I’m thinking of Chinaski’s in Glasgow. Specifically on Monday nights, 5–7pm. Specifically in autumn and winter when it’s already dark at that time. Specifically after I’ve spent the day writing at the Mitchell Library, forgetting the real world exists and living only in the imaginary world of my novel-in-progress. I’ll order a cold glass of gavi and the whipped feta with pomegranate. I’ll spread out in a corner booth and daydream. Evening-dream. For me, these evenings at Chinaski’s are part of the trance-like, half-conscious writing mood. I’ve finished work for the day, but I’m not ready to go home yet and become a real person: to navigate trains, to do my toddler’s dinner-bath-bed routine, to sort laundry. I want to exist in a haze, let myself blur. Wine, cheese, candlelight, low lyric-less music. And I stretch out the dream just a little longer. 

Kirsty Logan appears with Sean Hewitt at Paisley Town Hall, Sunday 27 April, as part of Paisley Book Festival.