Dart's View of Life, the Universe & Coffee
The rest I think is are Common Eastern Bumble Bee, but all my apps and even AI think they could also be an Abrupt Digger Bee, or American Bumble Bee or a Southeastern BlueBerry Bee!!!
I think most people would agree the world today is a stressful and perhaps scary place. More so than any other time in my life, and I am an old fart.
So, how do we remain somewhat sane and positive in this crazy world?
I’m glad you asked. I have some ten tips right here!
Step 1. Stay in bed. Statistics demonstrate that there is 94% more negativity out of bed than in bed. Just pull the covers over your eyes and go back to snoring.
Step 2: If you must get out of bed, do not, under any circumstances, turn on anything pretending to be news!!!! Especially CNN or FOX! If you must be distracted by something in the morning as you prepare for work or school, get a cat. In fact, get four cats! Those little bastards will keep you busy in the morning for sure.
Step 3. Delete any Facebook friends that post serious stuff, from politics to diet tips. You don’t need that crap now.
Step 4. As you leave for work, listen to something motivational instead of the usual fifty-seven billion radio commercials. I prefer Jessica Alba reading from the Bible, Song of Songs verses 7-8.
Step 5. Don’t go to work! Drive to a park and lay down on your back in the grass and see how many clouds form into the shape of Al Gore’s Ass. (No offense intended to Al Gore or his ass. Or asses in general.)
Step 6. Assuming you must go to work, surround yourself with pleasant motivational scents. Scientists have proven that fragrances can impact mood. I prefer scented candles that smell like pepperoni pizza, fresh chocolate and new $20 dollar bills. Or Jessica Alba.
Step 7. Leave work early. Tell your boss you have a really bad case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and you’ve already busted three toilets in the building.
Step 8. Develop a new hobby such as chocolate scarfing, premeditated sex with your spouse or collecting empty liquor bottles.
Step 9. Do not watch any television show produced after 1970. Focus on shows such as:
Step 10. Laugh. Find something, somewhere, that makes you laugh. Even a snorting giggle will help.
I hope these tips help you remain positive today.
Peace
As a new author, I think I need to purchase a hat. Below are pics of some writers wearing hats.
 Joel Rosenberg |
George R.R. Martin |
 Ernest Hemingway |
 Kurt Vonnegut |
 Tom Wolfe |
 Mark Twain |
|
Hermann Hesse |
I write better in a coffee shop.
| Owl and Otter Espresso Lake Placid, Florida  |
Mudslide Coffee Punta Gorda, Florida  |
Serenity Coffee Shop Okeechobee, Florida  |
Florida Farmhouse Coffee Arcadia, Fl |
I do have a dedicated office in my home, desktop computer, laptops, wide screens, nice keyboards, and yes, I can make French Press coffee if I want. The most obvious reason I write better in a coffee shop is that I have fewer distractions. My desktop has Facebook, X, Instagram, my Kindle, games and of course, the whole wide internet. All it takes is a slip of a finger on the keyboard and I am researching Belgium and the Flanders issue, watching Youtube videos or checking email.
I also have four cats. One of them, Dewey, has assigned himself to me.
One would think the activities in a coffee shop would be more distracting. People coming and going, conversations, the sounds of coffee grinding, chairs being pulled out from a table and espresso being made. However, for me, as well as many other writers, these things actually promote creative juices. For starters, I normally do not interact with the goings on in the shop. I am sitting at a table with my coffee and laptop writing. Eventually, all of the various sounds merged into one audio blur, sort of like white noise. I call it blue noise.
All I have is my laptop and coffee, so nothing to distract me from writing. While I have a few different laptops, some of them quite powerful, for writing I use my inexpensive Chromebook. I can load my files through a USB drive, access my Microsoft One Drive or Google Docs. When out, I always write in Google Docs. I’ve yet to find a coffee shop that doesn’t have free WiFi. But even if I don’t have WiFi or lose it for some reason, I can still write in Google Docs offline, and the minute I am back in range of a WiFi signal it will automatically update my online docs. My Chromebook doesn’t have a hundred other programs on it to distract me.
I also think there is some sort of social frequency that develops at a coffee shop. The sounds, the snippits of conversation I hear, the spiritual energy of people coming and going triggers my own creative juices.
