Graham Storrs

I’m about half-way through writing my new novel ‘The Credulity Nexus’. These days, I have the unutterably wonderful luxury of being able to sit in my home office and write more-or-less whenever I feel like it (thanks in part to Wifie’s very relaxed attitude to me getting jobs done around the property.)

It was not always like this. For most of my life, writing time has been snatched out of lunchtimes, evenings and weekends. I’ve had to do it in parks and cafes, in my car, in bed, in any place I found myself with half-an-hour or more on my hands. I wrote a whole 150K word space opera using the character-by-character handwriting recognition on the old Palm V, mostly sitting in a park in 30-minute chunks, eating sandwiches. I wrote the second volume of said space opera in a small restaurant in the Brisbane CBD on a Jornada 740 while eating lunch. I was such a feature at this restaurant that the owner would reserve my favourite table for me each day. If they hadn’t closed down, they’d definitely warrant an acknowledgement when that book finally sees publication!

It was all done out of necessity rather than choice, of course. I was reminded of it a couple of days ago when I drove Wifie to an appointment and had to wait for a while in the car. I whipped out my EeePC, pushed back the seat and dashed off a few hundred words. Sometimes, if I get the chance, I will still pop into a cafe, order a cappuccino and a croissant and write. I don’t suppose there’s a single coffee shop in Stanthorpe that hasn’t played host to some part of the writing of TimeSplash.

It’s pure nostalgia, these days, not the necessity it once was, but I suppose I’ve conditioned myself over the years to associate the noise and bustle, the smells and tastes of lunchtime cafes with the pleasure of being able to bring new worlds into being. And I’ll probably never get over it.