Writers' Room: HARD

The first capsule of Writers' Room, a section dedicated to the craft of writing, has been written from a bar for writers in Tokyo that doesn't let you leave until you finish your text (no joke).

How many times have we wished for an imaginary mom by our side, asking us how we're doing when we're close to a deadline? It's a sweet yet stern voice in the background. That mom brings us green tea with ginger to our desk, gives us a gentle shoulder massage before leaving us alone, reminds us to watch our posture and erase any paragraph that doesn't reflect our truth. Well, it turns out I'm here in Tokyo, paying for a similar kind of support.

I could have never anticipated that the first entry of Writers' Room would be written in a café in Japan whose premise is that this is a place dedicated to writers on an imminent deadline. A Bar for Writers in Distress.

It's eleven in the morning on a rainy Saturday in Tokyo. What was supposed to be a typhoon has turned into a tropical storm, which has turned into a weak and steady rain. I'm sitting at the bar of a small bar, separated by black boards. Next to me, a Japanese girl not yet twenty is writing. The silence is library-like, the night before a Roman Law exam. Only the sound of keyboard keys from the other seven writers can be heard. What could they be writing? I wish I could enter their screens.

On the form, I check the box consenting that the progress check should be Hard. I could have chosen Mild or Normal, but the part of my brain that seeks stories has checked the HARD box. I feel a sudden fear. When I returned the form, I said to the waiter? editor? guardian? prison official?: "I don't really know what I just signed up for," and I don't know if he understood me or not, but he didn't want to respond with any reassuring words, just with a cryptic smile.