I was streaming Robert Palmer’s cover of “Give Me the News (Doctor Doctor)” from 1979 this morning as I attended household busy work. Various reasons prompted me to stream it, and it to do with cats and coffee. Go figure. I always enjoy the energy of Palmer’s version, which was much more lovely than the original.
Dipping
I love dipping. Not snuff. No. Tried it once, didn’t like it. I like dipping cookies, doughnuts, and toast into tea, hot chocolate, or chocolate milk, and coffee. I also dip buffalo wings into sauces, and chips and crackers into dips. I’ve dipped things in beer, like pretzels, but I’ve not been impressed with the results. That’s life. And of course, I’ve skinny-dipped. I really liked doing that, especially the time I did it in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Sicily.
Some materials are better for dipping into coffee or tea than others. Doughnuts make for damn fine dipping, IMO. Today’s cookie, a gluten-free, vegan, GMO-free, locally baked chocolate ship affair, is a little dry. Not ideal, because that dryness contributes to the dipping drawback. Dipping a cookie into my coffee, I’m aware that some is crumbling into the coffee. This produces a bottom situation called dipping dredge. That’s the soaked stuff that remains when the beverage is almost gone.
I’m not a fan of the dipping dredge. However, I’m not one to leave coffee behind. Thus, all I can do is suck it up.
Literally.
Cyber Monday
Others call it Cyber Monday, but I call it Writing Monday.
Writing Monday follows Writing Sunday. It’s the day before Writing Tuesday, and comes two days after Writing Saturday. Writing Friday precedes Writing Saturday, and falls after Writing Thursday, and two days after Writing Wednesday Eve.
Sometimes, to make it easier to say and follow, I call Writing Monday, Monday.
Likewise, every day is Coffee Day, but I call the days by their ISO 8601 standard week days, because the coffee is implied. Hell, in many cases, it’s expected. What’s a Monday without coffee?
As I have a full cuppa of hot java at hand, it’s time to edit and write like crazy, at least one more time.
The Optimistic Writer
He’d died, but he didn’t know it. He’d been writing his novel, and then editing and revising it. It wasn’t until he’d finished it that he came up for air and discovered he no longer had a body, and wasn’t a part of anyone’s earthly existence.
As far as he could ascertain, he’d been dead for several months. Probate of his meager estate was concluded, his clothing and personal items given away, and his name moved from one set of records to another. The cause of his death wasn’t clear. It seemed that he couldn’t see that, no matter how he tried to view it.
After some reflection, he wasn’t too concerned. Being dead meant no more concerns about money, health, politics, and the environment. He didn’t need to worry about being killed crossing the street or shot by some madman with a gun. The worst part about his death appeared to be that he was out of coffee.
That was going to put a crimp in his plans. On the other hand, he had a new novel idea.
He couldn’t wait to get started.
The Landing
Through dint of concentration, manifested by slow walking and constantly watching the cup, I can usually carry a cup of coffee across the room and not lose any.
It’s on the glide path to the table that I usually lose some. Yes, sometimes I miss the landing.
Impulse
I considered my plans for today last night.
It was about midnight. Today, from what I saw, would be part of a continuum, another day of editing and revising. While I’m happy to make progress and I enjoy what I do, sometimes I get tired of the unending routine. Sometimes I long for a break.
Then I brightened because, hey, I was beginning to edit the fourth and final book in the Incomplete States series.
While I’d been thinking these things, I’d been preparing to close down the computer for the day. Instead, I opened the file for the fourth book’s cover. I regarded and admired it for a while. I’d created covers for the four books as carrots, to make the books seem more tangible and remind me of my goals. With covers, the effort seems to have more promise. It seems more real.
Sitting down, I opened the book’s Word document and began reading and editing.
There wasn’t any plan behind this impulse. One chapter began two. Soon, without me noticing, it was one thirty in the morning. I’d read and edited six chapters. Short chapters, I’d worked through but forty pages. This is a six hundred page, one hundred fifty thousand word draft. There’s a lot more to go.
Despite complaints from my butt cheeks, eyes, neck, and hands, and a more sensible side reminding me that I need to sleep, I didn’t want to stop. I was enjoying what I was reading, and pleased that I’d written it. But prudence finally won.
Now, guess what? Time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time. I think I may need more coffee.
pump·kin
You ever write a word and stop to consider it, and then decide that it looks like it’s spelled wrong? But you then pull out a dictionary or go online and discover that it’s spelled correctly?
Happened to me with pumpkin this morning.
I think I need more coffee. Coffee knows how to spell everything.
The Wait
I write on a laptop, typing and editing as I go. It has its bennies and shortcomings. For instance, you ever become so excited to write and edit, so looking forward to getting started that the muses are singing in your head and their energy is coursing in your blood vessels? But then you must turn…on…the…computer….
Then…open…the…program…
Then…open…the…document…
And…it…seems…to…take…about…two…million…years..?
Exasperating.
I am exaggerating. It doesn’t take two million years, but rather about three minutes, what with the things that are done automatically on startup, like Internet connections and security software updates. It just feels like a looonnnggg three minutes.
But it’s all open now. I have fresh coffee at hand. Time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time.
Fairies
“What’s this?” I asked myself, speaking only in my mind.
I looked around. Nobody was in sight, but on my desk was an unexpected fresh cup of steaming coffee.
The coffee fairy had been by, I realized.
I’m very fond of fairies. Besides the coffee fairy, the doughnut, cookie, and brownie fairies have visited me.
Fairies do have a dark side. Just this morning some feline fairy left a gift on my shower mat. They also left another gift on the bathroom rug. It had to be a fairy, because my floofs were all bland innocence and whiskers.
Some fairies have never visited me, despite my hopes, like the lottery fairy (“You have to have a ticket!”), but the writing fairy often comes, streaming words through me. The words often make sense, too. Well, sometimes.
Time to write edit like crazy at least one more time, and see what the fairies have for me.
Reboot
Hearing unfamiliar banging and creaking sounds, he opened his eyes and found the ceiling.
Pink, and swaying. It felt like he was on a boat. Or would that be a ship?
He closed his eyes. Something was hung. Reboot. Try again.
When he next opened his eyes, he was looking at correctly colored sage green walls. Sunlight was streaming in.
Feeling better, he rose to hit the head and discovered a limp. He’d not had that before. As its presence was being digested, he passed the bathroom mirror.
He was female. Not bad looking, about the correct age, forty-five. Same colored hair. Those were starts to being the right person in the right reality.
More to digest.
He continued to the toilet. His cats and dogs must be out of the house. The primary reasons for keeping them was to help keep reality anchored. It didn’t work, if they weren’t around. Ergo, they weren’t around. That’s why his start-ups were hanging.
As he sat to piss, he considered going back to bed to reboot again, but it was already eight thirty. Time was the one constant that didn’t change when a start-up went awry.
Coffee, he decided, wiping, flushing, washing his hands and heading for the kitchen. He thought while popping a K-cup into place, coffee always helped release the hang ups. It was remarkable that way. Once he got the coffee into his system, he’d find the animals and bring them into the house. Then he’d decide. The house seemed correct, as did the reality outside his window. Maybe he’d enjoy being a woman for a day, or take a nap later and reboot.
Sipping the coffee, he smiled. Coffee always helped. If that ever changed, he didn’t know what he would do.
Michael Seidel, writer 