10 Minute Rule

it’s taken me this long to get into a grove here in Spain. We’ve seen a few great things, settled into the beach culture, and I’m writing every day. I don’t have myself up to chapter a day speed yet. Once I do I’m going be able to shoot through these edits with time for another pass. What I do have is a clear understanding of how to get there and a much better grasp on how the vacation is going to go.

I prefer longer vacations. No matter what the length, I am still going to be seen as a tourist. The difference happens on our end where we start to feel like we are settling into the area and the space and understanding the way it all works from a cultural standpoint. Fast vacations leave little time for that. Of course, most people live lives where the only vacations are fast vacations. I am extremely grateful for the life I fought for and am blessed with.

A large part of that life is travel and learning about new places. Over the next few blogs I expect to talk more about these discoveries—including my encounters with the works of Gaudi and how that is changing the way o feel about space and a home.

I’m happy. I’m enjoying life. There was a time where I never thought this possible. There were times when I wanted to end it all. None of that is present tense. All of that was preface to the days and nights I have with the Lady Talis and our beloved kids. As I said, I’m blessed. I earned the blessing.

Yesterday I posted my first piece of flash fiction for this new class. I wrote it in ten, published as is, then submitted. I treated it like a writing exercise, because it felt like one. The task came by way of Pamela Painter, whose text What If? has long been central to my summer creative writing workshop. In the first pages of the guide we are using for this class, Painter explained how and why she uses writing prompts. I languished in her explanation. It spoke to me in a way I haven’t been spoken to in a long time by another CRW instructor. Not only did I understand, I was inspired to elevate and explain how and why I do things in my own classes. It felt good to be reinvigorated by teaching. Painter’s approach is straightforward and honest. In a way, she lets you off the hook dore using prompts by arguing that what comes from them is genuinely your creation, and with a good prompt, no two stories will ever be the same.

My story goes off the rails early. I was thinking about escape rooms and imagined that a man might see relationships in that vein, and be misunderstood after a fashion–though not entirely. You saw the results. The prompt was to write a story that started with He said, ____________ and She said, _____________ . I continued on in this fashion until the end when the matter was, inevitably, decided.

I am enjoying the chance to write more and different things. That being said, I am increasingly excited about the direction of the novel in this rewrite. It is going to be good–better than it was and better than I thought it could be. This could be a top marks book for me.

He said, “I don’t want to understand you.”

She said, “That’s good because you can’t”

He said, “I could. It would be a matter of course, like solving a riddle, or maybe a puzzle, but doing that would leave me with a solved puzzle. What is the good in that.”

She said, “I’m trying not to be offended that you find me so easily solved. I’m trying even harder to accept that you think the solving of me is something final.”

He said, “Everyone is a puzzle waiting to be solved. The people who aren’t are merely pretending or expect they cannot be solved at all. I don’t find anything wrong with being solved. I think we want it, after all. Think about it this way: Who doesn’t want to be known and seen in this life. Seeing, really seeing a person is a way of solving them. You are separating the public face from the person beneath.”

She said, “Like an onion.”

He said, “Yes, exactly. It’s a clever and simple way to put it. Wherever did you discover it.”

She said, “I heard it from a donkey once. He was easily more interesting than you’re pretending to be.”

He said, “No need to be crass. We’re merely feeling each other out. I am explaining what I have to offer, and you are doing the same. This is the dance. These are the parameters of a first date.”

She said, “Usually there’s more of the uncovering attraction and deciding if the person is interesting enough to let them in your home, and such.”

He said, “And such?”

She said, “It is one of those things you would instantly understand if you weren’t treating me like an escape room.”

He said, “Oh, you misunderstood! I am merely pointing out how interesting I think it would be to never get to the bottom of you.”

She said, “I understood completely. Also, i’m leaving now. You can pay for the check, consider it my fee for the time I wasted here.”

In that manner the puzzle was solved.

I haven’t done a very good job of getting sleep. I can go down for a few hours at the beginning of the night, but it doesn’t last. I’m up by 3 and staring into the darkness for the next three or more hours. I wish I could make that time productive. The best I end up doing is sorting through ideas in my head; resolving conflicts in my novel revision to be jotted down later. That is productivity after a fashion, but as the habit continues, I am continuing to be more and more run down. We have an extra-long day today, but we’ve agreed to take the next two off and spend them on the beach, getting up whenever we want, and, hopefully, falling into a routine with the writing and exercise.

