As strange as it may seem, given how governed by whims I am, I like having a *reason* for everything I do. I’m not saying it has to be a good reason, but I like there to be a reason that’s solid (at least, solid by my own—admittedly twisted—standards). It is for this reason that I don’t like doing something just because it is expected.
Take writers writing at coffee shops—a cliché, isn’t it? But ~*~everyone~*~ was doing it, and I didn’t understand why, so I took a stab at it.
Boy, was it ever uncomfortable! I felt like a poseur, someone putting on a “look at me! I’m a writer!” performance. It felt quite pretentious!
But, in my struggle to not be a fake-writer, I felt pressured to be really writing (so I wouldn’t face the double whammy of being a performative writer but also being a fakey-fake-fake only pretending to write). To avoid being self-conscious, I had to avoid being conscious of other people, the ones who could judge my writerly performance. I had to block everyone else out.
(As an aside, I also had to overcome the worries that someone would look over my shoulder at my screen and think I was a lunatic for how weird the stuff I write is. That was a three step process:
Step 1: Sit with your back to a wall. If no such seat is available, pretend you forgot something important and awkwardly walk out of coffee shop without getting a drink.
Step 2: Get one of those privacy screen things for your laptop, the kind that makes the screen too dim to see from any angle other than straight on. Step 2b is forgetting it’s on when you’re trying to show a friend something on your screen and getting strange looks from them.
Step 3: Embrace the fact that you *are* a giant weirdo, embrace your weirdness, and relax.
By far, Step 3 is the most fun.)
Despite my initial discomforts and intensely introverted personality, I found that I actually *liked* writing in coffee shops! They offered good practice consciously blocking out the world and focusing on my writing (at home, I can’t so easily give myself permission to ignore anyone who might try to get my attention, can’t so easily shrug off interruptions), while also giving “fresh” external stimuli (tastes, smells, sounds, sights) compared to the sameness of writing at home.
And writing with friends in coffee shops is decent, too. It holds more of a writing-obligation and less of a social-obligation than writing with someone else at home (I always worry that I’m being rude when I zone out to the rest of the world!).
During the pandemic, I’ve tried to replicate writing with friends in various ways with some success.
Style I: Writing together while on a zoom call.
This was the least successful for me. I couldn’t balance manners and people skills with the zone-out of getting really into what I’m writing.
Style II: Structured writing together on a zoom call.
The way this one worked was having an appointed start time, with set time for chitchat at the beginning and end. During the bulk of the writing portion, it’s a cameras and mics off kind of affair. If you need an opinion on something, you can turn your cam’n’mic on and ask.
This way was far more successful than Style I, but required more planning and scheduling, lacked any spontaneity, and didn’t come close to matching the real thing.
Style III: Writing at a café with outdoor seating.
This was the closest match. Provided you have a bright enough screen or enough sun shade coverage to see your laptop (or, another thing I did, write outdoors in a notebook instead of a laptop, which has its own set of pros and cons), it basically is as good as the real thing.
EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT IT IS FREEZING OUTSIDE NOW.
