In the scheme of her recent writing career, Pam Henn owes her local Starbucks Coffee franchise some serious recognition.

On the most basic of levels, the coffee shop's caffeinated beverages have provided Henn with fuel for three young adult novels' worth of creativity. The writer also says she's learned a lot about dialogue from simply listening to patrons. Most importantly, the café has served as Henn's writing room--the place she goes to write. Over the last three years, Henn has written every word of her books from the friendly confines of this familiar place.

Every single word.

Her sessions usually start at 9 a.m. She walks over from her house, buys a Venti drip coffee, and stakes claim to a corner table inside. Then she begins to write in a leather-bound notebook. Occasionally, she'll take breaks to eavesdrop or watch other people zoning out. This, she says, is what makes the coffee shop so appealing--the people, the environment, the everyday happenings serve as her muse.

"I find the whole idea of working alone very isolating," says Henn, whose first book was self-published in 2006. "I've learned that as an extroverted person, I need to be around people to do my best work."

Henn's experience is more common than one might think. Among those workers who have the luxury of working outside a traditional office environment, coffee shops, bookstores, and libraries all have become popular spots to inspire genius. Choosing the most productive spot, however, can be complicated. What do you look for? How can you stay focused amid surrounding distractions? What else should you consider? And when does an office work best? Workers must answer these questions before they get to work.

Haven-hunting
Above all else, the key to being productive outside of a traditional office is finding a spot that's conducive to creativity. The lesson: What's perfect for someone might be perfectly disastrous for someone else.

People who do their best work in complete silence, for instance, probably wouldn't be able to concentrate at a Starbucks. Alternately, for people like Henn--those who need hubbub to feel alive--the public library likely would lead to frustration. Other places, such as bookstores, offer the best of both worlds--a constant buzz of chatter but relative quietude. Whatever the top priority, Charles Barrett, president of FZ Media Design, a design company in Yardley, PA, says it's critical for independent workers evaluating potential work spaces first to determine what kind of environment suits them best.

"Depending on what kind of person you are, every place is going to have characteristics that may be plusses or minuses," says Barrett, who works frequently from a coffee shop near his vacation home in Strathmere, N.J. "Before you expect to be creative, you need to figure out what your plusses are going to be."

For Barrett, the biggest "plus" is Internet access. He doesn't care if it's Ethernet (which requires a cable) or wireless--as long as a place is connected, Barrett can do everything he'd do in a more traditional office. For Dan Contreras, however, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropological sciences at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, the Internet sometimes has the opposite effect, serving to facilitate procrastination with distractions such as e-mail and international information about soccer, his favorite sport.

Another consideration in choosing a location is the clientele. The very last thing anyone wants is to buckle in for a creative session next to an obnoxious fool. For Contreras, this evaluation process is simple. Before he opens up his laptop and gets to work, he considers the "annoyance potential" of other patrons in an establishment. His list of undesirables includes screaming children, loud talkers (cell-phone or otherwise), and people who chew with their mouths open.

"I deliberately choose to avoid these things to increase my odds of really getting a lot done," he says. In the event that Contreras realizes he's evaluated an establishment poorly, he closes up his computer and moves on to another café.

Getting focused
For some people, tuning out these kinds of distractions can be critical. Terra Wellington, president of Wellington Media, a wellness and lifestyle firm in Los Angeles, says that in some cases, she simply ignores them. Barrett, the designer from Pennsylvania, uses a more sophisticated approach, plugging in a USB headset and firing up his iTunes to provide a customized soundtrack that drowns out even the loudest and most offensive neighbors.

Jim Stroup, president of Bosporous Business Consulting in San Diego, utilizes technology to create the ultimate silence. Stroup, whose wife is Turkish, spends up to half of each year living in Istanbul, where he works from a number of coffee shops around the city. In addition to sounds from inside these coffee shops, Stroup has to deal with noise from the street--horns, yelling and more. His solution? Noise-canceling headphones from Bose.

"If I don't want to listen to music and don't want to be disturbed by background noise, I can just put the headphones on and flip the switch," he says. "With them, both ambient and most penetrating noise recedes into the background."

For others, however, such distractions can be inspiring. Henn, the author, says that on some days she spends hours observing other patrons before she decides to write. David Parks, vice president of business development at Bluepoint Leadership Development, a consulting company in Cincinnati, Ohio, says that he and his colleagues do so much work from the road that they've abandoned the traditional office all together, instead working exclusively from Starbucks, airport business clubs, and other spots.

Parks says there's a standing joke in his company whereby colleagues use the phrase "I'm calling from headquarters" to notify each other when they're ringing from a public café.

"We get a kick out of the fact that we're all faced with the same dilemma of where to work from the road," he says. Parks notes that when he or his colleagues have to call clients, they either step outside or apologize in advance for any peculiar background noise and proceed as scheduled.

Other issues
Working from public places has other challenges, such as what to do when you have to use the restroom once your laptop is all set up. Doug Roberts, western sales manager for Wireless Generation, a technology company based in New York, says he usually puts his computer into "sleep" mode and takes it with him into the men's room, just to be safe. He adds that while most patrons seem perfectly trustworthy, he'd hate to be victimized on the road, and left without his computer during a critical business trip.

Another issue is "rent." Since you're setting up temporarily, do you owe the establishment some sort of compensation for the time and space? For many, especially those who work in coffee shops, the answer is a resounding yes. Parks, Henn, and Contreras all said that if they spend more than 15 minutes working in a coffee shop or independent café, they feel obligated to purchase something to support the store. Stroup agrees, going so far as to refer to this quid-pro-quo as a golden rule.

When certain customers don't abide by this rule, it can hurt everyone. Barrett remembers that up until last year, wireless access at his regular café in Strathmere was free. Suddenly, the café manager started charging patrons to access the Web. Barrett says that now, when he wants to use the café's Internet connection, he's required to pay a small fee on top of the cost for coffee, muffins, and whatever else he buys. The rules have forced him to spend more time working at home.

"I still go, but it's not nearly as frequent as it used to be," he says. "If I can work anywhere, unless I'm craving the café experience, I'd much rather just stay at home where it's free."

The old standby
Of course depending on individual preferences, the most productive workspace may be the one specifically designed for work: the office.

Whether this office is an extra bedroom at home or a cubicle or room in a standalone building, some workers prefer the privacy and quiet of the office environment. Others hail the office for its ability to facilitate focus--although this depends on the type of office you work in and the corporate culture. Ideally (no other eminent distractions, other than the Internet, and co-workers who respect your need for heads-down work), these dedicated work rooms become laboratories for creativity, breeding grounds for genius.

My office in Half Moon Bay, CA, is one such place. It's one of two extra bedrooms in our house (my wife, who is finishing her PhD in archaeology, has her own office, too), and I refer to it as the "Creativity Cave." While I love our local coffee shops and the library in town, none of these places feels like a proper place to work. The hubbub is distracting; I need quiet when I work. It's also nice to be surrounded by my stuff--my bookcases, my planner, and framed photos of whales.

Of course the biggest reason I prefer working in my home office is attire. It's not that I hate dressing up; I actually enjoy looking nice every once in a while. But I prefer to work in boxer shorts, a T-shirt and a ski cap pushed over my ears--not exactly an outfit you'd want to wear when you leave the house. In this case, having an office benefits everyone, me and my neighbors. If only they knew how lucky they are.

Matt Villano is a freelance writer and editor. He listens to Channel 112 on XM Radio when he works at home. Softly.