Your Writing Spaces: A Booth Called Home
This week, in this first article to showcase the Writing Spaces of the Fuel Your Writing community, Jennifer Roarks McCants shares the humble public space that she wants called her own.
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Writing is my time machine, takes me to the precise time and place I belong.
- Jeb Dickerson
I began writing when I was a teenager, usually bad poetry. I was learning how to express the thoughts and feelings that I didn’t know how to describe out loud. Once it was written, it made sense and I was able to go on about my day as usual. I still have those poems tucked away on my bookshelf in a ratty, worn out folder.
By the time I started college, my major required my commitment to the written word. What else are you supposed to do when trying to obtain a degree in English? You write. A lot. Whether you are in the mood or not. I quite often found myself trying to figure out how to turn two pages worth of true thought into twenty pages of comprehensible, cohesive sentences on whatever the current assignment required.
That’s a lot of…um, work.
Too Quiet?
I quickly discovered over the course of my freshman year, that my dorm room was not the comfortable space I needed in which to focus and direct my thoughts onto paper. It was too… well… quiet. I’m the type of person that always has several things going on at once, several deadlines due yesterday, several projects in the works, several people demanding my undivided attention. I love every second of it. When it comes to writing though, I needed to be able to tune it all out and give the pen and paper (or in today’s world, my laptop and keyboard) my undivided attention. I just couldn’t do that in a quiet living environment. I still can’t. I get too distracted. Weird, right?
Out & About
My college was located in a small town in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas. The Walmart actually received an award the year I graduated for “the place to be on Saturday night.” The good news is, there was a Waffle House literally five minutes from my dorm. And it was perfect for my needs. The juke box blaring the same songs over and over, the waitstaff taking orders, the regulars jabbering on about their day while chain-smoking and drinking a cup of coffee with their scattered, smothered and chunked hashbrowns. It was exactly what I needed to focus.
I would sit in the corner booth by the window, with my notebook and pen and write for hours. I would order a large to-go cup of coffee, some creamer, and a full sugar shaker. I would stir a little bit of creamer into my coffee and then turn the sugar upside down and count to seven. I would then completely lose track of time and come out of my writing haze several hours later when someone would tap me on the shoulder and tell me they’d been trying to talk to me for the last 30 minutes. Or when silence reigned at four a.m. because every sane person that wasn’t getting paid to work was at home asleep.
A Booth Called Home
I spent the majority of the remaining three years of college sitting in that corner booth of Waffle House. I wrote every paper, every poem and even a script for what eventually became an hour-length Indie film while drinking my sugar-with-coffee concoction and tuning out the world in that little, plastic corner booth. Now, almost 15 years later, I try to find a more comfortable, cushioned seat and I drink my coffee mixed with hot chocolate instead of seven seconds worth of sugar, but Waffle House was once my perfect writing space and may still be again.
Do you identify with Jennifer’s space? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. And please – write about your own Writing Spaces and send them our way!
Jennifer is a graphic designer during the day as well as a full-time mother and wife with the occasional moment of free time here and there to write. A passion for creativity, life and laughter motivate and inspire her artwork and writings. You can see some of her work at her site, or follow her on Twitter.
How cozy! That looks like a great atmosphere for writing. Loved your article, I could almost smell the coffee brewing and see the blur of the waitstaff bustling around. :)
Thanks Sarah! I definitely cherish those memories and still think about all the hours I spent in the booth every time I drive by a Waffle House where I live now. :-) I miss those carefree days.
Really enjoyed your article and I was fascinated by the fact that you seem to need a bit of chaos around you to be able to zone out enough to be calm in you mind. I too zone out when writing too but I’ve found that I its harder for me when there is too much sounds in my surroundings.
I am still searching for my waffle house and I am certain that there is a space out there waiting for me, a place calling for me where a story is asked to be written. Perhaps I just need to add that sugar-with-coffee mix to be succesful in my search!
Thanks for an entertaining read!
As long as you can find your own space, it doesn’t matter how strange it might seem to others. The Waffle House isn’t so different from writing in a coffee shop, right? What I love about this post is that it shows how a serious writer will find a way to write, no matter what. I learned that lesson during my M.F.A–no excuses.
When I waited tables, I used to jot down notes on cocktail napkins. I used to write in my car a lot, too. Now that I actually have an office, sometimes I still need to get out for a change of pace (which I’d recommend to others). Thanks!
-Miss Good on Paper
a wonderful writing space indeed! Nothing quite like being out and about and finding that cozy, not-so-quite place to be alone with your thoughts!
The Waffle House is one of my favorite restaurants where my Dad and I have eaten many dinners together and talked, but that’s not the kind of place I can write. No place is weird as our writing place defines who we are.
Growing up in the backwoods means I am used to the quiet and the only noise would be insects and frogs chirping. I can’t necessarily take my portable workstation with me to my thinking spot as I fear of dropping it into the creek when I cross and there is no power out there and the battery wouldn’t last very long.
My workstation is portable as I am on the move a lot. Most of the time it sits on a small table that is one of those folding easel things that was advertised on TV and my pocket wifi on the coffee table beside me. Everything fits neatly into my HP backpack. I go to my parents house and work in the down time when I am not visiting or doing beekeeping stuff with my dad. I can also take my workstation with me on the camping or hunting trip and work at night when the generator is running or plug it into the car. Generators do make a little noise, but I have learned to tune it out and close the camper door. I keep a portable inverter in my bag for the purpose of working in the car. I can also use it to write on my laptop on a long road trip. Sometimes we go to a friend’s farm and I take it with me when it is too hot to go fishing in either of the lakes or if its raining when my husband is doing work on the big tractors.
All my different ’stations’ are in quiet areas. If someone flips on the boob tube I pack up and go somewhere else quiet and it takes just a minute. What does your work station consist of? My laptop, a pocket wi-fi, a little pouch where I have pens, pencils ,and flash drives, my computer cord, USB mouse and mousepad, note pad, tiny comp book, and a couple notebooks. I can set up on the couch and use a pillow to set my computer on. I set up on a table if it is available and I also have a portable computer stand that folds away where I know there is no couch or table available and it’s not the same one I use in the living room in some instances. This idea sort of comes from college as the workstation was portable too in that I had to set up shop just about anywhere to do my assignments.
Great article Jennifer! I imagine you’ve gathered more than one story idea from that Waffle House, so it serves more than one purpose, huh?
I envy those who can write amongst so much noise, I’m the direct opposite, I must have quiet when I want to do the “real” writing, (will talk about that in my article, which is forthcoming). I can’t even have music on unless it’s instrumental only because I tend to start singing along, causing me to lose track of what I was writing.
Thanks so much for sharing your space with us!
Jennifer,
Great article. I have to say that I am just the opposite from you. I have to have it quiet to get anything done. This is hard since I am raising 3 teenaged grandsons. I have to do my writing by the dining room table. Sometimes I get my quiet and other times I don’t. Like tonight. The youngest boy turned 13 today and is having a slumber party in our little 2 bedroom apartment. Aaauuuuuggggggggg!!!!!!!!
MJ