Writers find all sorts of reasons for not writing. A lack of concentration is a common one. Anything that breaks focus on the work at hand becomes tantamount to crossing the Gobi desert, on foot, with no water. This is especially true if the writer’s fount of ideas is running dry.

That’s what sets off Jack Nicholson in “The Shinning” – okay, that and being cooped up with just two people, far from other living beings (lots of ghosts, though), and hemmed in by snow up to his eyeballs.

For me, the challenges come from the never-abating din of living in a large city with houses touching one another, no insulation whatsoever to block noise, neighbors who don’t understand or care that you can hear everything and streets busy with every kind of traffic imaginable.

Strident señora in the house to the left of us is always yelling at her kids, her husband, her neighbors, vendors, you name it. If I cared to listen I would probably know a lot more about the misery caused her by her ungrateful children, unfaithful husband, bothersome door-to-door salesmen, the Chinese grocer who may or may not have short-changed her and everyone else in the world.

American music-loving teens in the house on the right of us blast their stereo from noon every day until two in the afternoon. At that time, we get relief from Michael Jackson and Gloria Estefan and tune into ear-shatteringly loud Costa Rican music. Apparently, the adults in the household own only one CD. We’ve considered asking the neighbors to contribute to the purchase of a few more disks for variety.

The street in front is fairly active and, you guessed it, noisy: mostly with muffler-less cars, equally loud motorcycles and the occasional city bus in which the driver feels compelled to beep at every half block. The squealing tires as cars take the curves too fast are akin to fingernails on a blackboard. But these sounds come in waves with the worse being the afternoon rush hours and, by then, I’ve knocked off for the day.

Thankfully, soccer tournament days are on weekends as cheers and fireworks explode in the homes and yards surrounding us. When the game has been won, every driver will toot his horn at every pedestrian in a greeting of solidarity.

When all is quiet, I’ll hear a cat pitty-patting on the corrugated tin roof above me – a noise that I find pleasant but will get every dog in the neighborhood barking. Which gets the rooster crowing, at any time of the day. Which gets the hens clucking – a dissonance only because we are in the middle of a city of over a million people.

But I have two strategies for dealing with these constant interrupter of the creative flow.

Blocking out the music, cars, señora, dogs and roosters requires ear plugs, a fan running next to my desk, closing every door and window in the house and a degree of focus that is sure to make me sweat blood. The other way to block the noise is completely out of my control – but as regular as the day is long – heavy downpours every afternoon give me the quiet that sometimes manages to drown out all noise and allows me a quick nap in the short-lived and relative quiet.

The traffic squeals and honks. The music thumps, bumps and roars. The dogs bark. The roosters crow. The hens cluck. And all is washed away by the sounds of the afternoon rain pounding my tin roof.

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