Monday, January 25, 2010

When? Where? How? of Writing

The official Robin Write Space is in the 3rd bedroom office with a view out the window if I lean back in my chair. The seasons are registered on the berry bush below - right now a discouraging brown with a few clinging dried up spots of red even the mid-winter birds won't touch. I have seen this before. The shoots and leaves and buds and blooms are in there somewhere! So I hope amid the stacks and files and folders that clutter this writing space, a publishable book lurks, as hidden as the berries-to-be.

I am portable. I have a regular booth-with-an-outlet at the local Panera if I get there before 7am. I can get in an hour of efficient writing before work and that is my most productive time of day. I've hauled the laptop to far foreign places like Jindezhen, China, and Umphamulu, South Africa. (The blogs for those trips are at www.rcchina2008.blogsot.com and www.rcsouthafrica2009.blogspot.com.)

I compose my stories at the keyboard after doing years of sermons and school papers that way. Besides, since I write picture books with repeating refrains, there is nothing like "cut and paste"! I keep a notebook in the car and jot notes or revise stories that way, too. I love deadlines imposed by others - thank goodness for my critique group Blog Buddies!

Of course, Potter the Literary Cat is my constant companion!

6 comments:

  1. If I am up as early as you Robin that means I never went to bed. There's something about the night that gets my creative juices flowing. Maybe it's because I don't have a bunch of folks competing for my attention. I do admire you have "a room of ones own." That's what Virginia Wolfe said every woman writer needs if she is to produce quality fiction. I guess my "room" is in my head and it becomes available when my family retires for the evening. I literally feel a tingle run up my spine when this happens.

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  2. Love the cute picture of your cat. He looks like he's cheering you on.

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  3. Oh the cat is cool. I love that picture. So you are the lady in Panera?!! That LADY?

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  4. Yeah - I'm the Panera lady hogging the outlet. And I share the home office with the husband, cat and sofa bed.

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  5. Very poetic entry. I, too, love the picture.

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  6. Cheers to your writing space! I am envious of your ability to make time to write at the crack of dawn. Winking cat is the best!

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