One of the concerns that creative people have is what areas are good to write in.  Some people find themselves able to write in unusual circumstances.  Surprisingly enough, as it may seem, jail has been a found of creativity for writers as diverse as the Apostle Paul—who wrote several prison epistles—as well Martin Luther King Jr, whose Letters From A Birmingham Prison remains a staple of prisoner literature.  Recently, I found myself sending pictures of a place where I was staying before going to camp, and the dear friend I sent the pictures to commented that the place seemed an ideal one for writing.  I did not think this to be the case, and found it striking that someone else would judge it as a good place to write simply because of its natural beauty.

For me, I have seldom done much writing when visiting these friends because I find my time is taken up so much by conversation and play that I seldom find time to write.  For me, writing depends at least somewhat on solitude.  I can write around other people, but these people must not be trying to interact with me and monopolize my attention, as it takes a considerable amount of attention to write.  It would then follow that for me personally, at least, those places that are good for me to write in are those places that allow me to focus my attention on the task of writing, of structuring my thoughts and of selecting the right words and phrases I wish to use to convey what I am thinking (or, to a lesser extent, feeling).  I feel it necessary to note that given that I am an easily distractable person who has a hard time paying attention to things on a sustained basis, that this need for focus is by no means an insignificant one.

That is not all that there is to it, though.  The places that are best for me to write are, in many ways, places of sensory deprivation.  They feature the fewest sensory inputs possible, to better allow me to ignore what is going on around me and to turn what is inside me into text.  The places that are good for me to write in are not places that are good for me to write about.  The places that inspire me as a writer are poor places to write, but they are necessary to having something to write about.  The conversations that distract me from writing are often the subject of personal essays.  The questions I get from talks are those questions that I answer in writings.  The places that I visit and immerse myself in are those places that inspire reflections on the creations of God and other people, the politics and matters of logistics and history that feed my thought process and their output.

What is true for me may not necessarily be true for others.  A visual artist may find places of scenic creation to be not only inspirational but also places that they may want to paint or draw in.  Often for visual arts, the model needs to be present for the artist to finish their work as some details may be necessary to view.  If a physical model is not present, one of more photographs may also serve the same purpose.  For a writer, though, it is often only necessary that something be inside the mind’s eye.  The writer may often use the illustration in their head as an entrance into a subject, and as long as one has something in one’s head, any place that gives one the time and the freedom to write will be a place that is good for writing.