Where Do You Write?

This post at the Dinosaurs and Robots blog got me thinking about creative spaces, or rather, those spaces where I get creative.  George Bernard Shaw had his shack, and Roald Dahl had his hut.  What do you have?  Where do you get most creative?

Shack.

Hut.

Generally, I think there are two types of writers: ones that need the noise of human interaction to influence their creative flow, and ones that require complete cloistered solitude, the absence of interaction to keep their minds from straying.  Basically, it's the difference between the coffeeshop writers and the recluses.  And I realized that I fall into the latter category.

My creative energy is at it's peak when I am completely alone.  Even when I was a baby, my mother knew I was happiest when she placed me in my crib with a picture book, and left the room.  I could entertain myself for hours (or, ya know, just take a nap).  I suppose this is why I need a sense privacy to extend into my creative space.  When no other noise or sound, except that of my own heart beat, interrupts the creative flow.  But it's not just about the noise: it's about completely removing yourself from the flux of humanity.  Sequestering yourself in a place of complete anonymity.  Where no one knows how to reach you or where you are or what you are doing.  It's almost as if you're living off the grid, for the couple of hours or so you expend on writing.

In recent memory, I've only really experienced this sort of aloneness a handful of times.  Once was when I was studying in London, living in a flat on Redcliffe Gardens in Kensington/Chelsea.  It was a time when pretty much all my other flatmates and building-mates, all students themselves, were either on campus, off travelling, or otherwise just not around.  It was quiet, I was completely alone.  I pulled out my journal, sat in the big bay window off our kitchen, and wrote for hours.





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By the end of the day, I had written one of the most bizarre/fantastical poems I'd ever written, filled with allegories and language that I never really knew I had in me.  I'm not saying the poem was necessarily good, but it was the full expression of my creativity at that given moment.

I'm interested in knowing how others out there feel about this.  Where do you like to get creative?  What's your space like?  I'd love it if anyone was willing to post a picture of their writing desk, favorite coffee shop to get creative in, or of their very own writing shack!