I'm a person who needs silence when writing.
Therefore, crowded coffee shops don't quite cut it for me most of the time when it comes down to writing for money. I prefer to be home, with my feet up on my over sized ottoman, hot cup of tea in hand. I am also a person who prefers cooler weather to hot, so when the winter time hits and I'm curled up on the couch with a cup of hot cocoa and my pink bunny slippers on, life just doesn't get much better. My laptop is my best friend when I'm getting my freelance writing and editing done.
However, if I am writing for my own pleasure, then I'm a person who prefers writing long hand. To sit down with an open, lined notebook or journal, my favorite pen, and my two cats at my feet, is simply heaven for me. Computers are grand, don't get me wrong, but there is just something insanely relaxing about putting pen to paper and allowing your hand to guide the pen in upward strokes across the paper. To really focus on and savor your writing is a fairly cheap form of therapy for me. Long hand also allows me to become one with my words. I also read aloud my writing often. I prefer words that linger on the palate and appreciate being sung by the tongue.
It is this writing for my own pleasure that sometimes takes me outside to write. I appreciate an empty park (bench or grass) and an ice cold tea with a splash of lemon to help alleviate the sometimes stress of being a mother. I allow for the freshly cut grass to dance in between my toes and take in the smells of the flower gardens nearby. I never bring my laptop with me when I'm writing for my own pleasure. I simply would never be able to engross myself in the semi-trance-like state that writing puts me in. That horrid key tapping sound would ruin the rhythm of my prose and interrupt the dreams I allow room for in my writing.
Sweet, playful i-dotting and t-crossing...that's all I want to hear when I'm writing for my own pleasure in an empty park. I want to gaze lovingly at a brand new, jet black Moleskine journal and feel that little bit of anticipation that builds right before I take it out of it's wrapper. And when my heart fluttering subsides and I open it up to the first page, I can't wait to grab my Paper Mate and allow the two to become one. The mating of pens, journals, and a passion for recording your innermost thoughts.
Share your favorite places to write, I'd love to hear the inspiration you gain when being there.
4 comments:
Lovely piece, and I can relate, except that I do sometimes need a change of scene and then a coffee shop works just fine. But I love writing in longhand on a legal pad.
Strangly I write best under pressure, on my laptop with chaos reigning around me. If I have the sense that I am about to be torn away from my task, my writing tends to flow more easily. I find that if I have too much time it gets contrived and stale. I guess I am an adrenalin junky at heart. ;)
Danielle, please visit my blog, you are my featured reader this week! Congrats and thank you!
Hi Danielle, I loved this piece because I need to be reminded from time to time to slow down and smell the flowers. I am a speed thinker and typer and feel one with the computer. But, I forget how lovely it is to write and how that slows me down and helps me ponder the things I'm saying. It's nice to be reminded. I'm also a musician and cannot write with music in the background because the writing stalls and the listening takes over. Aren't we funny creatures?
(Found the link to you on Momedy.)
I never travel anywhere without a notebook. It used to make my kids a little crazy and now they do the same thing! I even keep one on my bedside because I have woken up at odd hours and felt the need to write something down!
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