I may have to choose Starbucks because they play Sixties music on their stereo system. Beatles, Stones, Motown, all that really good stuff that feeds my ever-decreasing store of inspiration. I have always avoided Starbucks like the plague, opting for less corporatized establishments, but hey, it's British Invasion time in there. Exactly what I'm writing about. What's a rock & roll novelist to do?
I confess I've always loved the image of the writer plugging away in a public coffeehouse. JK Rowling, Henry Miller, Balzac... But it can be terribly distracting for me, and nowadays coffeehouses aren't the havens they used to be, especially Starbucks. These days, limousine-sized baby strollers crowd the limited floor space and screeching, bumptious toddlers run around like monkeys while moms who, in their practiced way, sip their lattes, talking to each other and impressively tuning out the ruckus. The Hard Back used to be perfect, with tables surrounded by shelves of books, but have you noticed that bookstores are no longer the quiet places they used to be? TVs everywhere! And libraries, with all those millions of books calling to me, are more distracting than any public coffeehouse.
But maybe all of this is just an excuse. Maybe if I wanted to write badly enough none of this would bother me. Maybe even Nigel wouldn't bother me. Maybe, then, I could just stay home where I actually prefer to write anyway.
Maybe a latte would help me sort this out.
