A WANDERING WRITER
The first in a series inviting you into the secret spots where we writers and illustrators work on our craft in solitude. Stop by here each Thursday to peek into another private space.
It never fails. When I settle down to write, my dear husband rushes to my sde, asking, “Honey, are you all right?”
I don’t blame him. The first place I go to write is always into my head. From the outside it must look as if I’ve dozed off sitting upright, been stricken with a migraine, or suddenly gone catatonic. Actually, I am happy, feverishly creating and killing off possible characters and plotlines, listening for dialogue, dredging up emotions, building and destroying entire worlds. Where does this all take place? Anywhere in my home in Guilford Connecticut: slouching on the couch, washing dishes, waiting in a grocery line, standing in a long (long) shower, even idling in a traffic jam. 
The second place I go to write is on paper. No prose yet, just notes. As The Idea jells, I purchase a loose leaf notebook and a ream of colored typing paper. I label dividers “Plot,” “Character,“ “Setting,” “Research” and “Draft” and noodle around in each section, firming up The Idea. This is kitchen table work where I can spread my project out by windows full of sun and pond, nature and inspiration.
Step three is on the computer. My Toshiba Satellite laptop is portable so I can, and do, write anywhere. Here at home I work in a cozy little office.
Sometimes I can keep it tidy.
Sometimes it is tidy. More often it fills with clutter from projects, classes, and writer’s groups. Then I wander out to the dining room table again. But writing at home means fighting to ignore demanding dust bunnies and seductive e-mails, too.
Sometimes I leave and write in companionable silence with friends at a nearby Starbucks or the public library. If all that fails I retreat to a cabin my kids and dear husband built log by log in the woods near Weathersfield, Vermont. There is no internet there and few dust bunnies, just quiet and time, a well-stocked wood stove, and my trusty writer-dog, Artemis.
Tags: handwriting Kudlinski writing office writing partners writing space
December 29th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
It’s always good to hear how the “Better Half” lives. It’s all true too.
Hank
December 29th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Nice blog, and what wonderful writing spaces! So tidy–I’d be ashamed to show the world the state of my desk. When I’m looking for something in the heap of papers I have to measure them in evolutionary terms, as in “Hmm, I think that’s in the cretaceous layer.” Give Artemis a little scritch behind the ears from me.
December 31st, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Kay, my favorite is your first picture, where you’ve gone “into your head”!
January 2nd, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Your pictures make the writing life look so cozy! It’s nice to hear how happy inventing stories makes you. I especially liked your description of running through story ideas, discarding this, keeping that. I’ve noticed myself doing that lately, especially to solve plot problems. It’s like telling yourself the story over and over, changing something every time, until all the pieces click into place. Much easier than trying to do it on paper or screen.
January 2nd, 2010 at 6:50 pm
I like your kitchen table and its view.
And your husband.
And your whole writing process. Thanks!
January 2nd, 2010 at 6:54 pm
All lovely, Kathleen. And so familiar. But I have to say, your untidy study looks much tidier than mine!
January 2nd, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Hi Kathleen – So nice to see your smiling face. I had to laugh – and breath a big sigh of relief – over messy desks. I’m now blissfully finding my way through stacks and stacks of paper. My dilemma – how to file? How does one file ideas? A very old wooden trunk will do. My husband was ready to pass it along and I claimed it. I plan to paint it in some funky fashion fitting its intended purpose. It will hold those newspaper clippings, those bits of napkin that hold entire plots, photos, magazine pictures, pages from teeny tiny notebooks that traveled in my purse, and … and .. well – you get the picture. Trying to organize ideas into neat file folders as if they were accounts and vendors has been thwarting my every attempt. BIG containers – general headings. That’s my newest solution. Wish me well.
November 17th, 2010 at 3:27 am
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