Where is your special place for quiet and solitude? For reflecting, reading, to just be.
Is it somewhere close by where you can easily go pretty much anytime you want? Or is it someplace further afield that you can only visit once or a handful of times a year?
Mine is my backyard. Which has been especially convenient during Covid 🙂
I’m lucky to live in a pretty quiet urban neighbourhood, with respectful neighbours and not much traffic noise. When I light the campfire and the tiki torches, I’m immediately brought back to my years of camping, where we’d sit by the fire and read our books or discuss any number of topics. And yes, many a bottle of wine have been drunk by the fire and many a cigar smoked.
As writers, we need that place of quiet solitude and reflection. And not necessarily so we can think about our writing, or map out plot ideas in our head, but to just be. To not think. To not plan, to not even talk. As writers, we need that place of stillness. That place to still our impatience. To still our distractions. To still our guilt because we’re not doing something more “important” or urgent. To still the voice in our head that says we’re not good enough.
From that place of solitude comes inspiration. And wisdom. And maybe not immediately, but eventually, because you’ve taken the time to still all the nonsense in your head and to just be. To exist for a few minutes or hours without expectations can be liberating for your mind and soul. The creative mind and soul especially needs it.
Find that place where you can physically go to feed your inner solitude.
