Day: December 1, 2021

I know I should be blogging about football today, but I find myself back in the chair for the first time in weeks and it is worth a ten minute conversation. It is a bat-chair specifically. It is one of a number of fine crafted items of the bat variety gifted to me by my partner. I love the feel of it and the idea of what that symbol represents. I’ve always seen myself as a Robin, but nearing 50, I ought to be considering the fact of growing old with at least a modicum of grace. In other words, I should be assuming that mantle of adulthood with my own take and flavor.

It is interesting to think about how fast the years fly by until one day you wake up old and wondering what happened to all of that time. What did you do? What were your experiences? How will you share that with the world? Is anything in your own life story-worthy? I suppose there are experiences at every stage of life that have been story-worthy, and I know most of the feelings behind them will make their way into story in some fashion. That is, after all, why I am back in this chair and in this cold office space wearing my Robben Island pullover and thinking about history and how to intertwine that with fiction and ideals and ideas.

I’m working on two things: I’m working on building a fantasy world and the stories that shaped that world until it’s “starting point” of fiction. I am also working on the collection of short stories that are actually telling one larger story or novel from different perspectives that build to a conclusion that forces the reader to face their own biases and feelings. It is a whodunnit that isn’t really about who done it. I’ve promised myself 3 hours to build one or both of these ideas a little more fully today and hopefully the next day. The idea of when I write is becoming as important as how much I write and where. Call it the trinity of possible success.

All success starts with trying. It starts with putting one foot down and the other in front of it. You press one key and then another and then another and eventually it shapes a word that shapes a world that shapes an idea that has been living inside of you yearning to be set free.

Spent the evening wandering through a Christmas light display. I still cannot get over the fact that Christmas arrives so soon. Thanksgiving leftovers are still in the fridge. Still, the lights are up and the neighborhood is buzzing with the energy of the coming holiday. We have two houses and we’ve decorated one. The other remains untouched on the outside and in. We’ll get to the inside tomorrow, but beyond that there are mostly questions. I don’t really like the two house system. I don’t enjoy feeling like that second house is secondary and largely belongs to the five boys and their endless hours of gaming. Yet this is the way. I need to sit with my partner and together discover how to forge a new and integrated way. Maybe we sell the second space. Maybe we blend them together more fully. Who knows?

What I do know is that I need to get back to writing more. I’ve noticed that as I write less and less outside of the blog the blog becomes one giant stretched out thought scattered of periods of ten minutes and few words. It is hard to get a lot down in ten minutes when your word stamina is so low already. I’m tired of needing to tug at my thoughts in order to crank out another blog. It ought to be coming naturally. Sure, some of it is age and diet and lack of sleep. I can control two of those variables. The third and most important variable of the four is the butt in chair variable. I’ll get back to it tomorrow.

I’ve realized that 3-5 hours is a solid writing window. Anything outside of that range is either too little or overly draining to the point where it impacts me the next day. This top end may be mitigated by breaks, but the floor is lava. Nothing below that time frame of three hours is worthwhile creatively for me anymore. I need to sink in and connect with the reality I’m trying to shape through words and that stuff takes solid time. Next week I’m going to devote a chink of my vacation time to writing. 3hrs a day is too much to ask for the whole week, but I’ll get a few days in. Moving forward I am going to put the focus back on the words and on a schedule that allows for that 5 days out of the week.

The gaming? It’s going to happen, of course. However, it has to be reduced. 1 hour? 2 max? that’s 5-7 hours a day that I would be spending doing me. That is a lot. I don’t know that this sort of thing is fair to my partner. So, I have some real choices to make about how to spend time. I’ve spent ten minutes just getting to this point right here…