I was stranded in a café without a book earlier this week. I was considering expiring from boredom when I remembered the large black notebook and biro in my bag. So I duly fished them out and wrote (what? Oh, stuff, you know. I think it included a shopping list, possible names for assorted minor characters in any given novel set in my imaginary world and the beginnings [wretched - Ed] of a triolet about coffee. Not bad for half-an-hour’s work).

Having gone through [’Gone through’ implies that you have in any way emerged from it. Which you haven’t - Ed] the ’sucker’ phase of buying and borrowing as many books on writing as I could lay my nail-bitten little paws on, I am aware that many people swear by writing in cafés. Heck, one even swears by park benches [Something along the lines of: ‘Damn and blast this horrible bench, there’s nowhere to rest my notebook and some bastard has been sick under it,’ I assume].

Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg, for example, who both write books on how to get over the Dreaded Writer’s Block, are quite lyrical about sitting about for hours, making whimsical notes about espresso machines and other customer’s clothes. It surprises me not in the slightest that I am unable to relax and do this. My dear little demented squirrel of a mind [Quite] is far too busy: ‘Ooh, look at me writing. Look at me from the outside. See? A woman sitting by herself, with a notebook. Writing. How exciting! What is she writing? Is she writing about me? Is she famous? Will she be famous?’ and at this point you start mentally dressing for the event. A Writer ought to wear black, and have kohl-lined eyes. Perhaps even a beautiful shawl. And she should write in an elegant leather-bound notebook, or a Moleskine, or is that passé? At any rate, she should be using a fountain pen. This is a biro. It has been chewed. And this is a spiral-bound recycled notebook. Very eco-friendly, no doubt, but combined with the jeans, green tee-shirt, lack of make-up, baby-face and general dishevelment, I actually look like a student doing her homework.

And anyway, this is entirely the wrong sort of café. I am sitting in the middle of a well-lit, airy room, on a leatherette banquette (I keep sliding gently forward. If I don’t concentrate I’ll be off it and under the glass-topped table). I am drinking earl grey tea. Barring the need to keep one knee firmly wedged against the table-leg, I am perfectly comfortable. I should of course be in a darkened corner (bugger the eye-strain), on a wooden stool, perching the moleskine carefully in between the sticky rings on the bar. I should be drinking absinthe. Or at the very least, recklessly strong black coffee with four sugars (to make up for the fact I haven’t eaten for 36 hours. Rather than having had quite a nice sandwich a few minutes ago.) The other clients at the right sort of café will also be clad in black polo-necks, deeply hung-over, having complicated love-affairs with each other and chain-smoking away like an industrial city sky-line. The conversation at the nearest table will be fascinating - jealousy, Freud, ménages à trois, anxst, and Engels. As it is, I am surrounded by Yummy Mummies in pastel pashminas with the occasional infant in tow (pastels and toddlers? Do you suppose they actually live at the dry-cleaners?).

[On the other hand, this is the perfect café to write in, because it is a) comfortable, b) quiet and c) you are the most exciting thing in it. Now go finish that damn’ triolet]

Posted by Reed on Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 at 4:36 pm.