Cafes--distraction or diligence?

This past Sunday was the day my local writing group (notably made up almost entirely of NaNoWriMo participants) was supposed to meet up. The planning was a little sketchy, the time based entirely on an online poll, and the place really only determined by one person's needs. So, I should not have been surprised to arrive at my nearby Barnes and Noble cafe only to discover no familiar faces amongst the study groups, newspaper-purveyors, and late-lunchers. No matter, I thought. I ordered my iced tea and found myself a tiny table in the same general area we usually met up in in the bastardized Starbucks. I decided to not waste the time by just sitting and watching the door for anyone I might know and instead elected to dig out my laptop and get started writing.

It took me about an hour and a half to finish my iced tea and about a thousand words of work on my current writing project, but with my headphones on, the time passed as if I wasn't even in the same flow. I felt accomplished, isolated in my privacy like I never would be at home.

In today's shitty economy, this may not be considered the most conservative way to get the peace and quiet (quiet, here, meaning lack of interruption, not silence) one needs to really buckle down and lose themselves in their work. Why go to a coffee shop, where to take up a table you have to order something, when you could easily just sit at your desk at home? For those that live alone, this may seem absurd, since they can get all the peace they need at home. But for those that live with their family, their spouse, or even just a couple of roommates, peace and quiet may instead seem like a luxury other writers can have but they are not blessed with.

Or maybe the opposite is true. Maybe you live with your family but are able to produce well because they know when not to bother you. Maybe you live alone, but the distractions of laundry, dishes, and other tidying keep you from just sitting down at the desk. Maybe your problem is a mix of the two, and you felt a touch of envy when I described sitting at a table in a cafe working for an hour and a half straight without so much as a nagging need to clean the toilet or a nagging mother or wife telling you to do the same.

In both Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind, Natalie Goldberg champions the cafe as her favorite place to write. She even relates an anecdote about her time spent near Walden Pond, like Thoreau before her, pacing before her previous seat under a tree, claiming that writing here was not going to work, that she needed a cafe. As often as she meets with writing friends for what we WriMos would call "word wars" or just to discuss stories at her cafes, as often as she goes there to sit and write in her notebooks, Goldberg had established her cafes as her writing space.

Without going into the aspects of writing spaces (That would be a whole different post altogether!), there is nothing wrong with getting out of the house once in a while to write elsewhere. Write in a library. Write in a park. Or do as Goldberg, I, and so many writers before us all have in every town imaginable, and write in a cafe.

Is it just a pointless distraction? It can be, for some. If you're at a bookstore, and are an avid reader like I suspect you are, the temptation to go out into the shelves and pick out a few new title to add to your reading pile at home may be too much. If you're there with a group, it may be easier to suppress this temptation, since you are all there to write, not to browse.

Or maybe you're there with a group, and the temptation to talk amongst each other seems to be eating not just you, but several other members as well. You can avoid this by going to the chosen public spot alone a few times and writing there. This can help you establish the place as a writing haven for you, and you'll be thinking literarily before you even sit at a table. For now, you can challenge yourself and the group to write for fifteen minutes and then, when the time is up, spend fine minutes talking about what just happened in each story and how excited you are. Then write for fifteen minutes again. You'll make bonds with your fellow writers and feel like you're really accomplishing something in that time.

If you plan to write in a coffee shop or Internet cafe:

• Buy something. Whether it be food or drink, contribute some money to the establishment that you are going to camp in, especially if it will be for several hours.

• Tip and tip generously. You are going to be taking up space that other people may have used, and you may not buy much else since you'll be more occupied with your plots than that slice of chocolate cheesecake you bought. It may be their job to just serve you your coffee or sandwich, but you are also paying for the use of their tables. Don't know how much to tip? Leave your coin change. You don't want it anyway.
• Clean up after yourself. It may be the baristas' jobs to mix you a decent espresso, but it doesn't make them happy to have to pick up your trash. Put all litter in the proper receptacles. Also, if you are in a group and change the configuration of their tables and chairs, be sure to put them back.
• Be friendly to the staff. This pays out twofold. First, you get better service, in the long run, if the baristas or wait staff enjoy their time. Second, you will develop a better relationship with them and, in turn, the place. This pays out if you plan on staking a table claim on a regular basis here. They will be more receptive to your arrival and maybe even allow you to stay longer than usual, especially if you are (see above) a good tipper. You may even hear a few stories of their own about family or guests that will make for interesting plotlines or characters in your projects.
• Seat yourself pointed at the door, or the counter. This is particularly helpful if you have writer's block. You can begin by writing descriptions of the people you see and how you imagine they live. On another note, if you are waiting for your group to arrive, you'l be much more recognizable than the back of your head.
• Don't pay for Wi-Fi. The point is to get work done. Even if you're at an Internet cafe, forgo the ability to check your e-mail, webcomics, blogs, and news sites. Even if you tell yourself that you're doing research, you are just allowing yourself the same distractions as at home. Really need that online thesaurus or dictionary? Color the word you want to replace or fact you want to confirm in a noticeable hue, and look it up when you get home. Even better? Ask your writing group for another word for such-and-such, or who they think shot first in the Revolutionary War. You may be pleasantly surprised with their answers.

If your coffee shop or Internet cafe has something that is tempting you, like a bookstore or sugary snacks, feel free to buy yourself something before you leave. But after you've accomplished your goal. Don't distract yourself during writing time.