Crazy that lots of artists, writers, comics, and movie stars would probably describe themselves this way.
Sure other people are around, but you don’t by and large collaborate with them.
A mean, take a stand-up comic. You get there an hour early for a one-hour show and stay an hour late when it’s done. That’s three hours per day of hustle and bustle. The other 21 hours are quiet hotel rooms and anonymous airport lounges.
Writers are even worse. It’s four hours a day in a room alone with your thoughts and a blank page (maybe another three or four hours per day reading too.)
That I may I be called one of you one day.
Guess I gotta eventually watch the movie now…
He booked my travel, set up the props, checked the sound, and ran the lights. Despite his presence, on the road I was fundamentally a loner, withdrawn and solitary, and his introduction of mournful Irish folk music into my life didn’t help my mood. We would drive at night from job to job, listening to cassette tapes of the Bothy Band. Sad, lonely songs for the sad, lonely road. One of the tunes, “The Maid of Coolmore,” inspired a film I wrote twelve years later, L.A. Story.
-Steve Martin, Born Standing Up (Amazon)