Are you a writer? If so, do you have a favourite place to write? What about reading? Do you have a favourite place to read? I find that my favourite place to write is the literal opposite of my favourite places to read. Weird, right? Let me make it make sense (or at least try to).

I love to write in hotels and Certain crowded spaces

There’s just something about the hustle and bustle of busy spaces that gets my creative juices flowing (sidenote, that is a phrase that actually gives me the ick but I’ll allow the colloquial to win out, this time). But it’s not just the hustle and bustle. A lot of place have that hustle and bustle atmosphere. The places that I prefer to write in, however, are the ones that emanate a certain feeling. Of course this is a feeling I’m pretty certain there is no word for in the English language 🙄

Let me describe it for you, instead.

Picture a busy place, but not just any busy place. Picture a busy liminal space. A hotel lobby. A bus station. A train station. An airport. The lobby of a business building. The halls of a mall. Not a store, though. Not a restaurant. Not the bus or train or plane, itself. Those are all places with distinct purposes; places where transactions take place, for instance. No, you’re not picturing those spaces; you are picturing the liminal space. The space that simply serves to move people from one space to another. A holding space, at times, a throughway, at others. Those are the spaces I like to write in.

There’s a hustle and bustle – a movement, a noise. Indistinct conversations. The shuffling of pants. The skidding of shoes against over-polished linoleum. Those are the spaces I like to write in.

People watching can serve as a great source of inspiration for writing

Have you ever sat back and watched people going about their business? Have you ever sat in a lobby and just observed the comings and goings? People give away a lot about themselves and their lives in those tiny moments. Not enough for you to know them. Not enough to understand their stories or their motivations. But maybe enough to understand something that has upset them. Maybe enough to know where they are going next or from where they came. And, if you’re imaginative like me, enough to imagine all the things that came before that moment and all the things that will come after.

Sometimes, I sit in these spaces and just let myself imagine. And sometimes I write it down. Rarely, these imaginary lives for these very real people turn into storylines and plots for my own fictitious characters. Usually, though, they just serve to get those proverbial juices flowing.

In fact, I wrote almost a quarter of my book Echoes of You in a hotel lobby!

Busy places serve to inspire simply from the feelings the evoke

It’s more than just the imagination that runs through my mind, though. As I’ve already said, it’s more about the feeling in those spaces. The visceral feelings pulled forward by those familiar sounds that we usually ignore as we’re caught in our own minds. But also just that feeling of possibility.

Yes, that’s it. It’s the feeling of possibility.

My favourite places to read are quiet, while my favourite places to write tend to be loud

I have a hell of a time focusing. It’s just part of who I am. If there is only one person in a room with me, talking on the phone, I will struggle to write anything at all. And, when I do write something, I’ll be very lucky if I don’t write the words I hear that person saying.

When I read, the same is true. Except that when I read, I struggle to read in any sort of noisy environment. I can’t read in a bus station, a train station, a hotel lobby, without falling into that part of my imagination that simply wants to write 🤷🏻‍♀️

So, naturally, my favourite places to read are much cozier. Curled in a blanket by the window on a rainy day. Snuggled up in bed before sleep.

❓Reader… where do you write? Where do you read?