Does the Perfect Writing Environment Exist?

Hi friends.

The other day I went to a used bookstore in my neighborhood—the great and lovingly curated Parlour Books—and just walked around and pulled out random books that had nothing to do with my usual milieu of literary fiction. I flipped through the pages with no real purpose but to interact with something new and out of my sphere. I realized I hadn’t been doing that enough lately, picking up new books and engaging with them. I felt revived.

Some people say, “touch grass” but I say, “touch books.”

On to today’s topic: One of the questions that came up in last weekend’s 1000 Words workshop had to do with the desire to create the perfect writing environment. A need for the exact perfect lighting, the exact perfect temperature in the room, the exact perfect level of caffeine in our system.

I’ve talked before about claiming your writing space. But this was something different. This was about needing everything around you to be just so in order to feel comfortable enough to write. How do we get momentum when we are distracted by these imperfections? How do we proceed with our work if everything isn’t to our exact specifications?

We came up with some suggestions in the workshop. And also it reminded me of a similar situation in my past. But first, the suggestions: