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I know I should be freewriting, but this Russia situation has me twisted. Not so much what Putin is doing–you expect a dog to be a dog. However, what Fox News is doing is straight up atrocious. Yes, I get that I just said you expect a dog to be a dog, but this dog has so much power in our sphere that it is causing a large number of Americans to rethink their reality. We have quite literally gone from worrying about Russian influence to ‘Why do we hate Putin?‘ He goes on to make some pretty damning remarks, one of which is as purely anti-American as it gets.

He says, “What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs? “

First off, the ‘what is this really about’ is a trigger phrase. It indicates that we ought to be questioning the reasoning of everything and everyone BUT him. So, I ask you, dear reader, to question him. What is it really about? Why does he want to protect Putin and in such throw barbs at Americans or at the perception of so-called fringe Americans, or as they put it, ‘democrats’. I fear that Fox News is driving a divide into our nation because it fills their pockets and egos and quest for power and keeps those who listen afraid and docile and buying what they want them to buy and voting how they want them to vote and believing what they want them to believe and ONLY what they want them to believe to the exclusion of reality. It is more likely that a Fox News viewer believes that Clinton ran a sex ring than Trump cheated on his taxes. That level of confirmation bias driven logic is disturbing at best, criminally negligent at worst.

As a father and a partner and a citizen I am worried about our country. We can say over and again that ‘we’ve been here before’ or ‘it’s not as bad as it’s been in the past’ but we cannot neglect the power that technology has to reach people and provide them with an extremely closed off view of reality. It is easy to login to ONLY your apps and your newsfeeds and decide on your reality and when someone not from that sphere challenges that reality they INSTANTLY become the enemy. Add to that the power to generate law at the local level and we are struggling to maintain a nation that is, in fact, democratic and not Autocratic and that one who controls many tends to be the corporation with the most power to manipulate perspective.

This Tuesday is 2.2.22. crazy odd right? No, I am not going to try and work the #2 into the freewrite in some way. It doesn’t really work and feels corny even for me. Instead I am going with John Fox’s blog on magical realism. He writes, ” (6) Write about a character who can taste people’s emotions through the food they prepare.”

There aren’t a lot of jobs suited to a person with my particular abilities. The visceral reaction it causes me makes it difficult to hold what is commonly known as a ‘poker face’ It is clear how I feel about people and how they are feeling about me from the moment I encounter them. That is what made it so strange that Barner Systems would think to hire me as their HR executive. My job is hiring people. Everyone who comes through the company sits down with me first and that meeting determines whether they get hired or they don’t. If I was a better liar I could use that position to my advantage, but lying isn’t my strong suit. In fact, it gives me actual hives. That’s why when I sat down with Anette Hargreaves I was worried for my life.

My ability allows me to sense peoples emotions and intentions. It isn’t in the cool fashion–the Professor X slick mindreading. No, I taste what they want and feel. It hits my tastebuds like food entering my mouth. Anette tasted like Durian fruit.

I was working on the language base for my fantasy world today and the experience was really fun and informative. I learned more about this world I am struggling to create and more about the stories and kinds of stories I want to tell in it. There is an opportunity for me to host a D&D adventure for a conference at my college and it could be an opportunity to tell a small tale in this world. I’ve been thinking about where that would take place –though not what the tale would be. All of this is to say I did a lot today between grading and writing and I am flat burned out. I waited to the end of the eve to generate this blog and that didn’t help. I am not creative tonight folks. That’s the truth of it. Writing has to be an everyday thing, but creativity isn’t always that punctual.

Some Thoughts:

1. I also learned that my mood impacts my ability to be productive and as it shifts during the day so does my ability to create.
2. I didn’t get a lot of the stuff I needed to get done done today, so tomorrow and Wednesday need to kill, so I can finally feel like I am on track coming into the weekend. It’s a rare thing.
3. I need to get my head in the game.
4. My head spent some time in the Madden game this afternoon where I realized that my superstar team is getting older and I need to win NOW. This has to be the season–this and next. I’m considering trading draft picks during the draft instead of getting dudes this year, because I believe I have at least 48 of the 53 I want and there is little room to add first round talent expecting to play.
5. One thing I also noticed about today–a dull persistent buzz in my head reminding me just how wrecked my mind is. I wish I knew how to reset the creative energies in a holistic way. It is worth looking into via research.

Here is a prompt of my own creation: Take two people that you know decently well. Take three qualities indicative of each. Merge those six qualities together to form an entirely new person. Now, from the 3rd person, imagine them on a blind date….

