Day Eighty: Writer Crawl

I parked the car and went downtown. I'm on my third stop of the writer crawl. The woman in blue above is Kaitlin. She too is working on her stuff. 

It's actually been very helpful. I started off at Scooter's, where I wrote about 3,000 words. I then moved to Old Chicago to have lunch with Alex, where I wrote another chapter. Then I took a walk, thinking through my story problems, and came here to Urban Abbey, which has a wonderful setting.

The coolest thing to happen so far is my discovery of a song. It was playing over the intercom at Old Chicago just as I was about to lose steam.

Get up. Save face.
Find your way back to the grave.
You'll never find your way back home.


I'm still parsing out the importance of this idea, but it is haunting, isn't it? 

I think it has to do with my characters and how they're realizing things aren't going to be the same. 

The important take-away of today is this: if you stay in your apartment, you will not gain any input. Walking down the street and watching a family meet up with their overworked dad on his lunch break is input. Listening to a song over the radio at a restaurant is input. The sun is input. The kindness of a barista. The deliciousness of a Scooters cookie. The weight of a backpack as you trek to your next location.

If you're stuck, please do go outside. You'll thank me.

Also, the cool thing about being out of the house, is that you cannot go to sleep. I have such a bad habit of getting frustrated and collapsing in bed to take a nap. I then end up on some phone game, and I don't ever recover.

When that frustration hit this morning, I couldn't do much other than keep writing, and I wrote some cool stuff. 

I love having the world open to me, getting to decide where I go at what time. It's a freedom I don't think I'll really comprehend or appreciate until I don't have it again.