On the road again, seeking a cup of the write stuff

If you want to spot a writer, go to a cafe. But where, asks Rob Long, do you go to avoid them?

hollywood watch

One of the occupational hazards of being a writer is that you feel compelled to have insights all of the time. That’s what writers are supposed to do – walk around looking at things and having deep, penetrating thoughts about them.

If you’re in my business, tele­vision, it’s not enough to simply have a couple of deep thoughts every now and then. That was good enough for the Romantic poets in the 18th century, and the penniless American novelists living in Paris in the 1920s, but back then living was cheap. You didn’t need a car or a MacBook Air or an iPhone or any of the things that a modern, spoilt writer needs to ­record his insights and reflections.

Television writers need to turn their thoughts – daydreams, really – into dollars. When visitors come to Los Angeles and ask to be taken to a “classically LA” location, what they probably mean is someplace like the beach, or a swanky restaurant, or the lunch canteen on a movie lot. And it’s true – those are pretty iconic Hollywood locations. But to witness the true beating heart of the town, its yearning epicentre, I always take visitors to a local coffee shop – it doesn’t matter which one; the nearest one will do – and point out all of the people sitting at tables, laptops open, staring anxiously into the middle distance.

“See all of them?” I ask. “What do you think they’re doing?”

“They’re writing!” the visitors will always say. They’ve heard this all before. They know the cliché. Writers in Hollywood write in coffee shops.

But I shake my head.

“No,” I say, “they’re not writing. They’re waiting to write. Big difference. They’re sitting there, waiting for something to occur to them, something interesting, something funny, or scary, or fresh, or different. Look closely. Look at their eyes. Notice something?”

And the visitors will always notice the same thing.

“They look ... panicked.”

“Exactly,” I say. “They look like writers who have nothing to write.”

Personally, I find that I can muster up an original or fresh thought about once every quarter, right around the time I have my regular meeting with my accountant. For some reason – and I feel that this marks me as a professional, rather than a dilettante – the introduction of money issues into my creative process has a stimulating and inspirational effect.

Because my meetings with my accountant invariably follow a well-rehearsed script – he tells me that I’m running out of money, I tell him that I think he’s adding the columns up wrongly – I know in advance that whatever happens, I’d better start looking around for something to write. Well, more than something to write – something to write and then to sell.

But it’s hard to face sitting in a cafe with dozens of other writers who have also probably come from their accountants, and who are also now swirling a cappuccino with the laptop open, staring into the void. The psychic landscape of Hollywood feels like a gold mine that’s been totally stripped of ore, like an oilfield that’s yielded its last barrel.

There’s a sameness to the ideas we’re coming up with in Hollywood, it seems to me. Something about the endless sunshine and the yoga and the bad traffic all combine to create a monoculture, so that even interesting ideas and fresh insights, over time, get sanded down and blanded out. All of those writers staring out into space – and, often, I’m one of them – well, maybe what they should do is get out of town.

That’s nonsense, of course. People are pretty much the same every­where, and it’s just as possible to have a terrific and inspiring idea in Venice Beach, where I live, and to write it somewhere close to home as it is to board a container ship and head out to open sea (which I’ve done) or trek from Tashkent to Istanbul (ditto) and have a lightbulb moment out there.

And yet, last week I loaded up my car with a couple of months worth of clothes and my dog, and headed east on what I expect will be a three-month road trip across the United States, zigzagging our way through Texas and the South, the Midwest, the Atlantic coast, New England and, finally, New York.

My theory is that a change of scenery will give me the creative jolt I need to get the next project going. It will also put many miles between me and my accountant, which is never a bad thing.

On the other hand, the first stop was in El Paso, Texas, which should have been cultural light years away from Hollywood. On my first morning there, I stopped off at a local coffee spot to send some emails and for a morning cappuccino.

Every seat was filled with an anxious person, fingers poised over a laptop keyboard.

I got my coffee and the dog and I hit the road. We’re looking for a place where there are no writers.

Rob Long is a Hollywood writer and producer

On Twitter: @rcbl