Yesterday morning Tasha had a work meeting which she assured me would be boring, but of an indeterminable length. As I didn’t feel like driving from the city, back home, and then back into the city to pick her up, I grabbed a set of headphones and set to wandering about the new city.
Shockoe Bottom
The urban landscape has always served me as a good creative prompt. I think it creative urges might spring from the potential generated by density of live and the strength of age. The result is often a place where the weird simply feels comfortable, and Richmond is right on for weird.
After dropping Tasha off for her meeting, I set to wandering about the town. When I was a younger writer, when I was doing the New York thing, I was often simply overwhelmed by the city. The sheer volume of life would overwhelm my senses, making writing a process of randomness pulled from the entire picture, grasping only what could be grasped.
Richmond isn’t like that. Oh no, Richmond is a much different city, shorter, smaller, and also seemingly forgotten. The details in Richmond are the kind that seem hidden from view, as if they’re trying to escape. It seems like it will be a good place to write.
Of course, one of the things I was doing was scouting for locations to write. Since I still prefer to scribble out first drafts by hand, my locations are a lot greater than those who rely on computers. And I’ve found a couple of quite, and frankly odd, locations. But, when writing, I’ve found that odd tends to work best for me.
Anyone else out there have a preference for where you write?
Bradley Robb likes TV and books, and has an intense dislike for cinnamon. Once, Bradley stopped a Soviet T-60 with his middle finger. Bradley writes speculative fiction and edits Fiction Matters, and never really got the hang of talking about himself in the third person.