My Rig

I was a drummer long before I was a writer, and drummers, in case you don’t know any, are some of the weirdest people you’ll meet. Guitarists and singers mostly get into music and bands because they want to get laid, and their personalities, by and large, reflect this. They’re outgoing, they’re generally personable, and they can’t wait to get out and play live. Drummers (okay, and keyboard players), are the ones who really do join bands so they can practice the same song 40 times until it sounds right. We’re the ones who tend not to give a shit if we ever play out in front of people. (Bass players are sometimes this way, too, but mostly they’re the guys who hang around the band until the band realizes they have no bass player.) We will waste hours of practice time futzing with our setups and tunings, and I’ve never met a drummer who wasn’t maniacal about his setup.

Our seats have to be 29 1/4″ off the ground, not 29 or 29 1/2″. Our cymbals have to be exactly even with our ears, and tilted inward at a 30-degree angle exactly an arm’s length from either side of our bodies. Don’t get me started on footwear, or strap-driven pedals vs. chain-driven. So we’re exacting, but we have to be — as the most physical members of any group (we’re using all four limbs here) we have to be concerned with balance, leverage, and finding the way to output the most power with the least possible amount of energy wasted. Ah, but here’s the thing: Drummers, unless you’re a Ben Folds type who insists on carting around a baby grand piano or a harpist like Joanna Newsom, also have the least-portable instrument. For this reason, we end up playing on other people’s equipment more than we’d like to, and most of that 29 1/4″/30-degree angle stuff has to go right out the window.

Writing is ridiculously similar to drumming. Writers are, sorry to inform you, needy fucks who will freeze up if “their” table is taken at Panera, or if Barnes & Noble has stopped stocking their special green Moleskine notebook, or if the sunlight hits their arm the wrong way at their desk. Seriously, you’ve never met a bigger bunch of babies, Your Author included. Yet, like drummers, we’re often required to adapt to our equipment and our surroundings. If we didn’t, we’d never get anything done.

I used to write at home, at night, in the back bedroom that serves as an office in our house. I got through grad school this way, and it served me well. And then it didn’t. With the grad-school deadlines gone, even with my own self-imposed rigid schedule my home office was suddenly…so home-bound. Sure, there was a desk, and there was the same computer I’d used to write four consecutive semesters’ worth of stuff, but there, too, was the laundry. And, just downstairs, the dishes. And the kids’ lunches, and — “Hey, I didn’t get all my work-work done today, so I should probably take just a few minutes to….”

It was my wife who suggested I get the hell out of the house. “Just go somewhere and write for an hour, the way someone else might go to the gym.” So I did, and it helped. A few years on, now, and I really can write nearly anywhere, so long as it’s not home. (Look: I can write at home, it’s just VERY distracting. More often than not, when I write at home I end up plotting and rereading and making notes — all of which is not to be underestimated.) However, my favorite place to write is, I’m nearly embarrassed to say, Starbucks.

I used to deride Starbucks as an overpriced Wilco jukebox that catered to upper-middle-class people with giant laptops. My big joke was that if you wanted to rid the world of amateur memoirists, just vaporize all the Starbucks. And now I sit in one and write every day. But it’s perfect for me. I’ve tried every other coffee place in town, and I really tried to love the independent coffee shop that’s RIGHT NEAR MY DAMN HOUSE, but their seats are shitty and it’s not crowded enough. I need a really noisy conversational environment (I enwomb myself in music and earbuds), and Starbucks certainly fits the bill. If I sit down and someone’s not shouting financial details into his cell phone, then surely I’ve walked into the wrong place. Also, a small coffee at the Dunkin Donuts in my town is actually 5 cents more expensive than at Starbucks. More than that, the Starbucks-issue chairs and tables are the perfect height for me, and the perfect ratio to each other. I am a drummer.

For my birthday this year, I got an iPad. I wasn’t sure I wanted one, but once I had it in my hands, my first thought was: There has to be a way to write on this. And there is! Ladies and gentlemen, all you need is the Pages app* and a bluetooth keyboard. I didn’t think this was particularly unusual, but here we come to the odd side-effect of writing in a public place: People will come up and ask what the hell you’re writing on. Even if you’re wearing earbuds. This has happened enough (daily, for months now) that I thought I’d post pictures of my writing rig. So here:

iPad, kickstand case, bluetooth keyboard

And this is how the precious iPad is set up:

But wait! you say. Why use an iPad at all? Why don’t you just write on a laptop? Ah, my foolish friend, because…

That, my friends, is how the magic is made. Also, I think of it. But as far as capturing the magic while at a crowded chain coffee store which has so-so coffee but really excellent apple fritters, that’s how I do my iPad setup.

XO,

Matt