Everyone talks about their writing space when it comes up to NaNoWriMo time, Whether it is social (turning the phone off, promising nice things to the due-to-be-ignored, etc) or physical space (“I arrange the entire room into a pentagram of writing books, with me at the middle - if I leave, I die” etc).
But what about actual spaces? Here’s my Top 5 Place I Would like to Write My NaNoWriMo from This Year:
5. Roden Crater: Roden Crater is one of the finest pieces of modern land art. Created by land artist James Turrell the idea is that the land is formed into several natural observatories in the desert. Mostly made from forming aspects of a dormant volcano there are few more majestic places you could hammer out your needed word-count.
Known issues: It’s an ongoing project, so it might be a bit loud, like being on a massive building site. Also deserts are fairly simple affairs so running water and shade might be a premium.
4. The Winchester House: The Winchester House has many benefits as a NaNoWriMo “zone”. Firstly, there’s no problem with finding the “right space” in this place. Sometimes you want to write in a breezey open room, sometimes you want to work in a windowless basement with stairs downwards going to nowhere (just me?). As long as I had a laptop and a couple of power sockets I could write in a different room each day.
Downsides? Well, there are supposed to be the ghosts of all those killed by Winchester Rifles. This is why dear Sarah Winchester went completely insane and attempted to sleep in a newly build room every day, so the ghosts wouldn’t get her. So I guess if I was to be finely attuned to the spirit world it might be a bit crowded, and I’ve never been one to work well in groups.
3. In a Glass Submarine Under The Antarctic:
In terms of sublime serenity I cannot think of a better place than that of Werner Herzog’s “Encounters at The End of The World”. They refer to this under-water world as “The Cathedral”. The submarine would have to be made of glass for better viewing angles - those little windows that comes as standard just won’t do.
The catch? Apart from the fact you probably can’t make a submine out of glass it’s likely to be fairly cold and those star-fish things are likely to attempt to moon you - which would be quite distracting.
2. Space, Possibly the Moon:
Space feels like a place where you can really get things done. The Moon, assuming you could get a decent coffee machine and fresh pastries, could similarly be a great productive space.
The issue: You’re completely fucked by lunar standard time: it’s hardly NaNoWriMo if there’s no November. Movemberists wishing to go to space may also find this disheartening.
1. A Series of Bars in Berlin:
Anyone who has yet to visit the achingly cool bars of Berlin is missing a trick. They’re full of people writing novels, editing screenplays, sketching, designing and generally looking pretty serious and artistic. The benefit of this is that you get to enjoy the extensive pleasures of German table-service without ever having to feel like a bit of a tool for “like totally working on my novel man,” in public - which we all know is something useful to do, but a bit twattish. The food is good; the beer is great and no-one thinks you’re weird pitching up with a laptop and a few notebooks to crack out a few thousand words a day.
Concerns: None. It’s entirely perfect; without any odd requirements (like a glass submarine) and quietly achievable – much like NaNoWriMo.
