Room With a View

Pulitzer Prize winning American author Edna Ferber once observed, 'The ideal view for daily writing, hour for hour, is the blank brick wall of a cold-storage warehouse. Failing this, a stretch of sky will do, cloudless if possible.'
Perhaps the blank brick wall might serve as a timely reminder that trying to write well and be published is a bit like hitting one, time and time again, and I can see that a cloudless stretch of sky might lend itself to blue sky thinking, but I'm rather fond of the clutter of green that I can see from my window.

I guess Ferber was advocating minimal distraction and perhaps I have spent too much time watching my neighbour's runner beans ripen and gawping at the builders re-pointing the swimming pool chimney, but I'm thinking while I'm looking out, honestly, I am.
Rather than being a distraction, a view can often provide inspiration. At the moment sunlight is streaking along a cobweb that's been loosened by the wind, and the leaves on the silver birch tree won't be there much longer. When I'm gazing out across the muddled gardens I'm learning to notice  detail, I'm absorbing subtle changes and the effect of light and weather. Some of the time I stare attentively, sometimes I have no idea what I'm looking at, what I'm seeing is all inside my head.
Perhaps distraction is no bad thing, in any case: if you let your mind wander, who knows where it may lead you?