10 Minute Rule

Here is an old truth. I am pushing 50 years old ad I feel like I am in my mid thirties. It is the sort of thing I can only account for by showing the kind of shows that catch my interest, kind of people I notice on the street, and how I feel in my own skin. I do not feel the kinship I should feel with the older crowd. I perhaps never have. I was playing football with nineteen year olds when I was in my late twenties, so that shows I have always trended younger in my mind. I also think I can perform like a younger person until I realize I cannot and am met with this strange sense of being out of time and place that ruins me. These are the thoughts that run through my head on a weekly basis and a great place to start on a Monday.

Some Thoughts:

1. Life is good. Believe in what you are doing and figure out where you’re headed an life will always be good—even when it is hard.

Nothing highly coherent, so I’ll just launch into…

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve become increasingly intrigued by the concept of Creation Cards. To that end I picked up a Narata storytelling deck and the Mythulu creation deck. I expect to use both in some fashion to help in the teaching of Mythology, Novel Writing, and Video Game Writing. I only cracked open the Narata, which is beautiful and already wildly interesting, but I don’t know enough to review. In time. All in due time.
2. I’m going to GenCon this year. Not sure what I’m doing there.
3. It is always really sad to see someone who has reached a point in their career where they’ve lost the thread of things. I’m seeing that in one particular writing sector and it is rough. There is a time that comes around that one must step back and look at where they are at with things and how that vision shapes everything around them…
4. Madden really continues to be buggy on all fronts. I have not figured out how to get the access I need to the 50% off and I am largely certain that they have my ea membership completely fragged. Such is life and gaming…
5. Walked three miles to get a burger and go to the beach. Then walked three miles home. Such is the way of a Sunday. Thankfully that sort of action is really helping my blood pressure and stress levels. Feeling solid as a result.

Drained today. I did not sleep well and that has led to a lackluster morning where I’ve failed to even legitimately consider exercise and done little more than walk around half-distractedly. I suspect a proper coffee may ease me out of this funk. The funk is temporary, but the living is good. Yesterday was a day on the beach complete with some writing and scrabble. That sort of living cannot be beat…

Some Thoughts:

1. Lack of sleep is a toxic environment for a writer. I occasionally slip into stressed modes when I’m entirely terrified of going back home and dealing with the stress and drama and disrespect of my daily living environment and that keeps me up at night here as it does always back there. My body responds to it as well–blood pressure creeping up to dangerous levels. All of this to say that my living conditions are not sustainable.
2. Madden screwed us yet again. despite promises of 50% off to those impacted by the franchise glitches in 23 they failed to do this in a proper rollout and instead released it to everyone, which meant they had to fix it, which meant most of us didn’t get the promised discount. So if I want the game–glitches and all–I gotta pay full again. Sad sauce.

(Previous)

The RealScan process took anywhere between 75 and 90 minutes. It wasn’t just a skin. It was a full body analysis, stressing all of your potential and, unfortunately, all of your defects. Someone who had a proclivity to be overweight later in life would have those genetraits locked into their game bio. It impacted your character, shaped your core abilities, and even helped classify you in terms of grouping and job, if you were coming in clean–without a clan designation. Heck, even if you loaded with a clan, your starting ranking could be impacted by your genetics.

When PostFutures first announced the game it was met with all of the expected resistance. The biggest complaint was how much genetic information was being calculated and filed on their massive servers. But nobody cared. What could they do with that data anyhow? It wasn’t like some random corporation knowing his genetic information impacted his life anymore than his cell knowing where he was heading after work did. Besides, RealScan told you your potential, and the game itself gave you a chance to see yourself at that potential. What could be better than that?

The scan finished at 12:47 exactly. He saw clock outside of the booth, and exhaled with a long sigh. He was going to be late for work. He thought his scan might be on the short side, but it wasn’t and now he had to run.

Weak post yesterday–It is clear when I am drained vs. when I have enough energy left to power through ten minutes. There is a lesson in that: Figure out when you have the mental energy to create and be creative and that should be the time you leave for yourself to be a writer. I have yet to really figure out when that time is for me other than knowing it is earlier in the day rather than later. Being a writer is about finding that time, sticking to that time, and putting your butt in the chair to be productive each and every day. Moreover, it is about wanting to do it. I want to write every day. There is not a day I say, man, I don’t want to be creative today. I am always searching for ways to be creative, and I am always getting sidetracked by randomness. For example, I have Baywatch on right now. Why? Because I was aiming to put on Bob Ross as background, but Baywatch was on and I really do enjoy me some David Hasselhoff, so… This is my weakness–a failure to focus.

You can see that lack of real focus in yesterday’s blog.

Some Thoughts:

1. The thought I was attempting to finish last night is about my freshman not being moved up. The way I figure, the coach moved up another freshman to play that same position. That other freshman is as good or better than mine at the spot, and is an outstanding WR. He brought up a kid who can contribute (as a starter) both ways. So, bringing up my kid means that my kid loses reps and doesn’t get to develop on field. So, he left him where he was with the option to pull him up whenever he needs him. Personally, I think the kid should move to JV where he actually gets challenged. My concern is that he won’t get challenged at present level and get lazy. However, I haven’t even seen him practice this summer, so what do I know?

