Jeffrey Ricker's Blog, page 51

“Hi, my name’s Jeff and I’m a coffee junkie.” “Hi, Jeff.”

So yesterday, for reasons known only to the gods, I decided to try and go without caffeine.

I’ll wait while you pick your jaw up off the floor.

Back with me? Great. So, I can hear you asking, why on earth would I do something like that. (More likely you’re thinking, “Good God, man. Are you out of your mind?” Best not to answer that.) It’s a well-known fact that the coffee-to-blood ratio in my body is probably around 2:1. This, I realize, may not be the healthiest thing in the world. I know, all things in moderation, but I’ve never been a big fan of moderation.

OK, that’s a lie, but I’ve often thought nothing succeeds like excess. Or someone else thought that, and I just stole their line.

Where was I? Coffee. Right. So, I’m writing this while I drink a cup of Caribou blend from my writing mug (the one that says “What Deadline?” on the side), so you know I didn’t quite succeed in going cold turkey. Well, I succeeded. For a day.

It was scary.

But getting back to the question of why, I read this article on the subject this weekend and realized that if you asked me how many cups of coffee I drink in an average day, I couldn’t tell you because I fill up the cup so often, I lose count.

Also, math is hard.

Anyway, the symptoms in the article ring true, especially the things about fatigue, exhaustion and most of all, irritability. (Is it the caffeine that makes me a stone cold bitch? All this time I thought it was keeping me from being an even bigger one.) So, I decided to forgo the bean yesterday (or at least drink decaf).

Oh, the pain.

I had to pop Advil at least three times during the workday, and by the time I got home, I was feeling partly to mostly foggy. I couldn’t even read before I went to bed, because it was too hard to concentrate.

So, yeah—addict=me.

I’m having a cup this morning before I switch over to decaf—and I’m also trying to drink more of this clear, flavorless liquid. What’s it called? Oh yeah, water.

I know Captain Janeway beat the Borg with coffee, but at what price?

Are you a saint or are you a sinner?

I’m really, really (no really) looking forward to going to New Orleans again next month for the Saints & Sinners Literary Festival. I’ve gone every year since 2009 (my first time was in 2004), and in addition to the pure unadulterated joy that comes from seeing my friends Greg and ‘Nathan there, a lot of my success as a writer is tied to that conference and the people I’ve met at it. Over at my Red Room page, I talk a lot more about why I love it, and why New Orleans is one of the least likely places in the country that I would love. (And yet I do.) Check it out.

Proofs, contracts, and chapter 11 (no, not THAT kind of Chapter 11)

It's a well-known fact that getting the mail is the highlight of my day. I love going out to the mailbox and finding things in it addressed to someone other than "current resident." It's even better when it's not a bill! Like today, when I opened a big manila envelope and found a signed contract for a short story. It'll be coming out this November from Untreed Reads, just in time for the holidays.

And for this we are thankful.

But wait, there's more! That's the nice thing about e-mail, after all; it doesn't just come once a day! And sometimes it's not even spam! Like today, when I opened an email from my editor and found a proof to review. And—and!—cover art. It's all too much excitement, I'm telling you.

Equally exciting was finishing chapter 11 this past weekend. (No, not Chapter 11 as in bankruptcy Chapter 11—though there have been times in the dim and distant past when I wondered if it would come to that. But enough of February. [Kidding!]) Now I'm about a third of the way through chapter 12, and I find that I'm slowing down as I write these later chapters, with good reason. I'm threading together a bunch of different things that have been going on or hinted at in earlier chapters, and I'm trying not to drop any threads or leave any loose ends.

On the other hand, that's what scissors are for, right?

There are four more chapters after this one, so here's the thing: Ask me in mid-May, say around the 14th, where I am. If I'm not on chapter 16, get in your car or hop on a plane, come down here, and kick my ass.

Of course, I know you can't do that, faceless anonymous reader on the Internet. This is more to remind myself that I may need to kick my own ass if I'm not nearing the home stretch in May.

