After all, the distance any of us non-New York writers have from New York is frustrating, but also valuable. There’s an option to retreat from the noise–or, okay, the music–that I don’t think a writer in, say, Brooklyn has. This distance has benefited me for the last four years, as I write and write, without looking up, or around, me.
Edan Lepucki, Going Native: Writing Place in Los Angeles over at The Millions

This whole piece is great. I have to admit that living in a genuinely boring place has helped my writing, somewhat. At least the pace. The role of place and location in writing is the thing I’m most interested in at the moment.

But I do miss a literary scene, which Brooklyn has in spades. I’ve lived in cities (Boston) for longer than I needed to simply due to their bookstores (Harvard Bookstore, you are my favorite).