I recently learned that one of my three fantasy leagues is not returning this year. That brings me down to two–both of which I’ve been pretty solid in over the last few years. It means I can use this opportunity change up my strategy to one where I build different squads as opposed to gravitating towards the same players time and again. Later in the season I can move towards players who are going to be sure things, but the way to get there is to have a healthy understanding of at least two different sets of players. Coaches also have to have a healthy understanding of players, which is why I think this new HS football season is so interesting for my kids.

Some Thoughts:

1. Got accused of trolling in my last Apex match because they couldn’t believe I was so bad. I’m just lucky enough to get on good squads. I’m almost Gold rank and that is entirely why. I never carry, but I do revive.

I feel close to the next chapter of life. My partner and I are beholden to our present home state for the next year, but beyond that there is a lot of wiggle room. Of course any wiggling requires a job as leaving the state means surrendering retirement with five more years left on the clock. Is retirement worth staying? That remains to be seen. In truth we will see. We’ve been taking trips around this beautiful planet in an effort to figure out where we ultimately fit in. So far the consensus is somewhere that isn’t terribly hot but boasts fairly mild winters and a crap ton of deciduous trees. I’m a firm believer in the indoor/outdoor life plan—moreso since my blood pressure took center focus in my health plan.

I like Vancouver Island. I also like places I can travel within our budget. That’s proving to be harder than expected, but a good problem to unravel.

I want a life post kids that is focused on exploring and writing and having fun (read: games… lots of games). We just need to figure out where that life is best lived.

Some Thoughts:

1. Looking forward to the Wednesday wire. I have thoughts.
   
2. almost done with my first class of the summer. Lots of work to be done this week to get them where they need to be. Maybe we can get a few of these stories published!
3. wondering aloud what next summer will bring…

Partner just broke down how male writers need to get out of the male fantasy mindset. She’s right too. Presently she’s reading a Dean Koontz novel in which the narrator breaks down the first two characters in contrasts–the male is a struggling author. The female is incredibly beautiful and struggling with the turmoil that she is not as wonderful as her mother. Yeah, I can see the contrasts already too. I worry about that when describing my characters. In my last novel the ‘face’ of the team was in fact a beautiful asian elf with a troubled past. That past? Yeah… she’d been victimized and needed to be rescued by a man who put his life in jeopardy to save her. So, I do it too. I didn’t plan to do it that way, and as the sequel story develops I need to be mindful of who she is and how I tell her story as part of the larger narrative. So far I’ve managed to describe her only in terms of her tattoos–giving the reader no real sense of her appearance beyond that, which probably isn’t so great either.

The truth is, it is hard to write what you don’t know. Once, I thought I’d be slick and write the opposite of how I see people as a way to offer a different perspective, but that wasn’t very effective either. Writing is learning and growing, and from what my partner says, all of us male writers have a lot more writing and growing to do.

Some Thoughts:

1. Turns out I was dead wrong about the Paolo Bonchero kid. He was rookie of the year. Respect then.
2. To expand, I wasn’t saying Wemby wouldn’t be great. I was saying, quit making people great before they actually play an NBA game. Lewt hype happen in the proper time and way.

Not a ton of coherent energy today, so I will focus on…

Some Thoughts:

1. Didn’t get back to Unwind. Bit burned out from all the novel work today. I’m on that steady grind. I estimate it takes up to four days to get a clean draft on a chapter at this point in the process. That means this presumably 32 chapter novel is going to take me another four months to get to editing. That puts it at October. That is roughly on schedule. It won’t make the November release window I was hoping for but I can get it out before 24. Nice.
2. Mid kid received his first D1 offer last week and that information was retweeted by some of the biggest names in the AZHS sports scene, which means that people are noticing the offer. Notice means opportunity. The plan is shaping up.
3. Draft happened. Yay? I don’t know that I really care about basketball all that much. One thing I do find interesting from a relationship perspective is the plight of Daren Waller. He recently married a player from the Las Vegas Aces and was immediately traded to NYC, where he will be living for the regular season. She’s also traveling. How are they going to make that work?
4. Not a ton to say today. Drained. Bit backsore from over aggressive workouts. I think I’ll just go walk around and explore this weird city. Maybe find a Walmart.

Cooper sat very still. He knew if he twitched even a millimeter during onboarding, the RealScan system would pick it up as either a facial tick or dither entirely, turning his face into a weird mesh of cheek and too-wide nose. He knew this because he’d been in the arcade the day Axon Ruggs onboarded and a house fly got locked into the suite with him. The system scanned the fly onto his simulant like a facial tatoo. People called him brundlefly for the next two months, though Cooper had to admit he didn’t get the reference. Like Axon, Cooper didn’t have the funds to write another simulant if things went squirrelly. Unlike Axon, he wasn’t cool enough to turn the look into a some kind of battle scar, wearing it proudly in his matches.

Cooper really wanted to sneeze though. He imagined what it must’ve been like for all of those people who had to sit for paintings like a thousand years ago or whatever. Then he thought about how cool he was going to feel taking his simulant out for the first time in the matrix. He couldn’t go far or do too much until next month’s paycheck, but he’d at least get to interact with the starters mall and maybe skill upload a few of the classes he’d been taking to level his simulant.

Some Thoughts:

1. This is less a story than the beginning of what could be an interesting story. I don’t know where it came from or why. I know I was in the shower thinking, “I gotta blog still” and the line, “Cooper sat very still” popped into my head. I held on to it until I got out of the shower and the rest started forming slowly. I stopped where I did because, with the time as it were, I wasn’t ready for more. Perhaps Saturday brings the promise of a second… verse?