Month: February 2023

Revving the engine in the creative sense. I’m trying to move back into writer mode and be productive on a daily basis once again. I fell out of it for any number of reasons (video games come to mind), and I need to fall back into this mode of writing at length every day in order to be productive. So, I’m starting with a SoC blog, which is a fairly useless acronym for Stream of Consciousness writing. The point of it is to keep typing nonstop for ten minutes. This was the original form of the ten minute rule before I became bogged down by thinking (and short posts as a result). Instead I’m going to let whatever is in my brain flow through my fingers for ten minutes and that will be the warmup.

The warmup is oft overlooked by writers. They (WE) don’t see ourselves in the same light as athletes who, at the professional level, recognize the need and value of the warm up. Our bodies get tight. Likewise, our minds get overwhelmed or distracted. If we don’t get loose then we lose the ability to hone in on what we need or are trying to accomplish. Shake out the cobwebs or smack aside all the stray thoughts, or whatever clever phrasing you choose for the activity.

Right now I’m worrying over money. I know, I ought to be thinking about the worlds I’m populating with my words, but instead I’m on the finance tip and that is problematic. This is where the SoC comes in handy, because I can get this finance stuff out of my head–I can stop thinking about paying these four to seven bills off and whether or not that requires a dip into the savings, because I am working that out on paper (yeah, I gotta dip in but I can replace the cash fairly quickly–thus is the cost of travel and spending).

So, with these mental hiccups resolved to the best of your ability you can move forward with your day and get more good words on the page. I know I certainly benefit from more writing and less thinking–this is the most words I’ve put out in one of these blogs in several weeks. This is what a mind simply flowing looks like. This is how Stephen King or even Steven Eriksen looks when he’s writing about all those worlds and all those troubles just a shadow’s throw away. Having so much on paper gives you much to work with when it comes time to filter out the bad from the good…

Talislegger rules. I mentioned once upon a time how fond I was of how the idea of a Way. As I said, the Mandalorian has a Way. I sometimes know what it is and mostly what it isn’t. I don’t know my own particular way as of yet, but I am learning a set of rules to live by. On occasion I’ll share these with you all in hopes of putting them down on ‘paper’ hoping to nail them down in my mind.

Here’s a rule: Do what matters most to you. No matter what. I’m living that rule on a daily basis. I’m presently in California on a weekend beach retreat, because I wanted to do that with my partner. So here we are. We work hard, and we deserve to benefit from that whenever we want. This is part of the way. There is more. That comes later.

I actually want a break from football. I’m debating whether that includes casual Madden play. I don’t want to be reading football news or writing about the sport. I want to disconnect or surface if you will. I want to be able to take a break and feel like its something fresh and new and not just a ton of talk about what could happen. I’m bout that action, boss.

However, the high school stuff is still a mess and has me wondering about next steps. So, you’ll see one more post coming through here once that sorts itself out. Until then.. Waiver Wednesday is going into hibernation. I think it is time for a Writer’s Wednesday reboot.

Some Thoughts:

1. Sick.

Watching the wind blow across the water of my backyard pool and the grey clouds swirl in the sky, I am given to powerful feelings of romance. It is Valentine’s day and, after all, this is what we are meant to feel at a time like this. There is a lot to be said against Valentine’s day, but history is written by the winners, so we shall revel in the moment of what it means to us. Beyond the commercial I find it a touchstone for showing love to my partner. It is a reminder that I do need to be mindful of making my partner feel loved everyday and not just a handful of touchstone days a year, so moments like this feel like a way to check in and see how I’ve been behaving as a partner and I think about them as a way to do just that–reflect the love.

Love is a gift. I’ve been graced with loving and having been/being loved and I believe it is important to honor that.

Some Thoughts:

1. Random, but my macbook battery drains fast.

Take one look at my office and you’ll see a tale of two lives. One is the neat and beautiful accoutrement of my partner. To the right is my desk filled with piles of stuff I’ll get to. The concept of ‘I’ll get to’ is poison in my veins. All of these things I am supposed to be getting to I don’t ever fully finish. I learned of this sad reality in the Minecraft world I built where I have (at least) three versions of the same basic castle design and not one is fully done. There is a chance that there is a done one in some other realm, but in this realm the answer is a resounding nope. I get distracted. I do other things. This is a core issue in my life. As of now, finishing is a core priority.

Some Thoughts:

1. I set aside $100 bucks to gamble on the Super Bowl. I got back $25. The issue was the moneyline. On several of the bets I thought I won I missed the moneyline… which I didn’t recognize was even there. So, I am a bad gambler. I am a non-attentive gambler to be specific, and that means I should not be placing bets. My birth dad ran an OTB, which means I ought to know a thing or two from the year+ of my life spent in the man’s company. I don’t. As such, I’m not going to do anything beyond this yearly one shot and, of course my yearly pilgramage to the slots where I find pleasure in the oompa loompa gaming experience.

