Month: January 2021

I’ll start with the youth stuff:

My youngest was chosen to represent the 11u All Stars for the state. He is one of 36 kids selected out of several hundred who tried out. He views the selection as a starting point; an indication that he has what it takes to be a successful football player at any level and against any competition. That being said, now he’s gotta go to Texas and face players that aren’t from around here. That will be the real test for him.

I am excited for the kid. I won’t be there with him, but I look forward to his success. Yes, not going is strange, but going is beyond what my expenses allow at this point. While this is all still lower level stuff, it teaches him to work hard for what he wants and that what he wants is no small thing. I dig it.

On the pro level, I’m curious about what is coming down the pipe.

DeShaun Watson is likely on the move and his move will trigger others–especially in the draft. I believe this could be fortuitous for the Jets and Giants both. Either team could acquire Watson and be happy about it, but the Jets are the more likely suitors. They continue to speak highly of Darnold, but folks spoke highly of Rosen right up until the pick was announced for his successor (who was actually successful). 1st round draft picks are a huge investment that teams get wrong far more often than they should. At this point the Giants and Jets both need to get it right and get someone who can help them in the long run. No need for a quick buzz pick for either franchise. Why get another unproven QB when you can wait a few rounds and get someone who you can build up to be the next big thing. Or better: Get that man Watson. You have the picks to do it…

Like I don’t have enough to do, right? Now I have my mind set on developing fictional Madden draft classes a la Kebow’s draft. For the uninitiated, Kebow has created multiple (7?) draft classes for the Madden 21 Xbox version. Each of these classes is designed around the stories of college football teams and players and their rise to NFL stardom. He doesn’t do complete backstories but he does create a sense of character for college award winners and high draft picks with discussions that hint at their actual skills. It brings fun and context to the draft and makes the game a bit more nuanced and enjoyable. What I would ultimately like to do is to create a series of these and backbuild the stories of the players and the teams, showing the rise of particular teams/players as a conduit towards their NFL lives. I think there is a real interest in story in regards to games like this–enough so that I want to tell the stories.

But will I?

Like I said, I have enough on my plate. What I wish I could do is get paid for it. I wish Madden Franchise was developed enough to allow for freelancers to create reasonable draft classes and have story built into it. This is extremely easy to code using the existing in-game news platform which discusses signings and other happenings. Once again, it is about who you know vs. what, because if I could get just a tithe for the work then it would make it worth the time and effort needed for creation. Only, I don’t know anyone at Madden. So, we wait, we design, we prototype, and… we wait.

Some Thoughts:

1. Getting published in the Imaginary Papers this week. Excited.
2. What role do the people we surround ourselves with play in promoting a healthy and positive energy? If I am surrounded by negative energy and a blistering lack of ambition, will I just adopt that stance? Part of being in NYC was knowing that everyone was grinding and trying to get somewhere. Since I’ve settled into this life I’ve settled. Even the things I want out of life feel like I am not reaching anymore. I don’t know that anyone around me–especially not the young people–is reaching. What is there to reach for?
3. Perhaps I am getting closer to an understanding of my day to day depression…

Writing is a job. Like any job you must do it consistently and constantly in order to be effective. I struggle because at times my emotions impact my ability to put out good writing. There are days when I am extremely depressed and on those days the words are not my respite. I need to learn how to fight through that and write in spite of the pain. If I could do that I would be a more consistent writer and perhaps a better writer as well.

Clearly, I am still at the bottom of that dark well. It is 8:40 and I am in bed on a Monday night. Yet it is later now than it was when I first went to bed last night.

The other thing about writing is time. Time management but also time on task. In bed at 8:40 argues that not enough time is being spent on the task and moreover, my life is shrinking to something less than lovely. All in all it seems that 6 is off to a very bad start.

But enough about me. Back to the writing:

More and more as I grow old I believe the iterative process is useful. Perhaps it works better for me now because I tend to write stories in bits and pieces, writing through sections again and again the way a painter applies a new coat. The first layer of words does little to tell the story that the 3rd and fourth bring forward so well. I am still a great believer in the outline, but the more I write the more I recognize that the outline is simply me taping off the boundaries of what I think the story is, and as I write more I discover more and learn more about the characters and the concepts involved. I work to tie all of it together in a way that feels interconnected.

Good Writing makes me feel good about myself and the life I’ve chosen to live.

Some Thoughts:

1. Did not do chapters today and that means more work for tomorrow–the official first day of the spring semester.
2. Even in the event that I fall prey to depression I will get the words going.
3. I tried everything to shake loose of it today. I even started playing 2K, just to fall into that story. I hid myself away under a VR mask and played my first game. I liked it.

This has been a good week of writing (holy passive language, Talislegger!). Let’s try that again.

What a good week of writing.

