I’m With The DJ

There are times when lunch is seriously the most sought after point in the day. You have an idea, or you want to keep the scent of a fresh story in your head. If you’re lucky you’ve stuck with your story long enough that you get inspiration without warning in the morning shower, and duly store it in memory until you can get to your scratch pad or the local deli to spread your laptop and have your way.

If you don’t think writers hunger for the keyboard as much as any other addict, you haven’t gone through your twelve step program yet. Unlike AA, you have to make up your own plan for how you instill discipline into an inherently narcissistic practice of trying to write the perfect page, and then taking a sip of your coffee, and doing it again. Writing isn’t by the hour. It’s tantric.

No, worse. It’s both.

I got down to the local deli today, found a darkly uninhabited corner, and sat down to do my work. My other work. Anyhow.

There are two women who sit across from me talking in fierce English-as-second language whispers about the terrors of their overlords, and in Manhattan I can believe it. It’s lovely to see the razor sharp wit and tough-as-nails survivorship these women portray. I feel for their predicament, but they’re having a more intimate and supportive friendship working off the record then any of the other people I know who work and live the white collar lifestyle. One of them shushes the other for her language. It’s engrossingly passionate talk, but quiet and easy to tone out. Public places like these are a godsend for writing, not because you have to have them, but because when you need to write and the energy is just shaking you, it’s good to be around others in a similar state.

Enter two lovely little girls who decide they will sit with nothing to eat, and do nothing at all but talk. Talk they do. By itself that is no bother. We all sneak in places when it’s cold out. But one of them has that nasal Fran Dresher cat rawl going on, and it’s loud. It’s ok to be excited about something. Who am I to argue, scrawling out my own thoughts? But when loudly cawing about how much you enjoy writing in public places to writing at home for the solid half hour every other writer would cherish, it becomes a moment of irony for the person in the room who is actually writing. It’s not that we’re unsocial creatures, but far removed from the acting exercises meant to poke and prod, we’re, you know. Busy.

The truth is, real writers don’t sit around talking about it in a practiced interview style. Present company included. When I’m talking about my dreams, I’m not practicing my game plan, and in my mind that makes talking about writing only a prelude to running home to get my groove on with a keyboard and a yellow legal pad. It should be the warm-up, not the queen’s wave.

If you’re not on this earth to be just another lunch-chat dreamer, remember every time someone catches starry-eyed interest in the discovery that you write, a little voice in the back of your mind should be forcibly reaching out from the shadows and smacking you hard upside your head for not actually WRITING. NOW. Go home and plunk down.

When you take the bait, starved little recluse you are, and tell someone “Oh yes! I’m writing X!” it’s actually reinforcing payment before delivery. I’m not saying flagellate yourself each morning with wet bamboo, but I am warning against the very real danger ALL new writers face of slipping into poseur status because it seems the easier life.

Likewise, don’t get stuck at parties or groups where this is the preferred activity. Don’t endure other people talking about writing and mistake them for people who actually write.

Most importantly, don’t become one of those people who spend their lunch breaks talking in a frenzy about when and how they like to write, gushing to some adoring onlooker, or worse, another would-be writer. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Use yours for your craft. Or if you’re like me, use them to pay rent, and then use what’s left for yourself. But don’t dare let yourself soak up the free reward and slow down.