10 Minute Rule

It’s been a while since I’ve sat for a workshop on one of my pieces. I get editor feedback, which has been brutal as of late, but that experience feels removed. It isn’t a dialogue the way a workshop is–or at least should be. Part of my daily job is to provide feedback to writers. In that I tell them what works and what doesn’t work, and what I like, and what I would like to see them change or enhance. It feels closer to the editor process where I am working to help them smooth out a piece of writing for public consumption or, more often, a grade. That feels far removed from workshopping. It feels as vast as the difference between having a conversation with a friend and interacting with them on social media.

Workshops, even online ones, represent a particular level of intimacy. My last one was a small circle of friends consisting of two non-fiction authors, a screenplay writer, a literary fiction writer, and me, whatever I am. At that point I was struggling through a short story about a man in India who was hustled by a con artist and it resulted in his company getting robbed. I was fortunate enough to have one of my friends in the circle who was born in India and visited often. It helped me get things right–not just in the sense of correctness, but the sense of feel. I went into the space with trust, knowing that they would nicely dissect my story and tell me the brutal truth while we munched on hamburgers and sipped wine.

Wine makes a workshop better. Honesty makes a workshop even better than wine does, though the two are effective in conjunction. One softens the blow that the other delivers. I think what made this experience right for me is the trust I had that these authors were trying to help me shape and tell my own story instead of directing me to tell the story they wanted to hear specifically in the voice they had in their minds. I’ve had a lot of workshops go that way and it isn’t terribly helpful.

I’m quite terrified about sharing my work in an MFA program. I haven’t had the time to build up that trust with these other writers. I don’t know them. I don’t know if they are trying to shape my ideas into what they want or if they are even interested in the kind of stories I try to tell. I don’t reach everyone with my words. So, what happens when there are people in the group that I don’t reach–that don’t get it or me?

I can start by accepting their feedback as critical; as a voice from the audience that will receive my writing and may or may not know what to do with it. I can take the same stance on writing as I take on life–be grateful for the opportunity to hear how they feel and read what they have to say. I can accept that the work I share is in progress and needs the eyes and the notes. Josip Novakovich writes in the Fiction Writer’s Workshop that “the hardest part is looking not only for the story but for the pattern for writing stories.” You cannot find that pattern in yourself alone but only through the practice and patience of carefully understanding what is being said about your work and what is being done in the other works around you. This is what happens in a workshop. We learn to find the pattern. So, no matter how I feel about what is said, I will look for the pattern, and in that find the way to improve.

Can you do something for me? It is hard to ask people to do things–especially hard for me because I spent so much of my life on the other end of that question. My mother didn’t quite ask me to do things. She told me to do them, or didn’t tell me and still expected them to be done. That is how I came around to asking. 

Can you try not to win? 

We all love being winners. Losing is terrible. Losing feels like people are going to laugh at you or at least look down on you. I’m a New York Giants fan, so I know what it means to be laughed at. I’m a black guy who looks African, so I know what it means to be looked down on–maybe even a little feared as well. I also know what it feels like to be a victim and what it feels like to think you’re a victim even when you’re not. All of these feelings live over there under that losing umbrella. Feeling it does something to you. It makes you stop listening to anything but the sound of your own future win. 

I am not asking you to lose. I’m asking you to step back from the game for a minute. Corporations love that saying “Ten thousand foot view” like when you look down you can see all the moving pieces and get a better sense of how it all is put together. That’s true, but you’re also looking down in the sense of seeing yourself as larger than everything else. You’re also looking from far away in the sense of missing the nuance. 

I just want you to take a step back, like Neo did in the Matrix. He had to get shot to do it, which I do not advise, but I propose a simpler solution. Just stop thinking that anyone else’s win has anything to do with your own. Read, think, and process for yourself. Just for a little while. I mean it really helps you see what is going on… Especially when it comes to politics.

I started reading articles in isolation. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. Everything you read is linked to something else. Publishers want to shove you down that rabbit hole. They don’t want you to go anywhere but where they are and listen only to what they are saying. I fought my way back up out of the dirt. I started picking pieces at random–but still on the subject–until a picture formed.

I’m not going to tell you what that picture is. We all need to be able to draw our own conclusions that are separate from the ones people attempt to draw for us. They may be the same in the end, but that means more if you get there on your own. No shortcuts. We take too many shortcuts already. It’s part of why this advertising and media landscape works so well. Too well maybe. Did I tell you about the time I saw a blog post about how you should only clean one room at a time? 11 million views. I mean, this wasn’t exactly revelatory… except it was to a lot of people. That’s what I mean about shortcuts. They short circuit our common sense. 

So, here’s what I am really asking you to do. Take a second look. Don’t play the victim. Don’t jump to that ‘I’m on his side, so he’s certainly right’ state. Don’t go the other way either. Look with an open mind and heart. Think about what you care about personally. Think about the kind of world you’re trying to live in. Think about the kind of world you want to leave behind for the people you love and the people who love them. Self-love, even selfishness is important, but loving the other is important too. 

