Currently, my two favorite lairs for writing are the couch in the den and the desk in the study. (I don’t live in a palace; the two rooms are small and within sight of each other.). In the family room, I lean back on the couch, prop my feet up on coffee table, put a pillow or lap desk under my computer and type away. The desk is a more formal setting. And no matter how I adjust the seat, it’s never quite tall enough, so I look like a kindergartner getting ready to take a nap.
As a writing nook, the couch comes with drawbacks. It is in the center of everything, so I have a great chance of being interrupted by my husband, my daughter or any one of our three dogs. When I started writing this, the oldest dog sat beside me for a while, and then changed places with the middle dog, who is still waiting patiently for me. But being in the middle of everything is also one of the things I like about the couch.
I also have to ignore the television, which is easy when something like football is on. I can listen to sports and still write, but when the family flips to an interesting movie or series, I have a hard time tuning it out. Although if I’m in “the zone,” we could have a tsunami, an earthquake, and a fire and I might not notice. My lair is comfortable, and the cushion on my end of the couch has molded itself to the contours of my body, so I’ll be staying for a while.
When I first started writing, I tried my hand at freelance contract work. I earned a little money doing that, and used some of it to buy a pretty rose-wood secretary desk with a top that folds down. We put it in a corner of the spare bedroom. I used it a time or two until I discovered that the space inside the secretary when the top was folded up was the perfect place to hide books that I need to age before reading them. That way when my husband asks me where they came from, I can truthfully say that I’ve had them for a while. He’s not anti-book – far from it – but every bookcase in our house is full of double rows. My husband thinks the Kindle is the greatest invention since the wheel, because I can gather books at will and we still have living space in the house. Sometimes I still run across a “real” book that I want to add to my collection. Hence the need for the secretary as a hidey-hole and the destruction of its utility as a writing lair. Heaven help me if I ever have to dismantle the secret collection of books also stored up in my office at work!
But, as usual, I digress. For now, the couch is the designated writing spot unless I get a sudden urge to start using the desk again or need the double monitors. Where are your favorite places to write?
