It’s messy and short on time and squeezed into the cracks of life.

Don’t believe me? I found a cup of hot tea and an unoccupied table at one of North America’s biggest shopping malls on a busy Friday evening while my family is off browsing through shoe stores and spending money on who knows what.

I didn’t bring a keyboard. 

I am resorting to typing this on my phone. 

But it was either sit down and write something, or wander around tripping over ten thousand shoppers and their giant bags of momentary indulgences.

I choose to write, ideal situation or not.

Not everyone’s first choice, sure, but as frequently as I can I like to do something that viscerally reminds my creative self that writers bring their stories to the page, the page doesn’t come and wait for our stories.

I’ve been haunting this particular shopping mall since I was a kid. West Edmonton Mall has an indoor theme park (which I just wandered thru), skating rink (which was occupied by a few dozen skaters this evening), a water park (which had closed for the evening shortly before I strolled by) and a life size pirate ship parked on an indoor lake (which was by the bookstore that briefly caught my attention before I decided to park here.) My Kid works here. We drive over every month or so and try to not be overwhelmed. 

This place is full of stories, and I can reach into my own personal history dating back decades and sometimes even make sense of them.

Why not spend a few minutes spilling out some creativity here, too, ideal conditions be darned. Keyboard less… or opportunity more.

Are there places in the world that are better for certain types of creativity, or is it possible to find community outside of noted centres of imagination: San Francisco, Paris, Tokyo, to name a few that come to mind when pause to I think.

I find when evaluating spectra of a thing, it helps to look for the opposite: if we are asking if hotspots for creativity exist, what is the opposite of that?

As I write this I am coming off of a temporary gig up in the northern parts of my province where I was even deeper into nowhere than I usually am. I was in a small rural community for a whole week and out of happenstance and curiosity I tried to figure out if I could buy some watercolour paints (I’d left mine at home.)

“You’d probably need to get something like that off Amazon.” The hotel receptionist suggested.

Imagine that, I thought to myself. 

I personally got started in watercolour because I was in an art store and I impulse-purchased supplies. Then I took a local class. Then I found other people who could paint and I used them as inspiration. 

My home city is hardly a hotspot for watercolour painting, but it is very telling to see what something looks like when it isn’t even a “spot” let alone a hotspot for a specific kind of creativity. 

I didn’t buy one.

But I did realize that the idea itself is solid, and if implemented in other ways has a secondary and perhaps more important benefit.

For my own version, I bought a small, lightweight bluetooth keyboard, tethered a small phone stand to the wrist strap (yes, my keyboard has a wrist strap) and I keep it handy when I go out to run errands or on travel jaunts or am just playing dad’s taxi. 

It is not only about eliminating distractions, but it also becomes about casual convenience and opportunity. 

I am sitting in a cafe right now writing this on my portable setup while I wait for an appointment. I could have brought my computer but I didn’t want to lug it around all morning. I could have brought a book, but why read when I can write? I went light, and then realized I had both time to kill …and a keyboard in my car.

In this case the distractionlessness is secondary to the opportunity to create—and to create on the go.

I’m not selling anything here except the idea that the best creative tool is the one you have ready when you are ready and able to create something. A sketchbook in your pocket. A camera on your phone. A keyboard in the glovebox of your vehicle.

You might think that a simpler and more convenient tool is not going to showcase your best work, but when the alternative is making nothing at all I would argue that making something in the moment is better than having the best tools and never having them around when opportunity strikes.