I managed to burn through several chapters of the new novel and, though behind schedule, I am gearing up for the hard grind. I like what I am writing and I am discovering more about the story in every chapter. Writing is part of the daily routine. I’ve been trying to figure out what my ideal day looks like. I know that it differs from day to day, based largely on when I have my kids. I split custody, so when they are not here they are not part of that daily cycle. I thought a lot about writing down the ideal day for every day of the week. It strikes me as a wonderful way to find out how to live happier (well, that and a clear distaste for vengeance, but I haven’t figured out how to make vengeance less palatable).

This Sunday blog feels like a good time to think about the ideal day, especially as I roll back into the school year and the associated responsibilities of all of that. Since this is Sunday, I will talk about an ideal Sunday followed by the ideal Monday.

Sunday:

I wake up and have coffee with my love. It’s Sunday, so it would be nice to stay in bed a while and cuddle pre-coffee. Once we decide to get going I’d be happiest getting the blog done early–write about the coming week, reflect on the joy of the past week and even on the failures (okay, that is going to be a thing). After the blog I’d take time to game on the xbox. Then I would wake up the boys and make breakfast and hang out with them before they get on the chore train. I’d love to spend an hour out in the field with them working on passing and catching and running–heightening those skills and getting the coaching out of my system for the day/week.

The boys leave midday after we’ve played games as a family and had a good meal. Then I come home and have a good conversation with my partner, maybe about the upcoming week or something deeper. We talk about the things that make us happy. Maybe we go on a walk. Later there is time to watch a show and perhaps play a game together. Finally the night winds to an end. Sundays I don’t work on novels. That’s the day of rest. Instead we end the evening together cuddling just like as the day began.

Monday:

I get up to coffee with the partner. I help her get prepped for her work day. Then I go write and blog. I check the news and such after, so the world doesn’t interfere with the words. I celebrate the completed words with a bit o video game time. Afterwards I seek out my partner (who likely is done with her day or on break by then) and we spend some time reflecting on her day. We make plans to try something interesting that evening. We make sure the remaining kids are taken care of, spend time playing a game or watching a show with them, and then we do our event of the evening. The night ends as all nights should and thus have. Cuddles.

My dream life is attainable, but it might only be my dream. That is what I must learn.

The title of this blog also serves as the center of the modern gaming universe. The compulsion loop is a psychological theory suggesting that a persons drive can be looped if one finds the proper trigger to create the loop. The graphic below demonstrates how this plays out in gaming, and thus controls the gaming industry:

In short, any completed task results in a reward which allows your character (PC/Avatar) to complete more and harder tasks, to complete the same tasks in a more dominant fashion, or to acquire material that makes you appear more fashionable completing those same tasks again. I personally refer to this last one as the Flex Paradigm. It governs the behaviors of gamers who complete tasks not for a competitive advantage but for the visual compliment that allows others to recognize them as special. This is largely attributed to Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) such as the NBA 2K series, Fortnite, Roblox, and Madden. It also applies to MMORPGs such as Eve. What governs all this is a three step sequence of Anticipation, Action, and Reward. While this exists in all games (and all things, frankly), the games that have shortened this recursive loop are far more popular these days.

Madden is a wonderful example of the loop. A popular mode on the game is Superstar KO. In this game mode you play a brief game of football with an online opponent. You start the game by picking from a partially randomized list of players, in which there are usually one or more gems (superstars). Each player plays a series and has a chance to score. If one scores and the other doesn’t game over. If both score the same, it goes into a tug of war mode, where you each get three plays to move the ball farthest down the field. It is brief and intense. If you win you are rewarded with one of the loser’s best players. Then you get to keep that player and move on to play someone else… Anticipation, Action, Reward. EA Sports got smart. The game used to max out at 5 wins. Now they have an endless mode where you can sit there all day and play. The most one of my kids ever got was 26 in a row. It is a sinkhole of time and focus, and that is entirely what the game wants.

NBA 2K is worse, because each win improves your singular character and there are many different builds and ways to improve and options and positions and… It snatches the life out of you and puts it in the system. I haven’t even ventured to play this year, for fear of what might happen to me and to my wallet, because unlike Superstar KO, you can pay to level up your character to a certain point and pay for the Flex Paradigm and pay for boosts to let you perform beyond your abilities for a short while (what ever happened to teaching kids to avoid drugs?).

All of this comes from a conversation with my partner about gaming. She and I once talked about gaming together and playing cool games collectively. This has not happened because all of my gaming hours go towards one of two Madden franchise mode games. One is with my kids (two kids quit and one remains involved) and the other is solo, allowing me to play as much or as little as possible). Our conversation forced me to think about this loop a bit more, how it is an integral part of my addiction, and what I need to do in order to separate from it and do the sort of gaming we both can enjoy. I’m still thinking about that. And writing about it…

Some Thoughts:

1. On another note, I really struggle remembering small snatches of everyday information, such as names of actors or, most recently, how old my kid actually is. I thought he was 14, but he isn’t. That’s rough. However, is it early onset alzheimer’s? Dementia? I can’t live like that and I cannot figure out how to fix it.
2. No, it’s not a tumor.

