Finding my voice

Coffee Novelist

February 20, 2024

The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state that makes art inevitable.

Finding my voice

This morning I am reviewing my 5^th Chakra. You heard me right. It is snowing and cold. I just wrote in my journal that the wind is literally rattling the windowpanes of this 112 year old house. So, why not brew some coffee and see how I’m doing in good ol’ Chakra number five?

If you don’t know how balanced or imbalanced you are in your 5th or any of your six other Chakras, I’m afraid you won’t’ be able to find out by asking Siri. Save her for ego gratification and disconnection from the effort required to actually enjoy the outcome of what you are asking her to do for you.

Chakras for Beginners: A Guide to Balancing Your Chakra Energies (For Beginners (Llewellyn's))

The Fifth Chakra is the throat, the voice Chakra which impels you to express yourself in a creative way. It can be helpful for me at least, to view the Chakras as a type of ladder with seven rungs in various states of repair or disrepair. All steps need to be working before you get to a state of detached, self-awareness in which one doesn’t have anything to defend, be the smartest guy in the room, and in which you understand that you are in the materialistic rat race world but not of it. The Fifth Chakra is the throat and voice Chakra which impels you to express yourself in a creative way.

In good voice today

I am feeling fairly sure of my footing on the 5^th Chakra this morning as I write this post. I may be struggling in the 2^nd or 3rd Chakras tomorrow so I’m writing this post while I’m here. It’s a new ladder every day.

A balanced 5^th Chakra allows one to speak their personal truth. Of course, one doesn’t just spin the Chakra dial and end up with a balanced 5^th Chakra, writing your personal truth. You have to find it first. I have had my path and it ain’t pretty nor is it recommended. It wouldn’t’ work to do what I did anyway. Your own personal truth can only be discovered by you. Makes sense to me.

I was into chakras for years and years before I read the Robert Henri quote in the Rubin book. But it was during my 5th chakra review earlier this morning that I saw the connection between a balanced 5th chakra and the “wonderful state.” The 5th chakra is knowing your tendencies and traits well enough to get out of the way and allow the liberated pure light to shine through.

Found it

Not sure where to go from here. Maybe that there is nothing new under the sun, certainly not my warped, wooden windowpanes. Henri and Rubin aint’ breaking news here. Maybe simply feeling like I wanted to write about something I believe in (and I definitely do), like the existence of the energy centers in our bodies that the Chakras are, confirms that I am balanced in my 5th chakra, and freeing my personal truth, sharing it without any other agenda to fulfill.

Yea, that must have been the reason.

Photo taken when it was a lot warmer.

a share of my waterfall

Coffee Novelist

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February 10, 2024

A river of material runs through us. When we share our work and ideas, we are replenished.

Rick Rubin, from The Creative Act

Writing as a river

I almost didn’t start this post. I almost didn’t because I did not see where, when, or even if, it would end. Which makes sense now because a river keeps flowing, and from the shore, or sitting on a dock watching it flow by, there is no end.

My writing practice is like a river, and I could get carried away with how that makes sense to me. The above quote makes sense, perfect sense to me. But how does one share a river? A fair question. If you are brave enough to read more from this guy who thinks writing is a body of water flowing past, read on and I will provide an answer.

It is simple really. It already exists in some rivers. You share the river by stopping the flow. Not by a dam built by beavers or named after J. Edgar Hoover. It is a temporary halt, and interruption, a redirection using the same source material, of course. It’s a waterfall.

All images

I have been integrating yoga and writing for ten years, consciously and with intent the last five or six. It has been more an intention to release everything I write during these yoga practices, even if the practice is just a five minute one before work. I have written something in the last day that I release. “Let it go, so it can flow”. And it works. I do not experience writers’ block. And since it is all one practice anyway, it is harder and harder to tell when I’m writing here at the laptop or on my mat.

Letting it flow

A couple years ago, I developed a blood clot in my right leg. I’ll leave out the grisly details as to how for now. And I am on my feet all day at work. So, to give my lower legs and feet some respite, in the last two years, I have been finishing my longer yoga practices with in inverted shavasana against a wall. My bottom is against the wall, legs lined up along it, and my feet are the highest bit of my body. Arms at my side. My legs love the reversing flow and energy.

