Writing Space

Everyone has a different process for writing, but at the end of the day, we all need a place to write.  I can’t tell you how many books on writing have told me that you should have a dedicated space to work–a spot that will put you undoubtedly in the mindset for writing from the moment you sit down to work.

Pardon my language, but it’s a load of bull.

Yeah, it’s wonderful to have a spot that you can retreat to when everything else in your life is going insane, but it’s not something that’s strictly necessary for the writing process.  I’m not even sure it’s something that would be helpful for most writers.  Most of us, however, don’t have the luxury of that kind of space.  Everything in our lives has to be multifunctional in today’s world–one trick wonders don’t cut it anymore.

Besides, in the days of laptops, netbooks, and tablet PCs, you can go and write anywhere.  The folks who follow me on Twitter know that Starbucks and Panera Bread are two of my favorite places to go work–in part because of the change in scenery and in part because I’m not at home.  Of course there’s the slight inconvinence of possibly not having all the notes or drafts you need at hand to work through particularly sticky spots, but for writing hard and writing fast, throwing caution to the wind, a public place with a caffinated beverage and an iPod stuffed full of tunes can’t be beat.  I wrote many an Awakenings update at Panera or at Starbucks.

Of course, I’ve written an equal amount at my kitchen table and at my desk at home.

Yes, I have a desk–a semi-dedicated workspace.  Of course, occasionally that desk serves as a catch-all when I come home from work, or as my craft table, or as a dozen other things.  Is it my workspace?  Of course it is.

It’s a wonderful desk, custom-built for me by my father, a cut-down version of a library table with shelves on either side and a drawer beneath.  When he was first getting ready to build it, he couldn’t imagine me needing a desk as large as what his original blueprints, the original plans called for.  In hindsight, I think we both realize that perhaps I could have used the extra tablespace–if only to catch more stacks of paper.

But it’s a wonderful, beautiful desk and I love it.

But I didn’t use it very much until January 2011, when I began the frentic tail end of my master’s program and had exactly six weeks to write, revise, and complete my Master’s thesis.

Since then, I’m constantly finding myself retreating to my desk on Saturday afternoons and weekday evenings–any time there is too much noise going on elsewhere in the house and I don’t feel like actually relocating.  The main attraction of havin the desk to work at is the fact that I can stick post-its on the wall in front of me, rifle through file folders of articles and old drafts or my back isses of Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and other writing mags, and get snuggled by my cat (the cat, however, can also be a disadvantage because she has an annoying habit of walking on my desk, especially when I’m trying to handwrite anything).

Everything I need is in one spot, except for maybe a microwave and a coffeemaker, but those are within easy reach just down a flight of stairs.  My desk, you see, is in my bedroom, sandwiched between the closet and the door.  Two beds, two dressers, my sister’s desk and some bookshelves sit behind me when I’m at my desk.  I’ve got additional file storage boxes tucked beneath the desk, along with binders.

But I don’t always work there.

Maybe I’m abnormal because I can write anywhere–or maybe I’ve just learned to do it out of necessity.  When you steal moments from everyday life to write, you learn to do it where you can.  Not everyone’s got the luxury of a dedicated space.

But sometimes, it’s nice to have one.

Doc’s Writercraft: Why webfiction?

Webfiction (noun): combination of “Fiction” and “web.”

Fiction (noun): (1) the class of literature comprising works of imaginative narration, esp. in prose form. (2) works of this class, as novels or short stories (ie, “detective fiction”)

Web (noun): synonymous with or referring to “Internet.”


Webfiction isn’t exactly a new phenomena, though it seems to be on the rise and on the wane all at once in this rapidly changing, tech-savvy writing world.  For some writers and readers alike, webfiction bears the same stigma as “fan fiction,” which is loosely defined as fiction set in worlds not of the writer’s creation.  Webfiction, however, is markedly different in that it is original fiction published first on the internet, often for free consumption.(1)  For some authors, it’s a method of alpha/beta testing their work before editing and releasing it in self-published formats.  For others, it is the end-all, be-all of their work, simply another medium they work in.

