While I’ve been wandering around the city finding “the new,” I’ve been keeping my eyes open for potential new writing spots. You’d think that any space that would allow me to sit down and start writing would work, but no. I like to make it difficult (half of you just said, “Don’t you always?”).
For the most part, when I write, you should picture me hunched over a computer in my apartment. Darkness works the best for me. I think it’s the isolation. Bright sunshine makes me feel like I should be out and doing things. Also, other people tend to be out and doing things, and I can hear them, so they become a distraction. Gloomy rainy days or complete darkness work for me.
The one exception to all of this, of course, is an atmosphere that provides its own inspiration. For instance, that explosives search the other night – that could have been written about anywhere at any time. It was just too strange not to be shared. However, I don’t want to have to rely on the dangerous and the bizarre to get me through. I know, I know. I’m so unreasonable.
I’ve tried the beach. It only really works if I’m already moody. If I’m in frolic-mode, the best I’m going to be able to do is take more Instagram shots of my feet. Cafes are difficult because I’m almost always more interested in the stuff going on around me than what I’m writing. So, unless I write about the other patrons, and I have from time to time, that doesn’t really work.
So, I’ve started scoping museums as possible writing locales. I was at The Hammer Museum yesterday (it only took me how many years to finally see it?), and was amazed at how many people seemed to just be hanging out. Now, it was a Thursday, so admission was free, but I think many of them head there to find their piece of inspiration and then work. Or play ping pong (there are two big ping pong tables set up on the third floor of the museum. No, I’m not kidding).
I don’t know that it will work for me—the “people are a distraction” problem still exists. And what if I have an overwhelming urge to play a really bad game of ping pong? But I like the possibility of gazing upon the work of a nineteenth century painter as a jumping off point to my own expression. Even that gigantic, textured (furry?) exclamation point currently hanging from the ceiling is bound to spark something, right?