Sometimes coffee and pie--

--are as important as gasoline, or so the old biker says.

At first thought, you might consider this statement to be simply a parallel between motor fuel (gasoline) and people fuel (pie and coffee) and give this maxim a dismissive "yeah, yeah, I get it" nod of the head.

You'd be as wrong as the writer who says he is too busy to read.

While pie and coffee will certainly provide a biker with an energy boost, they won't sustain you for hours on the road. Unless you eat a whole pie and wash it down with a full pot of coffee. However, then you're not going to stay in the saddle for hours anyway, as your kidneys will demand a pit stop or two long before your bike's gas tank goes empty. The real gasoline that fuels a biker is a good meal, preferably one substantial enough to see you through a couple of hundred miles, but not so heavy as to cause you to doze off during the ride, thus originating the term "last meal."

Instead, pie and coffee provide flavor, inspiration, an opportunity for mild indulgence, and a chance to enjoy someone else's flavorful good work. The variety of available pies--from old standbys such as apple and berry to exotic raspberry chocolate cream--means a biker can be as conservative or wild as the mood strikes. And if that biker makes a wrong choice or finds an ill-cooked piece, little is lost--it's only pie.

Four wheels move the body, two wheels move the soul. Nutritious food fuels the biker's physical needs, pie an coffee freshen the heart.

We authors each take a journey down our own writing roads, and books such as Novelist's Boot Camp can be the "fuel" for our writing machines. In Novelist's Boot Camp it's all about making progress, getting the book done, enjoying the ride that is inventing, developing, drafting, revising, and editing a manuscript that one can be proud of. If you want to go forward in achieving your writing mission and take command of your novel, Novelist's Boot Camp will help drive you there.

But what about pie and coffee? If these are necessary to bikers--and they are--where does a author find his equivalent dessert and cup o' joe?

In the works of others, that's where. Not in those works we look to for guidance, or market trends, or education in the craft or business of writing, but in those where we find adventure, passion, new ideas, smiles, sorrow, insight, and intelligence.

The biker who does not have time for pie and coffee misses the opportunity to savor not only a hot beverage and dessert, but the ride as well. Writers who spend all their time immersed in their own works miss the unconscious inspiration that comes from reading the work of others.
If you don't have time for pie and coffee, then you probably don't have time to ride. And if you as a writer don't have time to read two pages for every one you write, you are doing a disservice to your soul.

Seconds, anyone?

Todd
www.storytellerroad.com