Day 16: It was a dark and stormy night...

No, I'm not planning on using Bulwer-Lytton's infamous first line in my NaNoWriMo novel. It really is a dark and stormy night--or more accurately, a dark and rainy night--and I'm sitting on my couch listening to the sound of raindrops on windows.

I seem to have gotten in the habit of writing most of my So-Called Novel here on my couch. For the first couple of days, I wrote on my laptop in bed; these days, though, my wifi signal has been weak, so the couch is the best place in the apartment for networking. And since I tend to multitask, working on the So-Called Novel in roughly thousand-word chunks in between other laptop-centered activities, I've been spending a lot of time on my couch.

It's funny how certain places in my apartment become associated with certain sorts of tasks. I often grade papers in a green easy chair in my office, and I wrote huge portions of my doctoral dissertation on my laptop in bed. I seem to recall writing portions of last year's So-Called Novel in various locations around Keene...but this year's attempt has been a largely indoor pursuit, not transpiring far from my couch.

At one point earlier this month, I tried to work on the So-Called Novel in my office, and it didn't feel right: that green easy chair felt too casual for NaNo'ing, and my actual desk felt too formal. Just like the littlest bear's bed, chair, and bowl of porridge, my couch feels just right. So while I continue to listen to the sound of raindrops on windows, before I grade another batch of student papers and then stumble off to bed, I think I'll pound out another 1,000 words before calling it a night. What better way to spend a dark and stormy night?

So, where do work best? Do you have certain places in your home that provide a good writing environment, or do you prefer to take your writing show on the road?

Word count: 31,485

Last line: Like Alice in Wonderland, Alexa found that things in this present adventure kept getting curiouser and curiouser.