Coffee Novelist

Russian Women and Doubt

Coffee Novelist

November 11, 2019

“Just saw Taxi Blues at the glorious Music Box Theatre. There were women speaking Russian in the lobby.”

That is an excerpt from my Sketchbook of the Mind that I began on October 4, 1990. It is the first journal, or SotM, of the years I lived in Chicago. Those journals and many entries just like the one above are the backbone of Tripio. That particular entry did not make it into Tripio, though reading it now I am forced to consider why it didn’t. Especially as it concludes several lines later with a mention of the “Kati” character in the book.

I just read the entire entry again and am almost angry at myself for not including it in Tripio. The entry mentions work and loneliness. I know where I would have written it into Tripio. I may have simply missed it as I combed through the three or four journals that I used extensively to first generate, then populate Tripio https://www.amazon.com/Tripio-novel-Starbucks-Millionaire-Novelist-ebook/dp/B07NQ1413V . I may have simply put the journal down and stepped away to grab another cup of coffee or put a load of laundry in the dryer, came back to my desk, absentmindedly turned the page, and that was it.

If I had found that entry I may have started a paragraph with it. I may have used only that line or maybe used the entire entry. Or, I may have parsed the entry out and used a sentence here or there. I am not second guessing myself and Tripio is no worse for not using it. In this expert, Jay, the main character in Tripio, waves to the Russian women just as they turn away from him. He had taken Russian in college. He wanted a connection to someone. His next thought is that he wants to go to his apartment and “sleep on the floor and I don’t care if the place needs to be cleaned”.

Hmmmm. Maybe I can put it in Tripio. I am now clearly second guessing myself. After all, that flexibility is part of the appeal of direct publishing. But where would it end? Too scary to contemplate right now. However, the excerpt does capture Jay’s state of mind and being for the first third of Tripio. He is lonely and living in Chicago and Kati is on his mind. He has found places to go like the Music Box theatre but lacks something. Something is missing in his life.

I can only hope that the reader can “feel” that excerpt as they read Tripio. After all, the book is finished. Damn. They will get it won’t they? There are lots of other entries in Tripio and they will connect the reader to Jay. Right?

“May I help who’s next?”

Distractions

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November 7, 2019

I woke up this morning at 4:59, having set an intention last night to use my journals as the subject for today’s post. My mind is clear, present and free of distractions when I first wake up. It is the best time to write. It remembered my intention so I found the old journals first thing. There would be no Tripio without those journals, or Sketchbooks of the Mind, or SotMs, if you’re into the whole brevity thing. Sitting down with a cup of coffee at the downstairs computer, I tried to open my on-line bank account before starting to write. A reminder from a few days ago had popped up on my screen. It wanted me to register the device. I almost didn’t click. But I clicked The cloud sent a code to my phone. I retrieved my phone from the table across the dining room. The code required a dash but apparently the dash key on this computer didn’t work. I tried anyway. The cloud didn’t want to play. I quit the game. The distractions had beaten me this time.

I only go into that tedious communal experience to point out how easy it is to get sidetracked in writing. The physical part of that took maybe two minutes. But, it took a lot longer to get back to a point where I was ready to start writing again. I had to do a few of last night’s dishes, fearlessly check my bank account on the unregistered device, and jot down a few must do’s in my planner. In addition, I made an entry in my current SotM and had some buttered toast. In other words, I had to weed my mind garden from that earlier unwanted growth, the distractions. Only after all that was I ready to sit down to begin this post. Now, where was I? Oh yea, a post with tips for writers.

What distractions are keeping you from finishing this short post?

Oh yes. The subject of today’s post: SotMs. Wait. No, its distractions and tips for writers on how to handle them. Tripio takes place in the summer of 1992, the year of the Starbucks Initial Public Offering of its stock. The protagonist, Jay, has been working for Starbucks full time for over two years by this point, is fully vested and receives the maximum amount of those options his position and duration with the company mandates. Do that math and that stock today is worth…a lot.

I wrote and kept many SotMs during those years at Starbucks. Like the Starbucks stock I no longer owned, those journals accumulated value as they sat in boxes, tucked under beds and into closets over the past 25 years. The SotMs survived a flooded basement, escaped being thrown away, outlasted indifference and simply survived being forgotten about. Speaking of being forgotten, what was the topic of this post again?

One Sentence

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November 4, 2019

I do the vast majority of my writing before nine a.m. When I “novelized” Tripio https://www.amazon.com/Tripio-novel-Starbucks-Millionaire-Novelist-ebook/dp/B07NQ1413V it took me approximately 52 hours. Again, the vast majority of it was done between four and nine a.m. I worked on it on some mornings when I had to be in to work by six thirty. There are a million reasons why I find morning writing productive.

