10 Minute Rule

When I finally go through this blog again and pull out all of the stuff about writing to see if there is enough to make an outline for a book, I’m going to need to come back to today. I figured something out about space. I figured out the value of sound when it comes to space. I live in a house where the kids (most are actually fully grown men) watch anime for up to 12 hours a day. So, as you can guess, my house is a constant ballad of screaming Japanese girls. It is really too much to deal with and still maintain any sense of mindset. Even in the office when I’m trying to work, I’m hearing it. That sets the tone of the house and of my workspace. Yes, I should tell them they have to do that in their rooms, but the very not brady situation here means this will only create more problems. So, I came up with another solution.

I’m listening to the sound of a storm.

I’ve talked about this before–how the sound of roaring or falling water makes me feel instantly better. Rain and waves in particular manipulate my mindspace towards the productive and the powerful. I put on the rain, and I don’t have to be where I am physically adjacent to. If you are in a similar situation, do this. Find your peace sound-be it waterfalls, Bob Ross, or what have you. If your homespace doesn’t allow for you to turn on the speakers, then slide on the headphones. The key here is that the music is supposed to transport you away and not towards. It is a barrier vs. an escape. The words are the escape and the music holds back the outside world so you can get to where you need to be.

We are being trained to vote against our own interests. Moreover, we are being tricked into thinking our interests are not what they are. This is true of both major US parties, but the Republicans are just plum better at it. I’ve been struggling to understand why, but in the end it comes as a reflection of the base. In short, the Republican base is one that follows church principles and concepts of listening to those who channel the moral authority. The Democratic base… less so. I speak of the lock step process that once held the GOP together. They always had the stronger grass roots movement, because the roots were buried deep in the church, and every Sunday the base got watered. This is still largely true, and that base largely supports the divisions being fed to them through their common outlets (news, music, etc.). It is common enough to be a film and TV trope. It is so common in fact that the opposite, derision of democrats, is equally a trope. It is okay to say in film ‘we know where every democrat lives’ but to say that of Republicans… that’d be both wild and immediately targeted by the Republicans as an attack (and an excuse for them to buy more guns).

Divisions are sharp in our nation and they are shaping our future, but how much are we really divided? How much of it is the blustering of those in power to remain in power?

Some Thoughts:

1. Here’s what I learned about being young: you have no real sense of a context outside your own. My kids were talking about the idea of being old and wondering why people are so disturbed when they are called that. My partner and I attempted to explain the context (which they do occasionally use) of oldness as being a bad thing or somehow being a label consistent with being diminished. To them however, old means what they say it means, and this is all. Tried to teach but it went nowhere, but towards a place of us being talked down to. I deal with ODD every day at home and, honestly, I’m over it.
2. Trying to really sink into these projects a bit more, but I gotta say: Only two of the three are really appealing. The 3rd feels like work. Still, writers need work. I hope to take this ability to juggle the work as a moment of momentum and channel it into the next novel and, hopefully, securing more work at GenCon.

How many chances do people get?

let me briefly acknowledge the existence of a metaphorical elephant. People are born into privilege even if their parents were not. That privilege determines, to some extent, your number of chances both from a theoretical and a physical/health perspective.

if you are the beneficiary of kind and generous and well meaning parents you will get a lot of chances to screw up or fail. If you are not, you most likely will not. I’ve had many chances in life and I’ve failed many times.

however, time catches up with us all eventually and as I sit here well into Friday’s early morning I realize I don’t have too many chances left. I’m getting older and I’m still not getting the exercise I need. I’m still not dedicating the required time to words. I’m still not eating right. All of that is measurably unhealthy and shortening my lifespan. Moreover, it saps the quality of life I can expect to live in the time I have left. Yet, again and again I do nothing. Then I get another chance to try.

this cannot continue forever. I have to get right and I have to find that daily will to do it. It’s hard to do it here because of the example I’ve set over the years that my kids follow in their own do nothing ways. Why shouldn’t they? Who is showing them not to?

