I woke up this morning at 4:59, having set an intention last night to use my journals as the subject for today’s post. My mind is clear, present and free of distractions when I first wake up. It is the best time to write. It remembered my intention so I found the old journals first thing. There would be no Tripio without those journals, or Sketchbooks of the Mind, or SotMs, if you’re into the whole brevity thing. Sitting down with a cup of coffee at the downstairs computer, I tried to open my on-line bank account before starting to write. A reminder from a few days ago had popped up on my screen.  It wanted me to register the device. I almost didn’t click. But I clicked The cloud sent a code to my phone. I retrieved my phone from the table across the dining room. The code required a dash but apparently the dash key on this computer didn’t work. I tried anyway. The cloud didn’t want to play. I quit the game. The distractions had beaten me this time.

I only go into that tedious communal experience to point out how easy it is to get sidetracked in writing. The physical part of that took maybe two minutes. But, it took a lot longer to get back to a point where I was ready to start writing again. I had to do a few of last night’s dishes, fearlessly check my bank account on the unregistered device, and jot down a few must do’s in my planner. In addition, I made an entry in my current SotM and had some buttered toast. In other words, I had to weed my mind garden from that earlier unwanted growth, the distractions. Only after all that was I ready to sit down to begin this post. Now, where was I? Oh yea, a post with tips for writers.

What distractions are keeping you from finishing this short post?

Oh yes. The subject of today’s post: SotMs. Wait. No, its distractions and tips for writers on how to handle them. Tripio takes place in the summer of 1992, the year of the Starbucks Initial Public Offering of its stock. The protagonist, Jay, has been working for Starbucks full time for over two years by this point, is fully vested and receives the maximum amount of those options his position and duration with the company mandates. Do that math and that stock today is worth…a lot.

I wrote and kept many SotMs during those years at Starbucks. Like the Starbucks stock I no longer owned, those journals accumulated value as they sat in boxes, tucked under beds and into closets over the past 25 years. The SotMs survived a flooded basement, escaped being thrown away, outlasted indifference and simply survived being forgotten about. Speaking of being forgotten, what was the topic of this post again?