Uncategorized

It took a while for me to figure it out, but I get it now. Audiobooks are not a substitute for reading print material–not if you want to be a writer.

I found myself flipping through the pages of a Nyx Smith book I read years ago. I loved the book. It told a well crafted story that jumped off the page and into my imagination. More importantly, the way the words were shaped on the page–the size of the paragraphs and the length of the chapters; how it varied created a tension that is not possible in audio form. You cannot see it. You cannot recognize the chapter is about to end and know that a major moment is closing. When I wrote Imposter I had not read a physical book in over two years. That cannot stand.

Writing is a visual art. The pacing comes alive on the page. The way you lay things down from beginning to end is a reflection on your relationship with the reader. It shows in your writing how well you understand what good writing looks like on the page; the shape of such things.

I’d forgotten that.

Some Thoughts:

1. Rock Bottom is not a place. It is an idea. It can happen at any station and any time. It is the understanding that things are not going to go well for you moving forward. It is seeing that and deciding in that moment to either carry on or fall apart.
2. Perhaps there is a way to do both.
3. On a lighter note, I played more Madden. I enjoyed it. Franchise is not ‘fixed’. Trade mechanics remain utterly broken. You still can trade your way to a fantastic team, screwing the CPU the whole way. I’m in a season ten years in the future and the Giants remain a bad team. However, my trades have made us competitive. We don’t have CBs. Not ones that can run our defense. I will look for that next. Perhaps I’ll address the deficit in the draft. At any rate, the offense looks like it will eventually be able to cook under Daboll. Yeah, a ten year sim didn’t remove that man from his spot.

There is going to come a time where you miss a deadline. It will suck. It will haunt you. It will make you feel like a failure as a writer and planner both. It will poison your confidence and make you consider quitting the biz entirely. Let it settle in. Roll around in it for a few hours. Then get back to work.

Missing a deadline is not the end of the world. It is also not acceptable behavior. The key in these situations is to recognize how you got into this situation in the first place and learn from that so it doesn’t happen again. If it does happen again then you need to consider how much you are taking on as well as your willingness to put aside other things to get the work done. A writer’s life needs to be about writing. That needs to happen most if not every day. You need to find ways to be productive, even if that means writing outlines and adding a paragraph here and there to help you get what you are working on in better shape or clarify your ideas. You cannot decide that you’re going to blow off work and do other stuff primarily, because that is how you end up backed against a deadline in the first place.

Here’s another thing about deadlines they don’t tell you: When you are racing to write up to the deadline or especially past it, you aren’t writing your best, most relaxed, and thoughtful work. You’re writing the crap you forced onto the paper to make the wordcount. Don’t write crap to make wordcount.

You’re better than that.

Home again. I’m gearing up for the final burn of this NDA project that I’m turning in on Monday. Friday will be a big writing day interspersed with spending time with my lady. I need to get it done and get on to the next one. The steady drum of work is really important in realizing what it takes to become a top flight writer. You have to be able to put yourself out there and get feedback and write different things and figure out what works for you and what works for audiences from you.

That last bit is one that has constantly been on my mind. Audiences do come to expect things from writers. When you hear about a new Stephen King book there is an implicit expectation of what that means. It may not be as direct as that but your voice as a writer is part of the expectation and part of what the audience comes to the page to get. I’m learning what it is the audience expects from me purely from the feedback I get on the work they read. I know I need to put more out there. I know there is more in the schedule already, but I need more than that even. The more you have out there, the more you understand what works and what is expected of you as a writer.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve begun to hate the way football is covered in the off and preseason. Without games being played everything is speculation and usually aout nonsensical stories they’ve decided are the way. For example, despite Jimmy G being supplanted by an untested rookie, he is now the QB every other team needs to trade for? Nah, son.
2. Jumping into a Madden Franchise. I’m simming the first 10 yrs and starting fresh with the Giants.