I am not sure why, but it may be because I’ve been writing for long enough that I needed another way to let it all go. Not just the daily stuff, but the accumulated bits the daily practice missed. But about six months ago, during my wall shavasana, I put my arms above my head, flat on the floor, spread all my fingers apart and imagined my body as a waterfall. My head is where the pool of water forms, stays for moment, and moves on.

Letting it go

I imagine this as I hold the pose, now called waterfall shavasana, and let it go so it can flow, and tomorrow I can write mo’. It works very well for me. The water flows into the pool below, stays for a bit, and keeps flowing. If I envision the writing as water, it’s how I share it.

Makes sense to me, anyway. That concludes my sharing time for today.

My writing practice

Coffee Novelist

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January 31, 2024

Writing practice

I spent several hours yesterday morning actually writing. Sitting on my chair at my laptop grinding away on some plot points on my follow up to The Trier. For the record the working title is The Trier goes to London. It is set in 1675, or thereabouts, because that was the year Charles II of England issued a proclamation that ordered the closing of all of London’s coffee houses. Why, you ask??

You’ll have to read the book when it comes out.

Later in the day I went to my local gym to do the editing on the work I did earlier and write more. The writing I did on the cross trainer, on my yoga mat, in the sauna, and on my meditation, pillow will show up later today when I work again on TGL. And again, the next day, and again next week.

meditation pillow | Blauw, Meditatie, Kussen

This is my writing practice. The source line for this post from Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act, is “good habits create good art (his word, not mine)”. My choice is writing. And I would even leave out the good. Why complicate all of this?

Or practice writing

I cannot make it to the local gym every day. If I make it twice a week, I’m having a good (not to complicate it) week. The other days, I do a five- or eight-minute yoga/meditation practice before work. I feel like this all adds up to keeping my mind in that wonderful state mentioned in the earlier post.

I’ve been doing this for years now. I know it works for me. It has to because I, like most of us, have limited time to actually sit down and write. It doesn’t pay the bills, and I have no one pounding on my front door demanding I get to work on the next novel.

So, in a few minutes when I click on to Trier goes to London, the work yesterday will look different, will tell me what to do, and give me today’s – not sure what to call it- not content, not word count- today’s opportunity to move on. Don’t like opportunity here either though.

Not to worry because I’m going to yoga class tomorrow.

I’m talking about practice.

Layers

Coffee Novelist

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January 25, 2024

Your relationship with a piece has many layers. As you move through the layers, you see clearer and it sinks into your system. And then you liberate yourself in a healthy way from the technical necessities of the piece. That is when you make music.” Anne-Sophie Mutter, a world-renowned German violinist

Layers

I found this quote in an article I was reading on my phone about ten minutes before ISO’s production of Mozart & the Chevalier. There is a movie out with the same title, but this was the live symphony performance which was just about to start.

Image result for ernest shackleton endurance ship. Size: 202 x 200. Source: www.pinterest.com

The Endurance

I really enjoyed being in the old theatre seeing live music on a frigid Friday evening in January. The work week I endured working outside would have made Earnest Shackleton proud. I wore lots of layers to keep warm. Could be why the quote resonated. I don’t think so. I didn’t finish reading the article as the house lights went down and put my phone away as requested.

I am not a big fan of reviews of any sort. It just doesn’t make sense to me to think I would experience Chicken Carbonara, Romeo & Juliet, or Porky’s in a way remotely close to how anyone else would.

I ain’t trying to prove a point but I say that because I spent a lot of the concert imaging the musicians in their street clothes and sweats practicing, practicing, and practicing the music the needed to in order be ready when it was time to hit the stage in their black gear. I even wondered if they had to buy their own performance night outfits. I suspect that they do. All part of getting through the layers.

Layers upon layers

It takes time to do anything of value. Time in sweats, practicing, moving through the layers, getting familiar with what you are working on. That is why I liked the quote so much, I suppose. It is how I go about my writing practice. I’m in sweats now, writing this post before writing a bit more of the Trier goes to London.

