Author: admin

Recently I started working for a Creative Writing Center. The job is enjoyable, and the last few months have mostly been ramp-up for the changes I want to instill. I’ve been doing a lot of learning and a lot of figuring out the lay of the land. I have real goals and desires here. I also have one heck of a competitive streak. We are one of two centers in the state of Arizona and we have always been the ‘other’ center. I find that plainly unacceptable. I also recognize why it is, based on history and staffing. They are just better than us. Sucks to admit it, but that is the full truth.

They will not always be better. I’ve decided to dedicate my work energy, my in-office hours (if you will) to changing the culture and perceptions of the place. We do a lot of things–so many that it is difficult to categorize and organize all that we do. This also leads to a lack of deep assessment of what we do and what we decide to continue. We have a few highlight events, but for me the main thing is having a strong and active media presence that informs people we are here and we are good at what we do. Walking hand in hand with that is the idea of getting better at all of the stuff we do. We need to find a way to measure impact in all areas and to clearly rebrand ourselves, so folks see the reboot effort.

I have a great team that I work with, and I believe we will get this done both quickly and competently… Once we figure out what we want to be.

There is something to this idea of ritual. Haruki Murakami said, “When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m.” I’m not doing that, but the idea of shaping my own ritual–giving temporal importance to the craft is meaningful and worthwhile.

I am strongly considering starting my day with the blog. Consider it a ten minute wake up call for the brain. As long time readers no doubt can tell, the evening blogs are terrible. I mean really low-brain output 8 out of 10 chances. That is because I am largely low brain by the time late night rolls around. The truth is, I spend too much time messing around early in the day and wind up with the day largely gone and the work largely undone.

Ritual matters. Making the time for craft truly matters. In the same article where I rediscovered the Murakami quote I found one from E.B. White that goes, “…the members of my household never pay the slightest attention to my being a writing man — they make all the noise and fuss they want to. If I get sick of it, I have places I can go. A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.“

Ideal conditions are sheer folly, as is the right time to right and the right conditions. Writing is about dedication–butt in chair and words on page. I can say this over and again, but my partner keeps waiting for the next story. Those two ideas cannot exist simultaneously, so I need to move closer to ritual and further away from doing it ‘when I can’

Some Thoughts:

1. I keep having this dream about a house. It is a large house–maybe 4 stories. The middle two floors are always left untouched, with the last owners stuff still in all of the rooms. The dreams are usually about going into those rooms and cleaning them out. I don’t know what it means…

We all have it and we are all going to die. The end.

A Slate article argues this is completely not the case. Instead the article suggests the true death rate of the disease is farm more complicated. The author goes on to suggest that the cruise ship provided a quite accidental test study given that only one patient boarded the ship with Covid-19 out of the 3711 on the ship and of that group 705 tested positive for the virus and 6 died. That is actually only a .85 rate of death, which is much lower than the 2-3% number bandied about thus far.

This is good news. This is news that people infected with the disease or fearful of infection will likely not rationally see as good news, because it is not a 0% mortality rate. Any chance of death will be sensationalized, because the media engine runs on fear, like the power grid in Monsters Inc (Man, that was a deep movie).

So what? So, chill. I recently came to terms with the fact that I could easily be a carrier for Covid-19. I’ve been sick with flu symptoms since mid-February. I spend half my week less than 100 yards from the ASU Health Center where the one case was diagnosed. I have not been tested. Nobody I know has been tested–including kids who’ve gone to the doctor for sickness. I am willing to argue that most Americans have not been tested, and have come into direct contact with other ill people who have not been tested for this specific virus. This is why cases keep popping up in random places in the US. People are getting tested. Yet we know from these cases that testing happens so far removed from the point of infection that backtracing the route of infection is impossible. If this were a slow incubation disease with a higher rate of mortality (say 10%), we would be reaching a critical mass of infection by now and not even know it.

In sum, we are very bad at containing infectious diseases early enough for it to matter. Everything we are doing now feels a lot like playing catch up in a race against Usain Bolt. We probably never had a chance with a head start, so we might as well shift focus to finding a vaccine.

Some Thoughts:

1. 23 days out I have not had any real conversation about the numbering system for the blog. It matters. Each iteration of the numbers have held a special meaning to me that does not correspond with the start of the new year but instead the start of a life year for myself. How then do I move forward with that?

Sitting on a flight to Nashville I found myself wondering who is responsible for hiring stewards and stewardesses. What are the standards there? Who decides? I think about that idea more and more as I move through different facets and phases of my professional life. Who decided that story was good enough to print? Who decided that book wasn’t good enough to publish? I think about two books of the science fiction variety that have gone on to have wild success yet were both self-published (through amazon, mostly). Hugh Howey’s Dust and Craig Alanson’s ongoing 14 book Expeditionary Force series are examples of books that didn’t pass the gatekeeper test but went on to do quite well.

