I am sitting in a former tram depot and I #amwriting

I sit near the balcony which gives me a view of the bar below. This place is designed a bit like a Victorian music hall, in which case I am on the stage.

Below are the committed drinkers, the first beer of the day to settle the shakes brigade. It is, after all, only 10am.

Up here on the balcony are the workers. The man in the corner is in most days, busy with his laptop. At a table near the window some people are having a business meeting, poring over spreadsheets. Two guys I know run their social enterprise from here. They call it The Office.

And there’s me. And I’m playing my game of giving names to the faces of strangers and creating back-stories for them, because that’s what writers do.

And now I’m blogging too, about (among other things) places that I write from. Some writers prefer a secluded, private environment with no distractions. I like the buzz of business. Paradoxically, where there is most distraction I can shut myself off, and in my separation, feel the inspiration to write.

I did large chunks of the first lot of edits to my novel in this bar – camping out for the morning up here. And at £1.30 for a refillable latte, it was cheaper than heating the house. Other chunks I did wherever I happened to be – on a train, in the waiting room at the vets, even at the hairdressers with the beast of the east raging outside.

I’m in good company, it appears. John Le Carre used to write on the train. Gertrude de Stein worked in her car while her partner went shopping. DH Lawrence chose the great outdoors, forests being particularly appealing – though he preferred the pines of New Mexico or the Black Forest to his native Nottingham. And Edith Sitwell used to write lying down in an open coffin.

Think I’ll stick to ’Spoons…