I am quite picky over my environment when I am writing, and that is because I need the most concentration I can get.
I like my environment to be nice and dark, as well as cool.
I achieve this by mostly writing at night, as well as have the air conditioning running. This creates the dark and quiet surroundings that I need, and it really helps me get into character. I am writing my first novel, and so I need to try my hardest. The character I am writing about decided to become a heating and air conditioning technician. I was originally going to make the character have a cooler job, like a doctor or something, but I felt that was too popular, everyone seems to do that, and so I wanted to go with something a little different. I don’t think there are many characters that are heating and A/C specialists, and so that is why I chose that career field. Naturally, this meant that I needed to read about HVAC technology so that I can have some understanding of what I am writing about. I have very little HVAC knowledge, so I knew that there was going to be a lot that I would have to learn. I started by reading general heating and cooling facts, as well as the history of air conditioners and furnaces and how they came to be. Then I started reading about more modern HVAC equipment to really try and understand them. Lastly, I read on the actual heating technician’s experiences as a HVAC repairman, so that way I can make writing my character as authentic as possible.