Creative writing exercise because it’s a good way to start the week. Find your place.

>
Apologies I lost a day this week – and for that reason the Monday exercise is now on Tuesday but hey ho! it’s here…and I hope you enjoy it.

Listening to Noise: a human history on BBC Radio Four** last week I learned that university researchers believe that the hum of a busy cafe is probably the best place to write. The noise of conversation and coffee making machines drowns out distracting sounds and because you’ve brought your laptop with you it’s a public statement that you are there to work so you are more motivated to stay focused.

JK Rowling is probably the most famous modern cafe writer. She wrote a good proportion of the first Harry Potter novel in  The Elephant House on George IV Bridge in central Edinburgh – it is now known as the Birthplace of Harry Potter.

Home to the initial writing of Harry Potter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Novelist Marina Fiorato followed her example when she was writing her first novel The Glassblower of Murano; for her being out of the house meant being away from the demands of domestic chores..

This is not new: in Paris Les Deux Magots café on the Boulevard Saint-Germaine was a meeting place for Hemingway, Sartre, Camus and Picasso. Imagine the conversations that must have taken place…

Exercise

Leave home – temporarily – and find somewhere new to write. Take a notebook if you don’t have a laptop. Don’t seek out the quiet and secluded: instead see what it feels like to become part of a bustling environment. Don’t write about the place you are in or observe the people around you. That’s another exercise for another day. Instead concentrator on the poem/story/novel that has been floating around in your head and discover if a cafe lifestyle works for you.
If you already write in a cafe you could try finding another one, selecting a different seat, going to an unfamiliar neighbourhood, doing something different…and seeing what happens.

WHERE DO YOU WRITE? AND DO YOU LIKE BACKGROUND NOISE?

**You have four more days to hear the programme by clicking HERE

Related articles

• How to write like JK Rowling (womanontheedgeofreality.com)