In college, I read David Mamet’s Writings in Restaurants. I don’t remember the essays except something about the death of theater and other such college discussion fodder. But I liked the concept of writing in a restaurant — a communal space where people connect. Now on a dreary Wednesday morning, I sit in a café booth with a bowl of blackened fish and grits on the table and my laptop open. All my professional work has been a solitary endeavor between me and a screen. It’s nice to have the activity and conversation of others in my periphery, keeping me from sinking too far into my mind.
Alexandre-Auguste Hannotiau -- La Lecture Au Cafe
Love the art you included, so peaceful and elegant. Just this weekend, after a morning at a local Sbux, an afternoon in a lawn chair on the grassy island of our cul-de-sac (so I could keep an eye on the kids riding around and around…and around), an evening on our back patio while we lit the first bonfire of fall, a late night on our couch while everyone else was asleep, and some more restaurant writing time – this one at a local Panera – my husband commented I should keep a journal of all the places I wrote my current WIP. Luckily my trusty but tiny netbook travels well, and I nearly hit 10k this weekend amongst all that bouncing around!
Love what you finished this post with – writing is, in so many ways, a solitary endeavor (not counting the cast of characters in our mind), having a little peripheral social-ness is nice.