The Best Place to Write
What's the best place to write? Where do you write? Where do you usually write? Where do you like to write? Where do you write best? There are many variants of the question, and I get asked them often, but I still get a slight jolt each time I hear one of them, because each of them is based on a fundamental assumption which I disagree with: that a writer's ability to write, or the quality of their writing, is fundamentally tied to their writing space. Popular culture often presents writers this way: Kipling at Bateman's, Dylan Thomas in his boathouse, George Bernard Shaw in his shed and Joyce in his Martello Tower. But few writers really wrote only - or even mainly - in one place, and although some people do find benefits to having one set place to write, many more find it more useful to write whenever, and wherever, the opportunity arises. Personally, I would probably never get anything written if I had to wait until I could sit down in the same place a...
