A place for people who have to meet a deadline: Nobody gets in without a concrete daily goal – and without having achieved this goal, nobody gets out. A visit to the Manuscript Writing Café in Tokyo.
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Thomas Hahn, Tokyo
The beginning is here. He had to come, because there is a deadline, and of course this reservation at Koenji’s Manuscript Writing Café in Tokyo’s Suginami district could not expire either. 7 p.m. to midnight, window seat. Owner Takuya Kawai stood at the entrance upon arrival and handed over the questionnaire that anyone who wants to write here must fill out. “I understand and use that I cannot leave until I have reached my goal.” You had to tick that off and enter your chosen destination underneath. 140 lines. Perhaps too ambitious for this report on the Australian village that burned down in the severe bushfires three years ago. But let’s see. The laptop is open. Matt shimmers the blank page. It starts. It has to start.