Day: March 14, 2019

Recently my partner questioned my process. I am grateful for her and her thoughts and suggestions every day. My process has been 1000 new words on a draft a day. I’ve been at this for 18 days as of last night and the result has been well over 18,000 words of a story that is contracted for 20k. The issue came up because I have only 3-5 (haven’t decided) chapters remaining of that novella, which means it is going to end in the coming week. Now the book is not done. The 1000 words merely paints inside the lines of the chapter. It needs to be refined and redrawn and more. So, the question is what now?

We talked it out (though I am not entirely sure she always recognized when I am listening–that’s definitely something I am not clear about). I will continue putting down 1000 a day for the rest of my remaining days (I’m so damn morbid as of late… there’s gotta be something to that). However, I won’t move on from this story. I will add to the routine and continue putting an hour or more into the polishing of the novella in addition to the 1k requirement. The 1k will be part of the next story and the next and the next. My biggest problem as a writer has always been that once I finish a story it takes forever to wind back up again. This way I no longer need to worry about the wind up (or wind down) because I am still chugging along on something. I am still firing with all cylinders towards the next project.

This is the way I wrote as a carefree kid who had all the time in the world and not enough games (or platforms) to fill that void. Now I have begun to move my life in the direction where the primary focus is writing on the professional level and that helps tremendously.

Some Thoughts:

1. Recently returned from a vacation–a respite from the desert if you will. Great time was had on the beach and I continue to see that as a home away from home and a chance to fall into a simpler (video game reduced) routine with my partner and with my kids.
2. Speaking of games and gaming: I’m going to play for the rest of my life. Nobody is stopping me from playing, of course, but when I think about what really matters to me long term I find that games are top 5. I slip away in games the way I slip away in story. Games can be story but interactive.
3. Honestly, I hope I live long enough to see VR MMORPG fully realized. I’d like to appreciate that before I go.

Recently I climbed aboard the hype train. I’ve been coaching my kids and watching them grow as athletes for years. I have always felt they were top flight contenders, in spite of some other coaches downplaying the abilities of two of the three boys. The middle kid has always been the one everyone raved about, and when the eldest hit High School last year I full expected he was going to show up, get playing time, and be one of the better players. He was not. Turns out those coaches were right and he ended up being sorted into the lowest group in almost everything he tried. This left me wondering where I went wrong as a dad and a coach. Why was it he couldn’t get on the field to prove himself? How did he wind up being such an average to below average player/athlete? Well, one thought is that he is merely an okay athlete who excelled because he was surrounded by trash competition. Related to that is he didn’t get enough exposure and confidence to build him into a dominant force. The final answer is he doesn’t have it in him–not now and perhaps not ever. These three answers led me down the short flight of steps into the underground world of Youth Football Promotion. The machine exists largely because the parents (like me) exist. The machine promotes kids as future D1 talents though it comes at a huge cost both in time and money.

The High Schooler is at the point where he needs to work it out on his own. Once he started freshman year I switched my efforts to the younger two. My job–my goal–is to prepare them for the world of high school sports and to get them enough exposure to be able to have a chance to play at the high school level–or at least to be noticed by the coaches enough to get a fair shake in practice. I don’t feel the High schooler got that. In truth I was told by some of the other coaches that he did not.

So how is that done? These days it means having an instagram feed for your athlete and going to exposure camps and playing on all star teams. At least, that is what they want you to believe. The machine exists as a hype engine to promote both your kid and itself as a way to get your kid to play other top kids. However, the machine means constantly checking feeds and paying exorbitant fees for camps. Here is one example. My mid-kid was invited to participate in the ‘Invitation Only’ USA football National Team workouts. That would give him an opportunity to play in the National Team game pitting all the best players against each other–in theory. The camp costs $200 for a 2-day experience of running drills led by NCAA coaches. I feel like that would be very useful for a high school Jr. Still seeking scholarships, but a 7th grader?

I’ve seen the hype train and I am not getting on it. I did the instagram and we may do an all star team just as fun family jaunt to Cali over the summer, but this week in week out grind of camps and publicity is too much. I’m not entirely ducking out on getting my kids some good film, but I am out on promoting them like an agent.