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Just finished Scalzi’s Kaiju Preservation Society. The afterword ought to be required reading for authors. In it he sums up the entirety of the industry from a writer’s perspective without much trying to do so. He understands. He lives it. He also is honest about his own issues and failures and relationships with editors. All this in under fifteen minutes.

What I’d like to say with the rest of my ten is Write. Write what you want and feel and make sure you give time to that. I sometimes don’t. I all too often get caught up in expectations thrust on me by people who are not me–editors, students, fans, other writers. It sucks to feel like you’re writing what they want and need you to put out but not putting yourself into it. That lack of self shows through the page. It makes all the words feel hollow.

Don’t let your words feel hollow.

Some Thoughts:

1. Arizona sucks for weather several months out of the year, but it sucks for feeling you are part of a diverse community full of interesting and inventive and farflung creative ideas all of the time.
2. Three of the new owners of the Denver Broncos are black. Not only are they black but they are by far the most notably ignored black people in their own ways. Condeleeza Rice is a straight up baller who should be the centerpiece for so many modern black professionals, but she isn’t. Lewis Hamilton has one more F1 races than anyone ever. He’s the GOAT of formula one and most Americans have no idea who he is. Melody Hobson is a 53 year old black woman who just happens to be the CEO of Starbucks. Yep, unnoticed by the general public. Reminds me of a joke Chris Rock used to say…

One last blog before I get on this plane here today. I want to talk about the future. Specifically, I want to talk about the importance of setting goals and recognizing growth potential as a writer. I’ve been writing Shadowrun for better than two decades–probably about half my life in truth. In all of that time I haven’t produced nearly the volume of novels that some of the other writers have put up. The reason here is simple: I did not go get it. I’m getting it now. That leaves me understanding that one difference between writers who are successful and ones that are not is that mindset of “I’m going to make sure they know my name”

There are several ways to go about this. I have this friend in the industry that has produced a ton of books–16 in all including the one children’s book. He went out and got it. He self promoted. He shows up at the cons. He comes to the classroom. He writes his ass off and he makes sure that this is not the end of his engagement. He embedded himself in the industry. I need to do that.

I will miss GenCon this year. I am returning from nearly two months away from my kids and this is the last chance I have to spend time with them before school really gets rolling and my eldest goes away to college. I will not miss GenCon next year. In fact, I will seek out more opportunities to connect with the local community as well as the larger writing community. I have more than enough publications to be part of the SFWA but haven’t done the paperwork. I will do the paperwork. I will put in the work this year to be more like Tom and less like the guy who waits for the opportunities to come to him. This is the way.

Some Thoughts:

1. When I listen to particular audiobook narrators, I start to hear everything I write in their voice. Presently I’m listening to Wil Wheaton tell a story, and this condition is particularly egregious with him. Damn you Wil. Nevertheless, I still want to play D&D with the guy.

Headed home soon. Done with the Seattle retreat. I didn’t write nearly as much as intended and I failed to write in the schedule book all but two days. It isn’t ideal to leave feeling like I don’t have a lock on managing the writer’s life. It is dope, however, that I feel sunk into the world in which I am writing and can, over time, continue to dig deeper and pull out connections and stories this world yearns to be told.

Now I go home to the office space and a daily routine that is less than ideal. I need to grow it and change it in a way that grows and changes me as a person into a better person. I need to balance it all with the teaching and bring the passion I have for that job back into play instead of compartmentalizing these disparate parts of myself.

Some Thoughts:

1. I mistakenly labeled yesterday’s blog as a Friday reflection. I really thought it was Friday!
2. Bill Russell died. I remember encountering the man once on a Southwest flight. He was minding his own business. He had A ticket seating and was wearing his NBA 75 jacket–the one in black. I moved past him and whispered, “Thank you.” He probably didn’t hear me. Maybe he hears me now. Thank you. You helped create a pathway for black men to hold space and voice in this country.

Consider this my abstract on the effects of heat on the working brain. Heat murders the working brain. Perhaps more specifically sweating does that. I can function when I am hot but when I am sweating I shut down quickly. My mental motor turns into a muscle memory machine and I lose the ability to be creative. This is my failure as an athlete and now, as a writer. Seriously. I cannot do much when I feel this way. Call it a hind brain nod to Maslow, but if my cooling needs are not met then the creativeness ain’t happening. This Seattle weather is not ideal for creativeness. This is why I am surprised to be going to a Beat Battle out on the pier. How they gonna go hard in the heat?

Some Thoughts:

1. It is exceedingly hot. This is largely due to the immense humidity of the pacific northwest. AZ’s 113 feels better than this does. Unless I get out of the sun, then I’m okay in this stuff whereas I’d still be a mess in AZ.

I have it in my mind to start packing. I don’t leave the great state of Washington just yet, but it is soon enough to be needing to start packing. The next step is to go home and fight to change the routine that exists in that space by replacing it with one that my partner and I forge together. That will be difficult, because we will be living with four boys who have zero intention of doing anything but what they want to do, which is be teens–even though at least one of them is past that age. I say this to point out that creating a life is a cooperative experience fraught with obstacles. It requires, above all else, a clearly defined common goal.

One goal that my partner and I have is entirely about me. We both believe I need to live more of a writer’s life. I have of course struggled with this throughout my existence. I don’t spend nearly as much time on the page as I do on the sticks, which is problematic. Part of what I must do is pledge to spend more time writing and less time languishing in video games. I love games, but they need to be tangential to my existence if I am going to change anything about the way we live and our level of happiness as a family.

Part of that means re-establishing hours of writing time. Part of that means getting my mojo back in full and being able to tell the stories I want to tell. So, yeah. I have work to do.