The first one is now that I don’t have get young children off to their own days, I have re-connected with the calm beauty of the early morning. I even enjoy the time of day called “God’s left hand”: the hour of pre-dawn when you can hear the birds in the warm weather, but not see them. I will get back to all that in later posts. Today, I just wanted to write one sentence for a post. That is what I told myself. Get to the laptop and write one sentence. I compare it to the bargain I make with myself when I don’t feel like dragging my ass to the gym for some cardio and resistance. I tell myself to just get there, you aren’t preparing for a decathlon, so just get there. And typically, I do that. I make it to the cross-trainer and about 15 minutes after that, my body and mind are feeling just dandy.

As you have read above, the one sentence was written. Just as experience has taught me, I found what I was looking for: the actual subject for today’s post. Here it is: I have one of the best practices that anyone can honor if they are planning to write any piece of any length. My own journey has told me that it ain’t “read the classics”. It ain’t get an MFA in Creative Writing. It ain’t attend readings or workshops. It ain’t none of that. If that writing project is going to get finished, you can’t wait for inspiration, you can’t expect genius to wake you up and get you going. The best way to finish your project is this: write when you don’t want to. Make yourself do the ugly, gritty dirty work of writing. And writing some more. That is what worked for me to date. A lot of the times I began a productive stretch of writing because I told myself I would be happy just getting one Tripio sentence out of me and onto the screen or paper. It worked for Tripio and it worked just now.

“May I help who’s next?”

Inviting a response

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October 31, 2019

“Dad. Dad! Its back on.” It was my daughter trying to get my attention. I had muted the sound of the college football game I was watching while reading “The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction.” by Alan Jacobs (Link to Book on Amazon). I am not sure what Alan Jacobs would make of what I just described.

Anyway, the quote I picked out of “Pleasures” was, “To publish a book is to invite a response.” Of the many wisdoms to pick out and blog about from that book, I chose it because this morning I received a response to Tripio https://www.amazon.com/Tripio-novel-Starbucks-Millionaire-Novelist-ebook/dp/B07NQ1413V . A response to the prologue anyway.

The response comes from an employee of Starbucks who works for their legal department in Seattle. She has been a sounding board for Tripio through my brother in law, a lawyer also living in Seattle. She had read the first ten pages of Tripio many months and many edits ago. I recall getting her response to that early version and hearing positive, uplifting things. I was excited and pleased to hear that she would be interested in reading more of the book. That was in January.

Since then the emotional stakes have been raised. Tripio has become something altogether different to me. I don’t want to seem too precious in the comparison of Tripio to a child. But, here goes: In January Tripio was my 5 year old still at the house and getting praised a lot for just being who they were. Now, Tripio has been on the bus to school and is getting graded by complete strangers. Strangers with opinions and influence. These strangers hold the power to respond to Tripio and thus affect my emotions, thoughts, and hopes regarding its future. The email I read this morning from the Starbucks lawyer was greatly appreciated and it’s something I’m going to have to get used to. I invited a response, got it, but I am not sure how I feel about sending Tripio back to school on Monday.

“May I help who’s next?”

Chicago Days Is Calling Me

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October 24, 2019

I published my novel, Tripio, on Amazon on April 11^th. Exactly how did this happen??

If you found this blog hoping to find help with writing your own novel, you have come to the right place. If you are hoping for some quick and easy bullets points to help you slap out a book in a couple months, then perhaps, you have not. Not that I know anything for certain. I only know what worked for me. So, for those who are willing to stick around, I believe the origin story of Tripio, https://www.amazon.com/Tripio-novel-Starbucks-Millionaire-Novelist-ebook/dp/B07NQ1413V will inspire and fortify you along your own, unique path to writing your book. Ready? Then, let us begin around 28 years ago….

I had been trying to write a series of short stories based on images from the front of old postcards I had received over the years. I had a shoe box full of them and the stories would be called –wait for it– Postcards. It wasn’t working.

Before I go any farther, I have to point out that I had been meditating 3 or 4 times a week during these days of early spring. I had also established a “sacred space” in my garage, where I would retreat to do Yoga and Meditate. In addition, I had also become a practitioner of disciplining and utilizing the mind as taught by The School of Metaphysics. Find a school near you…

http://som.org/schools/

I woke up at 4:52 a.m. on the morning I would start what would become, but was not yet, Tripio. It was a Tuesday morning in the spring on 2017. I noted in my current journal that “Chicago Days” is calling me. In the process of sorting through all the old postcards, I had also recovered dozens of pages of old type written notes and observations I had written while I was living in Chicago in the early 1990s. That morning, I headed to work as usual. I did not yet even consider that I had discovered the core notes for what would become Tripio. I did not yet realize that the mind I had been disciplining and cultivating, had other plans for me.

“May I help who’s next?”

A fish story

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October 21, 2019

“Barc Shif!”

