10 Minute Rule

I’ve been doing the math a bit more on my 2 hours for 1000 words or 500 WPH process. This has been working for me for a few weeks now, and I am developing the novel exactly on pace. There are days where I write more, of course, but I haven’t missed the mark. I am at 26,000 words, which given how much I have NOT written, puts this thing in the 60 K range at least. Still no idea if I will sell it or not, but I don’t really think that is as important as proof of concept. I believe this method works. I recognize that the last stage of this is 24 hours of revision over the course of seven days after seven days off to not think about the novel at all. Honestly, if you put that kind of time into your writing you are definitely going to perform peak revision. So, the three phases of writing–planning, drafting, and revising are all to be neatly laid out and developed. I have yet to touch the planning. I think that is going to require the same 24 hours as the revision process. There is more to be discovered in these bookends, but I am in the middle part right now and here is what I have learned.

It is hard to write for two hours without stopping to stand up and walk around. Thus, I suggest breaks at 40 and 80 minutes. Take ten minutes each time. This aligns with the 100 minute grid, which leads you to the 10 words per minute number as suggested in the title. You will be surprised how easy base ten thinking changes your mindset on writing. The stuff just flies out of your brain and on to the page–even in the tough sections. I am sticking to the 5 days a week. I skipped yesterday so I wrote today. That means I get tomorrow off as well. Then, come Monday it is back to the page.

This method is stackable up to the boundaries of your brain capacity. I may be starting a grad program soon, which entails a ton of writing. That means stacking another two hours to get the words done. It will be an entirely different beast, and I am ready to take it on.

It took 828 days for me to fail. A slow burn that led me from the excitement and remorsefulness of the change from 6-7 to the fall into 8. The 8th iteration of this blog–this moment of writing every single day–is going to be a different moment for me. It is a new beginning in many ways. I need to make this time meaningful to myself and to whatever audience I possess. I didn’t always do that. I often walked ass-backwards into a last minute post that was meaningful to nobody–not even me. I was mailing it in to get through that day to the next. I did this several times over the last 828. I didn’t, therefore, create a lasting and meaningful space for writing or for personal reflections.

I did not get it done, and that reflects on who I have been over these nearly three years. I’ve been a man at his wits end. I’ve been a man unmoored in some ways; A man who doesn’t lock in and focus on the things that matter. I have let myself down over this period. I have let down the most important people in my life as well–primarily as a result of being lax in communication, private and not up front with information, not firm in parenting, and checked out on the things that are most important to them. All of this is bad. All of this is in need of change.

It is time for me to begin again.

I’m excited for March 13th. This is the day the AIA High School Football schedule drops. It is the first look at what my kid will be facing his Junior year. I was talking to another dad last season and we both had the same thought: You can get away with a lot being a Sophomore on Varsity, but your JR season comes with major expectations. Chief among them is increased production, power, and the ability to think through the game much faster. We are going to work on the mentals this summer once he finished boosting his speed for track season. He is on his way–so long as he gets it in his head to dig in and work hard these next several years. He has the physicals to get to his goal. He needs to track in the mentals.

Meanwhile in the NFL… What the wild. No seriously. What the actual hell is going on? The Chargers released Joey Bosa, instantly making San Fransisco great again. Then there is the great QB saga unfolding, with my sad sauce Giants being considered a prime destination for A-Rod. No. Just no. Fire everyone if it goes down. That is a Doncic level mistake. Like Doncic if it happens you’ll hear these guys talking about how they are measured by championships and are doing what is right for the future. Sure, A-Rod is a bridge QB, but try to tell him that.

Worst still, Metcalf asked for a trade! The Seahawks are not in good shape right now. All the teams I like are falling apart. Hopefully they don’t have to hit rock bottom before getting better. Speaking of which, University of Northern Colorado is going to be better this season. They basically have to be just to stand a chance. They face FBS Colorado State and its potential first rounder QB along with five FCS playoff teams including the current champs. Tough sledding. It also gives the kid the chance to show out against the best possible talent. We’ve been dreaming for this opportunity and it is getting closer and closer.

Some Thoughts:

1. What is all this about the ‘transing’ of our children. The powers that be (repubs) are making seem as though kids are being forced to involuntarily change gender, often for the purposes of sports. I am a sports dad. No shot I try to turn my boy into a girl so he/she can ball out. Not to mention how nobody is even talking about female to male as though that is not an issue at all–at least in terms of sports. It isn’t even part of the law, which by default should make it discrimination.

