Thinking Spots and Special Bookcase

Every creatives require a special space for their creative projects. It could be a room, a table or your bed. Eric Maisel also promotes the idea of having a "Thinking Spot" and a "Special Book Case" installs along side the creative place.

Thinking spot is the place where, obviously, you do your thinking, reading, musing & dreaming about your creative projects. Maisel emphasizes that this is different to your actual creative space. And then you’ll also need a Special Bookcase which holds all the books or objects which support your current creative project.

When I read this, I was stunned. Not because of his ideas but of my own total "ignorance" of it. Let me explain this to you.

I write my stories mostly at home. To establish my writing space, I converted the dining room into my writing room. It was completed with 3 books cased filled with my favourite fictions and an L-shape table to hold my laptop and printer etc. But it never occurred to me that I need a place to think and a place to hold items which related to my current writing projects. I mean I was absolutely oblivious of it.

I began to wonder where I did my thinking and where did I put my books and objects fro my creative projects.

Thinking Spots:

I notice there are a few spots which prompt me to think. One is when I’m in my morning shower. With no extra effort, my current writing project would pop up in my mind and I would think about it til I step out from the shower. The other one is from my walk with Pepper, my dog. Again I don’t have to summon it, the story would just come and go in flashes. There is one odd spot I use but not very often. Sometimes I like to sit in my car (stationary), roll up the window to shut out noises and think. Otherwise, I don’t really think about my stories outside of the daily writing session. As soon as I write the last sentence of that day’s work, there seems like a curtain comes down in my mind and that’s it. The story is gone.

Special Bookcase:

It’s pretty much my night table and my bag. In between my day job and my writing projects, I mostly read around bedtime and at lunch time. I do keep a stack of reference books like dictionary, how to books etc. They are scattered on my writing table together with a few found objects related to my current writing project.

So I do have my spots, but they are spread in different places and corners. Nonetheless, I still like Maisel’s idea of having that central place to focus on thinking and dreaming. I might re-arrange my writing space for these places.

What about you? Do you have one or more thinking spots and special bookcase?