As a writer with two kids and a dog, I spend a lot of time in coffee shops. I do this for two reasons... one, Children and animals are not especially conducive to the creative process, and two, I really like coffee. The atmosphere in my local coffee shop is awesome. I never get hassled for taking up a table for hours while I type frantically at a keyboard trying to make what shows up on my computer funny, the booths are high backed and comfy, and the power outlets are plentiful.
During NaNoWriMo, my friends and I have an annual event we call "Coffee Crawl" where we go from coffee shop to coffee shop, drinking coffee and writing a few thousand words in each location before moving on to the next. It is a wild, twitch-inducing, word filled ride though the local coffee shop scene. While the actual coffee varies, all the coffee shops we hit tend to be well lit, funky styled places that are glad to have us, and smile in wonder at the sudden influx of bohemian writer-types all frantically pecking at their keyboards and then disappearing into the night.
It makes you proud to be a writer.
The one thing I universally hate about these coffee shops, (and especially in the one I write in most often) is the music. I don't understand what it is about coffee shops that makes whoever picks out the background music hate the customers so much. Even as I write these words, I am being subjected to an acoustic version of Michael Jackson's "Thriller".
Yes, you read that correctly:
This is the kind of thing they play all the time in my coffee shop. (Although the 'artist' they have doing the Thriller cover is way more off key on the chorus) It's apparently a Sirius station that specializes in "Coffeehouse Music". Good god, it's awful. At first I thought it was just my coffee shop, but I have found that all the coffee shops on the crawl have equally abhorrent music, all from different sources. In one of the uptown shops (blanking on the name of it) it was an entire album of Musak covers of Nine Inch Nails.
Yes, you read that correctly too.
My options? Earbuds, I suppose... but I don't like to completely cut myself off from the background noise when I write. (which is why I can't write with the boys around) I could also complain, I guess... but I really don't want to be 'that guy'.
And as I wrote that, the music changed to an acoustic version of "Crazy Train" by Black Sabbath. I'm gonna go throw up now.
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