#175
in bed
Truman Capote once remarked that he was “a completely horizontal author”.
I feel the same way.
Every morning, I have a banana and drink a cup of black decaf coffee. I smoke a cigarette, I stretch, work out, and then I get back into bed.
For as long as I can remember, I have preferred to write from bed. I have a desk, but I don’t use it, not for writing. As an object, The Desk is too sterile, academic and quite frankly, not big enough. In bed, I can lay out all of my papers, my books, my notes right in front of me. I can sit or lay down or hunch over or roll around. Body and mind flexible.
Unconscious unlocked.
Along with Capote, Mark Twain, Marcel Proust, and Descartes all wrote from bed. Edith Wharton, too, wrote in bed, supposedly so she wouldn’t have to put on a corset.
That’s part of the beauty of writing in bed: the privacy and the agency. There’s a lot of talk of so-called performative reading in public, but what about performative writing? It is my belief that the awareness of being in public prevents truth. The dumb animal brain prevails. To sit and write (or read) in a coffee shop is sadly a strange defensive position in an age of surveillance and social paranoia.
Writing requires a kind of quietude that feels impossible with other people around. A sort of serenity that only the bed provides. I want to come to the page as I am: no makeup, no corset, no audience, and most importantly, not having spent 9$ on a cappuccino.
I can hear the miserable fucks already: Your bed is for sleeping! You’re going to fuck up your back!
First of all, my back is already fucked up. Secondly, a lot of things that are bad for you are good for writing: cigarettes, drugs, heartbreak, and the supine position will get you into a creative flow state like no other.
As long as it’s balanced out with a long walk outside, who cares? Life is about equilibrium.
The bed is sacrosanct, and this is precisely why I choose to write in it.
I live, laugh, love in bed.
What’s a little back pain in the center of all good things?
If you feel so inclined, let me know where you write from in the comments, I am genuinely curious.
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I've found the couch is ideal for me ... sort of a cross between bed and upright chair. If I want to get up and pace around it's easy, but it also doesn't feel like I'm abandoning my post the way it would if I was sitting at a desk.
I also rarely use my desk. I always write on these nice pads that Midori makes. Far less constricting than a notebook, which pretends way too much to already *be* a book—something that I think affects the register in which one writes. I like tearing off a sheet and always, always being at square one. It is the wide-open bed of paper products. But I write everywhere—I try to move around the living room into different spots each morning so that I don’t feel too dug-in, can look out of different windows in different weather at different times. Love writing in bed as long as I’m typing—everywhere else is w/ pen on pad on lap or side-table.