Month: July 2015

50,000 is the number of people reportedly living in my town. It is also the number of people who attend GenCon in downtown Indianapolis every year. 50K. Imagine an entire small city worth of people showing up to support role playing games and the writings, costuming, movies, etc. based off of the RPG genre. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there this year, but my heart is with the gamers taking part in the ‘Best four days in gaming’ and especially with those who are going to be picking up my new short story as part of the World of Shadows Shadowrun Anthology edited by John Helfers. I’m geeked about the anthology and about the other awesome stuff coming out during the convention.

On the other hand, this is the 2nd year that I’ve appeared in no more than a handful of publications, meaning my output has decreased significantly. The culprit? There are a million of them that all swirl back to the central idea of not handling life before life handles me. Fortunately the end of that is fast approaching (the handling, not life). I believe I’m close to hitting my ‘sweet spot’ again after identifying the issues holding me back and making some early stabs at fixing them.

It is time to shine again.

I’ve been debating the first pick in the 2015 fantasy draft; figuring on whether or not Adrian Peterson is going to be the guy or if someone else is going to step up and get me that big win in both leagues. I don’t have an answer, but I can say that the season intrigues me in many ways. There aren’t one or two things that really define whether a player will be exceptional. Sure, we know a few will always be great, but some will be exceptional, and I am starting to figure out who they are.

What does exceptional mean? Well, it means that your player performs above and beyond round-based expectation. If I pick up a player in the 1st, there is an expectation of point production on a weekly basis. If you get a late round flyer that performs well enough to be considered a key starter, then you’ve got an exceptional player. I believe those types exists throughout this latest draft, because expectations create that.

I’ll give you one or two for today. I’ll start with Shane Vereen. Here is the truth about the Giants: They won’t be a top 15 defense this year. As a result they will need to be able to go into the teeth of a run defense and still put up 24 points minimum a game. In order to make that a reality they’ll need a pass-catching back to balance the focus (and also lighten the focus) on the receiving tandem. Donell proved he can’t handle the load, but the load is still there and in need of a guy like Vereen can rank up a lot of fanstasy points in that system.

Times about up, so more ASAP.

Yeah, thats a lot of writing–Nearly 20,000 minutes. A shade over a third of the way to Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule. Not all of it has been effective. Often in writing I have to wade through a swath a detritus to find something worth keeping. A great deal of that detritus is spawned by a lack of inspiration. I debate the reasons behind the inspiration void often, but I keep circling back to the same fact: Arizona doesn’t provide as much as New York does in terms of the inspiration I recognize and can easily ingest.

I’m not saying Arizona is devoid of inspiration. For those who speak the language of sand and heat and sacrament, Arizona runs deep with creativity. I have tried time and again to learn that language and can speak to this land time to time. Though the ocean of ideas has slowed, the flow is not completely stopped. I can still find inspiration and still write here in this space, but it is often harder.

Perhaps the two most important things in writing are research and structure (though not always in that order). The majority of writers I talk to don’t do any real outlining short of thinking up the beginning and end of a story in their head and saying, “some stuff is going down in between.”

As I get back into ‘writing shape’ I have been thinking more about these twin factors and the role they’ve played in both my writing success and failures. While some writers find outlines restrictive I find that they create a remarkably sound structure for writing and research. To begin, an outline–a really good one–is a lot like creating a first draft. Through this limited telling of the story a writer knows what they know and what they don’t know about their story, creating an opportunity to use research to fill in the blanks. Furthermore, writing an outline helps you get to that corner faster. You know the one, the corner that writers sometimes write themselves into and have no legitimate way to get out of… Mr. King knows what I’m talking about. I strongly suspect that George RR Martin knows what I’m talking about, because one does not sit on a novel that powerful for that long unless they’re stuck on something…

So, I’m encouraging the proper use of the outline and the use of research to make your work consistent and authentic. I’m not just talking here, I’m taking my own advice.

Some Thoughts:

1. This article was very interesting. It reminds me that there are still mysteries in the world.
2. The Fantastic Four looks horrible. I have no interest in seeing that film. I do wonder what the failure of that film means for Marvel properties not under the banner of the shared universe…

So much of what I do with my time is an effort to avoid having to engage in real thought about the important things in life. It started back when I was a kid, I the moments where any real length of silence reminded me that this might be what death is like and the idea of that halting state frightened me so thoroughly that I sought out someone to hold on to. I’m older now and far less prone to what I’ve come to recognize as panic attacks, but the habits of youth stay with me. It is only in the moments of silence that I realize it at all.

There is nothing so important in the world of sports that I need to turn on ESPN (followed by a short turn to the NFL Network) first thing in the morning. For a time I excused this behavior in the way I excused watching a few minutes of CNN—these stories they report will be conversation pieces to the greater world, and if I don’t know or delve into the story then I’m not part of the world.

When I am out in the world beyond my doorstep and don’t have the power to participate in such frivolities as internet, I find that I turn to books to learn and the signal of written words to be able to write better and learn about the craft I love.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

Some Thoughts:

1. NFL season is approaching. I am looking forward to a solid fantasy season and a great season for my G-men. It is time to return to glory.

I could have named this blog ‘zero in’ because that is the topic i’ve been dwelling on. The mantra of the summer has been ‘do the home projects you dream about’ and many of them were completed. What I didn’t–and should have–done is focus internally, working to strengthen my core in both the physical and metaphysical sense. I didn’t, because the wounds of 2015 are still very raw and change, though incremental, is yielding results.