Falling behind on my work due. It feels like letting down the team. The struggle is not about time on task so much as it is about mental blocks over certain parts of the assignment. I’ve been trying to right 20 yr wrongs in this work, and I believe I dug through the thick of that. Tomorrow ought to be a breakthrough morning of words. I expect to be fully done by Sunday with the main part of it. Then I’ll have another 6500 words to get in before I am completely done and on to the next one.

One truth about my writing is that once I get up to speed it is easier to keep going than it is to sit for a while, regroup, and try to get up to speed again. It is better then to keep writing and keep on task then go through the boom to bust cycle of writing that feels so much more natural. Often nature isn’t the way when it comes to writing. Nurture is–especially in terms of getting into the rhythm of the words.

Some Thoughts:

1. Want to beat me at a spelling bee? Make me spell rhytyhm without a spell check. I tried it right there and screwed that up. Seriously has to be some kind of mental block…
2. Giants play this weekend… woo!
3. My kid played yesterday and learned that, in spite of his position coach calling him the better player, he is not going to be the starter this season (or next likely). A coach’s son is the starter and you can guess why…
4. Watson’s suspension was increased to 11 games and he was also fined. Am I happy about it? No. It isn’t about what he did. It IS about how the league is focused on bringing the hammer down on player behaviors but an owner also accused of not only sexual misconduct but creating a culture of misconduct AND robbing the league and its fans is not getting anything more than a slap on the wrist. Basically his TEAM was fined and he was forced to relinquish day to day operations. In other words, he was forced to tell someone else what to do in day to day ops and given the power to fire that someone should they choose not to listen. NFL sucks…
5. College NIL is.. interesting. Check out what Bijan Robinson got!

Write at the beach any chance you get. Seriously. There is so much wonderful in being out there with the sand and the sea writing the work you love. I’ll be doing some of that tomorrow. I’m excited about it. I did some writing on the road today while my partner drove and it was an excellent experience. The key here is finding a way to find the joy of writing and the time to write in any way and place you can, because being in the office 4 hours a day is great, but not always possible.

I remain convinced that the best writing environment I’ve been in is a NYC bus on the way home. It just worked for me.

Some Thoughts:

1. Sylvester Stallone is doing a stand alone superhero movie for Prime. Well, that’s the end of that era.
2. Battlebots is still coming out on the Discovery Channel, so that era is not yet over.
3. Madden is back. This season it tells the tale of John Madden from player to coach to commentator to the game itself. It is worth hearing.

I’m going to talk about Trump for a minute here. The facts being what they are, he is a middling businessman who got really big off of name recognition. As a human he has his flaws, but he isn’t the absolute worst. He is a narcissist who refuses to back down or ever be wrong. I’d bet we all know a Trump in our lives. I am also willing to bet that we know that person well enough to keep them at a certain distance because we get they are full of crap and, more importantly, we get that possess a certain charisma which draws people to them–especially those who are looking for someone strong enough to say what they think and feel and strong enough to throw their belief behind.

Trump is a church and his words are the scripture. Whatever he says or writes is treated like gospel and whomever chooses to stand against him is made of something evil. This problem–and it is a problem–is compounded by secondary groups and hanger ons who are truly evil and or do have malicious intent and or do want to light the fuse on the powder keg so that something happens. Side note: If you spend your entire existence preparing for a conflict that will never come, have you failed? Should you feel like you ought to usher in that conflict, because you know you’re ready and you want to be able to help so that it ends the way you believe it ought to?

What we say has power. What we say can be used in terrible ways and to convince people to give of themselves in order to strengthen us. This is an ability that charisma creates. Know the power of what you say and be careful how you use that power.

Still thinking about that work-life balance. I’ve been thinking more and more about the physical side of that balance–specifically being healthy. Writing does indeed mean Butt in Chair. Unfortunately, that is not the healthiest position for people to remain in for long stretches of time (and imagination). I try to get up and walk around every so often, but it is more likely I’ll catch myself hunched over the keyboard with a posture i’ll come to regret in ten years. What to do? I could be trendy and get one of those standing desks. However, that doesn’t feel like it is going to happen. I’m not hip enough for that.