I won’t tell you to do any of this–I couldn’t if I wanted to and it is the entire point for you to step back and get there on your own. Then it doesn’t feel like losing. Maybe it feels like waking up. 

Sorry. That’s a little too close to the ‘woke’ button. That word triggers a lot of people. I should have said it feels like, well, like when you’re on an airplane and that roar you heard when you first climbed in and took your seat starts to feel like it isn’t even there anymore. Then something happens. For me it’s a bit of a painful moment. The pressure builds up and I can hear less and less, all of it fading into the sound of that pressure buildup. I can feel myself reacting to it, angry and wanting anything to make it go away and then, pop! It’s gone. You can hear the rest of the world again. Yeah, it’s a little bit like that.

Arizona is where dreams come to die.

At least that is how I feel about it right now. I’ve become extremely pampered in my old age and my expectations. I expected a summer trip to Spain to walk the beaches, to write from the battlements of an ancient castle, and to get the heck out of the desert for a while…

Definitely feel like Micheal Knight and the evil person is, well, the reality of where I am at this time. I gotta get out, but I am not going to. Basically the money doesn’t work to make it happen and as a result I will be here in the 120 degree summer and not spending quality one on one time with the Lady Talis. Very non ideal.

Planning the summer is growing increasingly interesting and confusing. Plane tickets are all over the place. There is no question the prices are being pushed by the time of year and how many people are searching at any given time. I keep holding on to the hope we can find a way to go somewhere interesting. My goal is to find a place where there are nice walking paths and, of course, beaches.

The search has taken its toll on me and I am in that state of mind where I’m ready to jump at any reasonable option. Still there are some very cool options I’ve managed to uncover throughout the world. I have yet to visit Spain, so that may be where we land on this summer’s pre-honeymoon. I’m thinking it will be, because the prices delight.

Some Thoughts:

1. This is a full laptop post. No vocals here.
2. This is a thin post because I am slow and tired today.
3. A better tomorrow…

I am writing this from my phone, which I rarely do nowadays. Something else I rarely do is use my voice to input the text. This is something I’m trying as well. I think that I’m getting better at this idea of writing as a lifestyle and constantly being connected to my thought process. One of the ways I can do that, short of being thoughtwired, is to use voice dictation.

So this post serves as an experiment of the mixture of voice and typing and an experiment of hearing the voice in my head as well as hearing my own voice out loud. I’ve been thinking about this concept for a little while now. I listen to audiobooks often and when the dialogue is spoken, it speaks to me directly. It makes me feel like I understand the characters of what they are saying better. This is, generally speaking, how you get to understand character. You hear them in their voice and you attach meaning to that. Introspection is a part of that process, but direct voice and often the way they use metaphor and simile provide a deeper look into who they are.

this process is helping me to provide a deeper look into who I am. I used to record messages to myself from the first time I had a phone. In fact, even before that I had a little recorder that I used. I don’t know where that is anymore nor do I know where the tapes are. I have lost all of that creativity that I gathered over the years. I still have the notebooks, but do I ever seek them out?

the truth is I’ve become somewhat complacent in my creativity. I rediscovered this when I was entering a username for an athletic program that I’m trying to use to help lower my weight. I try to come up with a series of names, none of which were accepted by the machine, so I defaulted back to what I know.

what I know is all I know. I have been using the same name and doing the same thing time in and time out for the last 40 years. How can I grow? How can I change? How can I evolve? Well, it all starts with trying something new. Plasticity is one of the most important concepts in creation and in creativity we must stretch to grow and it has been a long time since I stretched.

So, here I am stretching. I am trying something new. I am trying something wild and free. I’m trying to understand myself through new media, new styles, new opportunities, and above all our new creations. let’s see how this all works out.

Tough day in the word mines. I made quota, but the real problem is how much more I am stuffing into this novel post edit. Imagine being an editor and editing an 80K manuscript and getting one back that is roughly twice that. I fear this may be the case. The first two chapters came in at 10k. They certainly were not that dense before. Yet there are things that need saying early, and that tonality has remained through chapter 4. I have a short chapter three, but I added that entire chapter, so it doesn’t actually count. This has gone really different from past work. I think I am in a different place with it and I think that I am creating a story that says a lot. Is it readable? Not sure. Honestly not sure.

Meanwhile life has continued to surprise.

We are struggling to figure out our summer and the pre-honeymoon phase to go with it. I feel like it is important to take the Lady Talis to Italy, because it is her happy place. However, the money is always a situation. When you want to travel globally, it is the most important thing to consider–well that and how Americans are seen right now… which is not very good.

I started playing Madden again. I am not very good. Video Games are designed to have a learning curve. Madden’s curve is difficult because it is often predicated on learning the glitches and tricking the AI as opposed to playing good football. I haven’t been good at the Madden learning curve in some time. I do know a little bit about playing good football. Not enough to win on the difficulty levels I grew used to. So, I have to reconcile that in my head or put in the time and research needed in order to get good. I’m opting for reconciliation–especially given the reality that Madden 25 season is almost over. I’m kinda thinking about stepping away from the game entirely and finding another digital (xbox) hobby. I haven’t found the right one yet. I cannot seem to convince myself to get back to Starfield.

