Who's Your Writing-Space Hero?

Interviewing creatives has always been my jam. Sure to be on my list of questions is, "Tell me about your creative space - where do you create?" After decades of conversations with writers, singers, and visual artists, one answer holds the top spot for best answer.

A young woman writer told me she set up a table in her home and hung photographs of her ancestors on the wall in front of her. She would write as tribute to them, knowing they were part of her journey. Each time she sat down to write among the faces of her people, she lit a candle and got into a sacred writing space.

The Introvert: George Bernard Shaw

Are you an introvert? Someone who sees a photo of a lone house on an island too small for a second? If you yelled, Yes! That's me!" George Bernard Shaw, who penned the play Pygmalion, is you're kind of writer.

"People bother me," Shaw once admitted. The reclusive writer had a hut built on a revolving mechanism so it would follow the sunlight throughout the day, and named it "London." Why London? "I come here to hide from (people), so I'm not lying when I tell my staff I'm going to London."

The Extrovert: J.K. Rowling and J.F. Penn

Each of these writers has said they made their way to local coffee shops or cafes to write when they "had to get out of the house."

As a single mother, Rowling toted her infant daughter to a cafe near her home, saying it got her away from the noise and distractions of home, even though it was just "a different kind of noise." It was noise she could write with while likewise shaking of the loneliness of sitting home alone - or with an infant whose conversation is limited.

J.F. Penn is another coffee shop or cafe writer, and makes a point of writer ettiquette in such places. Best to choose a place without servers, so you're not holding up a table someone is trying to free up for the next guest - and tipper. If you're there a while, but another coffee or tea to support the cafe, or buy something to eat. This is being a good customer and is fair to the owners.

The Focused Pro: Ernest Hemingway

Writers as creatives are often sensitive to their surroundings. Then, some writers are voracious types who devour life, sometimes in excess. Ernest Hemingway fits here. Of course Hemingway wrote in the various cities and towns where he lived through the years, including at his home, Vinca Vigia, in Cuba, and his family's Michigan cottage on Walloon Lake. Living as an ex-pat in Paris in the 1920s, among the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, he was often seen in one of two literary cafes, Cafe de Flore or Les Deux Magots (I know, but it doesn't mean 'maggots').

These were hot spots for artists, writers, and intellectuals at the time, so Hemingway had a gift for getting writing done with friends coming and going, while also perhaps imbibing a beverage - or two.

The Garbo, aka 'The I Vahnt to be Alone' Writer: Maya Angelou and Post-Success J.K. Rowling

Similar to the Introvert, the Garbo writer wants to write in solitude - with a twist. The Garbo has achieved monetary success such that they can write in a hotel room. A nice one.

The Garbo writer reserves a hotel room for an extended period of time, making it a writing nest. Angelou used to pack a deck of cards and crossword puzzles, and even liked the decorations removed from the room. She forbade hotel staff from entering the room, saying if she'd tossed a piece of writing on the floor she didn't want to risk them tossing it out.

J.K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, her 7th book, in room 552 of The Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland. That room is now called "The J.K. Rowling Suite." The Balmoral is a 5-Star, Luxury hotel and, as Ferris Buehler once said, "If you have the means, I highly recommend it."

The En Plain Air Writer: Wade Rouse/Viola Shipman

Novelist Wade Rouse, who also publishes under his grandmother's name, Viola Shipman, is my writing-space hero. He's living my dream. Rouse lives near me when he's not wintering at his Palm Springs digs, and says he insists on writing outdoors. We live near Lake Michigan in southwest Michigan, so when we have writing-outdoors weather, being outdoors is a must. My question - and Wade, if you see this, share the wisdom - is how anyone can write outdoors when the glare of outdoor light and sun illuminate a laptop screen??? It's virtually impossible to see what you're writing or have written. I've tried patio umbrellas, moving my patio table next to the house for shade, sitting under a tree and praying no tick will drop on my neck... still, this writing outdoors thing comes with challenges. But I love it.

The 'Just the Right Spot' Writer: Li-Young Lee and Truman Capote

It's a given for this one to follow the En Plain Air Writer. I have no idea how these writers get it done, but...

Li-Young Lee told me he does his best writing in his bathtub. Years ago I had a hot tub and tried valiantly to read in the hot tub. Not possible. The steam and bubbling dampened the pages and made the book limp. Li-Young is, truly, on a completely different level as a writer (he's an amazing poet), so it doesn't surprise me he can pull off the bathtub scribe role.

Truman Capote's writing spot baffles me. Unless he wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's with a pencil. Capote wrote lying down. "I'm a completely horizontal writer. I can't think unless I'm lying down, either in bed or stretched out on a couch with a cigarette and coffee handy," he said.

Pens don't write upside down - well, unless you have the famed pen from the Seinfeld episode that made it possible. He had to write lying on his side or on his stomach, keeping his writing paper in place with one hand and writing with the other. That's it's own skill.

Side Note: Irish novelist James Joyce wrote in bed when his eyesight began failing. He solved the gravitational pull of ink problem by writing with a big, blue crayon - also making it more possible to see what he wrote - and wore a white coat with the thinking light would reflect off it and onto his paper to aid his sight.