Finding Your Ideal Creative Environment

Hint: It may not look like an Instagram post

Want to spend time procrastinating from writing, yet still feel like a “writer?”

Do a Google Image or Pinterest search for writing space. You’ll find a mouth-watering assortment of home offices, libraries, cozy nooks overlooking forests, you name it.

We all dream of having the perfect space for crafting our works, but maybe that’s not what we actually need.

Maybe your retreat is less comfortable and glamorous. Maybe it looks and feels more like an airplane seat at 30,000 feet in the air.

I recently returned from a trip to see my mother. I’m on the west coast, she’s in the midwest. Getting there takes two flights and several hours in the air.

On this last trip, I only brought out the laptop and worked for an hour or so in each direction, yet I accomplished a great deal:

That’s not a bad result for a couple of hours of work. The thinking and planning will fuel many hours of productive work back at home.

It’s odd because an airplane seat is not a luxe writing retreat. It’s very nearly the opposite.

It’s constraining. I can’t spread out papers and pens. There’s barely enough room for my small laptop on the desk, and anything extra lands on my lap. I can’t get up and walk around easily. (When you sit in the window seat, as I often do, escaping the seat is an adventure.)

There’s no Wi-Fi. Even if it’s available, I rarely pay for the Wi-Fi, as I’d rather do concentrated work, then settle down to read a good mystery.

It’s not even comfortable. The temperature is often too cold or too hot, the person in front of me may be reclining…

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