Day: May 12, 2025

Tomorrow I begin writing out microfiction prompts as a way to both get in the needed coursework and deepen my ability and practice in storytelling. Taking these courses is a way to improve my standing as an academic, but also to give me good practice in feedback and creation. I don’t know that I would get out of my RPG bubble on my own. Even the fantasy world I am shaping has RPG connotations as a crossover world to be used as a game setting. The work here isn’t game based in the least. Some of it is even non-fiction. Already I’ve been convinced to revise and then submit one of the fiction pieces to a magazine. I’ll do it, and we will see what comes of it. I enjoy being published, so to publish more and in more places is ideal. Eventually I mean to publish all kinds of writing that stretches beyond the stuff I am doing now. I do want to publish the book on creating and maintaining a youth football program. That one has a ton of value–especially if it includes offensive and defensive core systems and shows coaches how to create their own and build around a philosophy (or play concept).

In the meanwhile, I’m in the air, hurtling through time and space at better than 300 mph. We are well on our way to Spain. The next flight is 8 hrs and will get us there by midday. This flight takes us to NYC, where I was born and raised. I miss home. I won’t get to see it short of looking out the window as we approach and staring at an airport. I won’t taste the city air or see the people I love. That will happen again next year. It’s already in the works. This is just a brief layover.

It’s been 5 years since I touched down in the city where I was born.

42m to arrival.

I keep feeling like I missed a day this week, as though transitioning out of teaching and taking classes this semester has me hanging on to any deadline that may have been overlooked. I checked. I didn’t. No need to move to version 9 just yet. It is the Sunday before the great summer adventure. It is Mother’s Day and the day before the youngest’s birthday, and a good day overall. So many things are changing right now. It is happening quickly and I feel like at times I lose the thread of what is happening. I am excited and mostly prepared.

Mostly prepared should’ve been my middle name. It remains my persistent state of being. I am mostly prepared for the summer, for next year, for the future that follows. I am mostly prepared to get married again, to be a husband, to grow (even older) with someone. I don’t know that I’ve ever been ready for anything that happened in my life. When I sit in the dark and think about it in reverse all I can see are the glimpses of what could’ve been if I’d done the right thing or been ready or studied a bit more. I should’ve taken one more pass at that novel before turning it in.

I spend too much of my waking hours thinking about what I could’ve been and not enough considering what I still can be. That needs to be fixed. I need to put in the proper time to be who and what I want to be moving forward. I am in a tremendous position to do so. I have a good life with the Lady Talis. All I want is to make it better.

Some Thoughts:

1. The more I write, the more I become aware of words I tend to overuse. Today’s episode features the word “Just”. I need to find a replacement for it lickety split, or at least attempt to delete it wherever I see it take root in the writing.
2. I endured a video showing the criminal investigation of a car crash the other day while I was grading papers. That video lives in my headspace. The incident led to the death of two people and was caused by two cars that were street racing in broad daylight. What got to me was how fast they were moving when the accident occurred–90+ upon impact. What happened was a car was crossing the lanes making a left turn onto a side street. It never saw the racers because they were out of visual sight when the car started the turn. They covered the span of three football fields in half the time it took to make the turn, the lead car crashing into the turning victims with such force that the turning car was torn in half. People in Phoenix drive crazy like that all the time. It is no wonder there are so many deaths…