Category: coffee

Contemplating the Storms

Inside, safe with coffee, I eye snow ranging between raging and swirling.

Everything is white, a cover-up to hide yesterday’s progress of melting and drying roads. It looks cold, and cold is permeating my protective window panes.

I made an espresso sized cuppa using French Roast. The staunch flavor pleases me. It’s great not needing to deal with all that extra water that goes into a larger cup. The coffee fuels thinking about the storm’s extent. The web helps track its size, what has passed and what is expected. I need something like that for the rest of my life.

The cats, of course, drift between blissful slumber and energetic bonkers. That’s when older cats are preferred; they recognize bad weather and are happier to watch through a window than the young beasts. Quinn is the rule’s exception; he enjoys the cold. We think he employs an active imagination, going out and pretending he’s Siberian. His whole demeanor reeks of of it. But this weather play has a heavy element of wind; Quinn says, “Nyet,” to wind.

Tucker indulges in several mad dashes, practicing his football jukes. Taking pity on the kitties, I visit with each and play with them. The toy of choice is the white feathers on the yellow string on the pink stick. All love this. Meep captures it, picks it up in his mouth and attempts to carry it away, tail up. His trophy pleases him. Boo, the oldest, becomes most engaged. He manages to free three more feathers. Only one feather remains on the toy. Time for a new one.

Snow surrenders to sunshine, which yields to rain. No matter; the temp has scaled thirty-eight degrees. The wind refuses to abandon its role so the cats stay in but the sun is back.

Time to move, get ready to go out and write like crazy. Breakfast, first.

It’s a good morning for pancakes.

 

8

Work Habits

Here we are, the six of us: writers. Meet Michael the Original and Michaels Two through Six. None want to be called a number, usually channeling Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band when that’s attempted. (“I’m not a number, I’m not a number, damn it, I’m a man.”)

Each writer has their piece to write. We’re seated around a large, round table. Each has their own space and quad-shot mochas. Each is on a computer and has their files open.

One is copy-editing the novel to date. The Original – that would be me – is doing the hard thinking to bring these drunkenly rambunctious stories together. The next four are working on the different storylines and scenes for Pram, Forus Ker, Brett, Philea, Richard, Kimi and Handley, onboard the Faux Mo, Pentagon, River Styx, and Wrinkle, on Willow Glen and the escape pod, in the stasis pod, and in the past, present and future, dealing with the Monad, Sabards, Humans and Travail Seth…and each other…. There are battles, revelations, duplicity, treachery and betrayal.

It’s a lot of work for the six of us.

Unfortunately, there is only me. Having the six wouldn’t be sufficient, either. I would need more, a committee of me to write and edit. Each story and its main character is drumming, “Write my story,” into me. I write a few lines, paragraphs, and then jump into another, tediously advancing on all fronts, advancing, but not anywhere near the desired pace. The process reminds me of a class I took decades ago, in 1988 or 1989.

I was stationed in Germany. Offered by the University of Maryland, the class was four days long, two weekends, eight hours each day. The subject was French literature. Four authors were being studied. Among them was Honore de Balzac.

Balzac was said to write fifteen hours a day. The claim presented to me in that class is that he wrote with a quill, standing up, sucking down cups of coffee. He was said to be always writing and created voluminous manuscripts, often with characters straying from one story to another, and frequently revised. How did he do it, I wondered then.

How did he do it, I wonder now.

But then I figure, man, if good ol’ Honore could write and edit so much on his own, I can as well.

Just give me more damn coffee.

Here we go: time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

 

0

The Mojo Exceptions

I’m pursuing the opposite strategy. This is embracing and doing the opposite of your normal choices. The thinking is, if what you’re doing hasn’t been working, then the opposite of what you’re doing should be successful.

This approach was successfully employed by George Costanza, played by Jason Alexander on ‘Seinfeld’ in the television series’ eighty-sixth episode, during its fifth season in 1994. Jerry Seinfeld’s character articulated the idea although George began it by deciding to order something other than his usual.

True, Costanza is a fictional character. We  don’t want to start modeling our lives on fiction, do we? But some real value to this method could exist because it’ll take you out of your usual ruts. In a sense, this can help you face your fears.

But —

There are always ‘buts’.

