Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Where Writers Write: David Maine


Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where some of TNBBC's favorite authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happens.



This is David Maine. David is the author of Fallen; The Preservationist; The Book of Samson (three fantastic fictional accounts of biblical events); Monster, 1959 (a campy rompy nod towards the good ole 50's sci-fi/horror movies); The Gamble of the Godless (a straight to ebook fantasy novel); and the upcoming An Age of Madness, which will be released in September by Red Hen Press.

David and I met quite a few years back, and we always find fun and creative ways to work together - including this blog tour I developed and hosted for him back in August of 2011 where David throws in his two cents on the whole "indie" thing. 

Today, I get to show off David's writing space! Folks, this is where the Maine Madness happens....






Where David Maine Writes




My writing space these days is fairly modest. I used to have a whole room to use as a studio, and I hope to have that again one day soon. But life in Hawaii has been pretty cramped, and this 6 x 10 partition of my bedroom has been pretty much what I’ve had to work with for the past couple of years.

Ultimately, my needs are fairly simple: a comfortable chair to slouch in with a notebook; some sort of platform for my laptop; some shelves for a few inspiring books; a desk to accommodate the clutter. Bonus points are awarded for windows that look out on something green and an overall sense of solitude and calm. (Which is, by far, the most difficult of these elements to find.)

A couple things that accompany me into this space. Coffee sits on the table beside me from mid-morning to late afternoon. Music is there, especially in the afternoons, and generally of the space-out trance-inducing variety—Tinariwen, Mazzy Star, Speck Mountain, low-key reggae like the Nazarenes, African kora music and so forth. Nothing too raucous or attention-grabbing, and definitely no hip-hop. (Listening to other people’s words makes it difficult to concentrate on my own.) And I like to keep copies of my books nearby, mainly as a reminder that this whole write-something-that’s-worth-reading enterprise isn’t as crazy as it often feels.

I’ve been fortunate to live in many different places, in varying degrees of financial comfort. Whether the accompanying spaces have been large or small, private or shared, I think the important thing is for me to make peace with the surrounding environment so that I can then forget about it. After all, writing is about creating other worlds and living in them, so I try not to get too terribly caught up in the nuts and bolts of what surrounds me.


Check back next week to see where J.A. Tyler is inspired to write. 

2 comments:

  1. After visiting Hemingway House in Key West and seeing the private cottage away from the main house where Papa wrote, I always wondered if my own writing space was up to par (enough space, enough separation from distractions, etc. etc.)

    Thank you for clearing that up for me and confirming one of my own suspicions; a writer can write anywhere if he's serious about writing.

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    1. Well, I hope that's true. I mean, there's something to be said for minimizing distractions, but I think most of us are pretty limited in our ability to seclude ourselves in isolated cottages (!). For me, the best way to fight external distractions is to make the internal ones as interesting as possible.

      And anyway, I always wondered whether I'd be intimidated by a picture-perfect "artist space" like the one you describe, or like Yaddo, or like the lighthouse I sometimes fantasize about living in. I mean, would the expectations that I be hugely prolific result in my freezing up entirely? Maybe. Maybe not, but then again, maybe.

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