Afternoon Joe

I’ve never really been a coffee shop writer. In college, I worked in my dorm room, the student newspaper office or the computer lab. As an adult, I’ve been more inclined to stay home and sit at my own desk or curl up on my couch with the laptop. When I went to a coffee shop it was usually to, you know, drink coffee.

But, these days, I relish any opportunity I get to write in a coffee shop because that means a day that I get to write without keeping one ear peeled for the cry of my little guy. I have a sitter come over one afternoon a week, but I don’t always get to dedicate that time purely to writing. I’m often in my home office, working the phone, tracking down and interviewing sources. Even if I leave the house, it’s often to do a face-to-face interview.

But today, ah, beautiful today. I’m caught up on interviews so when the sitter arrived, my bag was packed and out the door I flew. Minutes later, I was setting up shop at a coffee shop, plugging in my laptop. For nearly four hours, I sat still while my brain jumped and jived its way through a series of words, sentences, paragraphs and pages. By the time my time at the coffee shop was up, I was properly buzzed from the bliss of uninterrupted writing time.

And, you know, drinking coffee.