Portland's peripatetic café diaspora

From Melissa Lion at Metroblogging Portland I learned of Portland's latest creative-class diversion: the Writers Dojo, a membership-only "writers' space" where people go to, well, write things. Or, as the center's website puts it:

    Writers' Dojo is a new, shared, creative office and center of excellence for serious writers...a homebase for that peripatetic café diaspora known as the writers' group.

Putting aside my vague concern about a center of writing excellence that doesn't seem entirely clear on the definition of diaspora, I clicked through to find out what amenities were offered, and at what price. The electrical outlets, the printers, the coffee, the Wi-Fi -- makes sense, all well and good. (The showers? I don't know, and I don't want to know.)

And all this can be yours, serious writer, for the low low price of...

...$120 a month.

$120 a month.

Once I scraped my jaw off my shoes, I burst out laughing thinking of the "serious writers" I know, and how many of them have an extra $120 per month of brass in pocket. (Answer: None...and if any of them did, they'd be spending it on books. Or charity. Or booze.)

Look: if spending $120 a month to write in public whips it on for some people, then God bless 'em and it's money well spent. But sitting around in a room with a bunch of other writers is the surest way for me to be not-writing (and I don't need any help on that front).

Writing, for me, has never been some communal activity. I'd rather do it in my own living room, in a pair of old sweats or boxers, not worrying about what I look like or how I smell. I have a printer, and a coffeemaker, and a shower, and all the professional accoutrements for which the Writers' Dojo would like to relieve me of $120 a month.

And if I want a change of scenery, I can take my laptop or a pad to the park, or to the neighborhood coffeehouse, or to the public library, which even has a beautiful room reserved for use exclusively by writers -- and it's free.

But, of course, it's not about writing; it's about being seen writing, and it comes from the same impulse that drives some people to join a country club and others to pay for a public humidor with their name on a brass plate, when a municipal tennis court or a cigar box at home would do. When the Writers' Dojo e-zine promises "podcasts, updates, party invites, and writers' resources," it's surely no accident in which order those things are listed.

I wonder what Walker Percy, a Pulitzer prizewinner who managed to scratch his writing-in-public itch at the Waffle House, for Christ's sake, would say about a "creative class" whose members paid $120 a month to swan around with their laptops, call themselves a "dojo," and find their muse in bamboo flooring.

Comments

[nancy]

I am vacillating here between laughing and a nonstop stream of "ew ew ew."
On the FAR OTHER END of this nonsense: read Coetzee's Diary of a Bad Year. Read the last two pages, just in case you weren't sure that life/death/writing has nothing to do with coffee and networking.

[Kate]

Granted, $120 is pretty steep - I'm not a member and have very little hope of affording that - having spoken to a few members I'd have to say that your idea that it's about being seen writing isn't the scheme here. We've long accepted that artists having community studios isn't just about making art, it's about being in a creative community - how is the Dojo any different? I understand the solitary writer, I'm one as well, but not every writer thrives holed up in a room alone.

[Kevin Allman]

Kate, I'm all about the freedom of choice as well. But to me, 'community' (like 'self-esteem') isn't a goal to be pursued, but the natural byproduct of the way one lives. And it's certainly not something one can buy into for $120 a month.

If being in a creative community is important to a writer, he or she can hang out with other writers, start or join a writing group, or follow any number of different paths that don't involve a commercial transaction.

And I double-damn sure wouldn't pay a sou to a writers' group that would say this:

"Imagine a shared office space that's quiet, literary, and beautiful, where the value of benefits to serious writers is superb...."

"Value of benefits"?

[Kate]

No, I do have to agree with you on several points. I have no bones with the complaints on the price, for one. But I think I'm just looking at it from a different perspective (obviously.) I know plenty of visual artists who pay for studio space, not only for use of the equipment but for the "buzz" of collaboration, to be around like-minded people from which they can learn. I see the Dojo as the equivalent for writers. And I absolutely grant you that if you know the right people and the right places, one can go to a coffee shop and get the same fellowship, but there are also plenty of people who don't know where to go for that community. If they can afford to belong to a studio, have at it. I just don't think the studio is about being seen writing, having spoken to the founder and a few members who are sincere in their idea of having a writing community.

[Kevin Allman]

Fair enough. You've met them; I haven't; and I'm not presuming motive.

But how sad is it if people are willing to pay $120 a month to feel part of a 'community'?

[Kate]

Eh, if you want to and can afford it, it's no skin off my back. Laissez-faire.

Otherwise I'm off to do some writing too - shut up in my tiny room trying not to pay attention to the sounds of the Giants game coming from the living room :)

[Lizzy Caston]

Well, on one hand I probably spend $120 a month on coffee while writing in various Portland Cafes around town. However, as no slight to the probable good intentions on the part of the "Dojo" I just don't ever see myself joining something like this mostly because the name "writers dojo" bugs the crap out of me. Why? It sounds incredibly pretentious and belly button gazing to the extreme to me. I have images of herbal teas, no shoes allowed in the Dojo, a couple people practicing "writers block Tai Chi" in the corner, and lots of passive-aggressive signs posted up all over the place on how and when to do the dishes, "rules for guests", music issues (Holly only wants acoustic music while Peter really wants to play his roots rock CD mix, man), and tons of meetings talking about writing and what the writers community means to everyone, but not actually doing any writing. It's enough to drive one writer crazy.

But perhaps I'm letting my imagination get the best of me. Murder at the Writers Dojo would make an excellent short story though, no? Where one moody writer is killed and Detective K.A. must figure out who did it amongst the "whacky" cast of eccentric writer characters that inhabit the Dojo.

And see there, the Writers Dojo Community just inspired me to write something. Cost? Free.

[Matt Davis]

This post is precisely why you'll never be accepted into Portland's "creative class," Kevin.

Shame on you.

[melissa lion]

Hey, thanks for the mention. I will also say they have no desks.

Here's my thinking on the whole thing -- I lived in San Francisco for ten years. In that time, I was invited to exactly zero writing clubs or groups or whatever, despite my being published by Random House (under the Knopf umbrella, no less). I wasn't part of SF's literary clique and so I wasn't someone who mattered much.

Here in Portland, it seems there's a small clique happening, which grates on my nerves, but maybe this Writers' Dojo is the first step in more of an inclusive group with a center. If the Writers' Dojo has enough money to put on events for writers that will be open to the public, then we all benefit. If it becomes a center for the writing community, both rent paying and not, then wow, how lucky are we.

The party was fun, though. And it had my favorite moment -- an old guy approaching me and asking me, "You're so young, what are you writing and where do you hope to get that published?" When I explained that I'm under contract for my third novel with Random House, and that my second one is optioned for a movie, he just had to inform me, "you are very lucky." I told him, "I call it talent."

Oh writers, we're a fun bunch.

[Laura]

Sigh... St. John's. Well, there goes the neighborhood.

[metroknow]

I will be joining the Dobro. And driving to the meetings in my new Kia Diaspora.