By Amber Royer We writers have our routines and methods of fueling creativity. Sometimes it’s a place where we feel particularly productive, or a time of day when we are most alert. Chocolate and coffee are both associated with writing, and creating in general. Have you ever wondered why? Creativity is a balance of daydreaming/mental wandering and sheer dogged focus. Most writers are good at the first half of that. But a lot of us can use any help we can get on achieving the mental focus required to barrel through a draft, and to hold all the details in our heads required to edit that draft into something coherent. And if we see that something is working for our peers, we’re more likely to give it a try. So all those mugs that say things like, “I turn coffee into books,” can be inspiring. Coffee, of course, is known to boost energy and keep you focused. (It does this by blocking the adenosine receptors that tell you you’re getting sleepy and that your concentration is ebbing.) And the routine of making it, or going to a favorite shop to order it can signal to your brain that NOW is the time when it is supposed to crank out words. (Which means that even if you have to switch to decaf, a regular coffee shop writing meet-up can still work wonders for your word count.) Recent studies have also shown that people who eat chocolate at least once a week perform significantly better cognitively. Is this why so many writers reach for it while struggling to find the right words? Or is the benefit a side effect of the psychological associations that chocolate has? It’s impossible to tell, and I’m not sure it matters. After all, marketeers have done an excellent job of selling us on the idea that chocolate equals romance, intrigue, euphoria, and decadence . . . which can spark inspiration for a variety of scenes in a novel manuscript. However it works, chocolate does seem to have a positive effect on writing productivity. According to the Washington Post, a study at the Luxembourg Institute of Health found that, “Eating chocolate was significantly associated with superior ‘visual-spatial memory and [organization], working memory, scanning and tracking, abstract reasoning, and the mini-mental state examination’ . . . these functions translate to every day tasks, ‘such as remembering a phone number, or your shopping list, or being able to do two things at once, like talking and driving at the same time.’" Another thing known to keep you mentally sharp (while increasing your vocabulary and reducing your overall stress levels)? Writing. It’s kind of a loop. Which may explain how I wound up fueled by coffee, writing an entire trilogy about chocolate. There’s a lot of influences that went into the novels, but the whole coffee shop-writing scene definitely had an impact. The Chocoverse is comic space opera set in a future where there’s about to be a galactic war over who gets to control the production of chocolate. So far, Earth has a monopoly. My protagonist, a failed telonevela star turned culinary arts student, has other ideas. The trilogy includes all my favorite tropes – love triangles, found family, bad-boy heroes, heroines with steep arcs, unusual and artificial intelligences, secrets uncovered, space pirates, over-the-top slapstick humor – within the assumption that the region known as the chocolate belt (roughly 20 degrees North and South of the Equator) has become Earth’s economic center. And that when Earth made its first First Contact, things went wrong, and we didn’t wind up at the center of a Federation, like Star Trek promised us, but rather, are on the outskirts of galactic life, dealing with the fact that our assumptions about a grand future were wrong. But the big themes are really about over coming prejudice, hope paid forward, and the power of love, even without shared cultural context. Welcome to the Chocoverse! I hope you enjoy – either with or without a nice cup of mocha. ---- Amber Royer is the author of the high-energy comic space opera Chocoverse Trilogy. Book 3, Fake Chocolate, was just released April 14. Binge the whole trilogy, starting with a dose of Free Chocolate now! Free Chocolate Book Trailer Pure Chocolate Book Trailer Already caught up? Here’s the synopsis for Fake Chocolate: When disease ravages Earth's cacao plantations, Bo Benitez returns home to help with the media spin to hide that chocolate is in danger of being lost forever. HGB has come up with a new product - one which doesn't appease the cocoa-addicted murderous, shark-toothed aliens threatening to invade the planet. Someone has to smooth things out. Just when Bo starts to make headway, someone tries to kidnap her. While trying to avoid more would-be-kidnappers, Bo finds out that HGB is developing a cure for withdrawal from the Invincible Heart. Will she let her need to be physically whole again tie her to HGB and its enigmatic CEO? When she gets a key piece of evidence that would unravel secrets from three different planets, she has tough choices to make about the future of her world and its place in the galaxy. Follow Amber: Website, Instagram, TikTok: AmberRoyerAuthor Longer Bio: Amber Royer writes the CHOCOVERSE comic telenovela-style foodie-inspired space opera series (available from Angry Robot Books and Golden Tip Press). She is also co-author of the cookbook There are Herbs in My Chocolate, which combines culinary herbs and chocolate in over 60 sweet and savory recipes, and had a long-running column for Dave’s Garden, where she covered gardening and crafting. She blogs about creative writing technique and all things chocolate related over at www.amberroyer.com. She also teaches creative writing in person in North Texas for both UT Arlington Continuing Education and Writing Workshops Dallas. If you are very nice to her, she might make you cupcakes. |
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