I need to be better and in need to find the will to work against the tide to do so. Maybe that changes the tide over time, but that isn’t what is important in the short term. I need to change me.

Feeling free flowing thoughts today, so…

Some Thoughts:

1. I start the Barbienheimer run tonight, so I’ll have the data on that by Saturday.
2. Ordered a book (that should arrive by the weekend) on using ChatGPT as a writing tool. I don’t know what to think about such things beyond the stir it is apparently causing for the Screen Writer’s Guild. I do want to use it as a shock and awe moment when I slap it down in front of my novel writing students and ask them if they ‘think this is next?’
3. In my own writing world I have a lot of text to develop over the next 30 days. I am expected to have a detailed sketch (outline plus!) of one project in the next thirty as well as a full deliverable of another in the same time period. So, these weak 1 hour (MAX) sessions I’ve been conducting since returning to the desert are not going to cut it. I need to shake off the transfer rust and get down to work. 2 hours tommorow, back in the gym, and get my head back screwed on straight.
4. At least two of the classes I’m teaching are ending, so that is les mental energy spent in other directions. On the other hand, the paychecks stop too…
5. I didn’t win either big lotto. Someone bought a winning ticket in LA though. Ah well, I guess its back to earning generational wealth the really really hard way.
6. I listened to the Podcast getting all the attention where Saquon Barkley said he could sit out, and yeah… lotta smoke and no fire. No wonder the dude gets pissed. He worked very hard in that cast to explain who he was as a man and a teammate and how he wants to play and even why the contract dispute was what it was, but the media keeps pushing a particular narrative that is negative. It came down to this: The tag gives him 10 mil guaranteed. If they tag him a second time, he is earning 22 total. The contract offers gave him less money guaranteed. So, why take a deal to get a paycut? Does he hold out? He said he really needed to sit down with his people (including teammates) and think about it. I say no. He basically said no himself.
7. The most interesting thing on that podcast was the way the money dude talking explained that how much money you make/have is a reflection of your contribution to society. He cited the coincidence of wants as a baseline to understanding why money matters. However, I am calling hard bullshit on the guy. That money manager whose entire life is about manipulating wealth for the wealthy is not necessary contributing more to society than your average rights activist or trash collector. His entire premise is flawed.
8. On the other hand, he speaks the language of the corporation, which is the language of this growing dystopian future. No, it won’t be cyberpunk world. It will be something else–something worse.

Okay, let’s talk about the heart of the Giants FB team….

“My leverage is I could say, ‘f— you’ to the Giants, I could say, ‘f— you to my teammates,’ ” Barkley said. “And be like, ‘You want me to show you my worth? You want me to show you how valuable I am to the team? I won’t show up. I won’t play a down.’ And that’s a play I could use.”

So, based on the above, that is a play his agents are encouraging him to consider. In the end though, he’s not that guy and the team and the fans like me know it. He’s gonna play because he is never gonna say ‘f— you to my teammates,’. I respect that about him. He’s a leader and a captain. I’m trying to raise a couple of those in my own household. I went through the first few games of their schedule to see about how they can get down, and while I looked through Varsity, I have no idea what is going to pop off on the 22nd of next month when these freshmen finally strap it on for their first game. My own kid, a Captain and starter both ways, hasn’t been in pads for over a year. So that is going to mean readjustments. These things take time… that is why there is training camp….

Which is what Barkley is going to willfully miss for the first time (healthy) in his career. I don’t know how it impacts him. I don’t know he’s football ready week one, but I know that without him the Giants don’t win games. Period. G-Men need this guy. Defenses stacked the box last year, because they had to stop 26. While they slowed him down, 8 went off and had a career year earning a career payday. Sadly, that is off the table for 26 right now, and honestly, I see him either getting tagged or getting a Jones-style 2+2 next year that can be fully voided after the first 2. That’s the market for RBs and that is hot trash.

