I'm curious. Where do you find your muse?
With school out and summer vacations, reunions and outdoor activities filling our calendars, I find myself struggling to find not only the time to write, but the place.
Most of the time I'm in my office, where I can close the door for small periods of quality time and where my Muse seems to find me quite nicely . . . most of the time.
However, there are other times, like when I have to work at our restaurant, when I take my laptop and sit in the office with the walkin compressor hammering in my ear and the camera surveillance system howling with the chatter of customers and the sound of pots and pans being knocked about. Not the ideal place, but I still find I can write there.
Then there are the times when we go camping and I'm torn between stepping out into the beauty of nature for my inspiration and staying inside our trailer where I can focus and not be drawn into the lives of other campers and people passing by. Not to mention being attacked by mosquitoes.
Once and a while I take my laptop out on our deck while watching the sunset or listening to the falls from the nearby canyon. And other times I sit in the living room, while my son watches a movie or listens to music.
But I think the best place I've ever written was when I went back to basics, trading my laptop for a spiral notebook and my favorite gel pen and lost myself at the end of a long relaxing drive. I'd park by a stream, roll down the windows in my car and just listen. Listen to nature. Listen to my Muse and listen to the spirit. Those are the times when I write from my heart and do my best writing. My mind is calm and my spirit is open for inspiration.
So, today I want to know where you find your Muse. What's your favorite place to write? Where's the most unusual place you've ever written? Where's the one place you'd like to visit with your laptop?
As for me . . . I'm still searching. Maybe some of your ideas will inspire me.
Strangest location? At the windshield repair shop. Go figure....
ReplyDeleteMy favorite place to write is anywhere I can be alone. Surroundings don't usually matter too much, I always escaped inside my head anyway.
ReplyDeleteBut, since I don't have an office where I can lock myself up, I usually write on a chair in my living room with kids running around me and interrupting every 30 seconds! But that works too... ha ha!
The strangest place I've written is probably when I've gone into the bathroom, shut the door, and sat on the floor with a pen and notebook-- just so I could be alone! :)
I'm like Kristy, I write my best when I'm alone. I usually write in my bedroom, in my big comfy chair, with my laptop in my lap. I find when everyone is asleep and the house is dark is when I get most of my work done. Although the later it gets, the stranger my writing seems to get sometimes. Every once in a while I'll read what I wrote late at night and just laugh.
ReplyDeleteI don't really have a strange place that I've written. But I do keep a notebook by my bed and sometimes I'll wake up and jot down thoughts in the middle of the night when I can't even see what I'm writing. Those are funny too because sometimes I can't read them. But, I think most writers do that.
I have a spiral notebook with me at all times. I once wrote an entire chapter in it while I was waiting for my husband to come out of surgery. My muse seems to find me when I'm driving alone which is very inconvenient. Stop lights just don't provide enough time to jot things down.
ReplyDeleteOH! Me too, Candi. Driving or in the shower. I get the most inspiration in those two places which is quite inconvenient.
ReplyDeleteI like writing @ our family cabin nestled in the Southern Utah mountains.
ReplyDeleteStrangest place to write: probably my (bad!) daily habit of jotting down fast-flowing thoughts in a mini-spiral notebook while @ stoplights when doing errands with the kids. Hopefully that won't end in an accident someday...