That is not to say I am not getting exercise. The ten miles of daily walking is plenty of exercise. It feels good, but the pictures taken of me show me how far I really need to go. It is a bad situation with the weight. It keeps climbing when home, and here I can only hope it is leveling out and, at best, declining. The pictures show a man with an awfully large belly—the worst kind of fat for an older person. I need to get it right as soon as I can.

I’m on a Scrabble losing streak. 5 games and only one was close. It feels like the tiles themselves are out to get me. They’re trying to make me loose, and doing so spectacularly. Even in the close game the tiles were like, “Nah, she’s got this.” And I lost by a point. The others were closer to 100 points, removing all doubt that this goes beyond me just getting beat. I’m getting punked. Obviously, this is a massive ego crush. I consider myself an intelligent person. My tiles consider me a fool. This needs to be resolved soon. The losing streak must come to an end!

Some Thoughts:

1. Tomorrow we tackle Girona.
2. Today we tackled Sagrada Familia and tooled around the city of Barcelona for hours. Lots of beauty in the city. Lots of roaches in the gothic quarter. We went to a seemingly pristine Mango clothing store and there were gigantic roaches on the ground. They were dead by poison or stomping, but they were there for the public behold. The classic rule is that if you see a roach then there are many more you don’t see. What is the rule if you see more than one?
3. Tried wine for the first time since touching down. It was bad.
4. Tried a local vegetarian spot with veggie Paella (sp?). It was very good.
5. Coffeenerdness: Used a Bialetti for the first time since Italy 2024. Quite wonderful. Strong. But wonderful. We used a level 10 espresso blend and added in frothed oat milk and sugar. Solid combo.
6. The coffee proved that my body is recovering from the plane nonsense. Never eat plane food. That stuff will ruin your insides. Add that overprocessed swill to the pressure of the plane itself and your insides are cooked.
7. Tired. It’s 8:45 on a Thursday before a rather long day in Girona. I am afraid to sleep, because I will probably wake up before 1 AM and stare at the wall for hours. Maybe I’ll stare at the lights across the street again. That was a fun night. I haven’t slept right since we landed…
8.  

The blog is going to be strange right now. We are in Spain and that puts us half a day ahead of the homestead. Castelldefels is lovely. It isn’t even 11 AM and the 65 degree weather feels more like a pleasant 75 would in Arizona with a breeze coming off the ocean that makes it all the better. We haven’t truly experienced the beach. We walked the boardwalk yesterday and learned quite a bit about the up and down hilly nature of the area. After 15 hours of travel and shifting 9 hours worth of time zones my body gave out by 7pm. So, we have yet to truly experience the place.

Today is going to be that day.

Back to the point of earlier, the blog is going to be strange for a while, because I am exploring new places and new ideas and new forms. Some of this will wander into travel writing. Some of this will be reflective excursions about living in a new kind of situation (the host family of this B&B is a story above us in the home and must pass our area anytime they come or go), more will bit slices of micr fiction taken from the course work of the summer. It is a new day with new adventures, even 50 years into this long and pleasant life.

I’m excited for what today brings.

We lost internet somewhere midway through this second flight, so this comes in as a late upload. I’m starting a new adventure, and I believe I am ready for it. Call it Talislegger’s Spanish vacation. For the last half decade the Lady Talis and I have been looking for a place to call home. The more I take these trips, the more I think IU am looking for two places. I nest. I settle in to a space and get very comfortable. Then, weather happens. I grow less comfortable. New York City is the only space where that has not happened.

I am looking for two places that are interchangeable. We may already have one, and we may not. Either way the goal is to split time between locations and continue to travel abroad, at least over the next decade. After that there are serious family questions to consider in terms of parents and grandchildren. Those considerations could happen even sooner than I’ve alleged.

I want to live somewhere close to water and close to green. I want to be able to grow things, eat what I grow, and feel at peace without the chaos of a big, crowded, city. Where in the world is such a magical place—let alone two?

