Please welcome the wonderful Alexia Gordon: her debut mystery, Murder in G Major, won the Lefty Award for Best Debut Novel, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel, and was chosen as one of Suspense Magazine‘s Best Debuts of 2016. And the second in the Gethsemane Brown mysteries series, Death in D Minor, is out this week!
I’ve blogged about many aspects of writing fiction, mysteries in particular. I’ve written posts about my inspirations, my frustrations, my techniques, my advice. Tonight, I’m blogging about coffee.
I love coffee. My parents didn’t let me drink it growing up. Honestly, after a few sips of their instant, I failed to understand w
hy anyone wanted to drink it. But I’ve been a serious coffee drinker since college. Vassar, my alma mater, had a coffee house on campus. You could buy a cup of coffee, spread out your books, and study for hours. (This was back in the “Dark Ages” when desktops PCs were only in computer labs, laptops didn’t exist, and “camping” was an activity that involved tents and backpacks.) Being the nerdy type who truly believed Saturday night at the café with pen in hand beat Saturday night at the bar with beer in hand, I spent significant amounts of my college career imbibing the juice of the coffee bean. Couldn’t get enough of the stuff. Well, okay, strictly speaking, I do have a limit. Six cups of Swiss vanilla in one evening. Six cups of Swiss vanilla left me feeling, the next day, as if hyperactive chipmunks had taken over my brain. I never did that again.
I don’t call myself a coffee expert (or coffee snob, if I’m feeling especially cynical). I don’t have the time or patience to weigh out my hand-ground single estate coffee by the gram, combine it with filtered water from a sacred lake in the Himalayas measured to the precise milliliter, and brew it in a device that looks suspiciously like something I used to distill benzene in the college chemistry lab. (All right, another confession. I do own two French presses, a Chemex, and a hand grinder. But I do not measure quantities. I brew by the “looks like enough” method.) I will, in a pinch, drink instant. Instant coffee is better than a caffeine-withdrawal headache. I do call myself a coffee aficionado—an ardent devotee, a fan. My favorite coffee is the kind someone brews for me and serves me in a non-paper cup in a laid-back coffee shop with cool music playing in the background. I’m writing this blog in such a place (Thank you, Lake Forest Starbucks Roastery.) Which brings me to the question, what does any of this have to do with writing?
Tonight’s trip to the coffee shop served as my reward for finishing the first round of edits on the third book in the Gethsemane Brown mystery series, A Killing in C Sharp. Before I began this publishing journey, I naively believed authors wrote a book, that book was published, authors wrote another book, that book was published, and so on and so on. News flash: what is and what you believe are often not the same thing. In reality, the write-edit-publish cycle overlaps. You’re editing one book while you’re marketing the previous book and counting down to official release day while you’re outlining and researching the next book. Multi-tasking mania. Sometimes you feel overwhelmed. Small rewards and pick-me-ups keep you grounded. So, in the brief lull between revising A Killing in C Sharp and celebrating/promoting the July 11 release of Death in D Minor, I sat at the counter with my pen and my notebook, music (coincidentally from my college days) playing in the background, and lost myself in a sweet, hot cup of coffee of the soul.
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About Alexia Gordon …
A writer since childhood, I continued writing through college but put literary endeavors on hold to finish medical school and Family Medicine residency training. My medical career established, I returned to writing fiction. I completed SMU’s Writer’s Path program in Dallas, Texas. Henery Press published my first novel, Murder in G Major, book one of the Gethsemane Brown mysteries, in September 2016. Book two, Death in D Minor, premiers July 2017.
I am a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and the Writers’ League of Texas. I listen to classical music, drink whiskey, and blog at http://www.missdemeanors.com.
Chicks on the Case 
Coffee, alixir of the goods. I have a subscription to Death Wish, the strongest and best tasting coffee I’ve found. It makes other coffees taste like tree bark.
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Keenan, I’m seriously impressed that you drink Death Wish as your regular caffeine fix! I have a heavy coffee habit — a pot a day, more if I’m on deadline. And Death Wish is on the strong side for me! (Although I will resort to it when I realize I have 72 hours until the manuscript has to be turned in!)
