Who says that the Cubs are a buncha losers? They know how to produce steroid-chompin’ ballplayers.
Take the latest steroid scandal. The Ex-Cub Steroid Twins now reside on the Baltimore Orioles — Rafael Palmeiro, who looks like a melted candle and was busted for steroids, and Sammy Sosa, who looks like a Panzer tank and has so far beaten the rap.
Palmeiro made a finger-wagging appearance before Congress saying he’d never ever ever ever taken steroids. He all but swore on his sister’s virginity. Now, he says he doesn’t know how he tested positive. Something about dietary supplements. You know, Anabolic PowerBars.
Steroid Sammy also denied taking performance enhancing drugs, which I found as convincing as our fair president claiming Sadaam Hussein had 500 million tons of chemical weapons or mobile anthrax labs or that those steel tubes were for enriching uranium.
But, as I am wont to do, I wonder how all this Roid Rage applies to me. Specifically, how it applies to writing fiction.
I look at my current writing output, and see I am in sore need of some writing steroids. What are steroids for writers?
Coke, speed, and crank don’t count, despite their obvious allure (their benefits, in order: acting insane, insaner, and insanest). I have found that by far, I am most productive between the hours of 11 am and 2 p.m. That is, if infused with the proper amount of caffeine. I then become the fiction writing equivalent of Sammy Sosa taking batting practice, swatting one over the fence after another. I’m unstoppable. A machine of words.
Coffee is my steroid, heroin, and gambling addiction wrapped into one. Without it, I am a creative train wreck, Dickens’ Micawber come to life (all talk, no action, throw me in debtors’ prison). With it, I am brilliant. (Or perhaps because I’m so hopped up on coffee, I simply think that I’m brilliant).
It’s simple. Coffee is the Magic Bean.
As you may or may not know, I am obsessed with the amount of fiction I write — my moods are directly proportional to the volume and quality of the day’s work.
A coffee achiever
To see how much others produced is an exercise in self-loathing. I’m currently reading a biography of Alexander Hamilton, and it is humiliating to see how much this dude wrote. His life consisted solely of reading, writing, making speeches, reading some more, writing some more, and shagging like a tomcat.
Hamilton wrote the vast majority of the 85 Federalist Papers while he was working as an attorney — sometimes at the rate of five or six papers a week. We’re talking about the Federalist Papers here. Perhaps the most important piece of American political philosophy ever published, and the guy wrote it in his spare time. The guy was to words what I am to beer — the stuff just passes through him.
And he drank coffee. Strong coffee, every morning. Bless him.
Things don’t always make sense in the world of the Magic Bean. Wife does not drink coffee, writes much more and better than me, and these two facts seem to me a fundamental contradiction in the Laws of Man. She is High on Life, the Writing Life, that is. Sure, she’ll have a cuppa tea or a Coke-Cola here and there, but nothing like the Caffeine Dream.
I used to think I had to get the coffee monkey off my back, but I’ve changed my mind. As addictions go, it’s fairly harmless, except when I start shaking and vomiting out strings of profanities worthy of someone afflicted with Tourette’s syndrome.
Voltaire was told that coffee was a slow poison. “It must be,” he said, “because I’ve been drinking it 50 years and I’m not dead yet.”
I’m going to write some more. Pass the cream and sugar.
The prodigal father returns! We still love you, even if you don’t.
I write best after a big binge. Hungover and feeling like I just got raped by elephant. That’s when I got the stuff. Oh yeah.
Just finished reading Philip Roth’s _The Ghostwriter_. At least you’re living life while writing!
Coffee–never touch the stuff. Strong Earl Grey, two spoons of turbinado sugar, a splash of cream. Heaven.
Welcome back.. Again.. I don’t if being “raped by an elephant” would describe my feelings write after I write/design something that is just profound. I can tell you when I get that rush I love when it’s fueled by an emotion. Once done, there is no other high worth coming down off of.. Not even caffeine..
The prodigal father returns! We still love you, even if you don’t.
I write best after a big binge. Hungover and feeling like I just got raped by elephant. That’s when I got the stuff. Oh yeah.
The prodigal father returns! We still love you, even if you don’t.
I write best after a big binge. Hungover and feeling like I just got raped by elephant. That’s when I got the stuff. Oh yeah.
Just finished reading Philip Roth’s _The Ghostwriter_. At least you’re living life while writing!
Coffee–never touch the stuff. Strong Earl Grey, two spoons of turbinado sugar, a splash of cream. Heaven.
Just finished reading Philip Roth’s _The Ghostwriter_. At least you’re living life while writing!
Coffee–never touch the stuff. Strong Earl Grey, two spoons of turbinado sugar, a splash of cream. Heaven.
Welcome back.. Again.. I don’t if being “raped by an elephant” would describe my feelings write after I write/design something that is just profound. I can tell you when I get that rush I love when it’s fueled by an emotion. Once done, there is no other high worth coming down off of.. Not even caffeine..
