I started the Writers’ Café with a gang of other writers so that Hastings writer types could gather in a space and sit and get some words on a page with a sense of obligation not to stare at our phones or be distracted or allow ourselves to become numbed with self loathing and critical thinking.
It’s amazingly effective. Something about the presence of other writers also tapping away helps me to get things on the page without having an existential crisis.
Two hours of focused work
The first space we used – upstairs at Barnaby’s Lounge in Hastings – was small enough for it to feel the right kind of busy with five to ten people, and we all seemed to get a lot done in that two hour silent working session.
There’s something about the collective energy of everyone sitting to write that stops me wandering off onto the internet or pausing my Pomodoro timer fifteen minutes in. At the Café I reliably get 1200-1500 words written, which makes me a bit frustrated that I haven’t been able to nail that on other days.
Come and write with us!
In the nearly three years of running it, the Hastings Writers Café, we’ve expanded to five days a week in venues around Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea. Please check the Writers’ Café calendar for the latest information on where and when.
Big thank you to all the venues that have made us feel incredibly welcome over the years, including Barnaby’s (the OG), Bunka, The Hastings Project and The White Rock Hotel. (And we shall not speak of the one place that made us feel decidedly UNWELCOME. They could give Basil Fawlty a run for his money. )
Big thank you, too, to my fellow hosts, Nika (the OG), Don, Jonathan, Alan and Gwendoline.
See the Writers’ Café in action
Here are some videos from the Hastings Writers’ Café on Instagram:
About the Aldhill Mystery series
KJ Lyttleton is a crime writer from Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea, and co-hosts the Writers’ Café, one of the writing groups in Hastings where much of the series gets written. The Aldhill Mystery series is a set of British mystery books set in East Sussex, in the fictional seaside town of Aldhill-on-Sea, which will be familiar to anyone who knows Hastings, Bexhill or St Leonards-on-Sea. They follow a young journalist, Phil McGinty, and DS Jen Collet. If you are looking for crime novels set on the Sussex coast, or crime writers from Hastings and East Sussex, start with The Man In The Wall (book one) and A Star Is Dead (book two). See all the books here.
Follow KJ Lyttleton
Find me on Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter) and Bluesky, or read my newsletter, My Top Secret Project, on Substack.