But, I went to write yesterday after several opposite choices and the buts started flowing in. One, I don’t want to mess with my writing mojo. I got my writing mojo working. So I needed the Mojo Exceptions to the opposites.

  1. I can continue to go to the coffee shop and write. Otherwise, taking the opposite path, I would stay home and write. Although, by Costanza’s Rule, that’s exactly what I should do. In my feeble defense, I used to stay home and write. It wasn’t working. I decided to do the opposite, and go out and write. See how nicely I’m trying to rationalize that?
  2. I can continue drinking my quad shot mocha. The Costanza Rule decrees that I’ll have something else, like tea. Again, I began drink the mocha to embrace the opposites because I used to drink black coffee without cream or sugar.
  3. I can still write like crazy. The opposite of that would be to write with restraint. I used to try that and abandoned it to write like crazy.

Expressing the Mojo Exceptions make me appear to be a coward. I write to learn what I think, and I learned why I wanted the exceptions. I see how fear from change is really behind not wanting to mess with the writing process. I see how comfortable I am in it. And yet, I can convince myself that I was already doing the opposite with that aspect of writing, and that’s why it works.

I see inconsistencies about following the opposite strategy that trouble me. I think, ‘Don’t post that post,’ because I’ll be exposing my cowardice and inconsistencies. That, of course, would be the usual. I have to do the opposite, except for the Mojo Exceptions so I post this entry. I figure the Mojo Exceptions define the one area that works really well and can be excluded. But Mojo Exceptions are not unlimited. After wrestling with this aspect, I agree with myself that three is acceptable, but no more than three.

After all, you don’t want to mess with your mojo. Of course, it can be argued that your mojo isn’t working if you’re pursuing the opposite strategy because it’s purpose is to take you out of your comfort zones by doing the opposites.

I’m getting a headache.

2

Son of A Gun

My normal coffee writing consumption is the Michael – four shots of espresso in a non-fat mocha, in a twelve ounce cup. One barista always charged me less than the others, putting me into an OCD tizzy. She explained that the sixteen ounce is actually less expensive because it already includes four shots. So she would charge me for a sixteen ounce and put it into a twelve ounce cup.

I was duly awed by her thinking. I was due a free mocha today as part of the customer loyalty program so I went for a sixteen ounce mocha.

“You want extra shots?” Shannon asked. “It comes with four but we can bump it up to six.”

Six? Dare I?

Hell, yeah, I’m sixty years old.

Just call me a six shooter, an old son of a gun, a word slinger.

“I’m a cowboy. On a laptop, I write. I’m wanted, dead or alive.”

Sorry, Bon Jovi, but my words make as much sense as your lyrics.

Time to write like caffeine infused crazy, at least one more time.

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How It Works

Car appointment today, 12:30, in Medford, down the asphalt river seventeen miles. Wife asks, “Are you going to go do your writing first?” Because this is the standard, this is the norm, this is the way it works. Whatever else, go write. Michael must write. Not writing makes Michael a cranky man.

“Yes,” I answer, “but I need to have some coffee first.” Because this is the standard, the norm, this is the way it works. I must have a cup of coffee to go have my coffee and write.

What were once indulgences are now habits. But come on, that first cup, black and hot, French roast, untainted by milk, cream, sugar or anything else, is awesome. Yeah, it would seem like there’s a chasm between drinking strong, unadulterated black coffee and then indulging in a mocha with four shots of espresso. But I believe – and belief is important – that the coffee pleases my muse, and that helps my writing. Gotta keep the muse happy.

That’s the way it works.

0

Happy Monday, Writers

You may not have noticed but Monday has struck. Here we are, the first Monday of this week, probably the only one planned for this week, for all I know. I believe that might be true.

Here in ‘Merica, we’re planning hard for the Next Big Holiday. That’s right, Christmas! Woo-hoo! Between now and then, we’ll also celebrate Black Friday. YOU CAN GET YOUR BLACK FRIDAY PRICES NOW if you’re a smart shopper. But I’ll bet many smart shoppers are holding back, nodding (perhaps mentally), concluding, “They say these are Black Friday prices, but I’ll bet the prices will be lower on Black Friday. I’ll bet that if they’re offering these great deals this early, they’ll have a better deal on Friday. So I’ll wait.” Cuz they know the deal. They didn’t just start shoppin’ yesterday, ya know. They got their first credit card when they were five years old. Came in the mail, unsolicited, like.