Welcome back.. Again.. I don’t if being “raped by an elephant” would describe my feelings write after I write/design something that is just profound. I can tell you when I get that rush I love when it’s fueled by an emotion. Once done, there is no other high worth coming down off of.. Not even caffeine..
I smiled broadly when I saw your comment on my other blog(Good Vibrations where I’m Green-Eyed Lady). It’s great to read that you’ve been back in the swing of writing.
I enjoyed this piece with its references to historical figures and your own philosphy to spice it up. I drink neither coffee nor tea, unless I’m freezing cold in a restaurant and they don’t offer hot chocolate.
I write best at night and into the wee hours when the house is blissfully silent:hence, my other penname of SilverMoon. It’s my natural biorhythym, for it’s also when I paint with the most vitality, often writing or painting through the night.
There, I’ve taken advantage of a nice category feature that has vastly helped me put up more of my writings, although these are not “polished.” All of my blog writing is off-the-cuff, written and typed in 5 min- 30 min. For an editory, I’d need to revise. Keep up the *magic!*
Down goes my third cup. Hamilton seems like an interesting character. Would you recommend the book?
steve: you are right, i don’t love me. thanks anyway. and think how well you would write if you didn’t feel as if you were raped by an elephant? maybe just a hippo? just say no!
amy: ah, nathan zuckerman. he’s da bomb. even if he’s fucked up.
what, no coffee? you should become a “coffee achiever” (tagline to a real ad campaign in the 80s).
goddess: you’re right — nothing like an emotional high. if i’m on a roll with the writing, it’s the best. next to sex, demerol, or skydiving.
GEL: ah, a nightowl of an artist. that’s one i can’t comprehend, though it’s not uncommon. silence is golden, however…
keroaced: third cup! you rule. the hamilton book is by ron chernow and i highly recommend it. hamilton is an interesting character, maybe the most interesting of all the founding daddies — ’twas an illegitimate immigrant from the carib who more or less invented america as we know it.
I smiled broadly when I saw your comment on my other blog(Good Vibrations where I’m Green-Eyed Lady). It’s great to read that you’ve been back in the swing of writing.
I enjoyed this piece with its references to historical figures and your own philosphy to spice it up. I drink neither coffee nor tea, unless I’m freezing cold in a restaurant and they don’t offer hot chocolate.
I write best at night and into the wee hours when the house is blissfully silent:hence, my other penname of SilverMoon. It’s my natural biorhythym, for it’s also when I paint with the most vitality, often writing or painting through the night.
There, I’ve taken advantage of a nice category feature that has vastly helped me put up more of my writings, although these are not “polished.” All of my blog writing is off-the-cuff, written and typed in 5 min- 30 min. For an editory, I’d need to revise. Keep up the *magic!*
I smiled broadly when I saw your comment on my other blog(Good Vibrations where I’m Green-Eyed Lady). It’s great to read that you’ve been back in the swing of writing.
I enjoyed this piece with its references to historical figures and your own philosphy to spice it up. I drink neither coffee nor tea, unless I’m freezing cold in a restaurant and they don’t offer hot chocolate.
I write best at night and into the wee hours when the house is blissfully silent:hence, my other penname of SilverMoon. It’s my natural biorhythym, for it’s also when I paint with the most vitality, often writing or painting through the night.
There, I’ve taken advantage of a nice category feature that has vastly helped me put up more of my writings, although these are not “polished.” All of my blog writing is off-the-cuff, written and typed in 5 min- 30 min. For an editory, I’d need to revise. Keep up the *magic!*
I loves me some coffee. I can’t function at work without it but I don’t need it on the weekends. Odd, huh?
I got hooked on Starbuck’s mocha valencia’s some years back. I found that coffee with a little bit of oj and sweetener provides extra kick. Just my 2 cents.
For all of you going ‘eewweee’..if you like chocolate orange candy, the taste is similar.
oh my ..strike that not needed apostrophe essssssss
I’m with you and Glitzy. Coffee is my crack cocaine. I get massive headache and the shakes if I don’t have 2 cups a day. Some may call that an addiction, I call it a necessity. The monkey on my back gives great massages so I’ve decided to keep him around for a while.
Down goes my third cup. Hamilton seems like an interesting character. Would you recommend the book?
Down goes my third cup. Hamilton seems like an interesting character. Would you recommend the book?
glitz: coffee with oj. is nothing sacred?
beez: if coffee is your crack, you’re my hero. feed the monkey, feed the monkey, he’s your friend…
I think all writers should have a constant drip of magic bean.
