Needs

I’m at a coffee shop right now, working away at that stupid third novel, chasing that elusive last word but feeling like it’s a carrot on a stick that never gets any closer no matter what I do. I’m listening to my Spotify library on random and just a few minutes ago a Jens Kuross song came on, from the album Art! At the Expense of Mental Health. I’d never noticed that album title before, but I feel it today.

Amen, Jens Kuross. Hope you’re doin okay.

I had a really hard time this morning deciding which shop to come to. I have become very picky. I wanted a fruity cup of coffee (the kind you get at Everyday Kitchen, Happy Hi, or Cafe Royale), but also someplace where I could have something healthy-ish or at least delicious for breakfast (Naked Bean, French Press, Tangerine), but also someplace quiet, with the right atmosphere (Brewedney, Drip, Core). Perhaps someplace I have a gift card for (Everyday Kitchen, Starbucks, French Press) and someplace I don’t have to pay for parking and someplace I won’t run into anyone I know unless the person I’m running into is someone I know kind of peripherally who won’t pull up a chair and someplace where there are enough people to feel like I’m in public but not so many people that I feel like I’m at a music festival. Someplace where the staff is friendly and the music is good but not too loud because I’m probably going to put my headphones in anyway to drown out the people at the table next to me. Maybe someplace where I can look up now and then to see happy folks visiting in the booth across the room, hugging when they get there and before they leave and looking so overjoyed to see each other; I don’t know, it gives me a little vicarious oxytocin hit which I find to be somewhat helpful for creativity. A place with a good view out the window (so nowhere in the east end or Harbour Landing; nothing is less inspiring than the back of a box store). I like a place where other people are on laptops, possibly writing novels too, because I feel like their creative energy might rub off on me, or like their hopes and dreams are contagious. 

You can’t write a thing if you’re low on hopes and dreams.

I sat in my car for such a long time, and finally I just had to narrow it down by trying to think of which coffee beans I wanted, and Thom Bargen won. They serve that at Everyday Kitchen so that’s where I ended up. See also: free parking, a good muffin for breakfast, a gift card, a couple of vaguely familiar people, a bit of jovial hugging across the room, some creatives on laptops, quiet music, and a nice view of the warehouse district. 

So now: let’s see if it translates to PRODUCTIVITY.

…lol.

Not Working On That Book

I said I was going to start blogging regularly and then I forgot to do it at all for two whole weeks. 

It’s okay, shh, shh, I’m here now, it’s okay.

I’m sitting in a quiet kitchen with a cold cup of coffee. (I feel like this is a common Mom of Little Kids trope, the never getting to drink hot coffee. In reality, though, coffee gets cold for everybody at the exact same rate. Stop acting like you’re special, Moms of Little Kids.) The kids are both at school and it’s weird. Seems like just last week* Sully was playing nonstop drum fills in the living room and Scarlett was hanging out on the roof of our garage with the neighbour kids.** 

It’s weird, but it’s great. And disorienting. I’ve spent the first few days getting my bearings in this wide, blank expanse of schedule-less time, this absolute arctic tundra of minutes. I could eat lunch at 10 am if I wanted. And the lunch could be an entire box of Gushers if I wanted. I could sit on the roof of the garage MYSELF, if I wanted. 

(I don’t want any of these things.)

Hopefully this week, though, I’ll figure out a rhythm involving things I do want—first and foremost, to get into a satisfying, productive writing groove and FINALLY FINISH THIS BOOK. I took the summer off, almost fully. I decided going in that I was going to try to settle into the idea of taking a break—enjoy the kids, read some books, hang out with friends. It was good for me, I think. Sometimes I felt panicky about it, like if I stepped outside of the writing hustle for two seconds it was going to close up after me, like a wormhole, and I’d never be able to find my way back in. But maybe people need breaks? Maybe constant productivity is bad for long-term productivity? Maybe creativity isn’t a wormhole. 

Also, weirdly, it felt kind of nice to have an easy, solid answer when people asked me what I was working on. “Nothing at all” is so much easier for me to say than, “AH WELL I’M WORKING ON THIS REALLY WEIRD BOOK ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD KIND OF STUART MCLEAN BUT SCI-FI? I DON’T KNOW IF THAT MAKES SENSE AND UH AND UH AND UH CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT ANYTHING BUT THIS…”

Ahem.

All that to say, the break is over and here I am. Sitting at my computer.

NOT working on that book. 

Soon.

*It was just last week, actually.

**I didn’t know that Scarlett had been on the roof of the garage until I overheard one of her little friends say to her, “You can’t tell your mom what we did or I’ll never be allowed to play with you EVER AGAIN.” Kids, man. Fast, sneaky, terrifying.