Her name was Hillary. Newt told himself this over and over, rolling it around in his head. He’d have to stand up and say it out loud, in spite of the jarring sense of apprehension of that name which had been programed into him over long hours of binge watching fringe news shows. Hillary. He wore gray slacks and a button up white shirt with the top two buttons undone and a matching gray jacket. His sister called the look ‘Understated’ and worked at convincing him the clothes would show off his smile. He suspected Hillary had already seen his smile when his sister set this thing up. Nobody went on truly blind dates anymore. The term lost its meaning shortly after the advent of MySpace. Google, Facebook, even Tinder made it much worse. By now she had a working profile of his entire professional and dating history. She knew what he did for a living, knew why he binged Fox News web-only alternatives and thusly why her name tasted like old oysters in his mouth. She knew about Emelia. She knew about Shanda. She probably even new about Christine, though he suspected his decade old fourth grade romance didn’t leak into the internet they way it would in the era of tik tok.

Most of all, he knew he was terrified. He had no idea what to say to a girl like Hillary who was born rich and had blonde hair that appeared to be natural and legs as long as corn stalks. He didn’t know what they would talk about or have in common. She didn’t look like the kind of girl to like anime or punk rock music. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why his sister would put him in this situation. She’d said, “It’s worth a try, right?”

“Playing the lotto is worth a try one time, and I think I’d have a better shot at landing a million lotto wins than a second date with a girl like that.”

“you’ll always lose if you never play.”

“I’m sure you’re misquoting that.” He said, but here he was anyway. Styled, groomed, and sipping at a glass of water at the bar. He checked his watch. He’d made dinner reservations here, at Rooney’s at 8, and his watch said 7:45. She said she’d meet him by 7:50. Five minutes felt like a very long time.

No, I’m not quitting.

Seriously. I’m not! I am taking a brief break for the duration of the day and tomorrow I’ll hit another one of these prompts. It has been quite the odd day. A lot of driving and standing on lines. I witnessed all sorts of craziness. I saw grafitti on a wall behind a memorial for a man killed in an accident. The grafitti spanned the entirety of the wall and read, “Fuck Biden. Trump 2024”

This is not the way.

Or is it? I fear the political discourse has become one of anger and disrespect at the spear of it, as opposed to the underlying emotion. Maybe it is best to put that out in front. Maybe it is best to acknowledge such things in a space where people are increasingly being fed fear-driven narratives by their very narrowly pitched and honed news services, which feed them more and more of exactly what will keep them coming back and keep them agitated and riled up. I see it on both so-called sides, which I continue to see as a fabrication. Republicans and democrats really aren’t that different when you boil down the essentials of what they actually do in office vs. what they say.

I will say this: Trump 2024 is a very very bad idea. Trump won’t be re-electable and instead will feel a need to either change that law or to put his kid in power.

Taking a pause on the freewrite to talk about TV shows and other bits of fiction I find interesting. I have been catching up on Arcane and on Boba Fett. One feels like an oddly drawn version of Harley Quinn and the other, well, it is starting to feel more and more like a vehicle for other things. Case and point: In the last two episodes Boba has had less than a minute of combined screen time and I don’t think he spoke for more than 10 seconds. That’s weird. However, it isn’t so weird if you view aspects of the show as a way to connect to the past and the future–as Boba really serves as such a connection. There is a lot they’ve worked to connect to the Bad Batch and older shows and it works, but it does take away from the show being a stand alone show. I want Boba to be about Boba. This is the way.

Arcane feels… strange. Oversexualized teens is the way of anime, but few add in the crazy of Harley Quinn. This is doing it and doing it while telling a sweeping lore that covers years of video gaming within League of Legends. It got me thinking about games and the stories that connect them. It made me feel like there will be an Apex Legends show in the near future. Of course, it also had me thinking about the concept of Open vs. Closed game realities. Arcane is purely backstory, which offers a closed plot. We know about many of the featured characters because no less than 6 of them appear as playable heroes in game. We know where they end up and this is about how they got there. Apex is Open. They are telling a story forward while the game reveals precious bits of backstory, they also move the narrative forward with each new character drop. We don’t know how it ends or if it is even capable of ending.

Just a few thoughts on story this evening. That is all.

Some Thoughts:

1. Building my Madden playbook is taking a long time and the plays are not going as well as I hoped. I’ll be rolling into the game against my kid tomorrow unprepared. Entirely unprepared.

This one comes to us from Creative Writing Now. I’ll share the full prompt below:

Three Elements

Choose a set of three elements, and imagine a story that includes all three of them.

1. a hitchhiker, an allergy, and a mistake in a map.
2. a cemetery, a missing dog, and a joke that goes too far.
3. a Halloween costume, a stapler, and a complaint between neighbors.
4. a stolen phone, a love song, and a bet.
5. a dance competition, an engagement ring, and a worried parent.
6. insomnia, a birthday card, and an encounter with someone famous.
7. an eavesdropper, a secret kiss, and a fire in the kitchen.
8. a stuck elevator, a pickpocket, and a promise.
9. a babysitter, a pet snake, and a tow truck.
10. a lit window, a stamp collection, and someone pretending to be angry.
11. a dream come true, inappropriate laughter, and something buried.
12. an abandoned house, false eyelashes, and a lump in the bed.

I chose A baby Sitter, A Pet Snake, and a Tow Truck.

