Bob Dylan’s house in Malibu is sure to be gorgeous, apparently looking out over the sea. But when a reporter asked him where he composes music, he replied, ‘In a hotel room.’ Tom Wolfe (The Bonfire of the Vanities) was rumoured to have locked himself in a hotel at his editor’s insistence to finish The Kandy-Kolored-Flake Streamline Baby in 1965. He produced the manuscript in several weeks flat to great acclaim.
Memoirist, Nick Flynn’s 1992 poetry class at NYU took a trip to the woods. There’s something to be said, the poet and memoirist offers, for the going-away-to-write formula.
In my home state of Victoria, no one is going anywhere to write anytime soon during our stage 4 lockdown. I might scribble a few words in the car at my local park before taking a walk. There are no cafes to write in, our borders are closed. Even a trip out of town sounds exotic right now. But when restrictions do lift, I’ll be packing my sanitizer and laptop and forging an escape route – if only to a seedy hotel room for a night, or a garden bench somewhere further than five kilometres away.
Once I was lucky enough to rent a cottage in rural France. Thanks to my schoolgirl French I had no clue as to what the villagers saying – or they me. However, my thoughts became clearer as there were few distractions. I lived in my own language bubble, and I wrote.
Artists’ residencies are popular for a reason. A tired brain needs time, space, and a fresh approach.
Whatever our choice of location, in this time of change, documenting one’s thoughts is more important than ever, and in an environment that suits us. I wish everyone right now, wherever you are …Happy Writing!
WRITINGS AND MUSINGS OF MARGARET MCCAFFREY 
The practice that I miss the most is just sitting down in a Starbucks and writing about the people and conversations around me. Now that COVID’s hit, that ritual has since dwindled. Thanks for sharing this!
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