out the door to play golf -at least one round - and then I remind him I'm all for him staying for dirnks with whomever he's golfing with - because my laptop is getting its workout. Hotels are places no one can bother me. I love them for that.
That, and room service.
Yeah, Kiersten, I have music going almost all the time when I write - have to around here - with all the neediness running around around me - it's one of the few ways I can separate out enough to write.
Right now - Pink Floyd is laying out with Learning to Fly.
WO, honey- I bet you've done something on a mooseback,now haven't you? huh?
Thanks, Ms. Fairy H.-
BT helped me with 90% of this. The other 10%, I winged and got lucky. But thanks, though!!
EXACTLY, Miss Chris. That's why I like to leave. One of the reasons, anyway.
When I was pregnant with Will, my youngest, I was in a lot of pain. So, I would get the two older ones off to school, clean house and then sit down in the recliner, get comfortable with my notebooks and write. Focusing on the writing took my mind off the pain.
I wound up writing three screenplays, several television shows with many, many episodes, three cartoon strips, (sold five cartoons to a magazine later) and a few short stories. I think most of it got lost when the top went off the barn. However, it got me writing again.
Now, I have a corner of an apartment that should be a dining room. I have my elk horns and deer horns above the desk, as well as numerous shelves filled with writing books. Directly in front of me is my No Parking sign. It's supposed to remind me to stop parking my butt in the chair and not writing.
I can write pretty much anywhere I can get quiet, but I do dream of having a place in the woods.
I listen to a lot of Celtic music when I'm writing.
I can pretty much write anywhere (well, up until a month ago, anyway), but my favorite is in a cafe with my laptop and a big ol' cup of hot coffee or tea (lately it's tea). Especially if it's cold and rainy outside, and the cafe has a fireplace. I think my favorite in Chicago is the Bourgeois Pig, but Caribou Coffee on Clark near Wrightwood works fine.
Someday I want to go to England and write there, just to see what it's like. I mean, yes, I want to visit England, but I want to write there. And visit old castles. And visit Ireland. There I would write a lot of fairy tales. And probably get drunk.
If I listen to music when I write, it's gotta be jazz or classical. Or film music. But no pop or rock.
Love the photos, Robin!
Okay, I gotta go shower and at least try to write.
Hey WO - Aren't you reading Shakespeare Mooseback?
I like to be at my desk or on the couch with no one else home and classical playing in the background. But I did write at the Starbucks in the B&N recently with jazz underlying the white noise conversations.
Oh, Jules - The loss of your work had to hurt so much. I'm sorry!
Celtic music - I do love it. right now, though, I'm having to stay in a 1970s mood - with music. Because that's when most of novel 'takes place'.
Hey freddie -
Yep. I agree. Place is as important as a good high, or mood music. Maybe even more important.
Hey Sarah-
yeah- WO and Mooseback. I will never be able to totally separate them again!!
Writing at Starbuck sounds wonderful to me. I really have to almost be away from home to have writing peace right now. Seems odd.
Celtic music was pretty popular in the seventies.
Mike Oldfield -- especially Incantations; Steeleye Span; Renaissance; Van Morrison...
Van Morrison? Do what?
Oh, come on. You can't deny Van Morrison was a bit of a Celt back in the day.
I think that's the word I'm looking for...
Well - as he IS a Celt, I'll grant you that one, you Anglo-Saxon, you.
I know a few words of old low Norse as well...
Ah. A linguist, eh? Gotta be an academic.
See ya tomorrow. I'm going to bed now. Time differences simply do suck, don't they?
Not a linguist. But those Vikings could do profanity like no one else on Earth.
As for timezones -- I'm way ahead of you there
Shakespeare Mooseback is actually a wrestling maneouvre invented by The Rock.
You can't deny Van Morrison was a bit of a Celt
Hee hee.
OK, ril and Whirl- apparently there's a Van Morrison joke I'm not feelin' the love on. As in, i don't get it.
I'm now listening to...Into the Mystic.
Please enlighten me, Anglo Boys.
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