On Coffee

I love the hell out of this song.  The voice just barely holding onto its hushed tone.  You can hear Beam biting on the end of every word.  I picture teeth chopping at the microphone.  I think I’m exaggerating a bit, but when I sing it I can’t help but sing it loud.

Anyway.  That song is one of 90 on the “refined” playlist for AAM.  Refined from 221.  I wanted to share the brief story of my good day.  It’s brief because it’s been good only for about 5 hours, since I started writing at the coffee shop.  The fellow at the counter knows me by now and greets me warmly.  I asked for coffee and apparently I’d earned the honor of a house mug, as he took one down and gave me my coffee in it.  I love getting coffee in different ways from drinking other things at a coffee shop.  The first time I drank coffee and liked it was in Valparaiso, Nebraska.  I had it doctored heavily but I still felt strangely adult, accomplished, looking out at the fields around the bed and breakfast.  I’d run away from home, you could say, and came to that town through a series of odd coincidences involving my first book and second heartbreak.  It’s one of my favorite places on Earth.  I ate grilled chicken sandwiches for lunch and dinner and drank beer and got the strangest look when I showed the lady my Ohio ID.  I drove 14 hours to get there.  God, it was worth it.

Right, so, I was talking about this cup of coffee.  In a black and white mug with kitties on it.  Drinking the coffee and sitting at my laptop, man, did I write.  And I looked over earlier passages for reference.  I had myself grinning.  You know that’s a good sign.  Or that you’re delusional.  I chose to believe the former today.  I wrote, and things showed themselves, and the dialogue was sharp and the threads came together.  I finished a scene and started another and I feel good about the openness of it and about what’s coming.

There was an MFA reception today, and I zoned out for a good part of it, sitting in a corner, and for the first time in a while I felt my tanks getting refilled.  I can’t remember if I’ve talked about it on here or not, but my subconscious sometimes puts the rest of me on hold and makes me sit wherever I am and space out while it drinks something in.  It did that today, and I remember getting a few looks, had a fellow come over to me and tell me I was marginalizing myself (nice guy, pretended he was my dad so I could pitch my book to him–I guess as an exercise in clarity).  But lately the only voice that’s been coming to my mind was that of Samuel, the main character’s son, who will eventually take the reins of the book.  It’s great to feel that voice, and it’s great that it’s so insistent.  He’s hounding me.  I know I’m bordering on hokum, here.  Believe me when I say I don’t plug myself into the ether like some writers feel they do.  But there is an element of writing that you can’t pin to the conscious.  And it’s lovely when that element shows itself.

I wrote about 1,500 words today, 500 over the weekend, and I’m set for another easy 500.  Gravy.  Now let’s just hope I can find the time through everything else to keep up this pace.  Might have to start foregoing sleep.  It’s not like I really need 8 hours a day anyway.  Not like I’m working, or anything.  Looking back, this post wasn’t very brief at all.  Guess I lied to you.