In an act of pure, unadulterated road rage, a pissed-off driver rhinoed into the left side of my vehicle several weeks back.

Impressed by his ballsy maneuver, I caught myself feeling slightly amused as I opened up my door, stepped out and squatted down into a catcher’s stance to assess the damage.

Both I and the other driver were perfectly fine. But, the incident has left me without a car.

When you’re without a mode of transportation in Nashville, you find yourself partaking in a bizarre behavior that not many Nashvillians partake in: you walk.

Just this evening, I high-tailed it for 3-miles from my little home in East Nashville to an old renovated church I work out of.

When I arrived and I tore the back-pack from my shoulders, I could feel the heat waft off of my over-sized Carhartt t-shirt like the breath of a panting dog.

Not another soul was in the building so I promptly kicked off my road-worn Sauconys, tore off my socks and started writing.

As I write this now, the naked soles of my feet rest atop the strawberry red Oriental rug beneath me like I’m winding down in the living room of my own home.

All this bring me to the topic of “location”. We’ve talked at length about creative process but we’ve rarely, if ever, talked about location.

There are these two stray cats I know who are as thick as thieves. They roam my neighborhood late at night looking for all sorts of low-hanging fruit to sink their teeth into: mice, nesting birds and open-mouthed trashcans.

Just the other night, I caught the two of them attempting to bore a hole in a bag of take-out waiting for me at my front door.

When I opened the gate, the latch scared the shit out of them and they darted off like I had plans to skin them.

I took my take-out inside and as I was about to tear into it, I immediately felt responsible for these two bandits.

So, I put down my work, poured some of June’s wet dog food on a plate and left it outside in case they got hungry. In the morning, the plate looked like it had been run through the dishwasher.

I’m rambling on about these two neighborhood cats because they keep coming back to the place they know they’re going to get fed.

Location works this same way in the creative process.

You find a location; a place. You focus all of your attention in this place. You create some good work there. Suddenly, the place takes on a kind of magic. And, you keep showing up to the same place because you can expect this magic; you can expect that you’re going to get fed.

It’s probably superstition but there’s a part of me that believes you’ve got to find a place and keep showing up to that place so that the muse knows where to set out your food.

But, I digress.

By Cole Schafer.

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