THE BEAT BOOMER'S WRITING LAIRS

Black Rock

I was impressed years ago when I learned John Updike maintained an office away from home so that he could treat his writing like a regular job where he would show up and "do his writing". Thing is...one must already be successful as a writer to afford an office away from home. With my poem here and short story there success record, I've never reached that degree of financial success. I've always had to go away from home like a coffee shop beatnik or, in the Cheney years while working on my MFA, to The Fireside restaurant where the waitresses were friendly.

Torque

For a short time, while my third wife worked, I stayed home and wrote in the mornings, five and six hours at a stretch. I had an agent at the time, Ruth Cantor in New York, who was handling a book of mine. I thought I was on the verge of a breakthrough, then the marriage collapsed like a punctured bag of hot air, and I fell into a long period of psychological work that improved my life tenfold but did nothing for my writing (ha!) career.


Currently, I'm enjoying another spate of good writing and have published a few more things lately but still no money, never any money. I've included two of my favorite places to write away from home. I stay home, usually, in the morning these days and go out in the afternoon or late morning to write and/or read. They are the Torque downtown at 501 Columbia Street and Black Rock on 164th Avenue in east Vancouver. The Black Rock was designed to feel futuristic and it does and it draws quite a number of young people. The Torque looks like the sort of place that humans hide in to escape the aliens who've taken over the Earth...a warehouse for real. It's got plenty of plugs and an open airy feel that is very stimulating as if it weren't stimulating enough to be the target of prowling aliens.

Happy writing, friends, old and new!