Wired

I’m writing this next to 20 of my new closest friends. We are at a writing/creative collective – sort of a shared artist studio for writers.

Long tables are in the rooms along with white boards and banks of sockets where we plug in our laptops. In the back is plenty of hot coffee, tea and a microwave. Cell phone talk is adamently discouraged.

I’ve spent hours here recently and likely will spend hours more. I happily ignore my friends and tap away at my keyboard listening to the music of others tapping away at theirs.

With an office at home, why wouldn’t I work there? There’s electricity, coffee and all the quiet I could desire.

I used to think it was just the lattes that drew me to cafes to write. A little reward for getting something done. Then I found I was getting a lot done.

Others have shared with me that it’s too quiet at home, laundry to be done, a dog to be petted – so many minor distractions that it’s impossible to work in solitude. But put them in a café – with an espresso machine roaring in the background, people coming and going, music in the background – and they have a laser focus. This is true for me.

At the studio, even as we ignore each other, there’s a collective agreement we’ve made that we’ll be working on our individual projects.

This writing group, linked through an internet site called Meetup, has nearly 200 members and all we do is get together and write. Sometimes we meet at the collaborative, sometimes in coffee shops, in groups of two to 20. The internet has turned the most solitary task of writing into a crowd activity.

There are poets, novelists, doctoral candidates, bloggers, PR professionals and songwriters. It’s an interesting assortment. Our conversations drift from writer’s block to word count to publishing tips.

Many people are new to the area too. We share our stories of arrival and, somehow, this makes me feel more grounded in my new home.