Some Thoughts:

1. Not ready to talk fantasy draft other than to say my drafts are the weekend of the 2nd of September. Plenty of time to prep and plan.
2. More excitement at the HS level than I’ve felt in almost all six years following DV. The excitement is coming from inside the locker room and, while not as powerfully loud and boisterous as they were (two) coaches ago, they look ready to rock and roll and commit to a long-term turnaround. The pieces are there to make a playoff run. Hopefully there are enough of them for my kids to get noticed and get on the scholarship lists. If not, track season is right around the Christmas corner…

It is a particular person who writes in a dead genre. It is a particular person who recognizes that a genre is dead and yet pursues an abundance of writing in that genre. I’ve begun to feel the effects of that over the past few weeks as I am writing these few cyberpunk/magic related projects. Shadowrun exist(ed) at the intersection of magic and cyberpunk born out of 80’s pulp with a heavy handed nod to William Gibson. and Walter Jon Williams. Most people only know one of those two names. I myself only knew one of the names when I came into the genre. That, for all intents and purposes, makes me a bit of a poser. I’ve gotten sturdier in my knowledge and appreciation over the years, but as I did so I watched (and felt) the genre evolve beyond where the books and rpg wanted to go. So, we remain in a stasis position trying to hang on to something referential to what the modern audience does not even know or understand. So, instead of deepening our hold and understanding of the Cyberpunk, the game has fled to more magical shores.

I’m not with that.

Balance in all things, nes pas? I want to feel that ‘Constantine’ grit of magic in a world where the corporations treat us like lemmings they can push towards the ledge of their choosing. I want to feel like I’m writing a better version of the Matrix. I don’t though. Perhaps that ought to be a sign to get out, but I’m not that guy. No, I’m going to double down and go in a different direction and see how dark and dystopian I can make this thing before my time in the genre officially runs out.

Some Thoughts:

1. Still dodging the KondoMari way… I set up everything to be sorted and reduced, but I am slow-footing the process hard. It is the tee shirts. I don’t want to deal with them.

Not a ton of time to spend on the words since the boys just rolled back into town and I want to give them some attention before they start school. But there is always ten minutes for…

Some Thoughts:

1. Saquon Barkley not signing his tender is a smart business move on the surface, but the fact is that the team holds all the cards. He can not sign all he wants, and continue to move towards that age of diminishment and not making money. It sucks because he is an awesome talent and the heart of the franchise. However, they decided to go a different direction after the market for RBs crashed. This is a long term-minded organization and the captain is good for two or three more top shelf years. He knows it. He is going to need to bite the bullet, take the $$, and hope he does not get a major injury.
2. The school year is right around the corner and I think I want to try new things this year. Specifically, I want to update my courses to reflect more issues of right now. I want to rebuild in a way that puts the energy on the students to bring the issues and talk about what they are really about. Not comics. Enough of the comics.
3. Meamwhile, Madden is still screwing me and I will not likely get the promised discount. To make matters worse, the game doesn’t appear to be worth all the money I will be investing.
4. Perhaps I will have more money to invest if I can get a W in tonight’s powerball or tomorrow’s mega millions. I would do really good thing with that huge jackpot. Sure, I’d spend a third on my family and myself, but I’d spend a third developing an organization to help the homeless (and perhaps branching out to do more following that). Perhaps even calling it the Turnaround foundation or the Arcology initiative…
5. Life is good. Hot, but good. I expect I will wind up in the pool after all this summer…

While I am still a rather neophyte world traveler I can say without a doubt that the USA is the most unfriendly place I’ve visited.. and I live here. As I hop from continent to continent living out this life long dream, I can also say that I think I know why the USA is the way it is: population density.

there is perhaps a magical number when it comes to population density. Too many people per KM and they just get mean about it (see India and NYC). While at the other extreme they just get scared and weird about people coming into their space (see Tennessee and Norway). In a place like Phoenix you get just enough space for the entire enterprise to feel rather meh and that causes a cascade of troubles.

