Month: December 2018

It has been one of those crazy kind of pre-christmas seasons. I’m not talking politics or world events but the crazy in my own life. I’ve come to a particular set of understandings: 

1. I am in love in a way I have never experienced before, which is both deeply fulfilling and terrifying.
2. I am actually interested in becoming a better teacher. This is a rare condition for someone with tenure. I should be, according to stereotype, checked completely out.
3. I want to put more focus on the blog and thus the writing career and recognize that the two are in fact part of the same lifestyle.
4. I’m not dedicated to building a creative writing program at my college without monetary compensation. I should feel differently about that situation, because the more I build a program, the more classes I can teach. Still, the urge is not really there. Maybe I don’t want to teach 16 week CRW classes any longer? Maybe I just don’t care for the politics of the thing.
5. I want things to be better with my kids. I want a home life that makes me feel good about being with my kids and proud of the time we spend together. That is not happening. Hell, I’m not at all proud of my home itself.
6. I want to manage my time better instead of falling into things and drowning in them to the point where once I emerge everything else has been forgotten… or messed up.
7. I always want to leave one blank.

I can talk about the Giants again. They are officially eliminated and in the space where they are not looking to take a particular QB in the draft and make him an immediate starter, but might be in the market for a solid free agent (Teddy Bridgewater, anyone?) to relieve Eli Manning. While we can argue whether or not Manning is entirely done I would argue his downfield confidence is hindered enough that he is not the guy we want moving forward. So who do we get in the draft? 

I am openly arguing for a 1st round defensive pick (DE) and WR in the second. I don’t see any Offense Linemen jumping off the page and I do think you can get a solid QB in the 3rd round. I want A big body WR to help Eli (or whoever) and take some of the pressure off the guys we have now. I recognize how silly that seems on the surface, since the Giants are in love with 12, 21, and 22 personnel packages as of late. The Slot I is a masterpiece with a solid FB and I think the Giants have most of the ingredients including a pulling guard on both sides. In fact, I intend to fall into the Slot I and pro packages when I return to coaching, because I know I have the personnel. 

The Giants have a bright future despite a disappointing season. While they were exposed so was the rest of the NFC and out of the lot the Giants appear to be the most promising. Exciting things are to come–New rookie QB or No.

Some Thoughts:

1. Yes, I’m saying ‘we’ in regards to the team because I am of the faith without owning the articles of the faith… kind of like a Christian. 

I’ve been playing video games far less than I normally do. The reason is not because I’ve grown up in any significant way or lost my desire. The reason is far more interesting. I’ve reduced game time because I am far more interested in spending that time with my partner. As a result I don’t game nearly as much. Instead I play the games I know incredibly well (Madden) or are low stress (Minecraft) and allow me to multitask. 

I’m growing. I’m growing old, but I am growing and part of that is compartmentalization of time and effort. Games will always hold an important role in my life, but they haven’t held the primary role in years. Instead they’ve become a momentary escape as I find fewer moments to engage in them. So I’ve focused on the games that are long term wins–games I can dive into a get a short term high but overall can sustain me for the year. I invest time in the games and get a lot of imaginary play out of them whereas the straight shooters fail to grab me in that way or seemingly in any way anymore. It takes too much time on task to level up and be effective.

The main thing is I have better things to do with the time I spend. I’m loving the time I spend with my love and with family. I feel like the writing even benefits in spurts from the relaxation of the games and being able to fire off my imagination into the digital abyss. 

Jara told me things would be better now. She smiled and smoothed over my hair in that motherly way. I held on to her for a minute longer, squeezing tightly as I did. Outside the sun was rising behind a sheet of grey clouds bringing the promise of a days work on the farm. 

“He’ll make it better. He has to,” she said. I didn’t put stock in politicians. The one before him changed everything for the worse. He made us pay more money to the government for healthcare we didn’t have the time nor patience to use. Beyond that he was different. Everybody outside our country liked him and thought it was such a great thing that we made a black man president. But what did a black man know about life out here in Iowa? What did he have to say to us? He was just another politician with lies and a smart mouth. He was just like that lady they tried to prop up on us all ready like her destiny was to lead things. She didn’t know nothing about us neither. No, I was going with the other guy. He might be a son of a bitch, but at least he was our son of a bitch. 

I sighed and let go of Jara. I put on my jacket and headed out into the dust and dirt of a too dry summer. The corn we grew mostly went to ethanol. Two farms over Monsanto pushed out thousands of bushels of edible corn, but we couldn’t sell ours like that. It was too high risk. Every morning I had to walk the fields to make sure no Monsanto seeds blew into our fields. They’d taken down old Hank a few years back for him growing their seeds. They had a patent on those seeds, which was pure nonsense in my mind. Seeds fall where the winds blow them, and if you let them grow there, well, you’ve just broken some sort of corporate law and it could cost you everything.

Family. 

Well, thats all I have to say about that. No.. there is more. Family is difficult and irritating and sometimes you have kids you want to lock in a room by themselves forever, but family matters and you love them no matter what.

Or you tolerate them.

I tolerate quite a bit. I’ve discovered strategies to make it work. I don’t quite understand how they tolerate each other. The part that gets me is the seething anger that is beneath the surface in some interactions and the deep happiness that serves as the foundation for others. 

I’m thinking about these things near xmas as I am falling deeper into my partners family while I watch my kids enjoy the relationships I left behind in my former marriage. It is a very odd thing knowing that your kids have a family that you are not a part of in any way, shape, or form and to know that the family you left behind has hate for you and likely efforts to transmit that hate through your kids

Christmas. 

Family. 

The whole thing is difficult.

I watched the Favourite this evening with my partner and… wow. There are few movies that can hold tension largely through conversation. This film is about Queen Anne of England and her aide, Lady Sarah. The deep friendship between the two is put at risk by the arrival of Sarah’s cousin Abagail. I refuse to give away too much except the say that the movie is carried by the conversations between these three women. It is an excellent film that goes too far at times in the heavy handedness, but does a great job first creating a delicious sort of tension and then stretching that throughout the film with highs and lows that give the characters a chance to win–if only for a moment–with deepening losses and challenges to their character. 

In other words, this was by the book writing. 

Tension is the key to good fiction. You have to have something at stake for the characters overall and smaller steps to that larger stakes which are won and lost throughout. We have to see progress being made towards and away from the goal at every scene and every turn. If you can do that you have a chance to be a really good writer.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m thinking about using the Write the Story book as a template for at least a weekly post that is a 10 minute story. I don’t want to get to the point where the blog is categorized by day. I want the freedom to write anything (or absolutely nothing of value) at any point in time. Except Wednesday… I kinda like the Waiver Wire structure for that day during that season…
2. This is a chance to work on some of those skills I wrote about in the blog above…

I’ve been consuming audiobooks at a frenetic pace. Used to be that I only listened to audiobooks on the road. They’d get me through long road trips. I’d pop one on to and from work. Lately I listen to them all the time. If I’m working in the garage, audiobook. If I’m laying in bed, audiobook. Some nights I am up till near dawn listening. I do not count this as a bad thing. In order to write well one must read well and often. I’m not reading with my eyes so much as my ears anymore, but I am reading nonetheless.

I read everything on the audio. It started out with trash novels–W.E.B Griffen thrillers and pulp detective works. From there my desires exploded outwards experimentally. I started listening because of readers. I moved from Dick Hill to Will Wheaton and Kate Mulgrew. I picked up King and Khosseni. I explored self-help. I read documentary news. I did everything I felt I would not do on paper in audio form and I grew as a reader from it. I also grew as a writer.

There was a period of imitation that is common to all writers. Whenever I heard a new style I tried it on; attempted to absorb it into my own system like Super Amazo. That is what helps build me up as a writer. I learn about what I am not in the hopes of refining what I am. All of that is possible soley through the efforts of reading more, and thus learning more.

To wind down means to relax after stress or exertion. I’m in the wind down now after a long semester. I say wind down, because I am still working. I am still grading. I am still scrambling to buy gifts and figure out places and poses to put this silly elf in for the next few days. Still, it is a wind down and it is exactly what I have been needing.

So, what is reset? That means I get to the end of the wind down and then attack reality with renewed energy. It is the reboot that computers undergo to reset errors and refresh memory. It is exactly what I need 

The words are trickling out slower and slower, as though there is a jam in the creative tubes. This is closer to the truth than I like admitting. I absolutely need this. I need the rest and the reboot. I need to get it going full power on the other side.

Football is a strange and exciting sport. I plan to devote three entire days at some point in the next few months in order to reflecting and creating a comprehensive offensive understanding of football based on personal experience as a player and a coach. In other words, I’m going to design an offensive philosophy for myself as a coach. It needs to be done in order to be a coach in the fall, and I plan to do that.

There are a few teams who are on the cutting edge of offensive philosophy and a few others who do a few classic and basic things well. The cutting edge are the ones that, once you figure it out, you can beat. The classic ones are the ones that seem to have more of a basic ability to stretch the field against any defense. In a sense it becomes about teams based on players vs. teams based on concept. KC is a team based on concept that requires particular players and when they lost Kareem Hunt it impacted what they could do from a balance perspective. Other teams have similar issues either in the plus or minus column. The Cowboys are reliant on a dynamic mid range to deep threat, so they solved their issue with Cooper. The Rams and Chargers need a fast and hard hitting back to open up the pass game, which is why injury impacted both teams. The Vikings… don’t actually have a philosophy yet. They were predicated on a smart QB, but lacking that they’re struggling. The team didn’t recognize that or maybe they did and fired the OC as a result. 

This is not the kind of week when I am predicting games, but the kind when I am predicting trends. The Cowboys have what they need and have clearly hit a stride, but they are not the kind of team that will be able to sustain the impact of teams having very good film on them. I don’t think they win many more games this season. I say that with the Giants in mind. Their last game of the season will be a major tilt, and I truly believe the winner will be the NFC East Champion.

I sort of wish it was Waiver Wednesday, because I do not really have a ton to say about anything. In truth I don’t even have enough to populate a list of some thoughts. So you get babble. 

The one thing I find myself thinking about fairly consistently is the sorry state of moving pictures. While I have seen a resurgence of cleverly written books I have seen a dearth of widescreen movies that attract my attention. This is to the point where we are having second thoughts about what our xmas movie will be. All signs still point to The Mortal Engines, but that is the frontrunner of a very thin field. 

There are not a lot of great movies right now. I don’t know if this is because the Oscar period is over or more likely because of some financial shift affecting what kind of movies are released. The films are not that good. I could not even decide on a decent one for Halloween. Eventually Avengers: Endgame will roll out and that will be it for that series as well.