For tonight’s story I will be using Rory’s Storycubes in conjunction with the word of the day. I’ll bold the concepts that came from the story cubes. The word of the day is: Vulcanize, which means to treat crude or synthetic rubber or similar plastic material with chemicals to give it useful properties (such as elasticity, strength, and stability)

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By all accounts it was a sheep that heralded the future of sports in America. Normally such experimentation would be performed on a pig or something more genetically similar to the human species, but a sheep was the first to be cloned, and that kind of made it the breakthrough creature for a whole host of strange experimentation. The experimentor, a casual scientist by the name of Harrison Farr had been thinking about sports at the time. He’d also been watching a ton of Star Trek Discovery, so Tardigrades were at the front of his mind. he thought, what if we could harden a sheep–not just the skin but the fur. What if that fur could be genetically modified to serve as a type of armored covering. Imagine the profit that would come in from it. He called the process Vulcanization, forgetting in the moment that the term pertained solely to plastics and rubber and wanting to coin a phrase that paid at least a little homage to his fellow trekkies.

The experiment worked. However, the first sheep expired quickly, which made Harry quite sad. There was no real sense of value to creating something that died before it could really sprout the fur that was needed. He thought it was at least partially due to the gestation period. Perhaps if the sheep were more like a Turtle in it’s birth cycle it might have a better chance for the Vulcanization to settle in.

He was, miraculously, correct.

How then did he bridge the space between wacko genetics geek (who watches too much TV) to the eyes of the sports world upon him? It wasn’t anything alien or a flowery romantic scenario in which his true love led him down a path of moral understanding. No, He put up a video of two vulcanized sheep fighting on youtube.

That video got all the hits.

Picture this: Two sheep, one brown and one a dusty black, stride into a closed pen. Sheep are not normally aggressive (or very independent, apparently). The black one stares ahead at it’s opponent. It makes a sound like a screech and charges ahead. These are not the big horn sheep. We are talking about the docile stuff you use for 100% cotton tees. Only, they are not so docile. They are tearing and scratching at each other and the two are going C R A Z Y. Still, no damage. That’s when it gets really weird.

Dude throws an alligator in the ring. Full Grown. It slithers around on it’s fat belly and the two sheep stop fighting to stare at it. They turn in unison and rush the poor thing. I say poor, because it doesn’t last more than a few seconds. It tries to bite them, but they are Vulcanized. They are tough as heck and kick a whole ton of ass. 30 seconds. It’s like a Jon Jones fight.

Normally PETA would be screaming, but they aren’t. Something about sheep being able to handle business appeals to them. They still look cute as hell too. You can imagine what happened next…

The key to being a really good writer is recognizing what you are good at and learning to make it central to your work but not lean on it. However, the teeth of that key is realizing what you aren’t so good at and especially what it is that you do lean on in your writing. I explored this a little in this blog when I talked about my reliance on all forms of the word some. I use somewhere and someone and somehow almost every blog. It is not the only crutch I stand on.

I am a fan of the compound sentence. Often you may find that I have sentenced fused together with the mighty ‘and’ and (ha!) I find that it helps to push descriptions together in a way that dictates flow or at least resembles speed. This crutch is one I was introduced to by a friend and editor who eviscerated me on a doc a dozen years ago. She was acting editor for a line of projects and (see….) she saw this tendency in my writing. All it took was one highlighted document looking Christmas for me to realize the problem. Nowadays I work all of that out in editing. Still, in freewriting the tendency rises to the surface.

I do love a good description of the eye. Specifically, I rely heavily on what people see in the first draft. I also rely on using their eyes as a reaction response. January raised her eyebrows slowly, realizing what the Talislegger had been doing all along… This is one I caught myself. In my last novella draft I almost exclusively focused on eye reactions… for 15000 words. Seriously, there were hardly any other types of reactions in the draft. I may have offered a clenched fist here and there, but the eyes spoke volumes. Well, that entire volume at least. Good descriptions operate throughout the body. You ought to be thinking about what the POV character is watching. Not everyone is focused on the eyes. A tapping foot can do wonders for shifting perception.

Those are just a few of my crutches. I implore you to think through what I wrote and find your own crutches. If you want to be a better writer you need to stop leaning on what you’re good at and get better at everything else.

Willpower. That is what it is going to take to avoid wandering back into youth football this fall. I want the boy to do it deep down. I want to be out there enjoying watching, but that should not happen. He’s gone through football nonstop for a few seasons now, and with the idea still being to have him represent the state in both February and June/July, having a few months off is simply a no brainer. This won’t stop the coaches from asking and me from wanting to cave, but I cannot do it. Instead I need to view this off season as what it truly is: an off season. A chance to pursue other things both athletically and otherwise. This is Waiver Wednesday, so we will focus on the athlete stuff.