My relationship with the novel is in a good place. We know each other well by now. My favorite characters have emerged from the layers. I have an end in sight but that can change as it gets closer. The technical necessities come later. I know what they are already. They are the performance night blacks, and I will also have to pay for them: editor, proofreader, cover design and all that. Which is not what the violinist is referring to, I know. And, hey, I get that she’s talking about a piece of music. To me, it’s all mental energy to start with and it’s my post, so there you go.

For me, for now

In a few minutes, I will start to find out what the novel wants me to do for this layer, this next paragraph, page and stage of our relationship. We’ve been together long enough now that I can be who I am, and the novel can do the same. The stuff I have to pay for, the technical necessities, don’t matter at all. Nor does a single craft book, blog, podcast, beta-reader or Stephen King.

This relationship is between the manuscript and me. This relationship is only for me, for now. After the technical necessities, it is all yours.

PHOTO

That wonderful state

Coffee Novelist

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January 7, 2024

That Wonderful State

The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in

That wonderful state that makes art inevitable.

-Robert Henri

There it was. I read the above quote from some guy I had never heard of. It is on the first page of Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act- A Way of Being. Not sure if you’ve ever heard of Rick Rubin, either. Never mind if you haven’t because this post and the eighty-one that I plan to post altogether are about me anyway.

Why? Because they have to be, that’s why. I ain’t doing none of this for anybody else. Don’t be fooled. If that doesn’t stop you from reading, maybe this will: If you are writing for anybody but yourself, it ain’t gonna be any good. It won’t last, it won’t resonate, it won’t have the energy from you, the stake, the risk, the offering it takes to be worth reading. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.

But I will get to all that and more in the next year or so. And, you know, part of me hopes to look back on what I just wrote and call it nonsense. It may be, but this morning, I don’t think it is. Not to worry, I’ll get to that also. Like I said, I have eighty-two posts planned directly inspired by that guys’ quote and confirmed by Rubin’s book.

I read the quote and knew I would read the book. So I did. I found it landed beautifully into my path that I’ve been on for about ten years now. The book may not do the same for everyone of course. That is why I don’t review books. It is random, a borderline waste of time. How would I know whether you, me or the grand piano would like a book I read?

I didn’t want to call this post a book review, so I won’t call it anything. Labeling and categorizing is also a waste of time. However, I did waste some time trying to label this series (I just did it again) of posts. This morning about half an hour ago, I decided to just release the mental energy (write) and see where it takes me, labels be dammed.

Since I have to start somewhere, for now I will just post, post and post, for me, me, me. Because this morning, I am in that wonderful state. And that wonderful state is all that matters to me. This stuff you’re reading now, not so much.

And why not? Because I’m there. Later it will, just not now.

The quote uses the word art. But I’m talking about my writing, which I do not refer to as art. Hell no.

You can go home again

Coffee Novelist

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November 29, 2023

BuYou can go home again

Trying to go home

I think I was being selfish. But it worked out. I discovered that you can go home again, provided you are paying attention.

I had been trying for months to get a book signing and selling event in my hometown of Dayton, Ohio. It was one of my first intentions made when I decided to take my novel The Trier on its book launch tour. The tour has covered two states, been staged at libraries, bookstores, coffeehouses, and even a Coffee festival.

However, I had not been able to get an event in Dayton, Ohio which is, not surprisingly, where the novel is set. I really wanted to bring the book to Dayton and better yet, to a coffeehouse in the Oregon Historic District. That older, quirky neighborhood bordering downtown Dayton is where the actual coffeehouse that I based the Trier was located. Perfect spot for a book event. Yet nothing turned up.

Made it

I kept trying, and eventually I found a host for a book signing and selling event with Ghostlight coffee. Boom. Ghostlight was as close to the Oregon District as I was going to get. The event was set for Black Friday, and I was even featured in local media on Dayton.com.

I had been to Ghostlight two times on recon and planning missions and liked the coffeehouse right away and felt like it had the feel of what the Trier would be like if it were real. I was given a corner spot near the front at the window. It looked out on Wayne Avenue. Just up Wayne is where Jay lives in the Trier, and where yours truly once lived. The spot for my table came with a classic coffeehouse beat-up wooden couch to use, the day outside was sunny, the place busy, and I sold a book right away. I was off to a good start.

