Every writer wishes they had their own soundproof room. A foam fitted chamber where the only distractions are the scuffling of their clothing, blood swishing in their eardrums, and heartbeats reverberating through their bones. Alas most writers find themselves in cramped into honeycomb habitats where audio pollution is a given. Megaphonic metropolises, with their medical motorcades and high decibel helipads, aren’t planned around clear headspaces.
That’s why so many authors abandon their apartments for the apparent sanctuary of coffeehouses, but there they find all manner of new auditory interference: stockbrokers who don’t know how to modulate their voices, coders beating rhythms into keyboards, and serial venters bending the baristas’ ear.
That’s why it’s so refreshing to hear about a writer who managed to distance himself from all of those distractors. Author Drew Chial has pioneered the perfect technique for establishing his own boundaries and it’s called: being a creep.
“I used to carry a pair of backpacks set one on the stool to my right and one the left, but the staff got wise to what I was doing. That’s when I decided to make myself the reason patrons decided to move on.”
Whether he is letting his gaze linger too long on a young woman, reading over his neighbor’s shoulder, or treating the bar like a standing desk Chial is a master at establishing boundaries.
“When a Tinder date sits down beside me I align my eardrum like an eavesdropping satellite. Then I draw out my expressions like I’m giving their date the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment in my mind. I start typing when they get quiet, but it’s always the same thing over and over again: All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.”
It’s this mastery of non-verbal communication that allows Chial to get his work done.
“I’ve got a secret weapon to manage all manner of personal space invaders.”
He has a sack full of airline liquor bottles to pour into his coffee for whenever an alcoholics anonymous one on one sets up beside him.
Chial keeps attractive women away by staring at the door like a lost deer, theatrically double then triple-taking as people walk in.
“I like to slide on a pair of sunglasses like I’m hiding my eyeline, leave them on the tip of my nose, and wait until the moment we make eye contact. Then I push them up and mouth breath heavily. Do this enough times and you’ll have the bar to yourself. Oh, and keep a DSLR camera on the counter. I don’t know why, but that also works.”
Chial even has a tactic for dealing with other creeps.
“The hardest bubble-burster to deal with is another writer. They’re already in their own little world, only vaguely aware of the lunacy in their periphery. That’s why I bust out my restless legs and play my swivel seat like a percussion instrument. From the footrest to the the counter I am a blur. It took a while to hone this skill. The first few times it felt like I was running a marathon, but now I never skip a leg day. I practice with a double kickdrum peddle at home. Whenever a fellow writer makes the mistake of entering my domain I just cue up my headphones and tap out some Norwegian death metal.”
You may have noticed that Chial’s revolutionary boundary defining methods are catching on. A fleet of creeps have spread throughout the nation’s coffee houses, utilizing Chial’s self-care techniques. So the next to you see someone in shades, panting like a dog in heat as you make your order, give them their space. They’ve got writing to do.
•••
Meet Noelle, a Hollywood transplant that’s been subsisting on instant ramen and false hope. She’s on the verge of moving back into her mother’s trailer when her agent convinces her to take a meeting at the Oralia Hotel. Enchanted by the art deco atmosphere Noelle signs a contract without reading the fine print.
Now she has one month to pen a novel sequestered in a fantasy suite where a hack writer claims he had an unholy encounter. With whom you ask? Well, he has many names: Louis Cypher, Bill Z. Bub, Kel Diablo. The Devil.
Noelle is skeptical, until she’s awoken by a shadow figure with a taste for souls.
Desperate to make it Noelle stays on, shifting the focus of her story to these encounters. Her investigations take her through the forth wall and back again until she’s blurred the line between reality and what’s written. Is there a Satanic conspiracy, is it a desperate author’s insanity, or something else entirely?