“Writing looks much the same for me as others: a cup of coffee, music, a bare desktop, and so on. Eventually the tank runs dry, the wheels come off, or I’m simply at the end of my workday. What’s left are inevitably the problems that stymied me while I wrote, or the ones I see on the horizon. The best way for me to come at tomorrow is to find three things: The first is a dimly lit bar, and the other two are whiskies. The deliberate abandonment of the work, the light lubrication, and the not-overly-loud murmurings of a small dive bar will eventually, if not sooner, replenish my stamina and produce the startling, epiphanic whack of a shishi odoshi—I’ll feel, lifting my glass, that my subconscious has thrown all the pieces of my current project into the air, and begun putting them together on the way down. I tend to think that the white noise of nearby conversation is the key, but there’s something to be said for turning from the screen—however you choose to do so—to force a new perspective.”
—Eric Shonkwiler, author of 8th Street Power & Light (MG Press, 2016)
Photo credit: Sabrina Renkar