You know that feeling when you’re absolutely wrong about something and you’re happy you’re wrong? That is me. Right now. In a game that felt largely like the refs wanted KC to fall, I was pleased to see the team win and do so largely in part to a momentum shift generated by K.Toney (formerly) of the NY Giants. Talk about a trade paying off! He’s not on the field a lot for these guys, and that appears to be a lot about him not knowing the plays or being a part of that package, but when he shows up he shows out. He had a game changing return–longest punt return in Super Bowl History–as well as a TD catch. Kid rocked it. I’m happy to be a Joka fan, but I do get why he isn’t a G-man anymore. He fits here. He works. Heck he definitely worked tonight.

Peace and love to the Eagles. Sirianni is a solid coach and a daredevil. He went for it a lot and dang near won the Super Bowl running the Wing-T!

Some Thoughts:

1. That feeling of wrongness I started in about early in the post? I’m hope I’m wrong about the arial craft being shot down on the daily. See, I’m thinking they might not be terrestrial in origin. There are conflicting thoughts in my mind as to how this goes. A) These craft have already been discovered and this is how they slow roll the reveal, based on the year’s worth of existing coverage about this stuff leading into Covid and the hints throughout. B) Whatever force originally controlled the craft lost contact with the craft in the same fashion that we lose contact with craft we send off world. I don’t have a reason for the broken connection, but there is always a reason. 3) I’m wrong. These are terrestrial craft belonging to a foreign entity.

I woke up this morning thinking about the space between teaching writing and being a writer. They really are different modes and different skillsets. As a teacher my focus is to help others understand the structures and the rules and to help them cultivate their voice into something others will read. As a writer I am pulling down stories from the ether and settling into the skin of a world and the skin of the characters who inhabit that world. The space between those two roles is vast to the point that I’ve forgotten at times how to learn for teaching. So, I’ve decided that I need to go back to the basics and start thinking about learning as I teach. This has perhaps been my best process all along. I penned dozens of stories sitting in classes and absorbing what the instructors had to share. I want my students to experience that. On the other end of the spectrum, I truly want to get back to telling the stories I want to tell. Of course, that requires having stories I want to tell.

When I think about that the first thing I think about is the Smoker’s Club, a collection of misfit assassins in the Shadowrun universe. I have a few stories about them that need telling, and I think I ought to come round to telling those stories and exiting them from my headspace.

I’ve also been thinking about what I am good at, and that feels like writing in existing worlds. I think I would be really good at writing for Star Wars or other universes. I ought to think about how I can get that connection, because those realms still have good stories to tell.

I’m feeling rather unsettled, and perhaps even borderline maudlin. I cannot give a specific reason for this, just the wear and tear of daily life getting to me in this place alongside a significant lack of accomplishments over an extended stretch of time. I just went out and bought a writing resource. I’m not actually excited about that, which is to say that I’m not really excited about much right now, which is definitely part of being unsettled.

I think maybe I need to take a step back and focus on being silent and observant for a time. I need to listen to the world.

Some Thoughts:

1. I reiterate that I was born into the wrong time period.

Big game is only a few days away. If you look at the injury report you’ll see a lot of guys who belong to the Chiefs and not so many (read: none) that belong to the Eagles. That matters. That level of grit and toughness matters. I hate to say that out loud in context of the Eagles. I hate that I think they got this, but I think they got this. I am calling this one for the Eagles, because that defense and those injuries and that pressure on Mahomes is all going to be too much. This is going to be a game that comes down to a handful of plays. That may be late in the second quarter or second half, but once the tide turns, this game is over. I’m calling it 34-31 Eagles.

Man, I hope I’m wrong.

Some Thoughts:

1. What sucks is that I bought the Hogwarts preorder and it won’t let me play because I am ‘too early’ but my kid has been on for days…
2. Listening to Dave Chapelle talking about context makes me think about the relationships in my life and how they’ve evolved over time and when they happened. It is odd to think about how your life might be if you met people at different times.
3. Yeah, we back. Bunch of posts all going up at once. We back for real. Fixed this bad boy and rolling on.

In spite of having the coding side done right finally on the blog I haven’t had the time to track down all of the blogs I did in the intervening space, so ‘we back’ is more like I’m whack and I truly need to get down to devoting legitimate time to this endeavor. I’ll post all of these tomorrow alongside a waiver Thursday for the Superbowl. Meanwhile…

Some Thoughts:

1. I am trying to finally mine some netherite to see if I can get the really badass armor going. That means a lot of skulking around in the nether at y-15. Of course, when I first learned this strategy I thought it was y -15 and that doesn’t exist. Disappointment followed.
2. Honestly, this blog needs to get better and definitely more interesting. As does the life of the writer…