Writing Credits For Starbucks

Evidently my entire town runs on coffee.  With a population considerably less than 20,000, we have three Starbucks and a bunch of other specialty coffee places.  In the village alone, you can buy a different kind of brew every few yards.

I visit them all.  On days when I want comfort and no surprises, Starbucks is the place to be.  I like that it’s predictable.  It’s very clean and cozy.  The staff is kind and I like the music and the coffee tastes good and I like the way it smells and the small tables by the west-facing windows feature views of Mount Tamalpais.

A blogger writing about writing, cautioned “Don’t be caught with your laptop out, working at Starbucks.  It’s geeky.  It’s not cool.”  I have a couple of thoughts about that. 

1)  I’m not sure anyone,  anywhere can define what’s cool.  

2)  I don’t have a laptop.

However I am guilty of writing at Starbucks.  I’m writing this at the one around the corner from my house.  Writing it by hand on a yellow pad with my favorite Pilot Prestige pen with the extra fine point and blue ink.  When I’m done with my tall non-fat latte, I will tuck all of this back into my tote bag and meander on home and no one will have ever mistaken me for a writer. 

No one will say look at that writer with her laptop out in full view.  To the untrained eye, I am just another person making a grocery list.  Which is also true. But today I have, during the course of one latte, messed around with the outlines of several writing projects that are due, and I did it all right here, working undercover.

I’ll bet many writers owe a credit to Starbucks.  Geeky or not, my playbill should read:  The part of the angst-and-coffee-soaked location will be played today by the Starbucks at the corner of Miller Avenue and Camino Alto.  The part of the writer will be played by:  To-Be-Announced – when we discover his or her true identity.

Ó By Anita Garner

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