Some Thoughts:

1. A string of recent scrabble losses have convinced me that my vocabulary stopped growing. It might even be receding. oof.

Stories are really powerful things. Nowadays it is tik tok and youtube stories pushing these narratives, but before that it was tv series and news narratives (well, that one is still a thing) giving us ideas on how to be and what to think. Lately I’ve been absorbing the Parenthood series (Lauren Graham playing not Lorelei). There is a lot to be said about the shoe and how it stereotypes and creates ideas of this and that, but I really want to focus the Aspergers character, Max. I call him that because that is his central identity in the show. He has Aspergers. It becomes who he is to everyone else and how his immediate family handles it is a hot mess. I’m not mad at that part. Being a hot mess is a character thing. What I dislike is that they treat it like this is how everyone should treat people of this nature and this ought to be seen as the way and okay.

It isn’t okay.

Max is an ass and is treated like he needs to be babied and that babying is reinforced throughout the show time and again. Four season in and the kid doesn’t grow as character. It’s not right or okay. Yet they did it anyway.

Some Thoughts:

1. Kinda stoked for Madden.
2. Less stoked for the summer to end.

This is the one where I compare Canadian Football (because I am in Canada) to the NFL. I’m talking about the BC Lions here–not the Whitecaps Football Club, which is actually what we Americans call soccer. Specifically, I am back to talking about sports narratives. While the NFL does a good job of building up individual superstars (especially QBs) even on bad teams, the Canadiens take a different approach. Compare this website to this website. Maybe it is something in the level of attention these teams get, but the G-men feel far more corporate. In fact, the Lions have open practices (and fewer practices) all the time. Only Training Camps are open to US viewers. Strange, eh?

There is no deep conspiracy or anything like that here. I am merely noting the cultural differences. I feel like my life has been one of being submerged in “American” (read: USA) idealism with not much by the way of exposure to the rest of the global civilization and I notice more and more that the rest of the world is different. The stories are different. The way things are approached is different. Reality is different and as such fiction is different too.

I’m a Scalzi fan. I am also a believer that the narrator of audiobooks can be a very important part of the success or failure of the narrative if consumed in that fashion as Scalzi so often is. He has Wil Wheaton. He’s winning. Beyond that though Scalzi is funny and he is real and his stories often feel like reflections of life carved up with sci-fi and made into a humorous digestible. It works. He works. So, why bring him up? Jealousy? Nah, nothing like that. It is just a way to remind you to be yourself on the page. Scalzi is dutifully himself. In the afterword for The Kaiju Preservation Society he talks about how he had to be honest to himself and write the book that was there and not the one he was forcing himself to write. I feel that. I bounce around a large project for specifically that reason. I have to attack the narrative in the natural way that it comes to me or not at all. Furthermore, I have to write the stories I feel or not at all.

I’ve been diligently completing this latest project with a few other projects lurking in the back of my mind, but not one of these lurkers feels right. That is why I keep taking on other writing jobs and keeping my skills up. One day I will tell those stories or some other story, but that day is going to be the day that is write for that tale. I cannot force the words to show up and organize themselves neatly on my screen. It has to happen the way it happens. Or not at all.

Some Thoughts:

1. Random football note: Julio Jones is now a Buccaneer. There is an appeal to playing for Brady it seems. It also feels like the Rams and the Bucs are duking it out again in the playoffs. Will the Giants be invited to crash the party as a division leader? Maybe… The division is pretty bad, but the Eagles loaded up this off-season as well.
2. Feels like I might do a waiver Wednesday tomorrow.

I wish I could find a clever way to incorporate the term Writer’s Block–reclaim actually. The term is historically bad. The term makes writers cringe. Many of us even disbelieve, as if saying it isn’t real makes it not real and not a catch all for the condition in which we cannot functionally write. I have a studio apartment on the block (yes, that was weak, I am trying!). I don’t live there full time, but I visit enough to drop in, dust, make sure the laundry and linens are fresh, etc.

I’m staying there now.

I don’t want to stay. It feels more like a horror movie location than a VRBO. Seriously. The issue that keeps me locked in the space is the scope of the project I am working on. There are so many disparate pieces that I am trying to keep track of or missing that it is incredibly hard to put it all together. It is a struggle and I am struggling. Still, I’m getting it done. This is the Way.

Some Thoughts:

1. Nope. No thoughts.

A curious and unfortunate condition of my own existence is that I think about the end of that existence–the finality and cessation of life triggered by death–way too often. I don’t know why that is. I don’t know why I am terrified of it, considering it simply means not being anymore. Crap, even that brief passage terrified me and made me run off and find my partner so I could kiss her. Damn. Seriously, it is a tough subject for me. What shocks me about the entire thing is that it has nothing to do with legacy. I don’t think about how people will remember me. I do think about how people who know me feel about me in the now. I do think about what people who read my stuff think about my stuff. I don’t consider any lasting history or appreciation of my body of work. In other words, I don’t truly care about my legacy.

I wonder why this is. Perhaps it is because I write largely for role-playing games and the work I do is not critically acclaimed outside of the circle of people who appreciate that kind of work. I don’t write the lasting literature of the ages. The best I could ever imagine my work being is a kind of blip or moment in sci-fu that inspires someone to take the next step in whatever vein of sci-fi/fantasy I wind up settling into. Of course, as I near 50 yrs on this lonely planet I might have to accept that I have settled into what I do and whatever else I do is a divergence (or vacation) from that.

In short, I don’t write for legacy. I write because I want to write and tell stories and I love the challenge of it. So, I will continue writing in that vein and telling whatever stories that crop up in my mind.