Screenscribbler

Thursday 31 August 2017

Caffeinated Retreat

Elephant House Edinburgh where
 JK Rowling frequented to write.
Amongst the clatter of baristas operating coffee machines that spew hissing sounds like we are living in a steam age revival, the noise of loud mother's and screaming babies being hoisted out of their buggies into wooden high chairs, too young to be catered for by burger bars with thick shakes, abominable piped music adding to the onslaught to my ears, and yet here I am emulating JK Rowling and like many others the length and breadth of our spectred isle, writing 500-1000 words per medium sized americano.
Why?
I don't know why. But it works. As soon as I get settled at a seat and table, not the soft leather sofas that would induce me into a coma, and open my laptop, my fingers are flying over the keyboard like Liberace on ecstasy.
Surely this is going against the forces of nature? It shouldn't work, but it does.
It has become part of my routine whenever I can, about 3-4 times a week. Like going to the gym. Zumba for the brain. I have even taking to cycling there, as during the act of pedalling I'm thinking about my characters and plot.
I think that combined with the 'commute' on my bicycle and the industrial noise environment within the coffee shop, this stimulates the work ethos centre of my brain, wherever the hell that is, and I turn into a productive word machine, that has no need to stop and pause to play solitaire, update FB and Twitter status, read crime fiction and write blog posts. Incidentally, I am writing this as home, as my blog has become yet another distraction from writing within the domestic domain.

Conclusion, I think coffee shops work for me, because I have not adapted my home to be a workplace, and the noise of the coffee shop matches years of trying to write reports in shared offices, constant ringing of phones, and people milling around. If I had been a shepherd in a remote isle off the mainland of northern Scotland, maybe quietude and isolation would be my place for the Muse.

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