I’m just such a sucker for cafés. It’s almost a default activity.
Even though I no longer dare drink coffee other than the one I have first thing
with breakfast. I’m tending these days to go for the pot of Earl Grey.
I almost use a café visit as an artist’s treat or maybe as a
reward for having achieved something: picked
up a royalty cheque, completed a project or had a piece of work or a project accepted.
Then, of course, I’m allowed to try the cake
as well. As a celebration.
Yet there is more to it than that. Being in a café feels to me as if it puts me
in contact with my readership. I don’t often write in cafés –
I like to write straight on to the computer.
But I do make notes and I enjoy reading other people’s work in cafes. I often find a café the best place to critique
other people’s work. I like to sit with
a pencil in my hand and write straight on to their scripts, even though they
stand more chance of being able to read what I say if I do it in Word and use
Track Changes.
I still dream of spending an afternoon in café – maybe getting
on with my writing, chatting to other people about theirs and collecting stories,
maybe even signing and selling a few books. Over and above that, of course, you can collect
characters and ideas in cafés and they are good antidotes to the loneliness
that most writers feel.
