And now for something completely different.

—**—

We are in a coffee shop in the suburbs of Atlanta, one of those places with two or three thick wooden tables that seat six or eight people, a bunch of soft chairs in various tiny groupings throughout the space, a set of wooden stairs leading to nowhere, meant for nothing but perching on and drinking cappuccino, and at least one leather sofa where people sit and hold important conversations about important topics. Or sit and waste time. Probably more of that.

This particular shop is in the middle of one of those new suburban live-work-play malls, so new that the crosswalks are all unblemished, the five-floored parking deck is still bright and clean, and all the Adirondack chairs in the central green area (it’s really some kind of AstroTurf) are still in working order. As chic as this backwoods bistro tries to be — Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Muhammad Ali, and some woman in a hat (that actress from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, maybe?) are all pictured on the wood-paneled walls, in artsy black and white, sipping on cups o’ Joe from some long-ago time — it’s hard to get past the fact that this is just a shop on the end of a food court in a manufactured “community” trying to pretend it’s an honest-to-God hip and happening city.

But it’s cool. I’m drinking a $5 hot chocolate because I don’t drink coffee, it’s cold out and, well, cool costs.

—**—

The “we” here in this little shop are a bunch of would-be novelists, poets, editors, short storyists, screenwriters, and bloggers who are trying to get to the point where we can drop the “would-be” from our lives.

Robert has been coming to these meetings for around a year. He has a fantasy novel — it’s going to be a series, he says — that he’s been working on for more than three years. Nessi is a first-timer to this meeting who wants to write a novel. I’m not sure what it’ll be about and she, like a lot of us, probably isn’t, either. She’s a blogger, too, who works with small business owners.

Virginia is working on a book that she says is about self-worth. How people learn to value themselves. An older soft-spoken guy, with gray at his temples — let’s be clear, he’s not older than me, by any shot — is at work on a novel. I didn’t catch his name during our quick round of introductions. I did not get the gist of his book, either. But, to his credit, I think he did.

(These high-ceilinged industrial spaces, with the metal roofs and the exposed ducts, do not offer the best acoustics, which is probably why people sit so close together on those leather couches.)

Quiet-spoken Lily, who I haven’t met, is sitting at a high-top table next to me, huge laptop at the ready, working on either a mystery or a romance; I was taking notes on my phone, surreptitiously, and I’m not sure I have that right. There’s another young woman here, whose name I missed and whose quick bio I didn’t hear, and whom I don’t see at this moment. She might be sitting behind me, looking at my screen this second. That’s awkward.

Seo is the leader of this group, one of many organized by a well-known national website designed to bring like-minded people together. Chess players have meetings like this. Hikers. Movie lovers. Knitters. Bowlers. Chefs. And people like us. Right now, Seo is working on translating a book from Korean. She has a novel in mind, too. She’s self-published a memoir. She’s in charge of the clock.

We are to begin writing at precisely 10 a.m. — we actually are writing, it seems, all of the ones I can see, anyway — and we are to write for an hour. We then take a 10-minute break — for coffee, presumably; I’m not doing another $5 hot chocolate — come back and write again until the bell sounds at noon. No talking. No socializing. No cruising the internet. Just tapping. Which is, I figure, just what I need.

—**—

And here I am. I’ve been to these meetings, at this coffee house, three times now. I get some work here done each time, which is why I keep returning. I have a post that I did here, largely, on adapting to change. It’s 90 percent written and has about a 65 percent chance of seeing the light of blogging day. It, in writerly terms, needs some work. A little self-editing. Maybe a little murdering of darlings.

That particular post centers on how Major League Baseball has changed, drastically and for the better, and how that might be a lesson for many of us and, more importantly, some of our similarly hidebound national institutions. It’s a valid idea, I think. A decent take, as we used to say in the business. But it might sound a little too high-brow and preachy for a former sportswriter sitting here in jeans and soft shoes, wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a dog on it, and sporting a growing hot chocolate stain on my knee. We’ll see.

I’ve just talked to Virginia a little during the break. She has an accent I can’t quite place, and the people next to us are carrying on a conversation that is a little too loud — probably because it has to be in this cavernous joint — so I couldn’t quite catch everything she had to say. But we talked about story arcs and organization and outlines. She carries a piece of string with her as a kind of tool, reminding her of what she wants to do. At home, she says, she has ideas on her book on self-worth. She writes them on Post-It notes, and she clips them to a string that runs across the wall of her office. It’s a kind of horizontal outline, a visual for her story arc. The string she carries with her keeps her in line, kind of.

She also says she watches Korean TV series on Netflix, for the stories, but before she watches, she looks at the previews, viewing them as a kind of synopsis. An outline. It works for her, she says. I find this an interesting way to look at trailers.

A few months ago, I took an online course on writing from the English novelist Neil Gaiman. He’s the author of a lot of books I haven’t read; Coraline, The Sandman comic series, Anansi Boys, The Ocean at the End of the Lane among them. He had lots of wonderful tips for the “would-be” among us. So, too, did Judy Blume, in another MasterClass. And Aaron Sorkin. And Dan Brown. And David Baldacci. And Joyce Carol Oates. I have a book on writing, titled On Writing by Stephen King, next to my desk at home. I swear by it.

The one lesson all these pros stress, every single one of them, the one bit of advice they’d tell all of us would-bes, if such a thing were possible, is much simpler than creating an outline or finding a story arc, though. It’s much easier than creating a character or managing conflict or writing dialogue. It’s certainly easier than coming up with a viable idea, or writing humor, or murdering those darlings. Or, even, being aware of your use of run-on sentences and commas. Though, clearly, those are all critical. Some more than others.

These pros tell us that what we need to do more than anything else when it comes to the art and pain of creating a story is exactly what we’re doing in this coffee shop right now. Precisely this.

Writers write. Every writer in the world will tell you that.

So that’s what I’m doing. That’s what I’ve done today. And I still have six minutes on the clock.

—**—

Final edits to this post, and a photo or two to make it look prettier, coming before I hit publish.