They'd spent months running into each other at Normand's Cafe like clockwork before she found out where he worked. Until then she had thought he didn't work. She had though he was just like her. Unemployed and killing time in a routine way. Grabbing coffee and people watching in the afternoons.
He wasn't dressed like an employed person... plus she didn't know employed people to spend hours at a time at a cafe unless they were trying to work on their laptop. Tom, just like her, stared out into the street and watched people walk by.
He sipped his drink slow. Made one last a long time... whereas she drank quickly and got refills. At first he would give her a head nod while returning from these refills. Sometimes she would smile... self consciously, aware that her teeth would be more discolored because of all the coffee. She didn't know how people smiled so widely on coffee dates.
But she found it easy to talk to him. And he was funny enough that she found herself unable to refrain from smiling. And in some weird way he made her not feel self conscious about such details like stained teeth. Instead she smiled and laughed and felt like he wanted to get to know him more. But not too fast. She wanted to know slowly.
He never asked what she did for work. She was glad for it. But she wouldn't have lied if he did ask her. She would say that was was out of work. He would probably followup with the standard "oh so you're in between jobs then?"
Her reply would be... "no. I just never had a job."
That would drive a normal person away. It's a weird thing to say without caveat. You can't just say you never had a job without an explanation. You must either be homeless, married to a breadwinner, or have wealthy parents. She was neither of these so her story needed an explanation beyond archetypes that were easy to understand.
She waited to tell him my story. But... it was just too much fun to chat about small things everyday. She was glad that he came to this cafe everyday. She looked forward to chatting with him.
He wasn't dressed like an employed person... plus she didn't know employed people to spend hours at a time at a cafe unless they were trying to work on their laptop. Tom, just like her, stared out into the street and watched people walk by.
He sipped his drink slow. Made one last a long time... whereas she drank quickly and got refills. At first he would give her a head nod while returning from these refills. Sometimes she would smile... self consciously, aware that her teeth would be more discolored because of all the coffee. She didn't know how people smiled so widely on coffee dates.
But she found it easy to talk to him. And he was funny enough that she found herself unable to refrain from smiling. And in some weird way he made her not feel self conscious about such details like stained teeth. Instead she smiled and laughed and felt like he wanted to get to know him more. But not too fast. She wanted to know slowly.
He never asked what she did for work. She was glad for it. But she wouldn't have lied if he did ask her. She would say that was was out of work. He would probably followup with the standard "oh so you're in between jobs then?"
Her reply would be... "no. I just never had a job."
That would drive a normal person away. It's a weird thing to say without caveat. You can't just say you never had a job without an explanation. You must either be homeless, married to a breadwinner, or have wealthy parents. She was neither of these so her story needed an explanation beyond archetypes that were easy to understand.
She waited to tell him my story. But... it was just too much fun to chat about small things everyday. She was glad that he came to this cafe everyday. She looked forward to chatting with him.
I feel the same about most of what I write. I remember once on 200wad you made a comment on something I wrote about "the magic". I think we amateurs miss it, but I don't know for sure if it's just perception based on context (the awareness that we are amateurs practicing vs flipping the pages of a published work) or if there really is something missing.
I can never tell if it's the writing or the story itself but I do find very often that when I re-read a completed work it feels like I'm looking at a stage where you can see the illustrated backgrounds, the props, and all the stuff you know is not *real*, and that I'm missing whatever it is that makes the reader/audience forget about the stage.
Maybe it's the nature of the conflict, or the pathos of the characters, or the manner -or order - in which the details are revealed. The pacing? I don't know, that's why I'm ranting a bit. I think anyone can tell a story, but telling it well is where the money's at. If it is ever revealed to us it will be in the daily practice, because it's only in working out the details that we'll find an answer.
With this, I wrote this on the tailend of a long workday when my mind was still focused on work. After having been so used to writing before work, I couldn't get into that story mode. So when I wrote this I was distracted... even though I wasn't explicitly distracted -- no other browser tabs open... youtube not playing in the background. But my mind wasn't fully in it.
So I just began writing things down. And things came out. I took another stab at this little snippet last night... a little more into it but still not fully in it like I am when i write in the mornings.
My new job is just so much fun that right now I'm enjoying putting writing as my evening thang and letting work be my morning (primary) focal thing.
In a few weeks I'm going to assess which one I want as my focal point. I do think longterm I want writing to be the primary but for now... work is just too much fun lol.