-attributed to Fishy Man

I saw it today. It happened at a chance meeting with the artist who is doing the cover art for my first novel, Tripio. I loved it of course. What I saw was a mock up for the cover of my book. My name was on the cover. It looked like a real book from a bookstore or online page. My name was on it. My name as the author of a novel.

I spent a good deal of the rest of the day going about my blue collar job. From time to time I tried to recall when I first I dreamed of being a writer. My oldest surviving effort is a cartoon entitled “Fishy Man”, a fish that resembled a carp and who changed into a superhero after saying the magic words, “Barc Shif“. The phrase was intended to be crab fish spelled backwards. It’s not. But I was nine years old and so hiring an editor has not yet occured to me.

Fishy Man never made a splash, so to speak, but the desire, wish, hope, dream of being a writer stayed with me. I can’t recall waking up one summer morning and rushing to the kitchen and saying to mom, “I’m going to write novels!”

As I got older I ditched Fishy Man for The Beats and wondered through my post college years into parenthood, stopping for four years to work at Starbucks in Chicago. During those years, I wrote novels and kept journals as time presented itself. Parenthood suddently became all the time I had for the next twenty years left but I did continue journaling. The day on the job that brought me to the chance meeting with the cover artist was a typical day in my life now as a single parent of four grown kids.

Now headed home from the work day, I wondered if not for the 20 years of raising kids, of wathcing them create every day, would have forgoettne my childhood creation of Fishy Man.?Fishy Man who was born in the moment of pure creation from it’s own sake. Fishy Man who was swimming free of intent, the desire to impress, the condition he be edited and monetized. Fishy man, who couldn’t spell, but whose superpower was to create for own sake, for the imagination for the fun of just being able to do it- no string (of hooks) attached!

I dont’ know for sure of course. I just hope the some of Fishy Man’s superpower made it into Tripio and all my other writing. I hope adulthood didn’t force me to take it all to seriously.

“May I help who’s next?”

The visit

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October 21, 2019

In Tripio, https://www.amazon.com/Tripio-novel-Starbucks-Millionaire-Novelist-ebook/dp/B07NQ1413V Jay works at a Starbucks (called the Cosmodemonic Coffee Company in the novel for reasons I just covered in a previous post) store located near Lincoln Park on the corner of Clark, Diversey and Broadway. In Tripio, for the sake of brevity and authenticity, I refer to it simply as store #204. It was already beat up and worn out when Jay arrives there as the new Lead Clerk. But the store had character. And since his co-workers were mostly aspiring to make a living at one art form or another, Jay felt he fit right in. There are several passages in the book when Jay states that he feels at home at #204. He finds comfort settling back in there for a shift after returning to the city from a trip downstate: “ I had spent too much time here not to treat #204 as a home away from home”

So, it was no shock that I had a strong desire to go back and revisit store #204. I also wanted to look again on the Days Inn that stood diagonally and across the street from #204. There were many, many nights I closed #204 and had to get back to open for a morning shift. If I closed, I locked that door after midnight. If I opened the next morning, it was at 5:30 or 6 a.m. The Days Inn stood just across the street on those nights, calling me, tempting me. A shower and bed was just minutes away. My apartment was a long bus ride up Clark. It could take close to an hour before a shower and bed there. I would then have to make the return trip on almost no sleep. All that could be fixed by a night at the Days Inn. But no money, no way.

Photo Cred: https://www.tripadvisor.co.nz/LocationPhotoDirectLink-

As summer 2017 arrived I took the opportunity to drive to Chicago and see both places. I wanted to confirm the details of #204. After all, it had been 20 plus years since the last time I left it’s doors. My trip to Chicago was also a gift for my daughter. She was headed to college in the fall and we went together as a going away present. That is why I did no research on whether #204 still existed. I was going anyway.

Not surprisingly #204 was no more. If it is true that you can’t go home again, at least you have a shot if it still standing. I could visualize where it stood in the new collection of storefronts that had taken over the whole building that housed and surrounded #204. I can’t say I was crushed or even surprised. I could still hear the thud of the filter basket hitting the bar across the dump bucket positioned on either end of the espresso bar. I could hear the grinders clicking on and the shriek of the hot steaming wand entering the cold milk. All that was still in my mind.

As I think it over now, perhaps not having a physical confirmation of #204 made me work harder to recreate #204 in Tripio. I had to work to rebuild it, and I did. Look for proof when you read Tripio in the scene where Jay dusts off an “order here” sign that hung unnoticed by almost every customer and most partners who had ever entered #204.

So, the trip worked, just not in the way I anticipated. One thing that did work out more to plan was that I finally got to stay at the Days Inn. Now it is called The Versey https://www.hotelversey.com/ but the ghost of the Days Inn was still there. And it was put to rest. But best of all, my daughter and I had a grand time in Chicago…

“May I help who’s next?”