To help pass time until Black Friday and Christmas, we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving, in which a week’s worth of calories are consumed in one day. Many try to eat it all in one sitting, perhaps preparing themselves for the new Fox Reality Show, ‘How Much Can You Eat?’

Eat, as they’re calling it in the biz shorthand, pitch people agin one another in a celebration of food and eating. Each show focuses on one culture’s food, holiday meal or special occasion. We start with fifty-three contestants for this weekly extravaganza. We’ll include side-dishes about the contestants and what eating means to them and why they like to eat, along with fave dish recipes. Domino’s has signed up as a maj sponsor. Domino’s, where, “We love pizza so much, we’ve added salads.”

That’s all fer now. I’m gonna chug my ten shot mocha – “It’s decadent!” — and start writing like a fiend. Happy Monday, everyone!

Happy Monday!

 

4

What Do They Wear?

I used to sing this ditty in the evening during my corporate existence:

“What shall I wear tomorrow? What shall I wear tomorrow? What shirt should I don, what pants should I put on? Oh, what should I wear, what should I wear?” I added more verses over the months, and then some dance steps. It became a whole Gilbert and Sullivan thing.

My wife hated it. I don’t blame her. She has good taste. Her only lapse is me.

The cats also weren’t pleased, giving me the look shared when they deem the food in their bowls unworthy of being eaten.

A confrontation is happening on the Wrinkle. I’m dressing my aliens as part of the scene, as it’s their first full on appearance, forcing me to regurgitate my old song. What do my aliens wear? Novel and movie aliens I’ve known, loved and despised darted through my thinking. My aliens are pretty uniform, partly be genetic exercise, so should they be uniformed? How much clothing is sufficient clothing for these travelin’ space people?

(Could Travelin’ Space People be a punk folk group? “She was on my ship; I shot from the hip. She had four eyes; they were full of surprise.”)

Dressing aliens isn’t an easy exercise, requiring thought about the many roles clothing can play an how these roles are parlayed into their mighty structure.

I think I need more coffee for this. Add some Irish whiskey to the four shots of espresso, please. It’s time to write like mad.

5

Sex, Memory & Imagination

You’re living a long time. One hundred and five is now the average age of a human. That average is creeping up. We’re all living longer as medical technology monitors and addresses issues 24/7. People aren’t being born, and some children are being kept as children.

Thereby is an argument: if a child is kept physically, emotionally and intellectually at six years old because that’s the age their parent(s) prefer them, but they’ve been alive for forty years, how old are they? Most planets, corporations and governments hold that if they’re maintained at an age, they count at that age if it’s an age whereby they’re somebody’s wards or in a protected status. So, for example, some are adults (which varies mightily in the future) but look like they’re twelve, because they liked how they looked then, so they’re counted as their true age. But if they’re twelve and are treated as twelve years old even though they’re fifty, they’re treated as twelve.

Civilization is more complicated in the future.

One decision many face is what to embody. As memory is augmented to provide greater storage and enhance recall abilities because people are living longer, people typically embody their memories as an avatar that can be compiled as a physical presence. That way, instead of just engaging in internal dialogue with themselves, they can call out their memory and invite them to have a drink or share a meal while they discuss their recollections. Brett’s memory is a tanned blonde woman in a red dress (who doesn’t have a name) and Handley’s memory is a pirate named Grutte Piers, based on the real Piers Gerlofs Donia. These aren’t their first memories but they’re their current memories in ‘Long Summer’.

Something similar has evolved for sex. Many people have decided that fake sex with an avatar of their design is more enjoyable than having sex with another actual person. People have foibles. Foibles can be very irritating. The foibles can be mitigated to some degree but people are a bit unpredictable. Many people have learned that they don’t like their sex partners to be unpredictable.

To solve these issues, people often create one (0r more) sex avatars (sexatars?). Like the memory, it’s an embodiment that’s compiled to exist for a period. People can decide exactly who they resemble and how they’ll act. If they want, they can create animal avatars and have sex with animals as a human or compile or modify themselves to be animals and enjoy their sex. Whatever creepy depravities humanity enjoys can be indulged by creating sex avatars. A few people have married their sex avatars. Avatars are people, too, my friends, except they have different rights.