I knocked on Ms. Charlene’s door a little after 11 AM. I sighed, repositioning a loose curl that had fallen across my sweaty face, and then putting my hands back in the pockets of my hoodie. She didn’t answer. I rang it again, looking around. She was the only person I knew within a few miles of here. I felt fortunate that I’d broken down only a few blocks over and was able to push the car this far. Nobody stop to help. Nobody ever does. you see a young black girl pushing a car, you look the other way, right? I don’t know why that is. I don’t know why people have, what I like to call, a preference for helping some people and not others. Ms. Charlene isn’t black but she’s one of those people that other people don’t like to help. It sort of makes us sisters in a strange way. We help each other. At least, I thought we did.

It took two more rings for her to come to the door. She looked like she’d been in the act of getting dressed. She was tugging on an earring and had a blue pencil skirt on and a bra and a robe over all of it that hung open, failing at its job. She said, “Nina?”

I smiled, “Hey, Ms. Charlene. I am so sorry to be knocking on your door right now, but my car broke down, and it is really hot, and the two truck guy said he’d be over an hour to get here and–“

She grabbed me and pulled me into the house and shut the door softly behind us. She was all smiles. She said, “I am so glad to see you! What did you say happened?”

I raised my eyebrows. Its a thing I do unconsciously but I do it so much that I am totally conscious of when I do it. I forced them back down and said, “Car broke down. Can I camp out here and wait for a tow?”

“Can you watch Charlie while you do it?”

… out of time, but this actually felt good and fun and light!

I’m taking a second break from the freewrite fest because I’m sick. Not totally sick. More like a sudden onset of illness followed by a long daze. It feels like being hungover without having imbibed any alcohol. Needless to write, I can’t find an ounce of creativity in these tired old bones today. So, instead I’ll just share…

Some Thoughts:

1. Professional sports have begun to feel like the lead car in a Snowpiercer-esque hype train that starts at age 4. I want my two remaining athletes to get as far as they can, but man the hype cloud is so damn toxic. Is it truly worth it?
2. Speaking of hype — or lack thereof. The Into the Spiderverse 2 trailer has gotten surprisingly little hype. Looks really fun. Loving the interaction between the spiderfolk, and think Oscar Issac’s Spiderman 2099(?) figures to be the villain here.
3. I might have a fever… or just feel like I have one.
4. Been trying to figure out a call sheet for madden to help me get a handle on this 400 play playbook. I don’t know why playbooks in a video game are so large. Who calls that many plays? I have like 27 formations–most from shotgun. Most of the plays I use require on the fly adjustments in order to be successful. I am not 12. I don’t have the time or patience to train for all that!
5. Oh, and as for games.. Sifu is good. It is imperfect in ways. If you get caught in a corner you’re done. Otherwise I enjoy every playthrough of the first level, because that is as far as I am willing to go until I master my style. I don’t know all the kung fu yet!
6. Out.

I believe first person is a wonderful literary perspective, so in honor of that I wanted to put together a freewrite in the first. The prompt I thought up is as follows: Imagine you are someone else on the road driving to work. Where are you going? What have you left behind?

I like the highway. Despite the chaos of cars racing to get somewhere, it is more peaceful than the triplets at home. I decided to go back to work because I wanted a chance to get back in the car and have, for just a half hour, a moment of peace where I controlled the sound and the space; where my mood wasn’t dictated by the people around me. Of course, in electing to go back to work I was electing to dive headlong back into an environment where my mood and my paycheck was dictated by the people around me and each and every one of those people has something to say about the choices I’ve made as a mother. That’s okay, because for thirty minutes the most pressing thing on my mind is whether to go with NPR, an Audiobook, or the whoosh of tires against asphalt.

I have to say that it is going pretty well. I can feel the gears starting to loosen in my head (in a good way though). I am getting down some creative ideas and breaking free of a bit of the negativity that dominates my lifespace by writing about characters and situations that aren’t me or my situation… Until this recap, of course. I think blogging about the personal life is a sure way to stay in that cycle of negativity. It should be coming out through story and character instead of blech there on the page, so I think–njo I believe–I will be doing more freewriting and idea sharing and less of the personal blech. Oh, yes, Blech is a word in my personal reality.

But what about the prompts? Some of them I found useful. I believe all had value thus far, but in terms of putting these down in an academic setting, there are only a few I am interested in reproducing and I certainly looking for more. The structure of the summer class is a 31 day immersive experience that includes 31 prompts as well as several other small thought provoking assignments to rev up the creative engines for producing a short story. Hopefully producing something the writer wants to keep and keeping working to a perfect sheen. To that end the prompts must be as varied as the audience. Though it is a fiction class I recognize that all fiction arrives from someone’s reality (be it through the ether or their own lives once removed) so, I need to find non-fiction prompts that can help stimulate understanding of facets of what makes characters tick–which is us. Which is our own lives and our understanding of the interconnection between lives be they human or otherwise.

In short, I am off to find more prompts.