Starting to write

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October 21, 2019

I saw it today. It happened at a chance meeting with the artist who is doing the cover art for my first novel, Tripio https://www.amazon.com/Tripio-novel-Starbucks-Millionaire-Novelist-ebook/dp/B07NQ1413V . I loved it of course. What I saw was a mock up for the cover of my book. My name was on the cover. It looked like a real book from a bookstore or online page. My name was on it. My name as the author of a novel.

Fishy Man never made a splash, so to speak, but the desire, wish, hope, dream of being a writer stayed with me. I can’t recall waking up one morning and telling my mom I wanted to become a writer. Nothing so easily pinpointed as that. At least, I had always kept a journal.

I first started keeping journals in 1987. I refer to them when I need to find something, often something I hadn’t shared with anyone before. I’m sure there exists somewhere, a few pages in a small notebook which pinpoints the day when my hope of becoming a writer was re-born on dry land. Until that turns up, I will use the 30 plus journals I still have as confirmation of that hope.

The journals themselves were ,and still are, way more than lined paper dream catchers. They can be source material for whatever you want them to be. For me, they were also companions for the years I lived alone in Chicago, trying to finish a novel and working at a little known coffee company called Starbucks.

“May I help who’s next?”

Events follow Energy

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October 13, 2019

At this point on the journey of Tripio, a lot has been happening. A lot of good things have taken place So much so that last night I voiced a desire to possibly move the publication date of Tripio up a month or so. I chose April 11^th because in Tripio, the child that Kati and Jay are expecting has been assigned a due date of April 11^th. I will wait and see on the final decision for a new release date of Tripio.

“Nothing in human judgment is final” attributed to FDR

A lot of positive things are happening around Tripio: the wonderful blurbs from Starbucks legends, the inspired first mock cover, the classes at the Indiana Writers Centers seemingly appearing just when I need them, my tech support moving back home at the right time to help me launch this blog. All those events listed are simply events following energy. That is, good energy following good energy.

Events following energy is a cornerstone wisdom that I have believed in since way before I started working on Tripio. I had to understand it first in order to understand myself in order to put myself into a place to be able to create Tripio. For further clarification, find and read Daniel Pond’s Chakras for Beginners.

I can’t even recall when I bought the book, or how it came to me years ago, during the time I call “early recovery”. Finding that book can rightly be called a milestone on my journey.

From this book, I found so many wisdoms that I have come to use in my day to day life. I know I would not have come to create Tripio https://www.amazon.com/Tripio-novel-Starbucks-Millionaire-Novelist-ebook/dp/B07NQ1413V without having read Chakras. It is one of the books that I can honestly say helped change my life. Or as C.S. Lewis puts it in Experiment in Criticism, “I have become what I was not before”, upon reading Chakras.

Once again, the single most powerful wisdom practice I have followed since first putting down that book has consistently been “Events follow Energy”. The events I listed above are not random actions of an outside world that happened to crash into my life. For most of my life I would have seen those, and all events in my life, as such. I would have concluded that “Life happens”. Now I understand that it doesn’t. We create our lives with our thoughts and concomitant actions. Good events follow good energy. Bad events follow bad energy. I know, I followed some of them right into rehab. I have since worked daily, even hourly, to create better daily energies. Those energies continue to bring better events. A very short list appears above.

“May I help who’s next?”

What I see in the cover part 2

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October 10, 2019

Today I reached a milestone on the journey of Tripio. I had my last meeting with the artist who did the cover art. His field of specialty is fashion and design but circumstance created the interest and opportunity for him to take on creating the cover art for a book. It was all meant to be. I had never written a book before and he had never created a design for a book cover before. I can only hope the book is a good as the cover.

I will give you three guesses as to where the artist and I met for me to pay and for us to sign the copyright transfer. Need help? There was one exactly halfway between his house and mine. Still need help? Tripio takes place primarily at one of these places, although at the time of Tripio, there were about 10,000 fewer of these places to choose from.

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

Well, you’ll get it eventually. For now I look at the cover and see the story behind it. I see the work that went into it. I see the very first cover draft I came up with. I see long the before that, to the writing of the book itself. And I see the requesting of the blurbs and the photo shoot for the back cover headshot. I see my original journals that begat Tripio. I see learning how to use Dropbox for the editing. I see myself with printed pages on my porch this past summer Sunday evenings, looking over what I had written that weekend. I see four am start times. I see that this list is getting tedious for you, so I will stop.

My point is this anyhow. I see a lot of good times. I see good times in my Mind Garden. I see good productive days and weeks getting both me and Tripio https://www.amazon.com/Tripio-novel-Starbucks-Millionaire-Novelist-ebook/dp/B07NQ1413V to this point. And that is what I feel best about when I look at the cover…even though you can’t see it.

“May I help who’s next?”