Sex and memory are the two main items people have embodied as avatars but a few people create others. Some have their intelligence or imagination embodied as an avatar that they can call out for visits. Brett has created an embodiment of his personal computer and communications systems, and calls it Carl. Others have gone the good and evil routes, creating twins of the opposite end of their moral spectrum (as they see it). A few enjoy themselves so much that their have avatars that are exactly like themselves created so they have themselves as company. Most find this doesn’t work well, that as people, they’re not the wonderful companions they thought they are.

All of the avatars are as that as anything humans create. Maintenance is needed or the avatars break down and cease functioning.

With all these facets acting in parallel, the population of humanity is slowly cresting, and the average age is creeping up. The oldest humans are upward of three hundred years old. Despite proliferation of new communication technologies and people living longer, people are living more and more in isolation, with only their memories, sex and other embodiments as avatar companions. Sometimes, they miss family or friends and have ideal avatars of them created, too. It makes for happier holiday meals. Meanwhile, Mom, Dad and Sis are alive on other worlds but never hear from Bro.

Yes, it’s an interesting and complex civilization, in the future. Another day of writing like crazy is in the books (ha, ha).

This post has been brought to you by coffee. Coffee: it’s good for thinking (and bowel movements).

4

A Vicious Compulsion

A question often asked between writers is, why do you write? Strangely, I don’t encounter it from non-writers. Non-writers seem to understand that I’m a writer. Writers (and potential writers) want to understand why.

The flip answer is that I must. I’m compelled by nature or desire. Sometimes I think it’s an escape and an addiction. Writing about other characters, worlds and situations permits fight from my life blues. Those are shallow answers.

In truth, I follow a few cycles. One cycle is that I enjoy reading. Reading entertains and educates me. Reading fertilizes thought and wonder and introduces me to new mysteries and solutions, and helps me keep growing. Reading is enjoyable, and I admire writers that can tell stories. I want to emulate them. So that cycle is that I read and I want to be like those who wrote what I read, so I write, and then I read more.

The second cycle cascades from that first cycle. The thought, that would be an interesting story initiates the second cycle. Headlines, images, comments, trends and observations all trigger that simple five word thought engine.

‘That’ is often just a concept, though. Behind the concept are complicated questions to link it all together through words. The questions are about characters, motivations, situation, setting, and dive into emotional and logical issues of the story, and then dealing with the novel challenges of pacing, structure, arcs, climax, denouement, along with grammar and punctuation, and ‘truth’. The story must be truthfully told in that it must be faithful to the premise created and the established parameters. If I’m going to lie to the reader to create an ending, I have to establish early that I’m lying. This is the gospel that I developed as a reader who was disgusted after discovering the writer lied to me, or left something out, or didn’t really end the story.

All of this requires thinking. Gosh, I love thinking, especially the abstract thinking embraced in the promise of, “What if…?”

It’s this process that compels me to write. Once a character merges into my thinking, and their situation and setting evolve, it’s difficult to just dismiss them. I prefer embracing them and asking all the questions about them and what’s happening, pursuing them until this mystery is resolved and told in a story.

I suppose I can think through those things without writing it down or typing it up. (In a Steven Wright aside, why do we ‘write down’ but ‘type up’?) To put that another way without the distraction of those expressions, I suppose I can think through those matters without recording outcomes. Perhaps this is where the compulsion actually begins, to add the answers to these questions to the stories being told.

Sipping coffee, my preferred stimulant, and reflecting anew on the process and compulsion, I grasp how I see it as a painting. I grew up drawing pictures, sketching and later painting, breaking off from career paths involving art because everything I created was too mundane and traditional. Now I can glance back and understand that I was impatient and restless. Whereas I should have attempted new directions, I merely stopped and sought other creative avenues. In writing, though, I’ve found the challenge to improve and find new directions to be invigorating and stimulating, puzzles to be solved.

In a sense, puzzles summarize what it’s all about for me. I enjoy Sudoku and logic problems, and when I was employed or in the military, I enjoyed solving problems, and organizing processes. Writing envelopes all of these facets for me.

After that writing and thinking, then, I come back to the kernel of my personality that I tried denying, that I write because I must, because I need a creative outlet. Were it not writing, it would need to be something else.

It is a compulsion.

So here I am, at the computer again with my QSM, ready to write like crazy…one…more…time.

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