On the Coffee Snob scale from 1 to 10 (1 being lowest, 10 being highest), I am a 7.5.

I like good coffee. I grind it and brew it myself. I’ll French Press some motherfucking bean juice now and again, but I don’t get crazy about it. I don’t require my coffee to be run through the intestinal tract of a rare Sumatran rat-monkey, but if you try to serve me Keurig coffee in one of those little pre-configured K-Cups, I’ll break all your fingers with my back teeth.

(Further, do not ever ever ever never ever serve me decaf coffee. You might as well piss in my gas tank. THAT WAY LIES DEATH AND LASERS. Just a friendly warning!)

Like I said: 7.5 on the Coffee Snob scale.

And so we come to Starbucks.

I like Starbucks espresso drinks well enough. They do fine in a pinch, and make a serviceable latte or cappuccino. If I have no other option and I see the sign for that saucy tail-flipping Seattle mermaid, fuck it, I’m happy to get my fix from the S’bux without complaint.

But their coffee sucks balls.

It’s like drinking coffee brewed from a crushed up charcoal aquarium filter. It tastes like burned gorilla pubes. I drink a Starbucks roast — any roast at all — and I get that first hit of “oooh, coffee” followed by “all I taste is ash and carbon on the tongue, a finish of frizzled scorched briquettes. (They call it “Charbucks” for a reason, after all.)

They seem incapable of a light roast. And a light roast? It’s my favorite coffee. You gimme a nice winey, fruity Ethiopian peaberry and I’m in heaven — plus, a lighter roast has the benefit of having a wee smidgen more caffeine and goddamnit, I’ll take what I can get in the go-go-juice department. And yet, any time Starbucks offers a light roast, I get a cup and it still tastes like I’m licking an asbestos roof shingle that survived a house fire. I have to imagine that in the back of every Starbucks is some diligent pyromaniac asshole with a micro-torch hand-scorching every fucking coffee bean that comes into the place. “I just want to watch the world burn!”

So, it was with some trepidation that I embraced the quest to try Starbucks’ not-so-new “blonde roast.” They’d begun a campaign to push this coffee and all the advertising seemed to contain the subtext of, “We know our coffee tastes like driveway gravel, so here’s this one light roast that’s actually a light roast and just shut up and try it and stop complaining.”

Today, I went into Starbucks.

I ordered a “tall” (fuck you, Starbucks, and your asinine sizing chart) blonde roast.

Then I went grocery shopping and consumed it.

The too-long-didn’t-read?

Mmnnneeh? Muh? Eh? Mmm? Guh?

Like, okay, it’s fine. It is lighter than the traditional “the burned-out core of a supernova star” brew. But even behind that lighter roast still lurks that tang of unpleasant bitterness one associates with amateur hour bush league coffee. This is more of a dirty blonde coffee, or a blonde highlights but technically it’s still dark hair coffee. I’ll admit that the longer I drank it, the more… appealing it became, and by the end (when it had cooled down to luke-warm temps) I started to get those winey, acidy undertones I was hoping to get right from the get-go.

But, for the most part, still a mediocre brew.

Sorry, Starbucks.

Signed, Sort-of-a-Coffee Snob

Once again, it’s that time of the year where I feel like a hibernating bear who suddenly wakes up in his cave surrounded by candy cane wrappers and choco-smear paw-prints and the bones from various turkey dinners. It’s that post-holiday wake-up call where your body reminds you:

“DEAREST SLUDGEBODY. IT IS WINTER AND YOU ARE NOW SWADDLED IN SLUDGE. FIX THIS, FLAPJACK. EITHER THAT OR JUST PUT ON 100 MORE POUNDS AND COMMIT TO THE SLUDGE.”

This is all pretty normal for me, though this year it seems a bit worse than in prior years (the curse of getting older? the doom of living with a toddler where it’s harder to amend my diet for the better?). I assume my routine will be the same as in former years, and the answer is of course a straightforward one — “Modify lifestyle by changing diet and increasing exercise.”

Still, I’m curious — the simple answer is a good one but I’m also curious about the more granular answers. For those of you who have tried or are trying to lose weight — what works? What didn’t? What diet? What exercise? Give a shout.

Curious to hear your experiments, expectations, and results.

If you don’t mind sharing, of course.

My hats off to those who do.

I’ll hang up and wait for your answer.

Click.

NO CARRIER

Last week’s challenge: “Inspiration From Inexplicable Photos“

This challenge is a little different from all the others.

It plays off that oft-slung chestnut of writing wisdom, “Write what you know.”

In this case, I want you to do exactly that — but with a twist.