I do go to the gym–though I have not gone or done anything physical in a week. Balance means making this a regular part of the day. Making anything regular is a force of habit. You need to decide that this is what you do regardless of not wanting to always do it. That is what I need to do with the health situation. I have a belly, and sitting in this chair all day is going to turn me into a poor man’s George RR Martin. I’m not prepared to see that happen. So, how much is it worth to me to make it not?

I believe that writers are by nature competitive sorts. I believe we look at published authors and say, yeah, I should be in the conversation where they are at. I always look at writers and consider what they write and their level of success and question if they are better than me or worse and ask what significant differences exist between us that allows them to be at the level of success they are at while I am not. I think it breaks down into three main categories: Location, Life Balance, and forcible will.

Location matters for a number of reasons. Where you are inspires and influences who you are. I happen to live in a place that is not inspirational at all. I am a better writer in Seattle. I am a better writer in New York. The influences around me motivate me to be better. This is an extension of Garbage in, Garbage out. If where you live is effectively garbage (be it the space or the people in that space or the things to do in that space) then you’re filtering garbage through your words.

Life Balance also matters. I have a full time job that is a distraction from writing. I have kids that deserve attention. I have a partner who I give my attention to freely. My writing is ahead of work but behind people. There is not a suitable balance in any of it.

Forcible will is the part where you decide you won’t quit and you will put in the time and effort and proposals to be great. I am far lazier with that than I ought to be. It impacts what I get published.

All of these factors reflect on me in a way that reminds me why these heavily published authors are who they are and why I am who I am. Yet again, I’ll reach for GIjoe when I say, “Knowing is half the battle.”

It is 6:47 on a Sunday morning and I’ve already been up for two hours. Most of that time was spent sweeping and then mopping the floors while I listened to an Audiobook (Recursive by Blake Crouch) and thinking about taking the next steps in my writing project. I am going to be writing more on that project this morning. I am also going to be giving editor feedback to a cluster of short stories, prepping half a dozen new classes, and preparing for two new one to one student mentorships. Next week I’ll start to lay out my writing schedule in earnest as I get a better sense of what my days look like from a teaching perspective. My life here is a very scheduled affair and when I don’t put in time for the things that matter I find that the first few things to fall to waste are generally about me.

Writing is balance. The problem with feeling a story deeply or any project deeply is that you pour yourself into it at the exclusion of everything else. Worse even, you may be like me and sacrifice the long term for the short, present, and loud. For example, since I’ve been back I haven’t completed my exercise ring a single time. In comparison, when I was in Seattle with less on my plate (and the ability to walk outdoors) it was a rare day that the ring didn’t buzz happily with completion.

Here I need to schedule a workout. Here I need to decide if I am going to take the time to be on my bike or do something else. here there is more something else to be lost in. Yet there is also less to enjoy. What I get lost in is minutiae and cleaning up after people and chauffeuring people around. There is good in a lot of it, but I need to be smarter and more mindful of the time I spend on any of it, because I have far less time that truly belongs to me.

Knowing how much time you have to do what you want and need is a necessary part of this writing life.

I didn’t need to wake up at 4:30 AM today, but sure enough by 4:34 I was awake and looking around my room trying to figure out what time it was. I went back to sleep for two precious hours and discovered in that rest how much I deeply enjoy the ‘bonus’ time with my partner. By 6:30 I was ready to be up and moving and working. I did work–diligently even–for several hours today. I accomplished a lot of writing and feel very good about the opportunity to put more words down on paper tomorrow. I am in a good headspace again with the writing, and I have finally managed to get to a healthy place with the writing transition from Seattle to Arizona. I didn’t think it would take any time and it took a ton of time. It ate through most of the time I have remaining to finish this latest 30,000 word project. So, I will need to work double time over the next few days. That means waking up early tomorrow to get my chores handled and then getting on the computer to get the words handled.

The writing life is about discipline as much as it is about creativity. Getting that Butt in Chair time is only useful if you’re focused while you are doing it.