Caffeinated author.

I am one of those writers who is most productive in coffee shops. Some people are. Some require calm rooms with clear desks and a window with a view; Virginia Woolf's "Room of one's own". Some seem to need to hustle and bustle of a public table, and coffee on tap.

In my experience the coffee shop writers get the studious types. Some of us even feel second-rate because we don't have the desk and the space for calm private reflection. I realise that this works for many many writers.

But the desk writers don't get us. I have been hectored and lectured by mentors who find the habit of writing over a latte and the chatter of other customers degenerate and disordered. How much more you could achieve if you were disciplined, they argue. How deranged must your mind be to think that goofing off in Caffe Nero for 3 hours is real work.

The fact that I can produce 2000 words in that 3 hours (and usually do) is disregarded. I'm not being serious, clearly.

I felt much the same for many years. It was perverse to produce lecture notes while working behind a west end bar, my espresso habit was a sticking plaster until I could settle to real work at home, like a grown up.

Well, after 5 years - stuff that! This is as valid a way to write as any other. The work I produce is its own testament. This is not a perversion but a civilised and social way to use my city as a huge office. And the coffee is great, too.

(Written in the West End Kitchen, Panton Street over a mushroom omelette and a flat white.)