I want you to grab an event from your life. Then I want you to write about it through a fictional, genre interpretation — changing the event from your life to suit the story you’re telling. So, maybe you write about your first hunting trip between father-and-son, but you reinterpret that as a king taking his youngest out to hunt dragons. Or, you take events from your Prom (“I caught my boyfriend cheating on me in the science lab”) and spin it so that the event happens at the same time a slasher killer is making literal mincemeat of the Prom King and Queen.

Take true life.

Reimagine it through the lens of fiction.

You’ve got 1000 words.

Post your story on your site, link back here.

Due by Friday the 22nd, noon EST.

Today, author Jamie Mason joins us to talk about her new novel, Three Graves Full (which has a helluva title and an, erm, more helluva-er premise). Here, then, are her ten answers:

Tell Us About Yourself: Who The Hell Are You?

Now there’s a loaded question if ever I’ve heard one. Instant existential crisis. As it happens, I’m a collection of likes, dislikes, and memories inside a fairly government-issue female container. I have examples, see?

Likes: Bedsheets fresh out of the laundry.

Dislikes: Ticking clocks.

Remembers: When I was six years old, I heard on the radio that our area was under a Tornado Advisory. My mother was not listening to the broadcast and, not wishing to alarm her with my blooming heroism, I snuck out. I quietly rounded up my five-year-old sister and the kid from the apartment downstairs. Armed all with tablespoons, I marched out my platoon under roiling skies, all the way to the neighborhood entrance.

There, at the base of the sign pillar for King’s Garden Apartments, three intrepid children, under my command, dug a hole. It was a pretty good hole, too. Good enough so that, by design, if that tornado dared turn our way, it would trip in our tablespoon trench, fall over, and dissipate across the main drive.

King’s Garden Apartments still stands today. You’re welcome, citizens. You’re welcome.

As for the standard, government-issue female container, well, I guess my picture is on the back flap of the book.

Other than that I grew up in the Washington DC area and now live in the mountains of Western North Carolina with my husband and two daughters.

Give Us The 140-Character Story Pitch:

When hired gardeners discover a body buried in the yard, the homeowner is horrified. But mostly because it’s not the body he’d buried out back a long time ago.

Where Does This Story Come From?

THREE GRAVES FULL came from throwing a tantrum over another story I was writing. It just wasn’t working. A writer friend, Graeme Cameron (you don’t know him, but you will,) suggested that I set it aside rather than gnash my teeth to nubs. He offered an exercise in its place: I was to seek out a list of interesting headlines compiled from various newspapers.

I was under strict instructions not to read the articles. I had to pick one, then write a story that would result that headline.

The one I chose read: Landscapers Find Skull In Mulch Bed.

I still don’t know what real news story (and presumably tragedy) sparked the article, but what I was left with was Chapter One.

How Is This A Story Only You Could’ve Written?

Given the Rule of Infinite Monkeys, I’m not sure how to answer that. I don’t think I’m more special than Shakespeare. Certainly the process that results in a story is different for every writer, every time – parts of the story seem to float into your ear from the schizophrenic nowhere, some things feel like they get chiseled out of stubborn granite, and some stuff is pulled like taffy from the goo pits in the darker places of your mind. Those bits usually have to be rinsed off.

In the case of THREE GRAVES FULL, I rotated through the nuthouse, the quarries, and the quicksand in a particular sequence, doubling back and do-si-do, lather, rinse, repeat. If those steps were to be exactly duplicated I would rather suspect a glitch in the Matrix.

What Was The Hardest Thing About Writing THREE GRAVES FULL?

The not knowing if it would go anywhere, if anyone would buy it. With fiction, you have to write the entire book up front (and rewrite it, and polish it, and write it some more, and change it, and change it back, etc.…) You have to go over and over it before even attempting to get an agent, which is still miles away from getting a publishing contract. And it’s hard work; consuming − but it’s voluntary. And that’s a problem. There is no keyboard mandate and the Muse certainly doesn’t put a gun to your head. It’s the hardest part. No one was making me do it. I could stop any time I liked. So I kept having to hurdle my inertia and work – work really hard. And the whole time there’s the Devil on my shoulder whispering, “Why do you bother? No one’s going want this. You’re going to do all this work and nothing will ever come of it…”

That shoulder devil is an asshole.

What Did You Learn Writing THREE GRAVES FULL?

That I’m not as good a typist as I ought to be. Seriously, I’ve written how many words and I still have to watch the keyboard? Pitiful.

I also learned about research. People will tell you anything if you tell them you’re writing a book. It’s awesome.

What Do You Love About THREE GRAVES FULL?

I love that it’s horrible-funny in the same way you sometimes laugh when you bang your knee. Pain is not funny, and certainly neither is murder, but life can be funny in how wrong things can go.

What Would You Do Differently Next Time?

I would (and will) try to get that shoulder devil to piss off. I’d try to work more diligently with less resistance, because a bad day writing is still a hell of a lot better than even a good day at a whole lot of other things.

