My perfect writing space is ‘Subways.’ No, not the subway. That would be too dramatic. Or subway downtown in New York. I mean ‘Subways’. The home of the six or twelve-inch sandwich that could effectively choke a horse, or any other drunken reveller, or poorer soul looking for a cheaper place to eat. It’s the idea that a writer needs that special place to write before creativity flows.
Traditionally that could be a spectacled man or woman looking forlorn out of an original Victorian sash window onto a natural scene of beauty. Or if it is a downtrodden scene, then it’s a well-chosen place, slightly edgy, a window looking out onto an estate. The odd addict handing out the ‘Big Issue’ while urban trendies pass by suppressing their inner guilt while listening to some new-wave, techno sounds.
For me, when the writing bug strikes, it strikes, and the environment has nothing to do with it. It’s just taking the idea and rolling with it, and anywhere can become my writing space. Ideally, you would have a notepad or a laptop and start the tappety tap tap tapping as your monumental next great novel rolls effortlessly across the screen. The mood inside and outside is important for some.
Outside it’s raining, just the very light piffly rain that one can barely notice, but it’s there casting a thin mist of misery over your day creating the right mood for your novel. Unless you are one of the new happy clappers who have signed up for happy classes to train yourself to experience nothing but mild contentment whatever the occasion. Then anywhere can be your writing space.
But that has never been for me either. Schooled in Dharma and taught to accept the shit and the shine. All effortlessly arises and then falls away. So I can write anywhere. Unless I am really pissed off and need the comfort and warmth of a library. Where was I?
The rain. ‘Subways’ not subways. A sausage and egg sandwich and a cup of tea. Builder’s tea as they now say. Since when was the nation’s favourite drink reduced to a class stereotype? And the rain outside. And the people passing by. And then when lightning strikes. A writer must write. Not just twice but until the creative flow has exhausted itself and the writer disappears leaving only the writing.
