Gazebo Gal: Picking a Place to Write
They call me Gazebo Gal . . . Because that’s my favorite place to write. In a gazebo.
I think most writers must have some sort of writer’s haven where they seem to write the best.
I’ve been writing most of my life. But when I started working on a manuscript I had to suss out where my “spot,” or “spots” would be. I found that while I had my story and characters swirling in my head, I was always collecting some sort of ammunition. Walking down the sidewalk or people watching at the airport or accidentally on purpose eavesdropping on a conversation at the grocery store, I took mental notes.
During the early drafts I was in sort of a hunting and gathering mode. Then, with lots of notes and a beginning of an outline, I found I needed a place to actually put it together, ‘a room of one’s own,’ a place to process and organize my resources from the outside world. Rowling scribbled in longhand at cafes in Edinburgh. Now, you can write by voice texting into your phone waiting for kids to troop out after school, or you can find a quiet nook surrounded by books and photographs and things you love where you can think straight for a while. In my case, I looked around and tried several spots, and my favorite was my backyard gazebo.
I had been brewing an idea for my book for a long while, but like everyone who first starts to think about writing, other tasks had been more important. When I finally settled into a novel generating workshop in Boston, that’s where things began to take shape. As I sat in class the first day, I remember looking around the small classroom at the other students, their tattered notebooks, peeling stickers on the back of laptops, the whiteboard with red and blue story arc graphs zig zagging up and down, hearing the rattle of the old building’s heat kick on, a chill ran through me. I had a feeling that I rarely get. I was where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing. As I continued workshopping my manuscript and signed up for more and more classes, I realized there really is something to these workshops that force you to focus, with instruction, on the intricacies of building the structure of a novel.
I also took the advice of many who said to structure some sort of routine, to try to work every day even if it’s just for 15 minutes. So, in the summertime, I commandeered the pretty gazebo in my backyard. I religiously went out with my morning coffee to the octagonal enclosure, closed the door and attempted to work. It took a while for my family to respect this trend, but I trained them . . . sort of.
In the beginning, all fired up, when following my fresh outline, and still working on some plot points, I got the delusional idea this wasn’t going to be so hard. But soon I began to suffer every stress I’ve ever heard of but never thought would plague little ol’ me. Then it began to be harder to keep to my regimen.
I began pouring my heart out to my writer friends, Art and Betsy. Telling them about my paralyzing battles in the gazebo. I was lucky to have them because most people don’t understand the confusing land of attempting to make something make-believe plausible. Eyes glaze over fast after a few pleasantries like, “Oh, that’s so nice you’re writing a book, but why can’t you play pickleball?”
After that it’s old news to them. And part of me wished I’d never mentioned writing a book because there’s nothing worse than being stuck in the weeds for weeks on a story element and someone asks, “How’s the book going?” Inside I was tormented with how hard it became to be productive and creative, to keep to my task, to write without the story feeling forced.
What I found the most confounding was how I continued despite the torturous times. Because, when there was a breakthrough or even just a teeny tiny moment that flickered a light onto a pathway to a character’s development I was once again full of purpose. I went along again like everything was fine and it didn’t seem to matter one little bit that there had been days of wanting to dump me and my manuscript into a big pile of horse manure.
Then, shortly after things got better, they got worse. I had my beginning, I had my end, I had my plot points, and conflict rising and falling. I had lots of middle stuff, but certain places were still very empty. I floundered back and forth. I could feel it… I knew there were parts that needed work, more fleshing out, more reason for being there but I couldn’t think my way through it. I’d head out to the gazebo with coffee in hand.
The gazebo is on a hill, and it has a gorgeous view. I didn’t think it was distracting . . . none of the no-window shacks like Henry Beston or Thoreau for me, I liked looking out because I’ve always felt that nature brings me a renewal of spirit. But “Gazebo Gal” suffered what I suppose is the normal, middle-book-doldrums. I would look out the windows, watch the lawn mower go back and forth, boats scoot across the bay water below me. I would drink my coffee, pat the sleeping dogs, open the windows, close the windows, I ate, and I would take a nap on the chaise. It was a disaster on and off for many days.
It made me question what the hell I was doing sitting out here as the rest of the world rolled by when some days I felt I accomplished nothing worthwhile. It made me wonder why I ever thought I could finish this project. And even worse, why did I even start it?
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The next day I’d try again. I’d sit a little, pray a little, open my laptop. Sit a little more, watch the birds, get more coffee, stare at my laptop. Write a line, erase it, watch the birds, stare at my laptop and then start looking at emails or texts and before I knew it, the day was gone . . . again.
Art and Betsy would tell me things were fine. It’s all part of the process. To keep going. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Blah blah blah. That writing can be very magical. Sometimes, when we have flashes of insight that paint whole scenes easily, when the writing flows forth immediately it feels great but it’s very rare. Less than 10 percent of the time feels like that. The rest is just hard work. They said to get used to it—writing fiction is a rollercoaster ride.
But I have to say that now when I think about those dry spells, I believe they taught me about the internalization of the creative process. I was forced to mine down into memories and emotions to yank my characters out of the fog they were lost in, and eventually, I dreamed up their whole entire world and wrote it down.
Betsy and I had a good chat about where it comes from, this urge to create. Why do we take such pleasure in the torture it is to create for ourselves? Why do we love to experience the results of other’s vision-created endeavors like a film that makes us want to talk for hours after seeing it? Or the books we’ll read two or three times that people sweated blood over? Or that piece of art in the gallery that makes us tilt our heads and stare? Why do we relish it?
Maybe creating is about the question and not the answer. Maybe it’s about staying curious about the unknown instead of afraid of it. Maybe writing a book or creating anything is a microcosm of the struggle of life. Going blindly each day, trying to make the right decisions, totally making it up as you go and hoping something good comes out of it.
I’m working on another book. I wish I could say it gets easier. Parts of my new story, “Beulah,” are already full blown, but I’m starting to suffer the same pangs all over again. Out here in the summertime gazebo, I’m really hoping that the lessons of determination I learned before and the encouragement I got will spur me on. There’s nothing easy about writing, but I’m going to give it another go. Right after I get more coffee, pet the dogs, watch the birds, stare at my laptop, and answer some emails.
If you love to write and have a story you want to tell, the only thing that can stand between you and the success you’re seeking isn’t craft, or a good agent, or enough Facebook friends and Twitter followers, but fear. Fear that you aren’t good enough, or fear the market is too crowded, or fear no one wants to hear from you. Fortunately, you can’t write while being in the flow and be afraid simultaneously. The question is whether you will write fearlessly.