Work, Not Play!

I'm sitting at Starbucks...not for the coffee (although I couldn't resist a triple-grande soy latte!), but for the atmosphere. Billie Holiday and Vince Gueraldi sounding from the speakers, the whirring of coffee grinders and steamy "chhhhh" spitting from the milk frother...perfect amount of background noise and warm colours to make for fruitful writing session.

I thought I'd try something different today...as much as I love sitting with my dog snoring logs beside me on the couch, I've developed successive kinks in both sides of my neck over the last two weeks and thought, for the sake of a fully mobile neck, I'd better find a table somewhere to set myself up. As the dining room table offered no inspiration whatsoever, and distracted me to the nines with all the clutter, I got in the car and drove to the one other place in town that makes me feel all gushy and warm and cozy - Starbucks. I am the first to admit, their coffee is not great. It comes across as rather generic, like everything is diluted in flavour to appeal to a mass of uncultured coffee tastes, and then filled with sugar. Thus my need for three shots of espresso. But in atmosphere, it wins the golden star. When I'm writing, atmosphere is key. 

My coffee is nearly finished, and I know at some point I'll have to migrate home and put some dinner on the stove. Spaghetti maybe. Or maybe I'll be really lucky and it will be made for me! 

I find this whole writing thing difficult....mostly because no one truly understands the amount of emotional, physical, and psychological work it involves. It is my THIRD career...I teach high school, music at the conservatory, and I write. How many hours a week is that? But it doesn't have a set amount of hours of prescribed times those hours must be logged. Nor does it pay, up front at least. Perhaps to some, then, it seems more like a hobby. But it is far from this! I am not playing, I am WORKING. If only everyone saw it that way.

And, if only it didn't make me so incredibly aloof! All I think about is writing, when I'll write, what I'll write, what my characters will choose to do today, how much I'll get through in a day...I'm going CRAZY! Fine with me...except it tends to eclipse everything else. 

Now, it must eclipse my blog as well! I have an hour until I've been out of the house for an unreasonable amount of time. Time to get writing!