Fuel for Your Creativity: Location, Location, Location

By: Aryanne Ferguson

Writers draw inspiration from many sources, and one of my favorites is landscape. Author Lucy Wood illustrates my point in this interview:

“I don’t think I could write as well if I left the country for the city. I feel my imagination is very much tied up with the countryside. It’s where my imagination resides. I see images all the time. I see stories. I’m not sure I would feel the same in the city.”

Reader, you may feel the same way about writing in the city or the suburbs or with the window open so you can hear the cars go by on the freeway. How does the landscape you live and interact with inspire and effect what you’re writing?  For example, is the writing you do while on your one month beach vacation the same as the writing you do at home? If you’ve already started a piece and are deep into the writing process, is your writing in any way disrupted or enhanced by a change of location? If so, we may have stumbled across one reason why writers go on retreats.

For me, my physical location affects my state of mind, which affects my writing. If I’m working on a dreamy story with lyrical writing and character-driven action, the wrong place for me to write is a bustling coffee shop. The energy of my environment contrasts against that of my story world and I can’t concentrate enough on the world of the story to visualize my characters.  In general, I find that a room with as little distraction as possible is best for my imagination—my adult equivalent of playing in a cardboard box.

What about you, Reader? Is there a contrast between the world you live in and the world you’re writing in, and does that contrast harm or help your writing process?