Beyond the Coffee Shop: Great Places to Write Away From Home
By Bill Ferris | March 17, 2018 |
Warning: Hacks for Hacks tips may have harmful side effects on your writing career, and should not be used by minors, adults, writers, poets, scribes, scriveners, journalists, or anybody.
We all love coffee shops as a place to get hopped up on caffeine, interact with fellow creatives, check up on social media, and maybe even write a page or two. Taking a few minutes to escape from the demands of family can be just what the doctor ordered, or at the very least, your lawyer. However, if you escape to the same place every time, you’ll soon develop a new set of ruts, which will lead to a new set of irritations, a new set of bad habits, and eventually, a new set of dirty looks from those around you. Get a change of scenery for your change of scenery by considering these inspirational writing spots.
A Bar
Like a coffee shop, except with alcohol. Yeah, it’s not that much different, but you’re easing into it. Baby steps.
A City Park
Find yourself a bench in a nearby park and write to your heart’s content. What better way to enjoy the outdoors than by doing something you could more easily do indoors? And you get to feel superior to all the folks out there exercising and socializing like chumps. Just be prepared for when the voice of your inner child shrieks that you’re wasting a beautiful day of unlimited recess by doing homework. You can tell your inner child that you’ve learned new and better ways to have fun, and now you have to get back to work to meet your deadline before your editor calls and yells at you again.
The Beach
Don’t worry about getting ocean water in your laptop. It’s the sand you’ve got to watch out for. At the beach, bring an old-fashioned notebook and pen and let the majesty of your surroundings pull words from your pen as easily as an undertow dragging a surfer to their doom. The sound of crashing waves will wash away the distractions from your mind, except for a maddeningly sweet song sung by several women sitting on a rocky outcropping just offshore. Hustle up and finish your daily word count so you can swim out to meet them!
A Greyhound Bus Headed to Whereversville, USA
Photo by Frank Denardo
Did you know busses have wifi now? That’s all you need, baby. Go on an adventure! It’ll be like a mobile writing residency. The destination doesn’t matter. You don’t even have to tell anybody where you’re going, or that you’re leaving at all. Just grab a cheap ticket and take your seat and get some work done as you leave your old life in the dust. You’ll never travel far enough to outrun your problems, but the bus is so slow that they might get bored and forget about you.
Room 19 at the Park Plaza Motel in South Sioux City, Nebraska
The TV doesn’t work, so you won’t have distractions. There’s no room service, so you won’t be tempted to eat loads of junk food. The place isn’t on the map, isn’t in the phone book, isn’t supposed to even exist anymore, so you won’t get any interruptions. You can’t remember how you got here, so that means you must’ve been really absorbed in your work. There’s a nameless dread in the pit of your stomach, which you hope means you’re on the verge of a breakthrough in your story.
There’s a knock at the door, which spells out your True Name in Morse code.
That means it’s time.
Closing
In summary, when it comes to finding a place to write, you’ve got lots of choices available. Enjoy!
Where do you like to go to change up your writing routine? Share your ideas in the comments!
[coffee]
After college, Bill Ferris (he/him) left Nebraska for Florida to become a rich and famous rock star. Failing that, he picked up the pen to become a rich and famous novelist. He now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and looks forward to a life of poverty and ridicule.
Hi Bill,
Saw this one on Facebook: https://www.buzzfeed.com/farrahpenn/this-woman-kept-going-back-to-a-tire-store-to-writ?utm_term=.vggd7R2DB#.vvq4k9MZV
I too left Nebraska.
I get some great ideas and thoughts down waiting outside my daughter’s piano lessons. Of course, it’s a beautiful remote spot, so that helps. On walks, I also get ideas. Using recording on my iPhone, I can remember different words or mental pictures I want to use later.
Our local library, plus the walk there and home again. Neo-Gothic design elements, including a fireplace that the staff are happy to turn on for me if I want it (some days you need that cozy, medieval atmosphere), and friendly advice (the school kids start arriving after 2), plus research at hand and books all around.
I agree that the local library is a good place to write. My library actually has a cafe also, so you can get coffee and be surrounded by books.
Thinking about leaving the upstairs section of our office rental as a writer’s getaway. Just the thought of gazing at Mt. Ashland during writing breaks makes me smile.
I was having my car serviced and brought my laptop along so I could go to the coffee shop when it was done. Six hours later I was still sitting in the awful Subaru waiting room. Vending machine coffee and granola bars and HGTV on a continuous loop — who needs beautiful surroundings?
I have the perfect setting here in my Smoky Mountain log home with a creek rushing and super quiet seclusion – ahhhh!
I have tried to write others places but my brain goes boing boing boing SHINY THING SHINY THING INTERESTING THING MOVEMENT OVER THERE PEOPLE WHAT’S THAT? Yeah.
My writing partner and I listed places around town we could write then selected one at end of each writing session for our next time. Three that stand out for me are the railroad depot waiting room, the garden at a local hospital, and a random university building lobby. We went to various coffee shops on occasion, always looking for outdoor venues first. We then took the first 5 minutes and wrote a quick prompt related to something or someone we saw. Great practice followed by great creativity. To this day, I still assess places I visit for writing potential.
Diavalo,
My only other member of our writing group of two and I live in Illinois where it is too cold to sit outside in the winter. But we have found some nice restaurants to eat and write (the two things we both love to do!). We are looking forward to summer so we can find some outdoor places.
We end our sessions with writing prompts, perhaps we should start them that way….
Bill,
Thanks for the humorous essay. I do NOT like to type on laptops, so my computer toting would be quite awkward. I do love putting pen to paper and pray that perfectly places prose is produced.
My friend and I started a writing group of two last November in a town where it gets too cold to sit outside. We are looking forward to warmer weather in which to wile our wisdom on the world.
(Wow! see what reading your article and simply dreaming of the perfect writing place did for my alliterate brain?!?!?) :)
You laugh, Bill, but I love to write in bars. They’re pretty quiet in the afternoon; the music is turned off; there aren’t many people around, and certainly fewer loud conversations. Plus, there’s liquid refreshment if desired. I started doing this in Toronto, where the pubs feel like a good place to hang out for a while, but have kept up the habit here in the states.
I agree that the local library is a good place to write. My library actually has a cafe also, so you can get coffee and be surrounded by books.