How to avoid distraction

For the last couple of days, in the interests of actually getting some writing done, I've hired the front room in the Michael King Writers' Centre in Devonport. It's in the most extraordinary position: halfway up Mount Victoria, looking out onto the harbour, opposite the tennis courts, just up from Devonport Primary.

The reason I work here is to avoid distraction. Ha! What a joke. It's the most distracting place in New Zealand, especially from that front bedroom. Every thirty seconds someone walks up Mount Victoria, or cycles down Mount Victoria (rarely the other way round, I've found), and they're always far more fascinating than whatever I'm supposed to be writing.

Today, for instance, I watched a school class go by. The stragglers were a good ten minutes behind the others, with a frustrated teacher shepherding them from behind. A couple of sweaty guys sweated up the hill and played a quick sweaty game of sweaty tennis (can't help thinking this should only be a winter occupation for them, yes?). There are always various people - this is my favourite part of being there - who wander into the driveway, past my pink car, to study the placards telling them what the MK centre is, and then think they'll have a look around, little expecting to find real live writers peering out at them from behind the blinds. I shock a good few tourists a day. It's great. And there's Martin in the studio who has a residency there; I expect he takes a good few out as well.

To my very great delight, after I'd spent a good hour gossiping with the wonderful Karren who runs the place, I sat behind my secret blinds and watched a whole family of tourists whizz up the pathway on Segues (those little platforms on wheels, with tall handlebars). It was like seeing the Jetsons doing their shopping, and it felt like one of my own creations come to life. Then as I made a cup of Earl Grey to tide me through the last chapter I wrote today, a paddle steamer went by, from one side of the kitchen window to the other. How beautiful. Paddle steamers -who even has those any more? It was a gorgeous NZ contrast - the very modern with the very trad.

Amazingly, however, with all these things to look at I did manage to get a monumental amount of work done. I don't really know why it is, when my own house is quiet and lovely and has my desk in it, that I can spend hours doing no work at all, and yet when I'm perpetually distracted by stuff going on outside, I seem to be able to do heaps. Perhaps it's to do with the fact that I'm paying for this place and feel I need to get my money's worth.

Actually I think it may have more to do with the quality of the distractions. At home the distractions run roughly in this order - other writing work, housework especially loading and unloading dishwasher, dog-walking, emails, MySky, Googling random things. At the Michael King Centre, distractions are inspirations. I'm sure time-travelling paddle-steamer passengers are going to leap onto Segues and play sweaty tennis within a couple of chapters of me seeing them.

I adore the MK centre. I spent Christmas and New Year 2008/9 and most of January there, and it was the most wonderful Kiwi Christmas I've ever had. We had heaps of visitors because we were in this wonderful place, and whole weekends could pass by without me moving off the verrandah. We skulled wine, watched sunsets and ferries galore, played guitar and sang badly and for too long, saw New Year fireworks from the top of the volcano with 500 drunken 20 year olds , and probably drove Devonport mad. Devonport is lovely; it doesn't deserve to be driven mad. Apologies, Devonport.

But you do have a bit of a gem in your midst. Writers should all know that these wonderful vistas are available for hire, but it's one of those secrets you'd rather keep to yourself. And hopefully, with a few more days of spying on the outside world, I'll produce a gem of my own. Here's to you, Michael K. http://www.writerscentre.org.nz/