Bridge Street Coffee & Tea
LaBelle, Florida
Plus, a good coffee shop has a creative artsy mood. The decor, the music they play, the entire atmosphere is conducive to creative activities.
Also, there is coffee. An essential fuel for developing characters and twisting plot lines.
– Dart
I am experiencing something that is new to me. I have written dozens of short stories, blog posts, humor, even poetry. Finally making substantial progress on a crime novel, with over 40,000 words on paper. At about the 30,000 word point, something changed. Instead of me sitting down and thinking about the next scene in the book, the characters started coming alive!
I was writing a scene with my detective and his client having lunch at Bayside Marketplace in Miami. I was doing a good job adding the elements I thought was necessary, making sure the scene was relative to the plot, moving the story forward, making sure it was actually entertaining. However, in the middle of lunch, the female client consumed three Mojitos. These are fruity rum drinks. I did not plan for her to get drunk, but she did! Turns out it really made he scene better. And then, as our detective walked her to her car, opening the passenger door as he was going to drive, someone shot the window out!!!! What the hell? I had no assassination attempt planned for this scene! But my detective pushed his client out of the way, fell to his belly in the grass and pulled out his SIG P210 and placed four rounds in the attacker’s chest!
Holy crap! I have a drunk client passed out in the car and a dead attacker, and now City of Miami police swarming all over the place! How the hell did that happen?
Not only that, but this scene changed the entire dynamic of the novel and moved the plot into a totally different trajectory!
From that point forward, I stopped writing the scenes and just let the characters take over. And they are doing a damn good job. I can’t wait every day to sit down and let them use my fingers to type out the next scenes.
For the first time, I have no freaking clue where the story is going or what the next scene will be.
My characters are writing the book now.
I am having a blast!
Men have a sophisticated system when it comes to their clothing. If a man wears a shirt for just one hour, he doesn’t want to toss it in the clothes hamper. I mean, it is practically clean! One hour worn! Men apply this same highly developed system to all levels of clothing cleanliness.
Women on the other hand, often do not understand such a technically well thought out system of clothing cleanliness. So, I will break the Man Code and reveal to you today how to determine if something needs washing.
 This shirt is practically brand new! Extremely clean, but has been worn once or twice. |
 Thought about wearing it today, but not sure. |
 Semi-clean, worn for less than two hours and only in air conditioning. |
 Wore it today but didn’t sweat, so might wear it tomorrow. Or Thursday. |
 Raccoons have licked it and I wore it the entire day. Most likely won’t wear it tomorrow. |
A very observant woman might notice that the closer the shirt gets to the floor, the less clean it is.
So there you have it ladies!
PS: This is Dart’s wife. He can wash his own dang clothes!
What is it with the things we save, the oddball items we somehow treasure?
1970. Miami Central High School. My senior year. My favorite teacher was my English teacher, Mrs. Barbara Jean Turner. She was a brand new teacher, one of the best, and actually only about five or six years older than I was then! Yes, she was hot. Unfortunately, that was back in the day when teachers didn’t have sex with students. I missed out on that.
Anyway, my secret student organization, KELOP, tried our best to tease certain teachers. We once carried her desk out into the hallway one morning before class. She walked in that morning calm and cool and without even looking up told me and my friends to drag her desk back inside. Very cool.
I was responsible for counterfeit library passes. Mrs. Turner caught me with one, and proceeded to write a note on the back. As was my plan! I knew she would do that, and sign it too, so I would have an excellent signature to copy! Unfortunately, she was very sharp, and did not sign her name, just wrote “me”. LOL
Yeah, this is the fake library pass.
My senior year was one of the happiest of my life. I was a senior! I was driving a 1960 green Plymouth Valiant. Stick shift. Slant Six engine. Roll down windows. Regular gas was .31 cents a gallon. I had a part time job so was earning my own spending money.
I found this fake library pass in a shoe box of other miscellaneous memories. Photographs, ribbons we would wear to support the high school football team, other notes and things. I’m not even sure where my high school diploma is, but I know where that counterfeit library pass is!
Mrs. Turner is now in her mid seventies. But in my mind’s eye, she is still 24 and gorgeous. Always will be.
I received an “A” in the class, by the way.
-Dart
I would love to read your comments. Don’t bother entering your email or even your name. Thanks!
