I can’t tell if I’m a writer because I’m unhappy or if I’m unhappy because I’m a writer. I can’t tell when everything first went wrong or right. For me writing has always been about keeping secrets, which probably explains why my first loves were the confessional poets. I’m talking about writing in a notebook in front of a painting, in front of dramatic cliff, a ditch, the front seat of your boyfriend’s Monte Carlo if you had a boyfriend or feelings for anything except yourself. I don’t know why I wanted to sit in a crawlspace under the staircase by myself writing shit down.
Where’s your writing spot?
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Betsy Lerner 
Table facing a huge front window and side door entrance to our house. I figure, if I’m lost inside my head, I should at least be the first to know if bad guys, zombies or aliens try to get in.
Yes. In my own little corner, in my own little chair…
My first & best spot was high up in a big chestnut tree in a Connecticut horse field. I was 11 and had nailed a metal box up there to store my stuff. It was absolutely secret and no one could find me. Just me and my pen.
That tree sounds ideal, November.
Oh, it was! I still dream of it, plus I was trespassing which made it even better.
Should I die today, and my works turn into more than they are because of said untimely death (gasp), and if anyone looked for some bit of a place where “it” happened (the writing, not the death), they’d be disappointed.
Here? She wrote…here?
Here = spot at the kitchen bar facing french doors. (I can watch the bird “wars.”)
Before? At the desk upstairs where my IP work phone was connected.
*Ring ring.* “Hello, this is Donna Everhart.”
“Donna, we need those headcount analysis spreadsheets by 10.”
“No problem.” *Click*
Type type type. THE END.
Now to the spreadsheet.
I work in the yard, better to watch the bird wars. Unfortunately my dog is frequently a victim of their bombings. If I were a nicer person I wouldn’t laugh at her.
don’t be unhappy
I’ve never understood why I can say things better on paper — the visual presence of the words? – then speaking.
I like writing things down while walking so I don’t have to remember descriptions. Scenarios are fine, I can retain them, but dialogue and detail often vanish with each breath of wind.
To write, I like a soft comfy arm chair, undisturbed in a quiet room, pen and yellow legal pad. Sometimes, these days, it’s in front of the computer, pecking away, the ghost of the computer light appearing as my muse.
So I’m happiest when I’m writing. Human beings are meant to create. Doesn’t matter what it is — music, woodworking, building sandcastles, playing with Play-Doh, yada yada. For me, writing is it. A writer friend of mine calls writing a “pleasant affliction.” Maybe not always so pleasant…
Where to write? I tend to zone out once I settle in. That’s the hard part. Probably doesn’t matter that much where, as long as I’ve got a word processor facing me. Forget longhand – I can’t read my own writing. I also need thinking time. Thoughts pop up, or germinate. And I can never write on cue. Need to be alone.
in the backyard, by the pool, in the morning, after a dose of Ritalin, 2 cups of coffee and 1 hit of medical marijuana…
“Where’s your writing spot?”
Wherever I am, when the mood strikes or necessity necessitates.
Usually these days it’s a more predictable spot, that being right here and right now (ha! but it’s not now where you are now, or not that now, but some other now, which anyway is now no more and now it’s some other now but look out now, it’s already over)–
Now where the fuck was I before the spacetime continuum ripped? Lessee, lessee–
no, not that lessee, this estate’s not real, I mean and I should say, Let’s see . . .
and having seen, so shall I say. I prefer to compose in my study (uppity-speak for second bedroom of a two bedroom walkup) at my computer. I have composed masterpieces here, or hereabouts. Don’t believe me? Just ask. I’ll be happy to tell you.
Enough of that. Now this: I started writing because I was unhappy and it has been my great good fortune to live unhappily ever after.
Now the other thing: Everything first went wrong when I got squeezed out from between my mother’s legs. It’s been downhill from there. Good thing I had the good sense to grab pen and paper along the way, writing down secrets so I wouldn’t forget them and could tell them as soon as I figured I could get away with it. So far, it’s worked out, though I will tell you, I’ve learned a few secrets along the way that I haven’t written down and won’t tell because, let me tell you, those guys don’t fool around.