Space oddity...

Was reading a little recently about writers' spaces, the places where they write. And I realized, I don't really have one.

I have a desk, sure. It's got an ancient desktop on it that runs Windows '98, one shelf full of dictionaries, binders stuffed with old work, scrap paper and my entire year's subscription of Writer's Digest, and another shelf crowded with my printer and seemingly every stupid knick-knack I own. But I don't write on that desk. I barely use it at all. The computer is rarely turned on since I got my laptop a year ago. Plus, the chair is too short, has crappy support and wiggles unbearably.

I write everywhere but on flat surfaces, it seems. The only times I really write "properly", sitting down in a chair with the paper on a desk, is in class when I'm scribbling during the dull periods of a lecture. Other times I am laying down on my side on my bed, notebook up by my head where I can reach it with my right hand. Or I'm curled up in the new comfy chair at the bottom of my bed, notebook resting on my knees. Or I'm sitting with my laptop on whatever flat surface I can find, tapping away with my arms in awkward positions.

I don't really have a "writing space". And as much as I would love to say that I want one, I don't think I would really use it, or at least hardly ever. Because I do my writing when it happens, when I have a spare moment, when I'm comfortable, I tend to be in odd positions or at odd times. If I get an idea in bed, I'll write it down in bed. I don't want to get up and move to a writing space to get my mojo going. Some of my best writing has been in these strange places, like in the back corners of libraries or in the middle of the campus at school.

There's a danger to trying to make a perfect writers' space, I think. I mean, if I were hung up on trying to make myself the perfect writing nook, I'd be at it all the time instead of writing. It's part of what drives me crazy before and during NaNo, trying to make the perfect environment. It's just a means of procrastination. The best way to write and the best environment for writing is just writing itself.