My approach to selling in a coffeehouse it to stay out of the way overall. I figure a strange person sitting at a table behind a rack of books will passively draw attention. But I have my promo signing postcard piece to use. I use my years of experience behind the bar and when I see that the line of customers is long, I offer the promo card to those waiting. It distracts them from the wait for a minute or two for as they look it over. Some scan the QR code, others just read it, some take it with them and some folks toss it on the counter.

Really enjoyed being back home

In between the lines and sales, I sat in my window seat, read a little, made entries in my journal and looked at the window. I began to really enjoy being in a coffeehouse. It had been a long time since I sat in a coffeehouse in Dayton soaking in the music, the talk, the sound of the steam wand kicking on and off.

A street in my old neighborhood. It is the inspiration of my character’s name in The Trier : Jay Altonstreet.

The corner I looked out on was busy enough to bear watching. Two women waited forever to cross at the light. About half an hour later they went the way they came with a new broom and a bag of cleaning supplies. Another guy picked up something on the sidewalk and put it in his own plastic bag. More than a few folks tried to come into the front door of Ghostlight. The door sits right on Wayne Avenue, but it is locked and can’t be opened even during business hours. No sign was there to let them know, so they walked around to the side door. I thought of asking the crew why there was no sign on the door.

Then it occurred to me that would be boring, too corporate coffee. That’s when it occurred to me that I was paying attention. An entry door that doesn’t open would be a great detail to use if I were to write a novel set in a funky old coffeehouse in Dayton, Ohio.

Oh, wait, I already have. I was back home.

Rick Rubin for writers

Coffee Novelist

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November 8, 2023

Rick Rubin for writers

If you don’t know who Rick Rubin is, don’t feel too bad. If you click on his name, you’ll find the link to his bio on Encyclopedia Brittanica. So, there you go.

I bought his book. Not the one in the photo above. That is from the library, hence all the mini sticky notes. It is obvious that the book resonates with me. It does mostly because it confirms so much of what I have experienced and recognized the past years while writing novels.

The Rick Rubin books is entitled, The Creative Act: A Way of Being. When I said I bought it, the hardback copy, I bought it for my son, who creates painting, choosing to use his mental energy that way.

I use my mental energy in lots of ways, as we all do. However, I set the intention to use a lot of my mental energy, my mind’s sustained intention and attention, my mind blood, if you will, to write.

Rick Rubin is right

The Rick Rubin book is about creating, not just writing, which is why it worked to buy it for my son, who paints.

What I’m getting at is that there are so many ways to be creative. And we are all creators. But since my blog is about writing mostly, I felt like taking a few Rubin wisdoms and focus them on writing, or at least how I experience it. Let me direct some intention and attention to creating those below. Let me pick a few sticky notes…

Am I right, too? Not that I care

And here you go:

“The work is done when you feel it is.“- A confirmation on the pointlessness of word count as a measurement of achieving anything in writing.

“Hanging on to your work is like spending years writing the same entry in a diary.”- This is why it is a good practice to write some every day, and release it the next.

“A dedication to the practice of showing up on regular basis is the main requirement.- The creative process is found in and born from the grunt work.

“Not all projects take time, but they do take a lifetime.”- The journey is the reward. The writing is in the rewriting, the discovery of what you learn about yourself from your own words.

“Demanding to control a work of art would be just as foolish as demanding that a oak tree grow according to your will.”- There is great joy in acceptance.

Five sticky notes down, a hundred more to go.

Next time, buy the book. It will be easier.

Readers direct to author

Coffee Novelist

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October 27, 2023

No one in the way of this book buyer!

Author Directed

I have been committed to self-publishing, author directed publishing, or whatever you may call it for a while now. I can pinpoint it to the day I took a Basics of Self-Publishing class at the IWC, taught by YA author Robert Kent. November 4th, 2018.

