I think we all need at least one really nice positive thing about the entertainment business every single day of the year, including weekends. Sometimes it may be something simple, like a video that showcases something fun and sometimes it may be a movie poster that embraces the aesthetic we all want Hollywood to aspire to. Sometimes it may be a long-winded diatribe. Sometimes it’ll be from the staff and extended family of CHUD.com. Maybe even you readers can get in on it. So, take this to the bank. Every day, you will get a little bit of positivity from one column a day here. Take it with you. Maybe it’ll help you through a bad day or give folks some fun things to hunt down in their busy celluloid digesting day.
1.17.11
By Joshua Miller: Facebook Page
What I’m Thankful For:
My coffee shop
I’m not gonna blow smoke up your ass. There are essentially no downsides to being self-employed and working from home. Flexible wake up time. No traffic. No dress code. No annoying coworkers. The latitude to just fuck off from work if need be. Yes, there are dangerous temptations, like the close proximity to booze and video games, but I stopped finding writing drunk fun in my mid-20’s, and frankly nothing re-energizes me like a few quick Mario Kart races. No, as far as my experience has been, there is only one legitimate pitfall to working from home…
Growing to hate your home.
When you’ve been slaving all day in an office, or wherever you might ply your trade, there is a comforting satisfaction in returning home to your pad at the end of the day. Home = Not at work. It is your sanctuary. Conversely, there is a slow degradation of aesthetic pleasure in working on your couch all day, day after day, then deciding it is quitting time and continuing to sit on the same couch. Soon you begin to associate your home with work more than you do home. This can be overcome if you have a big house, and the space to create a work space the is removed from your living space (I know many big name authors will often have a writing “shack” out in their backyard). And though I did just have a book published (boom! shameless plug!), I’m not quite pulling down the Stephen King $$$ yet.
So to keep from growing crazy, often I need to abandon my apartment during the working hours. Enter the coffee shop! In particular, The Bourgeois Pig. It has a fun shaggy hipster vibe, though sometimes the service can be impossibly slow. But it is across the street from my apartment, so that is where I go.
Of course, in Hollywood (where I live), writing in a coffee shop is the ultimate cliche. But it is a cliche I enjoy. I’m in the Bourgeois Pig right now, and there is something so fantastic and mildly exciting about scanning the packed room and seeing everyone working on something creative (definitely hipster country; I’m counting roughly 85% Apple laptops, me included). A walk to the bathroom set me on a trail past people working on screenplays, blogs, what looked like a novel or short story, graphic design work, music software, and one guy was even editing some video. I am always filled with a sense of satisfaction here. This is why I moved to LA, to be surrounded by other people striving and thriving in their own creative pursuits. Waiting in line for the john, I overheard two writers trying to puzzle through a tricky plot point in their action movie. Smile on face, accomplished.
Then once I’ve run out of brain gas, I can stroll home to my apartment and get the sense of “Ahh, I’m home” that your abode should provide after a day on the job.
So for helping delay the day I burn my apartment to the ground, I am thankful for my coffee shop.