Where I Do It

I do most of my writing in coffeeshops. Fortunately, I live in an area with a good assortment of places. In Greenfield I can go to Greenfield Coffee, which is a dedicated coffeehouse so I don't have to feel guilty about occupying a table during lunchtime. The chief drawback is that the town of Greenfield has two-hour parking meters downtown, which means I can't stay as long as I'd like. Despite that I've probably spent more hours there in total than anyplace else.

In Montague there's the lovely Lady Killigrew Cafe, in an old mill building overlooking a waterfall. I think I'd live there but for two problems. The first is the big south-facing windows. On sunny days they make the main room very bright, which must have been great for underage textile workers spinning cotton in the 19th Century, but is actually kind of a nuisance when one is trying to read a laptop screen. So I only go to Lady Killigrew's on cloudy days -- which isn't much of a restriction in New England's climate.

The other problem with the Lady Killigrew is their lunch menu. It's too tempting. I wind up ordering a full lunch, which costs more in dollars and calories than I would wish. It also means that I can't just camp out and nurse my coffee if there are people who actually want to buy lunch.

Being too attractive and busy are problems most restaurants would love to have, but writers are strange people.

If I want to spend more time in transit I can go down to Amherst. My chief hangout there is Rao's, which is nearly perfect. The lighting levels are right, they're used to cheapskate graduate students and retirees holding down tables for hours at a time, and the baristas have pretty good taste in music.

Northampton is about the same distance, but parking there is always complicated, so I only write in Northampton if I have some other errand there -- like ferrying one or more kid to an activity, which happens at least twice a week. My favorite place in Northampton is Northampton Coffee, part of the same local caffeine empire as Greenfield Coffee. It also suffers from the drawback of metered parking. 

As a last resort there's a Starbucks in Northampton. I liked Starbucks when they first began appearing everywhere -- I lived in Chicago at the time and their coffee was better than the local standard. Then I went through a period of food-snob hipster sneering at Starbucks -- in my case the sneering was that of a New Orleanian irritated by these upstart Seattleites acting like they invented drinking coffee.

I eventually reconciled with Starbucks, chiefly as a result of noticing that persons unknown in Amherst and Northampton were vandalizing their stores. Nothing major -- just stickers for Dean's Beans or some other organic "fair trade" guilt merchandise plastered over the mermaid logo on the window. I decided that if Starbucks offends self-righteous leftist vandals, they must be doing something right. You can judge a man -- or a coffee chain -- by the quality of his enemies.* 

Why do I bother? Why not stay in my nice house? 

Well, there's three reasons. The first is stimulation. Sitting home alone is kind of dull. My brain goes into "sleep" mode like an unattended computer. Sometimes it's literal sleep, and sometimes it's just goofing off. (Interestingly, when the weather's nice and I can sit out on the porch to write, that isn't a problem. I guess listening to bird song and watching the chickens harass each other is as stimulating as sitting in a cafe full of wannabe intellectuals.)

The second reason is focus. When I'm out of the house I can't do chores, I can't play computer games (I suppose I could, but somehow it's embarassing to play Kerbal Space Program in public), and I can't hear the dog trying to get my attention. There's nothing to do but write. I may still be able to waste time, but it's wasted on things like 'blog posts or roleplaying games. Coffeeshops encourage higher-quality goofing off.

And finally there's the simple appeal of social interaction. I'm not the only person who likes to hang around in coffeeshops around the Pioneer Valley. There's a whole floating community of us. When I go to Greenfield Coffee I often take along some dog treats in case I run into the elderly deaf gentleman with the adorable service dog who turns up there. At Killigrew's I  occasionally run into local authors like Kelly Link or Mo Willems. I see the fathers of two of my daughter's friends almost every day. It makes me feel connected.

For a writer, this is actually rather important. If I don't get out of the house, the only people I interact with for days at a time are my immediate family and the dog. They're all very nice, but I know them too well. I don't learn much by observing them and overhearing their conversations. But strangers are an ever-flowing spring. I've already mentioned that I got one story out of an overheard coffeeshop conversation. It's also instructive just to hear how people speak to each other, even if they're not saying anything very interesting. 

Where do you do your best work?

*I tried to track down who said this. It's credited to Conrad, Wilde, Churchill, and Doctor Who. 

Comments

[Chuk]

I'm pretty sure that quotation must have been from Doctor Who originally, he's been around longer than the rest of them.

Also, Kelly Link and Mo Willems? Neat, they both do great work.