Warming up
So. Back to the normal routine. Back to writing in the cafe, because if I stay in my house I’m going to A. play with the dog B. organize my file cabinet or C. clean, all of which need to be done, but I’m trying to bang out this book, and if I don’t get on some sort of schedule it will remain locked up in my head, and, frankly, I’d like to think about other things for a while.
My friend Jeff is sitting across the table from me. He and I have been doing this for nearly ten years—writing at the cafes together. It’s good incentive because if I look up from the laptop to stare off into space, I see him typing away, and then I get all, “No way is he going to beat me!” and then I get back to it. We’re at a new place today: Uncommon Ground over on Clarke. New scenery is always good. And this place doesn’t have free internet so I can’t waste two hours on people.com. And they have ginger-peach tea that is so good I forget I’m trying to quit coffee. And later we have a writer’s group meeting for 2nd Story here. And this is a halfway point between our neighborhood and Amanda’s, and sometimes she joins us. She calls such get-togethers “Study Dates” and makes sure we don’t lose focus and start chatting instead of doing our work. This is a good thing for Jeff and I, because we have a tendency to get distracted. How can you NOT? There’s so much to DISCUSS! Like marriage and families and the one-year anniversary Katrina and real estate and Love in the Time of the Cholera and season two of Carnivale and Snakes on a Plane and Pluto is no longer a planet (!) and Voices Underwater and school starts next week and stress and stress management and tattoos and all of a sudden it’s two o’clock and time to go and the writing I meant to get done did not get done.
For the record: I think such discussions are a necessary point of the writing process. So is dreaming, and reading, and watching movies and plays, and writing in your journal and trying out ideas. But at the end of the day, the story itself needs to get on the page, and there comes a time when Jeff or I will say, “Okay. Enough is enough. I’ll see you in two hours,” and then we drop back into the work and—even though he’s sitting right across from me—he doesn’t really exist.
Comments
I hate and love the fact that in order to write I need to "go out." God I spent two days in London, just two days, and I spent them chain smoking in a well lit pub, drinking amazing non-Czech beer and writing like my pen was on fire. Place and company and consumption are - in my mind - the three most essential apsects of writing.
On a side note, isn't the website due for a name change, Meganjobson.com or some combination of Jobson and Stielstra. I think Jobstra would be better than Stielson or Jobielstron, unless you're going all Lucille Ball about the matter.
Posted by: Sam Yoelin | August 29, 2006 4:46 PM
You're so close to my neighborhood and you never call! I would love to meet you over there sometime. One of my favorite little spots in the neighborhood--underground cafe.
Posted by: 1/4 kid | August 30, 2006 8:13 AM
Sam: we're both going to change our last name. To Discodynamite. Megan Discodynamite. Or maybe we should hyphenate? Disco-dynamite?
Posted by: megan | August 30, 2006 9:13 AM
i love uncommon ground and like 1/4 kid it's right near me. do he and i live close together??? that slackass is going to have to show up to a reading so we can meet officially again and become best neighborhood buds, ha ha ha.
the discussion thing is a huge part of writing for me -- my friend beth and i used to sit in the (nonused) dorm kitchen and read our papers out loud to each other in college as we wrote them. interspersed with who's dating who, current injuries, etc. the ones that were read out loud and discussed always turned out better than the ones that weren't!
Posted by: carolyn | August 31, 2006 5:36 AM