tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8434699491181348092.post867908038294184949..comments2023-09-12T09:09:08.656-07:00Comments on Well-Read Donkey: Table with a ViewAggiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00745258157624796110noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8434699491181348092.post-4301244000681138822009-07-17T10:37:58.062-07:002009-07-17T10:37:58.062-07:00The idea of writing in cafes has always been appea...The idea of writing in cafes has always been appealing ... somewhere between New York sidewalk tables in summertime and Parisian cafes near a university. The latter brings images of bright Deco posters or recollections of books describing foreign writers who flocked to the City of Light in another century, inviting us to become one.<br /><br />I've felt too inhibited to be comfortable in cafes, beyond reviewing the day's task-list over a medium latte. I do like being there: life is starting up for another day; people are stirring; the morning's potential seems brighter from that venue.<br /><br />I'm too self-conscious to write in a cafe: am I staying too long, taking up a table that two other people could have for conversation, wallowing in a self-image of "being a writer?" Do the anonymous people there think I'm narcissistic, full of self-importance, or maybe interesting? Why should I care what they think anyway? Yet this curious annoyance flits around my head, a pesky fly disturbing my concentration.<br /><br />So I think it comes down to the screen and my head: that's where I write, when I can get the two together, unencumbered by tasks and email and projects. I'm in my daughter's old room now, empty nesters as we are, and I don't even open the curtains most days. I just jump into the words on the screen, painting in inartistically chosen black type across 19 inches of cathode ray tube. Thoughts travel back and forth, connected through a line of light, until the words begin to take shape, to become meaningful paragraphs, each some part of a larger story that may or may not be told.<br /><br />In the early days of laptops, I thought my Tandy 102 would allow me to capture revelations on a mountain top or at a beach. Ever try reading a dark screen in the full-day brightness of a beach? In the mountains, I like to jump on rocks and think, not stare into a screen. A little notepad is great for capturing those fleeting truths that seem so clear on an altar of granite, else forgotten upon one's return to lower elevations and the silty streets of our most-of-the-time.<br /><br />All these scraps of paper-thoughts I need to assemble into something cohesive, in front of a computer, anywhere that's away from nagging distraction. So for me, it's really more the challenge of time than place.<br /><br />I haven't got that one figured out yet.<br /><br />jim chandler<br />Kepler's Writers Groupjimchandlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06446422916578988762noreply@blogger.com