I have been hovering on the edge of paying attention to real football. I noticed, for example, that the UFL season began. I still don’t know the teams or have any interest in watching the games. I am more interested in seeing where some of my favorite college players land as Pro Day season wraps up. My son was able to attend a Pro Day session for the first time. He got to see what its like for when it is his turn in, say, 3 years. He’s doing pretty good. He’s breaking up passes, picking off the QBs, and disrupting routes at the point of attack. He’s grown as a player and as a man. I’m proud to watch him become. I am excited to see how that translates to play on this new squad. There’s hope up and down the roster.

Less hope for my pro teams. The absolute best I can wish for is that the Giants don’t pick Abdul Carter and instead find the intelligence to snag Hunter or, hoping against hope, he falls to the Jets. The Jets need Hunter or Carter. The latter is an undersized pass rusher with all the hype and attention of Kayvon Thibidieux (spelling). We all know how that turned out–average. However, given the pieces the Jets have, dude can cook.

Pre-draft is all about hype. It is hard to gauge who is the real deal until a few seasons in, largely. Still, I believe there to be a handful of generational players in this lot–at least one of whom is a QB. I’m looking forward to seeing where these folks land.

I found myself thinking about this meme this morning. I find myself thinking about the moment often. More now that Trump is targeting law firms who hire lawyers he doesn’t like. This situation we are in is largely being promoted by one “side” of the media, and not being given enough gravitas by the other. What we have is a sitting president using the power of the government to go after citizens he has beef with. These are not criminals. These are not people who’ve done wrong. These are people who have opposed him in the past; people he doesn’t like.

That is some real dictator shit, and nobody it taking it seriously enough.

The man is talking in news conferences and interviews about seeking a 3rd term. That has been constitutionally illegal for 75 years. So, now we are changing the amendments to appease a bully? He would need to control three quarters of the country’s state-level governments to approve such a change. That means that the narrative is going to be about how those resisting states are “holding back freedom” and “don’t believe in American values” which will lead to them loosing government funding (also illegal).

Honestly, I didn’t think it would get this bad. I voted against the man, but even at the time it felt like a number of Americans wanted to just let him have his turn so “it would be over”. Few realized it would not be over until he says it is over. The democrats don’t have the same level of machine that republicans do to prop up candidates. There is not someone out there right now that can deal with the overwhelming nonsense and two-faced policies and smiles of the republican party. It feels like we’re fucked as a country. It feels like the people who will be worse off are still going to clap and smile and support this nonsense because they like the optics of some of the things that are happening. All of it tracks with their belief system. None of it helps our nation internally or externally.

USA is starting to feel as short-lived as all the fiction suggests. The corporations at the top aren’t going to be too terribly impacted if we crumble as a nation. They can always go somewhere else. But where are we going to go? I’m trying to figure that out now. I’m trying to figure out if my state retirement is safe.

The truth is, I have no idea.

This is the first week things really got tough in relation to the grad school work. The problem wasn’t content so much as time. Rewriting a novel, teaching all these classes, and having a life really interferes with trying to get the studies right. I learned that I am failing at organization again. In truth I am in that moment where I can see a clear path forward to success. Unfortunately, I tend to see that path and say, “I got time today.”

I don’t. I really don’t.

The issue is not taking the time I have and using it wisely. That is the secret of the ten minute rule–that is the message to be shared from this blog overall. We have the time, so long as we are willing to devote the time and energy and planning to use that time effectively. We don’t know how much time we have, so we tend to waste it until, ultimately, it is too late.

Perhaps we would be different if we knew exactly how much time we got start to finish. Perhaps our lives would be coated in purpose as opposed to waste. As it stands we don’t take advantage of the time we have. I am guilty of that. I don’t want to be guilty of that any longer. I want my life to be better. I want to enjoy my moments and I want to do what I can with all the time I have left.

This is the day I am supposed to be leaning into the week. I am supposed to be getting ready for what is to come and prepping for those classes in any way possible.

I am not.

I’m not even watching football. I’m doing very little in terms of what needs to get done–mentally and physically. The realization of this hit me about two hours ago and I… still did nothing. It happens from time to time that I get tired of being an adult.

Some Thoughts:

1. Yeah, super short. The thought itself came out fully formed, but there wasn’t much there. That in turn leaves me time to wax about all of these other things…
2. Like the fact that I am realizing that one of my step kids, who was raised as a Suns fan, is having the same existential experience I had as a New York Knicks fan all those years ago. He was in front of the TV when they lost in the finals. He realized the loss (worst in franchise history, btw) was a defining moment in the franchise, and they never saw the finals again. So even now when he does watch, it isn’t with a ton of hope. They killed his hope just like the Knicks murdered my own.
3. Hard life talks with the people you love matter. It sucks when you cannot put them at ease. Then all they are left with is this terrible feeling of anxiety about what they cannot fix and or what doesn’t sit right with them.
4. Running out of things to say, but also fortunately running out of time. I plan to take a walk with the Lady Talis. It will be the third day in a row we took time to do such things. It will be the 7th day in a row I didn’t do my personal exercises. I am winning and failing at the same time.