Nov. 12: Writing in restaurants

I am not sure if I enjoy writing in restaurants. I do it, but I don't often get a lot of writing done there. When I take my computer or my notebook to a restaurant (or a cafe or a coffee shop), I am really hoping someone will ask me what I'm writing. Then I can tell them and, hopefully, they will tell me that it is brilliant concept and so I, by extension, must be brilliant too.

Of course if what I want to do is write and I absolutely do not want to be disturbed, I can put on my headphones.

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I guess I have some sort of weird disease in that I need to get away from my hometown if I want to devote myself to a writing project. There is a motel about 45 minutes from where I live and I like to go there three or four times a year for a weekend of writing. I am aware of several people in my town who doubt I am going there to write. They have speculated (never directly to me) that I am going there to have sex with various women. I don't blame them for accusing me of such subterfuge. It doesn't make sense for a guy to go rent a motel room and pay money for it when he can simply stay home and write there.

Yes, but as Tom Petty once observed, You don't know how it feels to be me.

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A few years ago, I had an idea for a story. In order to write this story, I had to talk to as many strangers as possible so I could ask them a very basic philosophical question. I went to Ottawa where I rented a bed for the weekend at the jailhouse hostel. Over the next three days, I frequented Ottawa's restaurants/pubs/night life and talked to all sorts of people. No one said I was an idiot or that I should mind my own business. (One guy, however, told me that he was creating a whole new universe with his brain.)

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I am writing this in my car. I am in Brockville. I am taking a week off to write. I am going to go write now.

In a restaurant.