Hotels and Writing

[codemer]

With my unusually high level of travel in the last month, I've noticed that I do not get much in the way of writing done. Maybe it's the lack of screaming kids and barking dogs (sleep, write... sleep, write... which one should I choose).

 

I've heard romantic stories of how Stephan King wrote The Shining while staying at the Stanley in Estes Park. I've been up there a few times, and quite frankly I think he's ruined it for the rest of us because there are too many tourists running around to even think (beautiful place though). Do any of you out there have a hotel that inspires you? Does it matter where you are?

 

Live from SF,

IF

[Steve E]

One of my favorite stories is about "2001: A Space Odyssey", by the late great Arthur C. Clark. The director, the also late and also great Stanley Kubrick, was on a tight schedule and needed the screenplay in a hurry but Clark wasn't getting anywhere. So Kubrick put Clarke up at the (very expensive even for NYC) Plaza for a weekend. Clarke not only pounded out the legendary screenplay in a single marathon session (on a typewriter!) but managed to include portions of the Plaza and his own room in the manuscript. (Remember the "Vanilla Room" where Dave "dies"? It's Clarke's suite sans monolith. Monoliths are extra.)

 

I've been to the Plaza a few time. It's inspiring. But not as inspiring as the nearby Pierre.

 

But inspirational environs come in many forms. Case and point: prison. A lot of good books came out of real hell holes: prisons, gulags, concentration camps, war-torn nations. Inspiration can come from anywhere. Even SF.

 

Live from New York, it's Saturday Night, er,

it's Thoth.

[astillac]

Actually, I do my best work at Denny's. Go figure.