Location, Location, Location

The snow is piling up in Thompkins Square Park, across Avenue A from the Cafe Pick Me Up. The trees are half and half in that way that appears to be a trick of the light but is instead a trick of the weather. The top half of everything is white, the bottom half depends upon what kind of tree it is. Some are grey, some a toasty green, some appear to be “camouflage” in a nod to the fashion of the hood.

My schedule is to write first thing in the morning for at least an hour. Pure creative writing with my heart, not work writing or anything I don’t want to write. My brain works best in the morning, and if I don’t write first thing then the other things in the day nudge it out and I don’t get to write at all.

The venue is important. I have a nice place to work, the Writers’ Room at Astor Place, which is available to me 24/7 and it’s not expensive. But for my creative writing I prefer cafes. The people coming and going and the music and the coffee being made has a comforting effect on me and I don’t feel the pressure to make a buck with every word I type.

Some days it is obvious where I must work. If it is sunny, I go to a place where I can feel the open clarity of the day through big windows and high ceilings. If it’s cold and rainy, I don’t mind a cozy dark refuge of a place. Some days I’m not sure where I feel like going and I wander a bit, or ride variously on my bike in the morning sun.

This morning I trudged blindly in the snow for a while before seeing that the Pick Me Up is the clear choice for today. I love the snow. It hasn’t fallen often enough for my tastes this winter. I wouldn’t be able to sit in the warm recesses of a bigger place today knowing that it was snowing out and I couldn’t watch it.

Now here I am, and all is good. Thank you. I’ll turn now to Chapter Eight of Playing With Fire.

Wagons, On and Off

Notice the gap in time between this post and the post previous. What happened? Who knows? Who cares?

“Who cares?” is probably more the answer. If I knew there were hundreds of readers eagerly awaiting my posts, I’d have put them out. But I didn’t feel inspired. I didn’t feel I had the time, and I didn’t feel the need to write them.

I’ve never felt that doing a blog like this is a waste of time. Whether one person reads it or a million, I feel good about it. But I don’t feel the need to post every day, or every work day, or even every week. For the past month or so, I gave myself a break. The way I see it, slacking off is a healthy part of discipline. Sometimes it’s time to let off when you’ve been pushing too hard. Sometimes it’s time when something else is going on. Sometimes it’s just a good idea for no particular reason.

Obviously there are plenty of people who don’t have this attitude to discipline and hard work, and not just Nazis and Fascists, artists too. There are fewer who actually practice what the believe, but they exist. I’m not saying they’re wrong. We all need to do what works for us. We all need to constantly check in and adjust what we do, in the quest to find what works now.

I’m sure I’ll never understand the secret to being motivated and staying motivated. I’m sure there is no secret. But I’m learning more and more of the pieces. Knowing that there’s someone reading and waiting and caring is a big one of them. Not just for artists, but for everyone.