It has not escaped my attention that on the rare occasion I post a blog, there is typically some kind of food / consumable component. I won't dwell on that for now, but it's possible that this is one of the reasons I'm not exactly feeling swimsuit ready for the Christmas trip I have coming up. Oh well.
It's TMA writing week. TMA2. When attempting to write TMA1 I posted about the many layers of distraction (avoidance) that got in the way of constructive writing, and it's tempting just to copy and paste and post the exact same thing again, but this time I'm less distracted by useful things (doing laundry, going to the gym) and more distracted by the fridge. Yesterday I tried a heavy load of carbs. I can confirm that eating leftover potatoes and cake before 10am does not magically produce an excellent essay plan. Hmm. But at least I can claim that it was some kind of research - just not the sort that is in any way useful to writing 4000 words about literary noir. In fact, I suspect the women of noir avoided white chocolate and raspberry cake and mainly existed on a small salad, a cigarette and a cocktail. Maybe I should try that.
But today I'm awake early, kids have all left for school, I have an empty house and a 8 hours before the peace is disturbed. Surely this can be a productive day. All I have to do is be assertive. Which starts with coffee.
I'm good at coffee. It's one of my best friends. It's a totally symbiotic relationship. The coffee props me up through each and every day. I prop up the entire coffee industry by purchasing Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans by the kilo. Everyone wins.
I got my 'Death Before Decaf' mug out of the cupboard, because that is the mug that says 'serious essay writing zoom zoom zoom mode' and loaded up the machine. I did it wrong. In my effort to turbo charge myself I was aiming for strong coffee so I ground extra beans, but because I overloaded the little grinding machine the beans did not grind properly - some actually stayed whole - which means the coffee that was made was just a cup of weak inspid-brownish-wet. A disappointing start. I tried to drink a cup but it had the opposite effect - no inspiration, it just tasted of failure in every sip. So I decided to fix it by adding some extra strong coffee to the bad coffee with the plan of reaching perfect coffee. But in my confusion the extra strong coffee I was looking to make actually ended up being worse than the first batch leaving me with even more dilute coffee. Less brown. On the third attempt I did it. I now have a cup of respectable tasting coffee. At last. It has perked up my brain, but not so much that I have stomach cramps. I also have a lot (lot lot lot) of coffee. The pot nearly over flowed and I do suspect it is actually too much for one person to drink on their own in a day, but maybe that will be another experiment.
Coffee does feature in literary noir though. The skinny women drink it black to provide nutritional balance to their three martini dinner. So suddenly I'm feeling on theme. And if 3 pints of coffee can't churn out a couple of thousand words then maybe I'll give the vermouth a go. That could make for a much more fun blog...