And then there are a couple of short stories that I want to see if I can't finish before the end of the year. Not to mention book #3. At least I already have a first draft of that book in the can.

Did I mention that I came up with an idea for book #4 last week?

All I ever wanted was just to come in from the cold

So, I've been on a Joni Mitchell kick today.

I am probably an odd Joni Mitchell fan; the first album of hers that I bought was Dog Eat Dog, which got a rather tepid reception from critics and didn't sell well. I think I liked the theme of anti-consumerism that ran through so many of the songs. Later, I bought Chalk Mark in a Rain Storm and then, when I got an iPod and iTunes became my crack, Hits. I discovered my favorite song of hers from that compilation, "Come in from the Cold," which was originally on the 1991 album Night Ride Home, and today I've been listening to it constantly. It's perhaps a bad habit of mine: I latch onto a song I particularly  like, and I will listen to it into the ground. Seriously, if you looked at my play log in iTunes, you would see that I've listen to "Fever" by Kylie—well, perhaps you don't need to know how many times (oh, fine, 181 times) I've listened to it. And those don't take into account the listens on the CD.

Where was I? Oh yes, Joni.

Anyone who knows me realizes that home is a concept I return to often, both in my writing and my life. We moved around a lot. Home was wherever my family was. When I was in college and my parents were in London, well, even though I hadn't ever lived there before, that was home. They're in Washington state now, and in a way I can't explain, that's home. (When they're gone, where will home be? I don't know. Believe me, I've wondered.)

No wonder either, then, that Detours, my first novel, was all about where you find and call home. For me, home is also here, in St. Louis, where I live with Michael and our two dogs. I guess I'm a bit fragmented when it comes to the GPS coordinates for home, but I know where it is when I think about it. It's wherever the people I love are.

So when my friend 'Nathan was visited at his home by some religious zealots who didn't cotton onto the idea that he was gay and married, well, my inner Dark Willow felt like getting her flay on. Home is the place where you feel safe. It's where you don't have to explain yourself, justify yourself, or place conditions on who you are. And these people brought the conditional tense right to his doorstep.

I probably would not have reacted quite as diplomatically as he did in that situation. (In my badass state of mind, I would likely be facing assault charges. In reality, I probaby would just have pointed out that I don't believe in their god and shut the door in their faces.)

The more I think about it, though, I feel sorry for the people who knocked on his door, because they will never be open to the kindness and generosity of spirit engendered in people like 'Nathan. What a poverty for them.

"Is this just vulgar electricity? Is this the edifying fire?" If I've learned anything, it's that home is not a particular place or building or even a person. It's not wherever someone else is; it's whereverI am. And wherever that is, those I consider my friends and family will always have a place where they can come in from the cold.

Did anyone get the plate of that truck?

The one that ran me over, that is.

We went out to dinner last night and I started feeling oogie before we'd even finished up and had our leftovers boxed up. We got home early and I headed more or less straight to bed, which is not something I typically do. I knew something wasn't quite right when I woke up at 12:30.

And 1:45.

And 3:00.

Can I just say I really hate getting sick to my stomach? On the bright side, I'm just one more stomach virus away from my goal weight!

I kid, really. There's nothing funny about praying to the porcelain god. (Mike doesn't seem to have been spared from this unfortunate situation either. I wonder what it was that we ate.) I have a feeling I'm not going to be getting out of my pajamas at all today. Or eating much. Sadder still, I'm a bit leery of making any coffee this morning lest I upset the apple cart that is my stomach once more.

A morning without coffee just doesn't bear thinking about. Not to mention the headache I'll get from the resulting caffeine withdrawal.

There is probably a nap in my future, but for the moment I'm going to turn my attention to chapter nine of Book No. 2, at least until I take a header into the typewriter and start snoring.

I feel like reading tonight

So. Tonight's the reading at the St. Louis Artists' Guild, and I've chosen the bits from the novel I'm going to read, practiced, made edits so it sounds coherent when read out loud, and practiced some more. Worried that it was too short, picked an additional passage to read, edited, practiced.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Snacks have been procured (because an audience that's not hungry seems likely to be more forgiving), and I've got a small box of books in case anyone wants to buy one. (Thanks, Left Bank!) All that's left is to get through the day and hope that this ends up being a good hair day.

