005-Home Sweet Home

“Our imagination just needs space. It’s all it needs, that moment where you just sort of stare into the distance where your brain gets to sort of somehow rise up.” ~Glen Hansard

I had recently taken a much needed and well-deserved vacation. My yearly retreat, accompanied by family and a short stack of Neil Gaiman and Stephen King books, I get to dangle my legs off a long dock tens of yards into a channel of the Atlantic Ocean for four days, lazily flipping pages while I keep my senses attuned to the crab line tucked under my leg. With plenty of books, lots of good food and drinks, and never enough crabs in my net, this annual trip is the one week out of the year where I call a truce with the summer sun. The smell of sunblock and mosquito repellant be damned, sun! I’ll allow you to rule over me for only these few days! (You can see my thoughts on summer the other fifty-one weeks of the year right here).

One of my crabby friends

I put the vacation into overdrive this year with an extra stop in Baltimore for two nights on my return home. Not nearly as close to nature, except for an attempt to ride electric boats in Inner Harbor with a storm approaching, the two nights in Baltimore were typical tourist fare, seeing the National Aquarium and trying to get food and cocktails at every bar, restaurant, and lounge that the Misses researched, including a bit of a speakeasy, complete with nondescript black door.

Please tell me you see Alfred Hitchcock

I see you, Elk Room in Baltimore. You couldn’t hide from my wife’s research

At this point, I’m setting this up to be the perfect “it’s okay to need a break” post, and maybe that’s a blog for another day, but not today, friends. Not to be outdone by…myself…I took a few extra days upon returning from Baltimore, a vacation from the vacation, which I admit that I typically require. I may actually be the official standard bearer for the “staycation,” so there should be no shock that an entire second half of my time off was time at home. Have no fear, I wasn’t quite as introverted as I would have wished. My prior staycation accomplishments like the single-day viewing of the Godfather trilogy and writing four-thousand words of a novel were nowhere to be found during my return home. Regardless, I was more than happy to be there. More than anything, it’s very simply…home.

I wrote in my last blog that things have felt a little difficult of late, a little stuffy and humid like the summer sun. Finding the energy to be creative…feeling the time to use what energy I may have had…it all seemed like work. As mentioned, I did enter a twenty-four-hour writing contest, my first, which really had an impact regardless of the outcome which I’m anxiously awaiting and anticipate the posting of the submitted short story to this page. I intend to enter another writing contest in the very near future with my writing group.

Some motivation and luck was able to find me while on vacation. Stuck inside on a sleepy and rainy Saturday afternoon, I tucked up in a room and started doing edits on the first draft of my novel. Never did I expect to complete line and copy self-editing on the last thirty pages. Now that I am back home, it’s time to take the couple hundred pages in the manuscript and transcribe those changes over to the word processor. Thankfully, making the changes have been going at a much faster rate than those made to the printed manuscript.

The great news is I have a wonderful place at home dedicated to my writing, and it makes the time spent at home and the time spent writing all the more enjoyable. While I understand it may not be possible for everyone necessarily, I can’t stress the importance that having a writing space has been. Even if you don’t have a room available, determine if any single area of your residence is capable of being utilized as a writing space. A desk tucked into a corner with all your required tools and a few accoutrements go a long way.

It sounds selfish and maybe is selfish. I’ll admit that I’m a bit myself, however a space is very important. I swear, I try to make sure that I’m not the only one with a personal space in the house! Selfish or not, having your own space has multiple benefits:

Being the center of the world allows you to center thoughts on your world.

It screams ego and I don’t care. Establishing a creative space, whether a room or a corner away from everyone, is the needed solitary experience allowing you to focus very specifically on your imaginative musings. Granted, there are times that I don’t require locking myself in a room, and I understand that Stephen King writes in “On Writing” that one of the most important factors is to have a door that’s closed. I also understand that there’s work that can be done without closing the door, but yes…when it’s time to churn out fresh, creative work, remove as many distractions around you as possible, and that includes closing the door. If you are to build worlds, you need to feel as if it’s revolving around you.

Surround yourself with motivation.

In Blog #3 about investing in yourself, which can be found here, I mention some of the belongings that I keep in my workspace, and I certainly enjoy sharing photos of the space with people. While by no means perfect, the space contains a desk, some shelves with some favorite books and graphic novels as well as some books about writing. The walls have been filled over the years with everything that makes “me,” from fan art from The Dark Tower series, logos, art, and set lists from my favorite bands and musicians, sports logos, newspaper prints, straight down to the replicas of comic covers and a print of Link’s Hyrulian shield from The Legend of Zelda (I know, set off the nerd alert). However, when my eyes do stray from the computer screen, what this does is remind me of all the things through the years that have excited me, motivated me, and held my own wonder. Not only am I grateful for it all, it drives me to keep going. Despite my last blog discussing when the work has felt more like actual work, it continues to remind me that I am in a space intended to ultimately be fun.

Because He-Man, Steven Tyler, Superman, Dave Grohl, Skeletor, and the tap of my favorite discontinued brew were bound to hang out some day.

Build a space that allows you to remove yourself from distractions, a space that speaks volumes as to who you are and provides everything that you need to get motivated and create. Let the place where you write become your true home away from home.

Do you have your own designated writing space? What sort of personal motivation do you surround yourself with? I’d love to hear, comment below!