Gatekeepers are largely about establishing (or more often preserving) a certain type of culture or look or feel. I struggle with the concept, because it means difference is rarely applauded by such people and that really is not their job. At the same time I recognize the need for gatekeepers in a society such as ours where access to voice and to sharing your voice is so wildly prevalent. Social media is a hotbed of voices screaming out to be heard and often what you hear is the most salacious or most repeated voices and messages. This is another form of gate and gatekeeping, because it conditions us to look towards such sounds/voices as the standard.

I don’t quite understand the standards for a number of things. One person’s idea of proficiency is another’s concept of lack of talent or failure. I was in a meeting the other day with an extremely talented marketing person and it made me feel, well, terrible about what my own team marketing looks like. It also built a new standard for me. That meeting helped me understand what gates I am forced to hold in my position.

I suppose gatekeeping matters the most when you are trying to establish standards and trying to determine what you want to be good and want to be acceptable. Still, it has the direct effect of reminding us what is not good and not acceptable—to us.

CNN doesn’t want Bernie to win. They come up with creative titles like ‘Biden Stops Bernie Juggernaut’ and Hillary Clinton says Bernie Would Not Be The Strongest Nominee’. I’ve yet to see much in the pro-Bernie camp from the organization, and while it is good they are not in the bag for Bernie it is bad they are in the bag against the man. It just feels like the news has a bias. We know about the Trump bias, and at times even understand the impulse to own that man, but carrying that energy forward into the next election means that we are moving closer to this just being how it is. I want the campaigns and the choice to be about the people and not about what media empire favors you. I guess I am just naive like that.

While we wait for the Super Tuesday results to roll in, I am hopeful that this set of polls stirs real clarity. Trump is a bad president, in my opinion. He’s not bad because of his (adopted) political affiliations. He is bad because he is not very smart yet is very swayed by praise. He’s a bully who has gotten his way most of his life, and that is totally fine so long as getting his way does not hurt people–and especially does not hurt me. However, it has. Our place in the world is diminished by this administration and we have looked more and more inward, sealing ourselves behind walls and expecting to create everything we need inside those walls and for those outside those walls to cater to us as though our global standing and value is more than what it is.

Honestly, if not for the Coronavirus I feel like we would have lost more global capital to China. As it stands they got stuck in a terrible situation. A deadly situation.

We are in a deadly situation as well, because in the wake of such things people tend to make grabs for power. How we respond under those circumstances impacts the functioning of our lonely planet, and I do not trust the responses of this particular commander in chief.

Some Thoughts:

1. That all being said, I’m more mentally engaged in 10u football than in anything I said above. That’s just facts.
2. I am also excited to spend some time in Tennessee. I just wrote a story about Memphis and here I am about to hit Nashville.
3. About to hit Nashville days after a Tornado hit nearby. That too is a tragedy.

Writing needs to come from some place either deep within ourselves or from the outer spaces we as writers observe and interpret. Any writing is surely a mixture of both sources; both destinations. Spending the evening with my mother reminded me of a lot of how I came to be a writer and of the need that vocation satisfied in me, if for no other reason than because I needed a place to say awful things.

I grew up being constantly reminded that I was not good enough–for anything. She looked at me as a case study in failure and now will occasionally call my own kids her little do overs and constantly insult the way I parent. I put up with it because I am accustomed to the abuse, but also because she is my mom and I was raised in an era where that alone stood for something. This was especially true of black moms in a way I feel is less so these days. This constant stain of disappointment still cuts me to the quick and I find that it has impacted all of my relationships in some fashion. It appears in my writing constantly. I have trouble writing mothers without straying into the familiar space of mothers who feel their lives were postponed or even stolen by their kids; mothers who make their kids feel unworthy.

It is a sad thing to realize your life is a trope, but here I am. Of course, I am more than that, but these little demons crawl around my mind and impact me on days like this.

Yep, this is that blog post. You know the one? The one about how easy it actually is to make time in your busy life for writing. The one where I humorously chide you for not finishing that one story you have inside yourself (everyone has at least one, and that is not counting the one they are presently living). The blog where I say these things, argue do as I say, ignoring the stretches of days and even weeks where I don’t write more than ten minutes in a single day…

This is also the same blog where I remind you that I do actually write ten minutes every day and that counts as writing. In fact, I am writing this in ten minutes. Yes, if you’re already here you already knew that. Did you know that I am writing it in the bathroom?

Hear me out. Seriously. I know that it seems gross on the surface. However, a 2018 OnePoll survey conducted in conjunction with Pebble Grey showed that 45% of people polled struggled to find time for themselves. The same study showed that men spend an average of 7hrs a year in the bathroom. A 3rd of the men polled admitted to hiding in the bathroom for quiet time. Well, perhaps that time can be quietly spent writing as opposed to playing Clash Royale–which is clearly what I would be doing if not writing.