Well, that and hope that people show up. (You're coming, right?)

In other news, here's a fantabulous review of Detours at examiner.com.

I finished the (very) rough draft of a story about a demon this weekend, so now I have to transcribe it and find some willing victims to read it and tell me what's wrong with it before I send it to the editor. Then it's back to book #2, where chapter nine waits to be unscrambled.

Where I do that thing I do

If you haven't heard of the website Write Place, Write Time, it's a gallery of photos of different writers' workplaces—the desks, tables, and sometimes beds where they do their writing, revising, creating, and dreaming. Among others, I am seriously in love with Christian Dumais' office, due in no small part to the presence of the adorable Dudikoff.

Today, they're featuring my own workplace, dba the dining room table. Take a look. Here's where the magic happens, kids.

(You can also follow them on Twitter at @Write_Place.)

The Game Night Guys Have a Plan

A few years ago, my friend Mikey gave me a board game for—well, it could have been the holidays or it could have been my birthday. Maybe just because. Anyway, it was Battlestar Galactica, the board game. (Yes, really.) He was coming for a visit and he said we'd play it when he got here.

Except we didn't. Because the rulebook was 32 pages long. And incomprehensible.

So what did I do? Sent it to Brian and Curtis, hosts of the podcast Game Night Guys. Did they make sense of it? Click here and find out.

My Friday

We've been in New Orleans all week. It seems we've been here a lot in the past few years—this is the third time since last May—and though I always say "maybe we should just move here" whenever we leave St. Louis for someplace else, I have to admit that I wouldn't do well in this city. I love it, but it's too warm and too humid.

Mind you, St. Louis is not much better, which is why I always cast my eye northward (like Yukon).

I'm looking forward to our next visit in May for Saints & Sinners, but I'm also looking forward to being home, which is what the picture above reminded me of, as I watched this lady walk her Westie past Café Lafitte in Exile across the street from the Clover Grill. It'll be nice to get back to Dakota and Anya. Work? Well, we'll worry about that on Monday.

While I've been here, I've finished writing a short story, which will be submitted to the editors of an anthology as soon as I get this post wrapped up and give it one more once-over—thanks go out to my two beta readers who graciously sent me feedback on short notice. You guys are great. Me, I'm still not sure, which is the topic of this essay from Glimmer Train's March bulletin, on when doubt is actually a good sign.

Is it sad that checking the mail is the highlight of my day?

Perhaps it is. Nevertheless, there we are.

Right after I graduated from college and got my first job in St. Louis, I couldn't really afford to go out. I spent most of my free time in my postage stamp of an apartment reading. Going downstairs to check the mail reminded me there was existence beyond my couple hundred square feet. (Bear in mind, this was before e-mail, and cell phones weren't as ubiquitous as they are now, so long-distance calls were expensive.

Yes, there really was a time like that.)

It's still one of the routines I look forward to every day, even though most of the post now consists of bills, advertisements, and junk.

Well, and literary magazines that are piling up in the magazine bin and threatening to tip over. Why do I subscribe to so many?

I nany case, it was a very pleasant surprise yesterday to get an honest-to-gods handwritten postcard. From abroad, no less! Charles Dickens' birthplace is one of the many locations being visited by A.N. Devers, who runs a website called Writers' Houses dedicated to "exploring writers' spaces and art of literary pilgrimage." As part of this project, she used a Kickstarter project to help make possible a trip to London where she's visiting 15 writers' houses in 15 days. As you can see from the postcard, she made it to the Dickens birthplace. (She also reports that the garish sign overhead has been replaced by something much more tasteful.)

It still helps to get a reminder that life is going on outside the front door, beyond the city limits, across the border. For some reason, getting a piece of cardboard with a handwritten note halfway around the world from one country to another seems a more impressive feat than my inbox going ding. I need to write more letters. Heck, I need to write a letter.