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That’s the actual name? Ha.
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Tree bark tastes better than coffee to me! (Read my response below.)
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Um…Death Wish? That sounds really, really scary. But I’m in!!
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Alexia, great post — as a fellow coffee addict I feel so close to you right now! I’m not a coffee snob either. Any cup of joe, even instant, will do in a pinch. But I do grind the beans myself and appreciate a high quality variety. (My fave is Kona, although it’s too expensive to buy for everyday use!) And congrats on the new book release!
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Everyone told me I’d become addicted to coffee when I was in college. I have yet to like the stuff. But I come by it honestly. The only one in my family who drinks it is my sister-in-law. Love the smell, but I don’t care what you try to do to it, I can still taste the coffee, and I don’t like that taste at all.
Congrats on the new release!
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Not even coffee ice cream, Mark?
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With chocolate chips!!! Amaaazing!
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Why would you want to ruin something perfectly good like ice cream by adding chocolate flavor to it.
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That should be “coffee flavor” to it. Although I’m not really a fan of chocolate ice cream, either, which is funny since I love chocolate, including chocolate on top of my ice cream.
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Thanks for visiting us, Alexia! Great post. Love coffee too. It’s amazing to think about how much has changed since the “dark ages” you mention…remember typing papers on an actual typewriter and having to redo a whole page if you wanted to add a word that didn’t fit into the “erased” space? Talk about editing challenges.
Congratulations on Gethsemane #2! (And editing 3!!!)
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And then there were those times when you spilled the coffee across the page. Oops.
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Mark, I’m with you!! Alexia, I admire your commitment to the brew. But if I taste anything with a hint of coffee flavor, I literally have to wash out my mouth. You know how some people like coffee ice cream? BLECH!!! Mocha frosting? BLECH!!! Expresso-heavy Tiramisu? BLECH!! If I bite into a chocolate that’s coffee-flavored, I spit it out and rinse my mouth. All this makes it a big bummer when I’m on a show and they’re taking a coffee order. There are tons of fabulous sounding drinks. And then there’s “Uh, I’ll just have an iced tea, easy ice.” That would be me.
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You think maybe there’s a gene like that for cilantro, that makes folks hate coffee?
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Leslie, I”M one of those people with the cilantro gene! I hate it when people ruin salsa with it 🙂
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Wait there’s a cilantro gene? I had no idea.
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I adore coffee but can’t have any caffeine after about one in the afternoon without fear of terrible insomnia that night. So I’ve always been jealous of those who can sip that after-dinner espresso. Or better yet, have the espresso poured over a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert.
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Love your books, Alexia! Can’t wait for D to arrive and C to be formally announced! Coffee, Espresso, and anything Mocha are among my greatest pleasures, and I love writing and people-watching at a good coffee shop. –kate, writing as c. t. collier
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Kate, when hanging out in coffee shops and the like, people watching usually turns into eavesdropping for me! I’ve picked up some interesting bits of dialogue that way!
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Mark and Ellen – my soul mates! I was another who was told “you’ll become a coffee addict in college.” Not at all. I don’t really like coffee-flavored anything – ice cream, chocolate, tiramisu. I don’t go to the “spit it out” stage, but I won’t take another bite. The Girl has just recently started drinking coffee with French Vanilla creamer. The Hubby calls it “the gateway.”
Now give me a good cup of tea and I’m a happy girl. But has anyone else ever noticed that tea-drinkers get the short stick all the time. When the only option is Lipton it is a sad, sad day.
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After reading the passionate arguments both for and against, I’m starting to agree with Leslie that coffee might be like cilantro… and I love both!!! Thanks for stopping by today, Alexia! Next time we’re in the same city, I know what we should go do together!
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I love this post. Coffee shop talk is awesome! I love eavesdropping. Makes for great party conversation.
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Great post. I hate coffee but I’m with you on the publishing cycle.
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