Authors: Where to you write?

[Hypoxia]

Some of us feel a need for certain rituals and circumstances. Some authors are famous for keeping a private nook where they work. (And maybe only using a certain type of pen in a certain brand of notepad.) And some just scribble notes and manuscripts wherever they happen to be.

Where do you write?

I expect to see certain answers. On a laptop in a cafe, or lying in a hammock. At an office desk. maybe a business office, maybe a personal office. Tapping away on a phone or tablet while commuting. Dictating into a voice recorder while physically (in)active.

My answers: I used to write notes (with a pen!) onto paper, or dictate ideas to a mini-cassette deck, then sit at my home-office desk and transcribe them. Then physical problems demanded that I *NOT* stay sitting at my desk, that I keep my feet elevated. So now I spend much of my time on my recliner couch with an Android tablet on the side table (for reading with the LIT app) and a small laptop actually in my lap for writing.

So, do you write at a desk? On a couch? On the fly?

 

[HeyAll]

I write at home, on a desk. Either on a laptop in my room, or the pc with the large screen in another room.

I don't bother writing anything down.

I go back and forth between surfing the internet and writing stories.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

On a keyboard, attached to my desktop, at a desk where I'm either writing, surfing, watching a movie/TVshow, or playing a game.

I don't use pen and paper.

Didn't someone ask this question before? I seem to remember answering it before.

Can't find a thread...oh well...never mind.

 

[49greg]

When I first started writing, for myself - Never letting anyone see what I did, I used pen and paper, at a desk, and occasionally when in an easy chair.

Long before I got to Lit I went to a desktop pc then a laptop. For some years now I have been writing on a laptop with my feet up on an ottoman while sitting slumped on a small couch/love-seat. Often with a cat draped on my right arm. The cat will occasionally complain about my arm moving when I have to use the touchpad.

A glass of water or juice on the end table, and a pocket dictionary between my thigh and the arm of the couch are about all I need. I keep telling myself that one day I'll get a wide comfy recliner that stretches far enough out to support my feet, rather than ending at my ankles to let my feet dangle. But so far haven't found one.

Got to have my feet supported, rather than hanging down, as an ankle I broke thirty years ago (still have the pins in it) starts to hurt if I just hang my feet over the end of most recliners. And the cat doesn't like it when I hike my leg up to put my foot ON the recliner footrest. When the cat isn't there, often the dog will curl up beside me. He doesn't care where my feet are.

 

[Handley_Page]

At my bench/ desk, in my Shack, on my PC.
I have trouble using these little keyboards on a laptop or similar.

 

[MrFoxwood]

Usually I type on a tiny little laptop thing in my attic. My wife and I moved out of an apartment last year and in to this house, until we get around to fixing up the attic it is mine. It's drafty, a little cobwebby and she's not convinced the floor is stable, so I have it to myself to write and paint in.

I do also hand-write bits and pieces too, I find I write quicker and with less concern about details which editing will deal with. Although sometimes I have trouble reading my own handwriting.

 

[Blind_Justice]

I'm doing all of my writing on a boring desktop PC in the bedroom slash office space. My wife hates me for it because my best work happens in the dead of night and my old Cherry keyboard is far from quiet. Lately, I've tried working just after breakfast, but that's not the same. At night, there is nothing to distract me from the images in my head.

 

[sr71plt]

In the cold months, I do most of my writing in my home office (at the far end of my house). I have an L-shaped desk with a desktop computer on one arm and a laptop on the other. Which one I use to write the stories just depends on what I need the other one for. In the warm months, I have a screened pavilion in the back garden surrounded by foliage. It has wifi and I often stay out there until 3 a.m., tapping away on a laptop.

 

[lovecraft68]

At my bench/ desk, in my Shack, on my PC.
I have trouble using these little keyboards on a laptop or similar.

That's why I have a wireless keyboard. The lap top keyboard is just small enough to cause a lot of typos.

 

[_Lynn_]

I liked the old desktop computer best. When I walked into my home office, my brain went into work mode. But I moved and I don't have an office. And the old desktop computer died. So now I use the laptop on the desk (which is in my living room). Just not the same, though.

 

[JagFarlane]

Wherever I can get some time without distractions, on the sofa at home, in bed, at my desk, or at a desk in the school lounge.

 

[lovecraft68]

In my office which pretty much resembles my room back when I was a kid.

 

[Swilly]

Wherever I happen to be with my laptop and a degree of privacy. Erotica and nosy kids don't go together well.

 

[MrFoxwood]

Wherever I happen to be with my laptop and a degree of privacy. Erotica and nosy kids don't go together well.

This is why in the division of labour in my house I'm willing to cook as often as my wife can stomach it. I love my son to bits but if I can snatch 30 minutes relative peace in the kitchen I can get a bit more writing done while I stir pots.

Also he's just turned two and repeats more and more words every day, which I guess means proofreading out loud in front of him is no longer a great idea.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Don't you just hate typo's in the thread title? *groan* Just noticed it, so that says a lot about my comprehension of late.

 

[Hypoxia]

Don't you just hate typo's in the thread title? *groan* Just noticed it, so that says a lot about my comprehension of late.

Yeah, I noticed it a day after starting the thread. Doh...

;(

Meanwhile, I was going to expand on my OP. I used to carry a reporter's mini-cassette recorder everywhere. Bicycling, I composed lyrics and sang into it. Walking, I dictated essays. Driving on long trips, I dictated long journal articles. I need to get hiking again and dictate story ideas. All those words must of course be transcribed and transformed, but I really like being able to record my stuff when my hands are otherwise occupied. Hmm, that should work during sexual activity too...

 

[TamLin01]

Wherever I can. There's only so many hours in a day, and you can't waste any opportunity to write.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

At my desk in my office. On very rare occasions at Starbuck's, but not very often. I wrote one story at my mother's house when I was there for an extended visit.