Lois Lane
steve: you are right, i don’t love me. thanks anyway. and think how well you would write if you didn’t feel as if you were raped by an elephant? maybe just a hippo? just say no!
amy: ah, nathan zuckerman. he’s da bomb. even if he’s fucked up.
what, no coffee? you should become a “coffee achiever” (tagline to a real ad campaign in the 80s).
steve: you are right, i don’t love me. thanks anyway. and think how well you would write if you didn’t feel as if you were raped by an elephant? maybe just a hippo? just say no!
amy: ah, nathan zuckerman. he’s da bomb. even if he’s fucked up.
what, no coffee? you should become a “coffee achiever” (tagline to a real ad campaign in the 80s).
goddess: you’re right — nothing like an emotional high. if i’m on a roll with the writing, it’s the best. next to sex, demerol, or skydiving.
GEL: ah, a nightowl of an artist. that’s one i can’t comprehend, though it’s not uncommon. silence is golden, however…
goddess: you’re right — nothing like an emotional high. if i’m on a roll with the writing, it’s the best. next to sex, demerol, or skydiving.
GEL: ah, a nightowl of an artist. that’s one i can’t comprehend, though it’s not uncommon. silence is golden, however…
keroaced: third cup! you rule. the hamilton book is by ron chernow and i highly recommend it. hamilton is an interesting character, maybe the most interesting of all the founding daddies — ’twas an illegitimate immigrant from the carib who more or less invented america as we know it.
keroaced: third cup! you rule. the hamilton book is by ron chernow and i highly recommend it. hamilton is an interesting character, maybe the most interesting of all the founding daddies — ’twas an illegitimate immigrant from the carib who more or less invented america as we know it.
I loves me some coffee. I can’t function at work without it but I don’t need it on the weekends. Odd, huh?
I got hooked on Starbuck’s mocha valencia’s some years back. I found that coffee with a little bit of oj and sweetener provides extra kick. Just my 2 cents.
For all of you going ‘eewweee’..if you like chocolate orange candy, the taste is similar.
I loves me some coffee. I can’t function at work without it but I don’t need it on the weekends. Odd, huh?
I got hooked on Starbuck’s mocha valencia’s some years back. I found that coffee with a little bit of oj and sweetener provides extra kick. Just my 2 cents.
For all of you going ‘eewweee’..if you like chocolate orange candy, the taste is similar.
oh my ..strike that not needed apostrophe essssssss
oh my ..strike that not needed apostrophe essssssss
I’m with you and Glitzy. Coffee is my crack cocaine. I get massive headache and the shakes if I don’t have 2 cups a day. Some may call that an addiction, I call it a necessity. The monkey on my back gives great massages so I’ve decided to keep him around for a while.
I’m with you and Glitzy. Coffee is my crack cocaine. I get massive headache and the shakes if I don’t have 2 cups a day. Some may call that an addiction, I call it a necessity. The monkey on my back gives great massages so I’ve decided to keep him around for a while.
glitz: coffee with oj. is nothing sacred?
beez: if coffee is your crack, you’re my hero. feed the monkey, feed the monkey, he’s your friend…
glitz: coffee with oj. is nothing sacred?
beez: if coffee is your crack, you’re my hero. feed the monkey, feed the monkey, he’s your friend…
I think all writers should have a constant drip of magic bean.
Lois Lane
I think all writers should have a constant drip of magic bean.
Lois Lane
Fess up BF just how many do you down?!
Alas i have no other vice in my life so coffee is it. I write my best papers buzzed on coffee, i think it needs to be a staple of every writers diet.
Voltaire……i love Voltaire!
Fess up BF just how many do you down?!
Alas i have no other vice in my life so coffee is it. I write my best papers buzzed on coffee, i think it needs to be a staple of every writers diet.
Voltaire……i love Voltaire!
Fess up BF just how many do you down?!
Alas i have no other vice in my life so coffee is it. I write my best papers buzzed on coffee, i think it needs to be a staple of every writers diet.
Voltaire……i love Voltaire!
lois l.: inject it into my veins, baby!
michelle: coffee is not a fun a vice as drugs or sex, but you won’t fry your brain or catch the clap from the bean.
lois l.: inject it into my veins, baby!
michelle: coffee is not a fun a vice as drugs or sex, but you won’t fry your brain or catch the clap from the bean.
lois l.: inject it into my veins, baby!
michelle: coffee is not a fun a vice as drugs or sex, but you won’t fry your brain or catch the clap from the bean.
Coffe? I rather enjoy tea! Love this story! Have you tried Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee? The best there is….
Fondly,
Kathleen Glyde
Coffe? I rather enjoy tea! Love this story! Have you tried Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee? The best there is….
Fondly,
Kathleen Glyde
Coffe? I rather enjoy tea! Love this story! Have you tried Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee? The best there is….
Fondly,
Kathleen Glyde
kathleen: thanks for the props. i haven’t tried jamacian blue coffee, but jamacian blue, yes. when i was in college. experimenting. didn’t inhale.
kathleen: thanks for the props. i haven’t tried jamacian blue coffee, but jamacian blue, yes. when i was in college. experimenting. didn’t inhale.