Creativity Hacker

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I’m writing, I go to another place. I might be physically sitting in this chair (see photo), but as my family can attest, I am decidedly not part of their world when I’m working. In my head, I’m off sneaking through the orphanage or scrambling up some forest trail, floating just above and just behind Tayna, urging her to greater feats of self sacrifice while simultaneously calling in karmic air-strikes against her from the forces of evil and bad hair cuts. Hey, that’s what writers do, right? So how important can your writing space actually be?

As it happens, that photo above is the actual chair I sat in for about 50% of the Strange Places writing project. (The rest of the time, I was out in coffee shops or libraries, etc.) Sadly, most of the writing I’ve done was done in that chair. I wrote the novel in it. I’ve written short stories in it. I wrote my thesis in it. I’ve even written business plans sitting in that same damned chair.

Well, I’ve had enough of life in that chair. It makes me feel like a fraud.

So this week, I finally realized that I needed a space that was a little more… writerly. And nothing says writer like a roll-top desk. So I dragged my wife out to see what we could find, and we hit the jackpot – a sweet little number that fits into a very particular space in our tiny little house.

Most importantly, it makes me feel like a real writer. I don’t think it makes my writing different – as I said, I’m not really present in the space when I’m writing, so I don’t think the space has much influence on what I write – but it definitely influences one key factor: my willingness to sit down and get started.

So that’s what I want to ask my colleagues. What would you say your writing space influences more: your content, or your productivity? And while you’re at it, tell us a bit about that little patch of the world you call your office.