As I write I am peeling Middle School Basketball dates off my calendar. The kid passed on tryouts, ostensibly because of the nonsensical way everything was being put together due to Covid. Good choice. It was a mess, kids were not being evaluated and learning was not going to happen in that condensed form. He hasn’t played basketball in an organized fashion since he was 7, so this was a reach to begin with. Now it is out of reach and He can hope to try out again in the coming year and learn the game a little. With his height it seems like a good fit. In the meanwhile there is the possibility of track. This one is a little easier to think about, because I can coach him up on my own and get him ready. Right now the plan is to work on all three boys (one is rehabbing) by obtaining a starting block and a Jawku timer to help them track speed.

I’m trying to settle into a routine with such things and one that evolves over time to allow them to continue the routines without me. I want them to take ownership of their sports careers. It is high time that happened for at least two of them. In a sense they absolutely have and I feel that is becoming more and more prevalent over time. I let it drop off to the point where if they wanted this then they had to go get it. They went and got it and now I’m making sure they stay on point. Soon, I won’t have to.

I’m going to blog before I touch my phone, or open any packages, or start in on the novel, or do anything remotely related to the so-called real world. I am doing so because it is helping me focus on the idea of reality and what reality actually is… and isn’t.

Recently a large mob of angry individuals stormed the capitol with the belief that they were being patriotic and upholding the American way of life. This was their reality. We–I–consider them crazies because their reality and their truth is fundamentally different from my own. They saw themselves as connected to the ‘larger’ in this fashion. They felt themselves to be, in a sense, a diaspora connected largely by this internet of ideas. They lived in two simultaneous realities and tried very hard to reconcile the two much in the same way that super hero might or, to be more down to earth, a soldier might, or a worker might. On the one hand they had their daily reality of waking up, doing the mundaneness that keeps the daily life afloat, perhaps spending time with those who they care about from a close (family and friends). Yet at the same time they were jacked into Parler and watching a series of increasingly aggressive news outlets and listening to and ultimately following the will of the President as we are all taught to do.

This dichotomy is important, because one necessarily influences the other. They invade each other’s space and impact our concept of right, wrong, good, bad, etc. For example, had I read the news before entering this digital space, I would be influenced by that space in terms of what I put down here, instead of coming to you directly from the created worlds of Tim Waggoner and Manny Coto.

My point is this: All reality is subjective. The fundamental truths we all share are that we live and we die. We must eat, sleep, etc. The rest is social construct, social strata, and the overwhelming manipulation of those who wish to have more. This could be more influence, more power, more intelligence, more love, etc. Our world is powered by dissatisfaction and dissatisfaction is what creates these subjective realities as we each strive to be satisfied by something in someway. Unofrtunately we all too often listen to the outside voices to learn what will satisfy ourselves. Those voices seek their own satisfaction and not our own. We must listen to oursleves.

We must find our own satisfaction.

Today was my first full day of principle writing on the new novel. I had half the day to myself and that gave me plenty of time to sink in and enjoy the process of writing. I do truly enjoy the writing process as well as the moments where I pop up from the page to do a touch of research that gets me to the next moment.

I am writing this one from an outline, but it is only the broadest of strokes of an outline. This first draft pass feels more like outlining than the outline did. Each of the six chapters I’ve done over the last few days have felt unfinished, but bright with moments. Even in the longer pieces that I write, like novels, it feels as though I am constructing a puzzle by putting together the pieces I already know I have and know where they go and then stepping back to examine the smaller pieces in order to see where they fit. I see the whole picture the entire time. I see it slowly coalesce, but I also see the smallest parts of the thing and remember how they could and should fit together. It is a time consuming process and when rushed it can be extremely painful. However, I truly enjoy the work I am doing. This is exactly what I want to be doing with my life.

I need to get better at carving out that kind of space for myself. When I am not alone–be it partner or kids around–I tend to become extremely passive about writing and actively engaged in waiting around to see what they want to do. This is not the way it can be if I hope to be successful and turn this into a career that can support me on the level of what I already do as a scholar. This is the sort of thing that takes time and practice. Up until now I’ve devoted little of each to the craft in the manner I should.

So, I call this a turning point–this day of writing. I feel like I let myself fall into the words and got some done. I feel like more and more is happening and I am moving through the story and building both the story and story world (though the latter is far weaker than one would assume given the shared world aspect) as I move through each page. I am getting better and I am getting faster as well. Sooner than later I’ll be able to churn these things out on a scale that rivals most professionals.

It will be nice to feel that people are waiting for my next book to drop and that they can be sure that it will drop on time.