Insecure Writers Want to Know: If you could pick one place in the world to sit and write your next story, where would it be and why?

If I could chose any place to sit and write my next story or the revision of my memoir, it would need to be somewhere my family can’t find me. I also need to be in a place where I can’t look out the window. Therefore, I usually hide out among the stacks in the local library. If I sat by the windows looking out on the lake, I’d be thinking about walking around that lake and not focused on my writing. If I ever went to some beautiful vacation spot by the beach or in the mountains to write, I would get nowhere. I’d be too excited to investigate my surroundings.  

I’ve told you before about my desire to be outdoors, traipsing about my surroundings thinking. I love winter, spring, summer AND fall, no matter what the weather. I can splash through the puddles with the best of them! So I can’t have the beauty of nature calling to me when I’m trying to write. Social media can be distracting, but my favorite distraction is freeing my eyes and mind from the computer screen. And I do it best by going outside.

Presently, I’ve been spending much time outside with my family. I’ve come to the end of a draft of my memoir about attending college as a mother of five. It’s not the first draft; it’s much stronger than that one. But it surely will not be the last draft. I’ve written 170 pages and have roughly 55,000 words. Is it too short? Should I add in other threads?

I’m never one to pad my prose. The idea with longer manuscripts, whether they are fiction or nonfiction, is to add another thread to investigate or perhaps other scenes that address and show character relationships or add to the plotline. My college memoir’s focus is on education, college, and family. The points I hope it makes are:

Never give up on a dream. It’s never too late to start.
Fear and doubt are a part of life.
Perseverance matters in life. Effort counts toward success.
If you don’t try, you’ll be left with regret. 

The point of the book is to find the permission within yourself to try and achieve goals that may at first appear frightening or unattainable.

But how does someone find permission within herself to attempt a dream she was told not to try? In my case, it was through the love of a mother and child. A love that wasn’t afraid of struggle, but rather allowed for opportunity.

*Please offer any comments on the length of my college memoir or its focus or points. Your comments truly help me to move forward in revision.*

So, where do you like to hide--I mean write--if you could go anywhere?

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This post was written for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. We post on the first Wednesday of every month.  To join us, or learn more about the group, click HERE.