Finance Conference Room #4: Your Space for Writing (and ONLY Writing)

The more I write, the more I realize how important it is to have a designated place where that writing takes place. Over the years I have read multiple articles on how to create the perfect space so that your muse can start spewing creative thoughts and ideas through your mind and onto the page. What I have come to believe is that what the space looks like, feels like, and sounds like are all less important than simple consistency.

Think about your bed. If you get into bed every night and read a book before going to sleep, you are training your mind to develop this practice as a habit. At some point, if you get into bed and turn out the light and lay down—you might not be able to sleep. Your mind has connected that bed + book = sleep. Skipping the book is like trying to open a door without the handle.

It is no different with writing. You need a space devoted specifically to writing. When you are in that space, you are writing. Don't work on your shopping list. Don't browse Facebook. Don't watch YouTube videos of epic cat fails. Write. Just—write.

For me, that space is Finance Conference Room #4. This is where I spend my lunch hour every day (barring a conflicting obligation). Being that this conference room is in a completely different department than I work, I will never find myself conducting normal, day to day business in that space. I have no experience in that room outside of working on my creative indulgence. As soon as I set foot beyond the threshold of Finance Conference Room #4, my brain automatically shuts off everything except the parts I need to focus on my story, research, etc.

Now if someday the finance department decides they need to have weekly lunch meetings in that conference room, I'm going to be in trouble, but you get my point.

As far as the aesthetics of your writing space, this is going to be completely original to you. My suggestions would be as follows:

1. Find out how you are motivated: People's emotions are stimulated in different ways, for different things. Some are more visual, while others are auditory, and still others can be affected by temperature or what material their chair is made from. Find out what exterior factors affect you the most, and then dig deeper...

2. Get to know yourself a little better: No one knows you better than you. That being said, you may not have any idea what is going to motivate you to write. Since I tend to write stories on the darker side of the spectrum, I used to think that I needed to have some dramatically themed writing space which mimicked a dark forest or a creepy abandoned alley somewhere. Now that I am not quite as naive, I realize, while it might help when I am writing within those scenarios, such targeted decor would surely impact my abilities to write lighter, more humorous parts of a story.

If you are a visual person, what is it that visually sets the mood for creativity? Lighting? A photograph of your favorite best-selling author? Using a typewriter instead of a computer? If you are more auditory, is there a certain kind of music that needs to be playing? Do you need to be able to hear the hustle and bustle of people around you? Do you need absolute silence?

In my case, I need different things depending on what I am doing. I am motivated by sound, or lack there of, so when I am deep in the heart of writing a story, I plug in my earbuds and listen to Pandora, tuned to the James Newton Howard/Hanz Zimmer station. Dramatic movie soundtracks really get me pumped and help the words fly onto the page. However, when I am editing I find that any noise at all is incredibly distracting, even my beloved soundtracks. I need absolute silence. I need emotion to be gone, so that I can scrub my text for boring errors that I might otherwise miss (and might still miss).

There is no cookie cutter road map to designing the perfect writing space. All I can say is that first and foremost—find a place that means absolutely nothing to you outside of writing. Without any other considerations, this should help you get the creative juices flowing once you stick with it for a while. If it is a coffee shop, don't ever go there to hang out with a friend. If it is a room in your basement, don't ever spend time in that room unless you are writing. Train your brain that when you enter that space—magic is about to happen.