Where do you write?

     This isn’t a metaphysical question.

     Take this as literal, because that’s what it is.

     We should all have a special place we can call our own when it comes to writing. It doesn’t matter if that place is your local coffee shop, or your dining table, or just the breakroom at work. So long as you have a refuge, you can retreat to for your writing.

     My own place is in the basement of my house.

     My youngest son and I share this space. We have our Lego bricks (in dozens of well-organized containers) on shelves and in drawers. My writing area, however, is not nearly as organized.

     I have my desktop and monitor crammed onto the desk. On top of the desk, behind the monitor, is a small bookshelf, onto which I have placed all my Steinbecks and some of my history books. Other books, graphic novels, militaria, and paperwork are scattered around. From where I sit right now, as I write this, I can reach out and grab a cold cup of tea, a cold mug of coffee, some bills, a fossil of a fish, and a statue of the Buddha. I can also turn off my portable heater, grab a book on the German army during the Weimar Republic, or turn on my shredder.

     All this is comfortable.

     All this is familiar.

     And it allows me to sink into my writing.

     I know where everything is for when I need it.

     If I feel like listening to music while I write or edit, the headphones are there. If I need names for characters, the names of authors leap out at me.

     This is what helps me write. This familiarity, this ritualistic pattern I follow when I make my way to my battered Victorian chair, sit down and prepare to shiver in the chill of the basement, my heater valiantly doing battle with the New England winter.

     Find your place, that safe place where you can create and forget everything but the passion you have for writing.