So why do it at all?

For me, it’s a way of getting my work out there and vetting it before a live audience.  A lot of people write in a vacuum and often their work never sees the light of day–it’s the same for many artists, some of whom turn to writing and drawing webcomics to force themselves to hone and share their craft with others.  For some writers of webfiction, the reason they turn to the internet as a medium for their work is twofold:

  1. To force themselves to write to a deadline every day (every week, every month, etc. depending upon update schedules).
  2. To expose their work to the world in the most easily accessible way.

A corollary to this last point deals with self-publishing.  Up until very recently, self-publishing books (prose, comic, or otherwise) was incredibly cost-prohibitive.  While the ebook revolution has caused a paradigm shift in the self-publishing universe(2), webfiction remains one medium that is entirely in the hands of an author.  Anyone can set up a blog through Blogger or WordPress and get to writing–and quickly.  That means your work is out there for anyone to find.(3)

The internet is an almost inherently social medium.  It is this social aspect of the web that is attractive to many authors of webfiction.  It enables writers to glean insights and get opinions from readers–on a work that’s still in progress.  Here’s an example from my own webfiction serial, Awakenings.

I had a reader make the following observations in a comment on Chapter 9, entry 7:

As for Thom’s broken ribs, they’re gonna take at least six weeks to heal. Don’t ask me how I know this, OK? Coughing is a challenge and despite the five plus years since I broke a couple of my ribs, I still wince at the memory of sneezing.  Agony hardly begins to describe it.

I’m a gun owner, BTW, and if you need any technical advice about pistols and/or rifles, feel free to email me. I’m also into flint- and caplock rifles, i.e., muzzleloaders, and making black powder and flintlock rifles are well within the means of someone with access to hand tools and abandoned train rails.

This was incredibly helpful advice (and I’m still indebted to the reader who shared it).  It’s this kind of thing that makes readers for webfiction invaluable, especially if you wouldn’t be able to get test readers for an independant project with that kind of knowledge (I know that odds are for me, I wouldn’t have been able to). Through tapping into the social aspect of the web, I got some really interesting information that will help me not only with Awakenings, but with other projects down the road.

Another useful aspect of putting work out on the internet–if you’re planning to either just leave it online or self-publish, that is–is that you’re able to have folks catch little tics in your work that you wouldn’t ordinary catch (Chris George, who writes the webfiction serial Shadow has been good about this for me).  Readers aren’t always shy.  They’ll tell you what they like, what they don’t like, and they’ll tell you all of this before it ends up in a book review.  In essence, it’s crowdsourcing part of your editorial process (in many cases, the developmental stage of your editing process, though occassionally it’ll be the proofreading segement, too).

Of course, there’s a caveat to all of this: if you’re planning on traditionally publishing your  work at some point, you should be leary of putting any piece you’re planning on shopping to agents or publishers on the web.  Heck, based on this post shared on The Passive Voice blog, you’ll need to be careful about putting anything out there.

So why write webfiction?  For me, it was about getting work out there, writing to a deadline, and getting some feedback on a piece that was in a very difficult to define genre.


You can find Erin on GoodReads these days @ http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5211226.Erin_Klitzke
And on Smashwords @ http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/EMBKlitzke

 


1. Some webfiction authors (such as MCA Hogarth) have experimented with paid models, but I don’t have data to show whether or not the model works well or not.
2. For more information on the self-pub revolution, see J.A. Konrath, Dean Wesley Smith, and Michael A. Stackpole, as well as the ebook Be The Monkey by Barry Eisler and J.A. Konrath.
3.  Of course, this assumes you know some basic SEO or aren’t afraid to market yourself a little bit.  I’ve had pretty good luck with advertising through Project Wonderful for Awakenings.