Had a good talk tonight about the idea of making time. In reality it is more about carving out a space of the time that already exists and is devoted to other things and devoting that time to yourself. More importantly, the ‘you time’ needs to come first. Its like they say on the plane rides, ‘secure your mask first’

I believe that every step of this difficult journey towards self actualization yields a micro-change in goals and ability. I fear that too often people get so far away from who they wanted to be that they spend the time thinking about how they got there as opposed to recognizing the incredible people they’ve become.

I could no more be the person I intended to be than I could sprout wings and fly like a 2D character in a Red Bull promo. The intention was built on a limited understanding of the world and my person. The reality is a shifting miasma of identity and action.

Think about the last decade plus of mass shootings. not only have we seen a major increase in mass shootings, but out mass media has entirely dismissed these shootings under two excuses: Mental Health Issues and Terrorism. The result has been a shift of the narrative away from any real conversation about violence.

I want to push this even deeper towards a national discourse on race. The fact is that every publicized mass shooting by a white male has been dismissed with this short disclaimer ‘He had mental health issues’ Likewise every mass shooting by a black person has been under the header of terrorism. So, I am to believe that the only black people who kill en masse are doing so under the behest of Allah and the only white people who do so are bat shit crazy? First of all, if you think that killing in the name of your God is going to get you into heaven, you too are bat shit crazy. But that isn’t the narrative. Even the narrative of ‘mental health issues’ is suspect. What mental health issues? Why do we allow that disclaimer to override their often anti-government slants?

I think the so-called gun lobby is ridiculously powerful. The narrative has been any effort to create gun law is an attack on the constitution. Of course, other efforts to remove rights created by our bill of rights have been openly attacked without the blowback any politician gets for even mentioning guns without attaching the Hestonian, ‘from my cold dead hands’

This inability to really consider why violence is occurring is hurting us as a society. We want to ignore the violence and even deny it. I hear more on a daily basis about how Sandy Hook was a hoax than I do about the concept that a grown man would storm a school and kill 20 kids, or the conditions that created such behavior. Well, he had ‘mental health issues’ so I guess we can dismiss that shooting and the most recent theatre shooting as stuff best forgotten or overlooked.

Tell that to the victims in Louisiana.

I had the opportunity to sit down and get some hard work done. The work involved moving books and building a bookshelf. It isn’t writing, but it is a pleasant reminder of the work of writing. The BIC, or Butt in Chair of writing is perhaps the most difficult to really do consistently, and the most beneficial. Writing is about rhythm, and that only really comes with practice. I watch friends crank out six mont novels and stand gaping, but all that means is that they spent the time developing patters for for how to get that done.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. The jump in numbers represents the realization that I went through the 1890’s twice–or at least started to. So this course correction should get me in the right number range–and right era. How long before I pass 2015?

There are approximately 321 million people living in the United States. That puts us as the 3rd largest nation in the world behind India (2) and China (1). Our population density falls somewhere around 85 people per mile. Contrast this with, say, the Gaza Strip, which is somewhere closer to 10,000 or even the aforementioned India, who happens to be about as large as us but has around 950 people per mile. All of that shakes out to show that we have a lot of space and a huge amount of control of the world’s wealth.

In other words, the U.S.A is kind of the shit.

I’m not certain I mean that in a entirely good way. With great power comes great responsibility, and I don’t think it is un-American to admit that we’ve done (and continue to do) some things wrong–not because we are evil, but because the core American philosophy is capitalism. In other words, the bottom line is the bottom line for us, and like the pope said, it cannot all be about money.

We like to say that we are doing things for the greater good and for security. We are in the middle east to ‘protect our interests’ one day and prevent terrorists from attacking our shores the next. When we do true humanitarian work we are chided by one political party or the other about wasting lives, money, and time on other people’s problems.

The USA has a tremendous opportunity to shape the next 500 years. The only question is, what do we want to shape it like?

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m about ready to get off the bench.

After much deliberation I’ve decided to focus my teaching theme this year on heroes. While I teach a variety of prefixes, most classes follow the same theme, making it easier for me to research and gather material for the students to analyze. The material is viewed in different ways by different classes. Sociology, for example, will be studying the role of heroes in the social makeup of communities. We’ll do this through local, regional, national, and global lenses in order to think about where certain heroes are most popular and how heroes change across cultures.

I’m really curious as to whether or not the kids will see hero worship as a response to socialization (reinforcement) or as a tool (indoctrination) or some variation therein. I’m super excited about the opportunity to straight up geek out in class about heroes. Last night while I was watching American Sniper I recognized the depth of material available in regards to heroes. Everything from local news to children’s lit to blockbusters is laced with hero worship. These icons we turn to come to be meaningful in a systematic way.

Its good to be excited about school again.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am the tooth fairy. I thought I’d go ahead and get that out there, so there are no surprises when I say that last night my eldest lost a tooth and wasn’t properly compensated. Fortunately, the forgetfulness of the fairy was mitigated by the fact that the mid-kid apparently stole #1’s freshly fallen tooth and stuffed it under his own pillow in an effort to make quick profit. That’s cold business right there. Watch out, Trump. The next generation is dirtier than you are.
2. August 25th is Madden release. November (17?) is Star Wars Battle  front release. I have a very small window of opportunity to actually experience life between said games.