I’m again writing this from a coffeeshop. Have been going since Tuesday. Have learned a lot.
I knew this before, but had forgotten, that one of the reasons why it’s sometimes so effective for me to go and write at a coffeeshop is because it forces me to focus. The right coffeeshop has the perfect amount of background noise that’s just slightly annoying, so it makes me concentrate more on the fiction.
The first coffeeshop I went to had a group of 5-6 older people (one of them said that he was 77) who held very different political and religious beliefs than I do. They were also expressing themselves loudly in a very uneducated manner.
Normally, when I’m writing, I’m so far into the story that I have no awareness of the external world. I get focused.
However, on Tuesday, I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t shut their voices out. I was also getting a little angry at their ignorance, quite frankly.
So I left the coffeeshop and went to the library, where I was able to write 3000 words. Which was awesome, and the first day that I’ve hit pace in quite some while.
However, I noticed that even in the library, little noises distracted me. I was not as able to focus as I should have been.
I hadn’t realized that I could lose my ability to focus so completely. But I had. I had a lot of difficulty getting back to writing.
Yesterday was easier. I wrote for an hour in a Starbucks, then I went to the library again. But I had much better focus both at the coffeeshop as well as at the library.
Right now, I’m in another coffeeshop. There’s a group of cops having a fascinating discussion at another table that I’d love to listen to. (They’re doing a breakdown of an event, and whether the one officer was in their legal right to do the action they did.) I have much better focus this morning. I will be able to cut them off and write this morning.
I’m going to be writing in coffeeshops for the rest of this week, as well as all of next week. Then we’re going camping. I figure by the time I get back, I’ll have regained all my focus and I’ll be able to write from home again. I may, I may not, go back to that first coffeeshop at the end of next week. That group meets there every morning. Put my focus to the test, see if I can write regardless of those idiots.
And now, back to the writing!
FYI – I am still running a BOGO (Buy One, Get One Free) for the Steam and Sorcery bundle currently running. Send me a receipt showing that you purchased the entire bundle, and I’ll send you a link to my starter library – five more novels! Here are the details.