Give Us Your Favorite Paragraph From The Story:

I don’t know that I have a favorite, but I’m fond of this one and it stands alone better than some others. I think. I dunno. Maybe?

“Strangely though, it wasn’t recalling the muffled crunch of bone that plagued him, nor the memory of the cleaning afterward, hours of it, all the while marveling that his heart could pound that hard for that long. No. It was that first shovelful of dark dirt spraying across the white sheet at the bottom of the grave that came to him every time he closed his eyes to sleep. Was it deep enough? He didn’t know—he wasn’t a gravedigger. Then again, in his mind he wasn’t a murderer either, but facts are facts.”

What’s Next For You As A Storyteller?

Right now I’m working on another novel, one that I hope would sit comfortably on the same shelf with THREE GRVAES FULL. It’s another crime/suspense type thing, but this time with a thread of the spy novel through it.

Three Graves Full: Amazon / B&N / Powells / Indiebound

Jamie Mason: Website / Blog

@JamieMason_

Ron Marz is a comics creator I’ve been following for quite a while on Twitter (and so should you — his @ link is at the bottom of this page). So when it came time for him to be the first “10 Questions” about a graphic novel, well, all I have to say to that is “fuck yeah.” Here’s Ron to talk about his newest, Ravine, at Top Cow. 

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?

My name is Ron Marz. I write comic books, from company-owned stuff like “Green Lantern” and “Silver Surfer” and “Star Wars,” to creator-owned work that I love like my own children. I dabble in videogames and other kinds of storytelling too.

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH:

It only seems like there’s 140 characters in “Ravine,” but in reality it’s only about two dozen characters in the first volume. Uh … wait, that’s probably not what you meant, right? “Ravine” is a series of epic fantasy graphic novels, the kind of thing that would be racked with Tolkien and George R.R. Martin. The first volume is out this month.

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?

Croatia. The artist and co-writer  on “Ravine” is Stjepan Sejic, my Croatian buddy with whom been collaborating on monthly comics like “Witchblade” and “Artifacts” for seven years or so. “Ravine” is a story that Stjepan’s been putting together for the last decade, crafting an entire world. A few years ago, he asked me to join him on the story and dialogue, so now we’re co-owners and co-conspirators.

HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD’VE WRITTEN?

Well, I think in this case, it’s a story that only Stjepan and I could have done together. It’s very much a collaboration, which is one of the core strengths of doing comics. Comics are a blend of words and pictures that create something you can’t get from either of those alone. So a writer and artist come together and create something unique to them, to their collaboration. “Ravine” would be a different project with anybody else working on it.

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING RAVINE?

I think the sheer size of the graphic novel was something I wasn’t used to. Generally in comics, you’re writing single issues of about 20 pages of story and art, that are then put together in collections. So you’re generally working in smaller chunks, writing an issue of one title, jumping to an issue of a different title, then back again. The variety keeps you interested and motivated. If you’re stuck on one issue, you can jump to another and make progress on that. In this situation, I was working on all 160 pages of “Ravine” at once, and having to set other things aside in order to make the print deadline.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING RAVINE?

This was a bit different from the way Stjepan and I usually work together, in that the typical process is me writing a script with art direction and first-draft dialogue. Then Stjepan paints the pages digitall, after which I go back in and write the final dialogue for the letterer to put on the page. With “Ravine,” Stjepan painted the pages, gave me a sense of the dialogue, and then I did a complete rewrite of it. I had to immerse myself in this new world, but it actually proved to be a boon creatively, because I could come to it with a fresh eye, and make sure we were properly introducing all the characters and concepts. It was a bit different way of working, but in comics, the important part is the finished product, not how you get there.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT IT?

I grew up on this kind of story, on Tolkien and Burroughs and Robert E. Howard. So I’m really pleased that we’re bringing this kind of epic fantasy to comics, in a package of this size. It’s slowly changing, but comics are still dominated, to large extent, by the same superheroes we all grew up with. The kind of story we’re doing in “Ravine” is large scale and extremely visual, so I feel like comics is a perfect vehicle to tell it.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?

Well, Volume 2, which is another 160 pages, will be out in the summer, so we’re already well into. Though I think I’ll plan the schedule a bit more loosely, so I can work on a palette cleanser here and there when I need to.

GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY:

How about a favorite page instead? (click for bigger)

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER?

More “Ravine,” more comics in general. I’m writing the monthly “Artifacts” title for Top Cow/Image, with more coming up from them as well. My creator-owned “Shinku” title is still coming out for Image, and later this year, I’ll be launching a comic called “The Protectors” for Athleta Comics, which is a publishing company started by Israel Idonije of the Chicago Bears, who is a huge comics fan, literally and figuratively.I also want to carve out time this year to do some more prose work. I’ve got a children’s book and a YA novel I want to get off the ground. Too many ideas, too little time.