Tomorrow I begin writing out microfiction prompts as a way to both get in the needed coursework and deepen my ability and practice in storytelling. Taking these courses is a way to improve my standing as an academic, but also to give me good practice in feedback and creation. I don’t know that I would get out of my RPG bubble on my own. Even the fantasy world I am shaping has RPG connotations as a crossover world to be used as a game setting. The work here isn’t game based in the least. Some of it is even non-fiction. Already I’ve been convinced to revise and then submit one of the fiction pieces to a magazine. I’ll do it, and we will see what comes of it. I enjoy being published, so to publish more and in more places is ideal. Eventually I mean to publish all kinds of writing that stretches beyond the stuff I am doing now. I do want to publish the book on creating and maintaining a youth football program. That one has a ton of value–especially if it includes offensive and defensive core systems and shows coaches how to create their own and build around a philosophy (or play concept).

In the meanwhile, I’m in the air, hurtling through time and space at better than 300 mph. We are well on our way to Spain. The next flight is 8 hrs and will get us there by midday. This flight takes us to NYC, where I was born and raised. I miss home. I won’t get to see it short of looking out the window as we approach and staring at an airport. I won’t taste the city air or see the people I love. That will happen again next year. It’s already in the works. This is just a brief layover.

It’s been 5 years since I touched down in the city where I was born.

42m to arrival.

I keep feeling like I missed a day this week, as though transitioning out of teaching and taking classes this semester has me hanging on to any deadline that may have been overlooked. I checked. I didn’t. No need to move to version 9 just yet. It is the Sunday before the great summer adventure. It is Mother’s Day and the day before the youngest’s birthday, and a good day overall. So many things are changing right now. It is happening quickly and I feel like at times I lose the thread of what is happening. I am excited and mostly prepared.

Mostly prepared should’ve been my middle name. It remains my persistent state of being. I am mostly prepared for the summer, for next year, for the future that follows. I am mostly prepared to get married again, to be a husband, to grow (even older) with someone. I don’t know that I’ve ever been ready for anything that happened in my life. When I sit in the dark and think about it in reverse all I can see are the glimpses of what could’ve been if I’d done the right thing or been ready or studied a bit more. I should’ve taken one more pass at that novel before turning it in.

I spend too much of my waking hours thinking about what I could’ve been and not enough considering what I still can be. That needs to be fixed. I need to put in the proper time to be who and what I want to be moving forward. I am in a tremendous position to do so. I have a good life with the Lady Talis. All I want is to make it better.

Some Thoughts:

1. The more I write, the more I become aware of words I tend to overuse. Today’s episode features the word “Just”. I need to find a replacement for it lickety split, or at least attempt to delete it wherever I see it take root in the writing.
2. I endured a video showing the criminal investigation of a car crash the other day while I was grading papers. That video lives in my headspace. The incident led to the death of two people and was caused by two cars that were street racing in broad daylight. What got to me was how fast they were moving when the accident occurred–90+ upon impact. What happened was a car was crossing the lanes making a left turn onto a side street. It never saw the racers because they were out of visual sight when the car started the turn. They covered the span of three football fields in half the time it took to make the turn, the lead car crashing into the turning victims with such force that the turning car was torn in half. People in Phoenix drive crazy like that all the time. It is no wonder there are so many deaths…

I figured I’d run through this before I got to anything else. I don’t know home much else I am actually going to get to. The Lady Talis is done with her morning routine, so we are likely to be starting our day together. It means I need to get better at finding the time to write and making sure that priority is realized a lot earlier in the day. I make this a priority everyday, so why not that?

While I am in this space I want to cover ground that might feel uneven. This is why I number these thoughts…

1. Hype matters. It absolutely should not. There is more hype around people based on the noise they can make or where (even who) they come from than there is in terms of what they actually do for themselves. This happens in all aspects of life. Nobody questions the success of the Trump kids because their father is a known. However, what have they done to stand on their own? The same applies to ball where I’m watching legacies get offers and those in places where legacies are getting noticed or even where a coach has pull are getting offers while my last kid has none. We’ll have to see how it all unfolds, because he’s got a big brother poised to make big moves of his own after being an unknown.
2. My head is filled with rhymes today and I don’t know why. That sense of poetry pervades what I say and the way I say the things I must convey.
3. Had a stray thought about a novel chapter last night that made me realize that what I wrote didn’t make the most sense. I meant to go back and correct it today. I hope tomorrow will still be okay.
4. Seriously, the rhyme stuff has to go away.