For a man who has spent his entire adult life in America, between New York and Los Angeles, David Hay still sounds like an Australian. He attributes it to being tone-deaf. (I guess it’s a good thing he’s a writer and not a singer!)

Hay’s dad was an Ambassador for the UN, so he grew up traveling the world and spending a good amount of time in New York, having “all these great New York experiences”. He didn’t realize it at the time, but he was pretty much inundated in culture: “I saw all these great plays and whatever. I was taken to everything… my parents had all this access to great culture.”

With an M.F.A. from the UCLA film school, Hay now finds himself spending all of his time writing. He is a playwright, working on revising his second full-length play, “A Perfect Future” and about to begin a new one. He also writes about architecture for magazines, he mentions as a side note.

“Writing is hard. You just gotta get up and start and do the work. Obviously you think about whether something’s good enough or whether it’s developed enough, but you can’t get bogged down by that. When you’re actually doing it, you’re not worried about all those other issues, you’re just dealing with the issues at hand. It really all depends on your own ability not to get distracted. It always starts off sort of agonizingly slow. You have some ideas, and then you go through all the typical procrastination things. Sometimes, I’ll just sit and do nothing. Or, like, clean all the tiles in the kitchen. And then, suddenly, you get going and you just write and write and write. You forget about everything else: you lose track of time, you forget to eat or shower. There’s really nothing else you can do but write.”

I am mystified by the creative process. I recently watched a speech on the website for the TED conferences (an incredible site, but more on that later!) by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of “Eat, Pray, Love”, who posed the question: “What is it specifically about creative ventures that seems to make us really nervous about each other’s mental health in a way that other careers kind of don’t do?” According to her, in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the people believed that creativity came not from people, but from some disembodied source. I love that. I definitely believe in divine creative muses. I know that for me, creative inspiration always comes in spurts, and usually shows up when I least expect it. Gilbert believes that the pressure of “being a genius” rather than “having a genius” has been killing off artists for hundreds of years. As an artist, you’re constantly being asked: “Aren’t you afraid? Afraid of failure / afraid of success / afraid of running out of steam or going dry on ideas?” But the thing about any creative person is that their faith in their art is stronger than any fear.

For me, being a creative person is not a choice. It is who I am. I can’t change the musical phrases that pop up in my head all the time or the waves of color and swirls that flash in my mind. I’m sure plenty of musicians and writers and painters and directors feel much the same way. I think that a lot of the time, you just need to turn off all the noise around you, both figuratively and literally, so that you can capitalize on the creative inspiration in you. Turn off the pressure and the expectations and the deadlines and just let the creativity flow. There’s nothing that makes me happier than sitting down to create something at 2 am when the energy of the city has quieted down and my ‘crackberry’ is napping for a while. When the only thing I have to be afraid of is the wind whistling at the windows, which in comparison to all the other fears people assume are in my head, is almost like a lullaby.

This is Pierre. He is a retired French man, from Brittany, who lives on the West side of Manhattan. He spends his sunny days in Bryant Square Park playing Petanque. He is as much a recruiter as a player, happily telling anyone with any curiosity that, starting in April, the “school” will be open and he and his French pals will be there, at the Northwest corner of the park, with enough Petanque balls to share. If you are unfamiliar with the French game, Petanque, Pierre will be happy to teach you all about it at their “school” in the park.

Essentially, Petanque, (pronounced “Pah-tahnk”) is the French version of the Italian game, Bocce, and also somewhat similar to horseshoes. It originated in Provence in the early 1900s and is one of Europe’s most popular outdoor games (as well as New York City’s apparently). As petanqueamerica.com explains, “The aim is to toss, or roll a number of hollow steel balls (“boules”) as close as possible to a small wooden target ball, called “but” or “cochonnet” (meaning “piglet” in French). Players take turns and the team that ends up nearest to the target ball when all balls are played, wins. Unlike horseshoes, where the aim stake is fixed, Petanques’ target ball may be hit at any time, which can completely turn around the score at the last second. And whereas the official bocce rules call for a smooth, prepared court with markers and sideboards, Petanque can be played on most outdoor surfaces, without any setup.”

Even if the game is uninteresting to you, spending the afternoon with Pierre is sure to be some of the best entertainment around.