In that time, I have posted a few times on my decision to forgo the Big Five route. I haven’t regretted the decision and kept writing and working on all the rest of the stuff that goes with author directed publishing. Yet, the choice remained a kind of theory….until this weekend.

I have had successful book selling events before at bookstores and coffee houses. I have had events not selling books at bookstores and coffeehouses.

No one between me and the book buyers

This weekend I was in the Cincinnati Music hall with nearly 100 other vendors. This weekend I experienced clearly why it makes sense to take one’s books directly to the readers. I was the only guy selling books. Hundreds of festival goers passed my table over the weekend. Some stopped to talk. Some stopped to buy. And some passed by an hour later showed up to buy. Others ignored me entirely. All of them had the option to do exactly what they wanted to do about my books.

They did the same with Seven Hill Coffee. Boston Stoker Coffee. Evolve Pastries. It Spells Good Pastries. Sky the Tea guy was given the same treatment.

You can’t get more direct that someone talking in to you in person. Perhaps even picking up your book, reading the back cover, admiring the interior design. They did the roughly the same with the other 100 vendors and their products.

Don’t see the point

If I were to ask each person who decided to buy one of books to drive to New York first and let a Big Five Publishing house to approve the sale, I have a feeling my sales would vanish. So why let them? Boston Stoker doesn’t have to get the SCA to sign off on their offerings. Neither did Seven Hills or Tinker. So why should I?

Before print-on-demand publishing, authors had no other realistic choice but to use traditional publishing houses to get their books to readers. Now that has changed. Big Five and even boutique publishing house still have a place of course. It just wasn’t at the Coffee Festival.

Direct and to the point, don’t you think?

Work on it

Coffee Novelist

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October 18, 2023

The chain is broken

Melted in the flame of my knowledge.

Turning his face from the fruit,

He needs nothing;

Work

In a week I am going to set up my book table at the Cincinnati Coffee Festival. Last year I was there as a humble coffee lover with one novel to his name. The Trier was not finished. In fact, as I type I can’t tell you where in the book I was. I know it wasn’t done however because if it were, I would not have set the intention to return to Cincinnati in a year.

In the year between then and now, I worked on writing the book. My book producer then took the book from my laptop and got it to Amazon and Ingram Spark by early June. I set the intention to return with the novel completed. That intention was met. I don’t even have to make the trip to sell a single book to know that all my work means what it is supposed to mean.

Work

Ideal industry, work, and purpose is free from the judgement of others. Results driven. Paycheck. Fruit of the labor. There is no reward in any of these. If there is, then you are giving something, or some arbitrary person, the power to define what your effort means to you. What your early mornings and tired body mean to it’s owner and founder. How can any one else know what that is worth? They can’t. Its just a guess at best. Do not let what lands in your bank account on payday define what the work you do means.

Work

So, I am going to have a blast, a caffeinated joy ride surrounded my books. I will sell a good amount of books because work went into making that inevitable. But the real reward, the true lasting fruit that cannot go rotten, lies in working on the next book. Or books.

In the above quote, I define chain as paycheck, and fruit as money. But that’s just me.

The (ten) Myth(s) of Kaldi

Coffee Novelist

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October 1, 2023

The origins of coffee | The legend of Kaldi & more | Essense Coffee

Have a great International Coffee Day

Many an independent coffee house features a Kaldi’s Blend. If you asked ten different baristas what was in the Kaldi’s Blend you would most likely get ten different responses. It may be a blend of any two varietals. There may be a third in for fun.

Is it any wonder? I roasted a few batches in my time. Here’s a secret of the trade- there can be a rotating selection of coffees made up to create any blend’s flavor profile. In other words, if Kaldi’s Blend tastes like Kaldi’s blend this week, who cares if there was Bolivian in it before and now its a Nicaraguan?

However, all this Kaldi’s confusion starts at the beginning, whenever that was. A look into my coffee books, the internet and a variety of articles yielded ten versions of the Myth of Kaldi. They are collected below.

Even though I worked in coffee for over two decades, I had never given the myth much thought. Maybe I was the only coffee lover not to. Anyway, I first saw it explained in detail few years ago in Stewart Lee Allen’s fabulous book, The Devil’s Cup.