In a city bereft of a location with equivalent bookish cache to the British Library, entrepreneurs in Manhattan have provided New York's literati (as in anyone, published or not, who can afford to pay a hefty annual fee) with an opportunity to get out of their shoebox apartments into an atmosphere that is designed to be more conducive to wordsmithing: the space at Paragraph has been specially designed to provide the kind of atmosphere that brings forth beautiful prose and poetry.
Apparently, however, the environs have not been doing the trick for everyone. Complaints from patrons of the space who no doubt feel that their muse is being compromised have led to the institution of a new set of rules that require that writers eschew rowdy antics like newspaper reading and the sporting of loud-soled shoes. (The latter edict no doubt causes particular pain to Manhattan's legions of aspiring Carrie Bradshaws who are, like, totally blocked when they're not wearing expensive stilettos.)
I have to admire the people behind Paragraph, who have clearly cottoned on to that age-old rule of starting a new business: figure out what people are neurotic about, and offer them a product that will ostensibly relieve that neurosis while simultaneously maintaining it. (See also: fashion, drugs.) And what gets writers more agitated than the state of the environs in which they work? But reading the list of Paragraph's draconian guidelines, I couldn't help but wonder: is it really about the shoes?
It's a little counter-intuitive, I think, for environment to be so important, for writing is quite unique amongst art forms - particularly in the Age of the Laptop - in terms of its portability and relative lack of necessary equipment. Rather than delight in the fact that we can work while lounging in the park if we feel like it, however, writers continue to regard their workplaces as integral to their craft, and a genuine reason to fret if it's not just so. Rage about place is an essential part of the mythology of many great writers, from Roald Dahl's beloved writing shed to the recent complaints from Antonia Fraser and co about the lack of space and excess of students in the British Library.
I, too, once gazed reverently at desks on which great works were written when finding myself in the Lake District or upstate New York. I inspected the Guardian's writer's rooms photographs with great fascination, wondering whether, if I also had a green chair like Esther Freud's or a small pottery cat like Hilary Mantel, if it would make all the difference to my work.
But ever since I started writing a book in earnest, a couple of months ago, I have come to the conclusion that this epic quest for the perfect space, the perfect chair, the perfect room temperature and wallpaper and perfectly chipped mug from which to drink one's perfectly steeped tea while writing has very little to do with the tangible need for surroundings conducive to creativity, and everything to do with the sublimation of writer's block.
If the writing is going well, I am sure that I could do it while dangling from ropes off the side of an Alpine rock-face. If it's not, then it is much easier to blame on the state of the café in which I am trying to work - "This espresso is burnt! I can't possibly work under these conditions!" - or, I daresay, the volume of the shoes worn by the person sitting next to me, than on the treacly speed of my brain.
Just because I've come to acknowledge this, however, doesn't mean that I have any intention of changing my fidgety, finicky habits, or think that any other writers should, either. While it may be an exercise in futility, the quest for the Elysian writing climes, no matter how much we complain about it, is undoubtedly a secret, indulgent pleasure.