Ravine: Top Cow / Amazon

Ron Marz: Website

@ronmarz

You are the sun at the center of your own narrative universe. You are its god. You are its savior.

I am not its god. I am not its savior.

Let’s rewind a little.

I get emails.

These emails ask me things like, How do I get motivated? or How do I get inspired?

Or, worse, they want to know how I “do it” every day. Not a reference to my sexual prowess (were you to ask the intimate partners of my life, they may speak of a lack of prowess reminiscent of the fumblings of an inept-yet-eager lube-soaked chimpanzee), but rather it’s a reference to my ability to hunker down and just… write.

I do it every day. And people want to know how.

They want hard answers. They want a button to push, a lever to yank. More troubling, they seem to want a menu of options. Discard this one, pick that one, the perfect meal suited to the eater.

I have one answer for you.

It is not a nice, nor easy, answer.

That answer is: “You just do.”

How do you get motivated?

You just do.

How do you get inspired?

You just do.

How do you write every day? How do you finish a book? How do you learn to spin a great narrative, to create memorable characters, to put pen to paper and fingers to keys and explode your heart and your mind with the power of motherfucking stories?

You.

Just.

Do.

This may seem like an admonishment against writing advice, that all the shit that I sling here is worthless because the reality is, the very act of writing is the answer. Do not misunderstand: writing advice has value, but it only has value to those who are willing to execute and implement. All the writing-talk and story-speak in the world won’t do more than tickle your theoretical story’s imaginary testicles if you’re unwilling to commit the time and effort it takes to grab the words from inside your ribcage and smash them like overripe fruit on the page.

Only when you choose to open that door by embracing action does this stuff matter.

Until then, it’s all just candy-floss and elf-dreams, man. It’s ether. It’s nothing.

Action. Execution. Implementation.

Do. Write. Finish.

I know, you’re saying, “That’s easier said than done.” I know it is! So fucking what? A big-ass boulder tumbles down from the mountaintop and falls on your hand and pins the limb, you either gnaw through your arm like a goddamn coyote or you die under the rock. Door won’t open? Kick it down. Wall blocking your path? Bash it with your skull until it falls or you do.

Life’s getting in the way? I’m sorry, that’s how life works. Life is a series of obstructions — it’s speedbumps all the way down. You’re depressed? Get in line. You’re depressed. So’s that woman over there and she wrote 1000 words today, and yesterday, and the day before. You think I don’t deal with depression? Of course I do. We writers are tailor-made for that. I know, I sound unsympathetic — trust me, it’s the opposite. I’m completely sympathetic. I’ve been there. I’m sometimes there still. It doesn’t change the cold, hard fact that all the power lies with you. In your brain. In your hands. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy. Did you want it to be easy? What fun is easy? Easy is a value of zero. And surely you want more than nothing? Writing makes you pay. In blood and tears and frustration. You do it because you love it. Not because it’s a warm bed at your back but because it’s sharp stones under your feet spurring you forward.

It’s the wolf at your heels. It’s the fire in your heart. Wolves bite. Fire burns.

Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it’s scary. Sometimes it’s hard and makes no sense and sometimes the frustration gets so bad you just want to dunk your head in a bucket of whiskey and hide your tears inside the liquid burn but, but, but —

Fuck it. Shut up! Write. You get your years and you get no more. These are your days. No Muse is going to breathe a hot sigh of inspiration up your hiney-hole. I’m not going to come to your house and crawl inside your skin and bind my bones to yours with the purpose of forcing you to crap out all your big bad story-words. Oh, you have writer’s block? Boo-hoo! Writer’s Block has as much power as you give it — it’s a Weeping Angel, so bind it to the earth with your gaze.

This is creation!

This is the act of forging something out of nothing. It demands sacrifice. It’s you carving off parts of yourself to a future without promises, you spilling power and grief and embracing chaos and uncertainty all in the hopes of trying to make sense of this thing you do in the sheer bloody-minded chance that something you write will finally matter but the trick is, it all matters, because writing is how we connect with ourselves and the world beyond our margins. Writing is how we tether ourselves to god, a god in a narrative world that is, of course, us.

You’re the Muse that inspires you. You’re the god to which you sacrifice. You’re the battering ram made of unholy fire that tears down Writer’s Block. You’re the knife that cuts the arm off, you’re the boulder that must be pulverized, you’re the devil in the details.

You’re the one-armed coyote or you’re the dead sonofabitch under the rock.

I can try to tell you how to write.

But first you have to be willing to write.

You only get the map when you step through the door.

It only gets done by doing it.

Will yourself to create.

Accept no excuses.

Brook no fear.

Shut up.

Fuck it.

Write.