Yes, I am justifying. Don’t we all justify our behaviors and our lack of time in a similar fashion? Doesn’t each of us say, this is ‘how it is’. Don’t some of us pretend to be powerless about ‘how it is’ while simultaneously finding quiet moments for what we really want to be doing–even if we end up having to do it in the bathroom under cover of… well, you get it.

Don’t you get it?

This is a blog about choice. Writing is a choice we either make or don’t. We have the power to decide what matters and what does not matter. We have the choice to grow into ourselves our grow into our circumstances. The fact is we make these choices every day. We just tend to spend less and less time being mindful about the fact that these are our choices.

It is easier to pretend not to be free than to live with the reality of what we do with all that freedom.

The two major news sources in America (FOX and CNN) are talking about the Biden victory. If you scroll down the page just enough to lose site of the top image you’ll find information about the Coronavirus. You won’t find answers. You will find questions without much speculation on possible answers. You’ll find opinion pieces on the handling of the situation and finger pointing between the two parties. You might find an article or two about how to prepare and how not to prepare. It is not the ‘sky is falling’ panic presumed by our President, nor is it enough, IMHO to wake us to the possibility of what is actually taking place here.

With very little digging I was able to find a nifty infographic showing the infection rate of the disease. Basically, every person infected can push this out to about 2.5 people, which puts it on par with influenza. That virus is better recognized as the flu. It is so prevalent and contagious that we offer shots everywhere. That is to suggest that Covid-19 has the potential to be at least as potent.

In plainer terms, it is worth worrying about. The idea that it can jump species to dogs makes it all the more troubling. So, I would say that now is in truth the time to worry. We’ve already seen the first death in America, and the CDC et al. are still not sure how the patient came in contact with the virus in the first place. That is to say it is out there.

While the political folks scream, shout, and downplay in the standard throws of election year drama I think it is important to consider that there is something happening that is larger than the election (in a sense). We are close to a global crisis and for once America is no where near trying to be in charge or at the very least helpful. So, what happens when we are not?

Laying there in the dentists office mouth ajar and filled with tools, I found myself wondering why men don’t sexualize dentists. I certainly don’t. In truth the idea of it is strange to me. On TV and other media you see nurses and doctors portrayed as sex objects, but dentists avoid that spotlight. As a result when she lowered the tool into my mouth for the fifth time all I thought was, “please don’t stab me with that thing.”

I thought a few other things too. I thought about how cold it was and how my right arm was losing circulation in this awkward position. I thought about my high blood pressure. I wondered if it is more than just HPB and perhaps has already developed into heart disease. I was thankful that numbness spreading through my right arm wasn’t my left arm, because that is the scary arm… isn’t it?

The dentist brings me closer to my own mortality. It was there I first discovered the high blood pressure. Aftwerwards I tried to deny it. I raced from Walmart to Frys to another Walmart and so on testing the readings and trying to make excuses for the numbers. Then I went holistic with garlic and coq10 to lower it. I ate a ton of bananas. I didn’t exercise all that much, and that is because I am lazy. It is one of the things I need to work on.

Taking care of my teeth is another.

The blood pressure has gone down some, thanks to a cocktail of prescription and holistic meds. It is not where it needs to be and I think there is more trouble at the source. I need to find a way back to being healthy and mindful as opposed to being terrified whenever anyone in medical garb comes near me.

Some Thoughts:

The Cassandra Cain thing did not go well. I suppose that is what one can expect when you take a girl raised to communicate entirely through body language and honed in the fighting arts to the point where she is deadlier than the Batman and retcon her to be a chubby teenage pickpocket. Birds of Prey failed in so many ways, but it succeeded in the only way that matters: it entertained.

I will probably take my kids to see Fast 9 and groan all the way through. I fully expect it to suck. I had fewer expectations for Birds of Prey and yet all but two failed to be met. I expected to be as engaged by Margot Robbie in this role as I was by Penelope Cruz in Sahara. In both cases you can register the joy of the moment on their faces as they slide into a role they enjoy playing. It was wonderful to watch her having fun with it.

The acting outside of Robbie was barely worth noting. Some performances were actually cringe worthy, yet somehow that didn’t impact the movie. The soundtrack was on point, and while I had no expectations in that department it was pleasing.

I did expect the film to have visual appeal. It did. The movie is shot well. The scenery, while limited to a handful of set pieces, is extremely colorful and fun.

So, looked cool, sounded great, loved Robbie. What more can you ask for in a movie? Plot, dialogue, etc. but this is definitely enough for this film. Still, no sequels please.