I discovered the theory upon returning from Victoria, BC where I walked on average 7-10 miles over the course of a day. Yet a review of my numbers here indicates I travel closer to 40 miles over the course of a day and walk less than three. This leaves me isolated and exposed to a multitude of on air distractions. I could go on about the filter bubble and how what you listen to leads to listening to more like it and how troubling that could be, but I want to focus on the foot traffic: there is none. This there are no people we are required to interact with and practice our niceties.

again, too many is bad. Too few is bad. With the heat and the space we occupy here in the desert it is very bad. My kids leave the house once a day to play basketball. They can avoid talking to another human outside of family for weeks at a time (unless they go to work). This is the case with many Arizonans. Unless it is work related, our universes often exist in bubbles projected from our phones and we don’t talk to the people two doors down.

it’s just a thoery

My brother is a fan of the Kondo method. He’s worked to declutter his life and reduce the choices he is required to make on a daily basis to the bare minimum, as is in line with the thinking of a computer programmer. I tried being a programmer. It didn’t work out. I tried the KondoMarie method. It hasn’t worked out. She released a book about decluttering your work life in 2020, and I intend to try that, but I feel like I need to go back to the basics of her approach and start to reconsider the things I am holding on to. As readers of this blog know, I keep a lot of windows open on my desktop. At present there are 50 open tabs on my desktop chrome to go along with 33 additional open tabs on my phone browser. 83 tabs is a lot of information to attempt to juggle and absorb. Align this thought with the four outstanding projects and four teaching classes in my queue and you have my state of mind in a frazzled state.

All of this is under deadline. Two of the classes end next week (and require grading to be completed before then) and the projects have staggered though near due dates. Again, it is no small wonder why I am having heart issues. I was able to compensate for this stress (and all the sitting–especially the sitting) by taking long walks in the beautiful woods of Canada. I found that my eyes even functioned better with time off task. In sum: I’m doing too much. It is made worse in contrast to my kids who wake up, plop down on the couch, and do little to nothing else but sit there and absorb nonsense for the rest of the day. It is a small, but increasingly noticeable thread of my stressed psyche.

That brings me to Kondo.

I need to chill out. I thought I was chilling in Canada, but being back here is a swift reminder that I was just better at juggling when the externals felt like they were aiding to my life as opposed to subtracting. So now what I need to do is condense, cut, and streamline both personally and professionally. I will not be taking on so many projects at once moving forward. In some ways I may be largely done with developing RPG material entirely (though that remains to be seen). What I do know is that I’ve been living in an unsustainable fashion and the cracks are not only showing, but quickly wearing me down. I am not the writer I was nor am I presently the writer I am going to be.

What remains is to figure out what needs to be shed and what needs to be better organized in order to get there.

No freewrite again tonight. I suppose I am not quite there, but moreover I just exited Mission Impossible (6?) and find myself wanting to write about it. Specifically, I was thinking of an article I perused by a writer who praised the film while simultaneously calling himself a Fast and Furious fan. He compared the two series, which I’d never done up until that point and the comparison was apt: unreal and near magical stuff happening to people who are so skilled and powerful as to be characters from the comic books. However, I found a kernel difference in the two, which when you look closely, begins to unravel the entire comparison to the point where you realize that one is a shoddily crafted version of the other.

Let’s start with the big one: Stunts. We all know that Tom Cruise does his own stunt work. We know it so well that when going to the movie it is instantly a question of ‘what kind of nonsense is this man about to do?’ The answer in this film involves (no spoiler because it is legit in the adds and the opening credits) rides off a mountain with a parachute on his back. However, that isn’t the only bit of aerial nonsense he’s on about in this one. Contrary to Cruise’s sixty year old ass jumping off and out of things every movie, Vin Diesel doesn’t do his own stunts. Instead he develops scenes where the car is doing most of the stunting. Sadly, this lacks the impact that Mission Impossible does.

The impact continues to fade when you consider both the plots and context. Ethan Hunt is saving the world and preserving his family. Dom Toretto is largely protecting his family and occasionally helping governmental entities with ‘impossible missions’. There is a linkage there, and while both series are fun and both have some very clear similarities (note the party sequences in each film–because they’re there. They are very much the same), Mission comes off as a better written and acted bit of silliness in which you can at least hold on to the illusion of possibility. I think the Fast series left that behind right about… here: