Oct 16 2008
the writer’s natural habitat
At noon today, I met with a writer at one of my favourite local coffee shops. It was a fruitful meeting; I’ll be doing some one-on-one coaching for him, and possibly editing his book once it’s gone through revisions. I arrived an hour early, planning to park myself at a table, sip a hot mug of rooibos with lemon, and get some work done.
But alas and alarm bells! They had posted a sign imposing “strict 45-minute” sitting limits per customer. I asked the girl how strict that actually was, and she said, “It’s not,” but the very idea horrifies me. Coffee shops are the writer’s natural habitat! In the unwritten rules of coffee shops, it is clear that writers are supposed to be able to sprawl, sip, and work — without pressure to get up and leave. After all, coffee shops and writers were made for each other! More than one famous writer uses a local coffee shop as an office. If we’re forced out of our natural habitat, how on earth are we supposed to turn out the world-enriching prose we were called to write?
Of course, truth be told, I spend way more time in coffee shops marking student papers than I do actually writing. But I wrote a chapter of Taerith in a local Starbucks (not this post’s Shop of Notoriety), and I have fond hopes of churning out more material in such friendly environs.
Hopefully they’ll change this rule when they realize it’s a tad unfriendly and out-of-step with the whole coffee shop aura. In the meantime, I lodged my financial protest. I left without buying a second tea. They’re out a whole $1.86.
