I have a Designated Writing Zone in my house. I’ve written many thousands of words in it, and I’ve even blogged about it. But sometimes I need other voices, other rooms. Fortunately Portland has many places where you can park yourself for extended periods of time to work on your manuscript. Here are four I recommend:

Backspace Cafe — This cafe is also an all-ages music venue, so if you arrive in the afternoon and stick around into the evening, expect to experience a shift in the atmosphere. Plus there’s a gaming section, so if you’ve made your wordcount goal and want to reward yourself with some time in World of Warcraft, you totally can.

Press Club — When a restaurant names its menu items after authors, you know they’re the sort of place you can linger with your laptop. The Press Club also has a fine selection of literary and arts magazines, so if inspiration lags, you can be inspired by the works of others.

Southeast Grind — This coffeeshop, which serves the ever-popular Voodoo Doughnuts among its other snack options, is open twenty-four hours. Need I say more?

Sterling Room for Writers, Multnomah County Library — You need to apply to use the Sterling Writers Room, but the application is short and you can fill it out online. You can write elsewhere inside the Central Library, too, of course — but it’s pretty cool to write in an official Writers Room, right?

I first noticed the bus months ago.

photo by Marcus Hibdon via portlandspoke.com

Every time I saw it, I thought I really need to go in. Every time until today, I went on with whatever else I was doing.

I don’t know why I waited so long.

Turns out it’s just as much fun to find clothes and accessories and ephemera inside a bus as it is to eat grilled cheese sandwiches in one.

I would like Lodekka‘s offerings even if they were not in such a pleasing container.

But it is especially enjoyable to be in a shop where the dressing room has an emergency door:

(The curtain covers it, but it really is an emergency door.)

And an estate sale devotee such as myself could not fail to appreciate this particular piece of ephemera:

Because the way you want to advertise your funeral home is with a picture of a boy and his dog.

The slogan’s nice, though: Our aim is to be worthy of your friendship. Mine, too.

I was tempted to make this into a user icon. Still might. Sadly my camera couldn’t capture the rotating X-rays behind the bird-mask mannequin’s head. I love that she has no hand.

Risked an accident by quickly snapping this through my car window at a red light. Foolish, I know, but the stencil-art umbrella girl fit so well with the actual rain.

Sighted near one of Portland’s myriad food cart pods. I like the combination of industrial and rustic-decor components.

Any guesses as to function?

We were mostly quiet while he read. Not, I would attest, because we weren’t appreciating the humor and nuance of the language, but because we wanted to be able to hear. It can be tricky when the room’s that crowded.

Steve and I were standing near the elevator. At one point a guy got out, looked aghast at the sea of humanity, and made his determined way toward the Architecture section.

One of the people in front of us appeared to have a double-jointed knee, bent distractingly backward.

Multiple notable handlebar mustaches were in evidence.

The line that got the biggest laugh was near the end of the reading: “Inchmale’s subclinical sadism sometimes finding a deserving target.”

I took notes during the Q&A, but sometimes I just got his responses sans Q.

On what’s next: “Not only do I have no idea, I kind of have to have no idea.”

“I don’t want anybody to think that I’ve gone Tom Clancy.”

“SF is a narrative strategy rather than a genre.”

The next biggest laugh came after the question that began with something like: “I don’t think of you as a funny writer, but…” and went on to praise his humor.

He remarked that he felt that his humor didn’t usually get much attention because journalists can’t do hooks that involve more than two concepts.

“Neuromancer was not without a certain comic edge; my colleagues and I sniggered about it mightily…in our cyberpunk ratholes.”

The answer most comforting to the other writers in the room (or to this one, anyway) was when he confessed that he would not recommend his writing process to anyone, that he never gets any more confident about it.

Lots of questions about technology, how his work is both influenced by and influences it, and if there were particular technologies that had surprised him. One answer:

“Try to imagine an sf novel written in 1981 wherein the driving technology is cellular telephony…the world in which we live is irrevocably and multiply and complexly changed by cellular telephony.”

On how it’s different to publish a book now: “Books are surrounded by an invisible cloud of hyperlinks…readers will find easter eggs because you’ll be going to the source material for a lot of what I did.”

On an e-reader demo: “Software that tracks your eye — if your eye is wandering it can give you a DDZT! — or show you illustrations in the margins…”

Authors he recommends: Iain Sinclair, Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, and Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack.

On cyberpunk: “When I started, my model was not the Sex Pistols. I was fired up for the idea of a roots movement: Waylon and Willie going to Nashville and saying ‘You fools, get this plastic shit off the table, this can really kick some ass…’”

On cyberpunk, part 2: “Now you can say ‘That album is cyberpunk. Those pants are a little cyberpunk,’ and people know what you mean. Cyberpunk has become a Pantone chip in the spectrum of popular culture.”

On cyberpunk, part 3: “Anything that begins with a manifesto is going to end up slightly embarrassing.”

I didn’t stay to get the book signed, but I already own it twice: the nice hardcover (although I prefer the UK cover with that cool barcode detail), and the audiobook.

Thanks for visiting Portland, Mr. Gibson. Come back again.

I realized earlier this summer that simply by tweaking one or more of those routines, I can feel like I’m on vacation. Hence the title of this post, which I prefer to the awkward neologism “staycation.”

Since it has so many distinctive pockets, Portland is especially conducive to tiny vacations. All you have to do is leave your own neighborhood and go somewhere you usually don’t. Doing something you don’t usually do also counts. This past weekend, we had two tiny vacations: breakfast at The Detour Cafe and a show at Mississippi Studios. Highlights of the first: ivy-covered patio, delicious food, and the local fauna, including various birds and a tan French bulldog. Highlights of the second: acoustics, company, and the surprisingly raw, ragged energy between the musicians, both of whom were apparently departing significantly from the playing styles for which they were known.

Gone on any tiny vacations lately?

As promised, here are my slides:

As I said during the presentation, the bullet points about each title I highlighted during the trend snapshot piece are absolutely not intended to cover all aspects of a book, simply the trend(s) it represents.

Questions, comments, passionate disagreement — all welcome!

2. I recorded another Rules for Hearts podcast! (Link is directly to the mp3.) See, people, when you bug me via the Formspring, it works! Because anonymous Internet questions are the new peer pressure. Or maybe they are actually the old peer pressure.

3. Saturday morning, May 22nd, 9 AM, on the Portland State University campus in the Smith Memorial Student Union on the third floor. I am going to talk about YA Trends. AND Audience. Not just trends, not just audience. BOTH. As part of the Ooligan Press Write to Publish conference. I will remind you about this again, I bet.

• The new What A Girl Wants post is up! (And I am blushing because Colleen says very kind things about my work in the introduction.) We wrote about the books we wished we’d read when we were sixteen.

• Portlanders! On Saturday, 5/22 I’ll be giving a talk at the Ooligan Press-sponsored Write to Publish conference on “YA Trends And Audience.” It’s at 9 AM, which is counter to the trend of when I like to wake up on the weekend, so I will make sure to be especially caffeinated! Y’all come!

I, um, don’t spend a lot of time outside typically. So today I met up with my friend Deborah in an attempt to partially remedy that.

Outside can be awfully pretty.

And because we are in Portland, sometimes it includes giant acupuncture needles.

Tuley investigated the painted pillar with interest, but failed to obey its recommendation to chill.

Think I’ve seen both these stencils on other walls, and possibly also on t-shirts.

Clearly an offering, but we weren’t sure to what or whom.

Perhaps an attempt to propitiate the owners of this vehicle?

Spotted something shiny. What’s inside, we wondered?

+ 1 glamour, of course!