In a post on Lit Hub, Wesley Straton says that her work as a bartender helped her write her novel. Straton started bartending as a last resort, when her writing career didn’t pan out as fast as she hoped. “At the time, I was burnt out and disillusioned. I had no good ideas, no special talents, no indication that writing was an available path for me at all,” she says.
But it turned out bartending was good for her, allowing her to break out of a sheltered and somewhat sequestered youth. “At twenty-two I was painfully shy, intensely quiet, anxious and awkward,” she explains. “On top of this, my coworkers were mostly extroverts of the highest order: friendly, colorful, charismatic types from a variety of countries and backgrounds: students and drop-outs, designers and musicians, a handful of diehard travelers who were just bouncing from country to country as long as they could.”
All of this helped Straton strengthen her craft. “How can you write compelling dialogue if you can’t talk to people?” she asks. How can you create a breadth and variety of characters if you’ve never met anyone different than you? If writing is a study of the human condition, then there is inherent value to surrounding yourself with as much humanity as possible.”
Once Straton began writing again, her work hours became another benefit. Most mornings, she had 2-5 uninterrupted hours to write before her afternoon shift began. And the work itself is different. “My time was spent on my feet, talking to people, making drinks,” she says. “The deep satisfaction you feel at the end of the shift, when you finally get to sit down and have a quiet moment. The social side: writing can be a lonely, isolating experience, and having a counterweight full of conversation has always served me well.”
The work also helped creatively, as crafting drinks and experiences behind the bar exercise a different part of the creative mind. Eventually, Straton turned her experiences into her debut novel, a story of a young woman who wants to be a lawyer but chooses bartending instead.
