This signment went from a fun thought experiment to a less-fun reality this weekend; my housing situation fell apart and I’m currently couch-surfing. (All should be resolved very soon, so I’m not angling for pity or anything.) I did have to think pretty carefully about what I absolutely needed when I was packing, and a solid 40% of what I brought with me is writing-related. That seems relevant to mention.

So I can tell you with absolute certainty that my desk isn’t actually that essential. My laptop is, though. As is Microsoft Word, with 12-point Georgia set as the default font and 1″ margins. I’m the one who writes on her hands, but there isn’t really an intermediary for me between skin and screen. I’ve got my notebook with me too, but I’ve only used it for notes and fragments; if you flip back far enough, you can see both titles of poems I was considering writing three years ago and my grocery list from last weekend. It’s a mess, frankly, with basically no organizational principle to speak of, and that’s important to me. Clean notebooks are terrifying. The one Moleskine I’ve ever had was dated and everything, and I could not write a word in it without wanting to revise.

(I did use Sharpie pen in that one. I partially retract my stance on Sharpie pens.)

My notebook functions less as a medium for drafting and more like a scrapbook. I like things to be in flux. That’s why I’ve ended up doing my actual writing almost exclusively via computer; the type is movable, and my ideas are too. What I was trying to say when I talked about pens last week wasn’t that I dislike pens but that the idea of having to choose one location (one! singular!) freaks me out.

Hand, pen, paper, laptop – those are all pretty self-explanatory. The actual process of writing has to be pretty specific too, though. There can only be total silence or ambient noise; other people talking distinctly doesn’t work. Ideally, I’d be at my desk, facing a wall, playing music so quietly that I could only make out the bassline, sitting with my legs tucked under me. That last part is very important for some reason; it’s one reason I generally write in my room. When I work in coffee shops or friends’ houses, I like to be near but not close to a TV or radio, maybe across the room from a conversation, just generally listening to something that is recognizable but not identifiable. Like: this is a voice, this is a song, these are places where words could go. And then I write.