I suppose I should be looking backwards right now. Instead I am staring into a dangerous and troubling present. I realized what the actual problem/situation is a few hours ago. It all comes down to bullies, cowards, hanger-ons, and children. This is in fact what the democratic party is lacking and has been since Obama left. I remember very clearly the Republicans feeling like Obama and his Chief of Staff were bullying them. This 2016 post is evidence of that. Nobody likes a bully… bullies are bad. Forbes even got in on it back in ’13 calling him a bully. They expressly stated how wrong it is for him not to heed the voice of the minority. Yet… Here we are in 2024. Where are those dissident voices?

Trump is a bully and a petulant child. He acts on instinct and says whatever he wants with the expectation that he will not be challenged or stopped. If he is then he chooses to attack even harder. He holds grudges and puts people in power who are ‘loyal to him first.’ None of this is a good thing for a President who is supposed to lead a nation. It is very good for a small collective of people who choose to believe they are the voice of the majority (and flail angrily like children and make up lies when they are seen as not being that). I believe Trump won for a handful of reasons–the unwillingness to elect a woman to be prime among them. Yet right behind that is the fear that people would continue to cry foul. That squeaky wheel therefore got ALL of the grease and we are sliding right out of a democracy into something far more autocratic.

I am very exhausted by all of it already. I am not looking forward to several more years of this continuous madness. Just recently the Director of Homeland Security acted like an absolute child, taunting “51st state” repeatedly while straddling the line between Canada and the US. I’m sure it will be spun as a joke. Yet the need to spin it at all–the willingness to act in a way that insults a neighbor and ally while questioning their right to be a sovereign nation is straight up in poor taste. Yet, that is who we have chosen to be as a country. Bullies who behave arrogantly, flagrantly, and in poor taste while demanding to be respected no matter what we do. Or, as the creators of South Park put it TWENTY+ years ago…

I never published the Sunday Post. Maybe I wanted to give myself time to retract. Maybe the depression stayed my hand from making things all too public. Yet when I logged in today for this Monday moment, I realized that I wanted to kick this thing into the matrix. Kids do in fact suck. I will love my kids for the rest of my consciousness, but I will not allow myself to continue to be disrespected and walked on. I suspect they learned that little trick from my ex-wife. Yeah, okay. I’ getting too dirty here. Time to back away from the topic and fall into…

Some Thoughts:

1. I missed the voting window for the Nebula Awards this year. Like a punk. I’m slowly getting into the responsibilities of being an SFWA member…
2. Speaking of getting in, I did get into an MFA program! Stoked to see where it takes me.
3. Still on track with the exercise. Still fat though. I need to be able to fit the tux. Moreover, I need to look very good in it. These are my forever wedding photos.
4. Started reading TR Napper and his curious brand of Australian cyberpunk. Dude has the pulse of the thing and it isn’t trapped in the 80’s like so much other stuff. It has the feel of the era and the genre, but offers post modern technology that thrums with an understanding of the now and the after. The backmatter is a whos who of the expanded genre. I have a lot more to go through to get through the man’s canon but 36 Streets is a good start. Bugs a bit that shades of it are reminiscent of the novella (growing into novel now) I’m working through.
5. Speaking of which, I hit 22,000 words today. At a 1000 more per day (less weekends) I should strike novella-sized completion in six weeks. I’ll give it a few more than that to see what actually shakes out.

Kids suck.

That’s really the long and short of things. You try to raise them to be the best versions of themselves and to (i’m going to say it) honor the idea of who you are in some version of their action and in the end, it doesn’t happen. These oft ruinous creatures choose to do exactly what you don’t want them to. They lie and disrespect and then, after all of that, come back begging you for money and attention. What is it then that we are supposed to do as parents? Roll over and feed them funds? Buy them new phones because theirs are broke and they won’t get a job? The idea that money doesn’t grow on trees is infinitely older than I am yet still resonates to this day. When did I have to become the parent who reminded his kids of that… well into and past their teens?

As I said, kids suck. One of my is about to feel the harsh reality of having a dad who is completely out of fucks. It’s going down. For real.

I am depressed at a fundamental level. I’ve been depressed–even suicidally so–before in my life, but those moments were always internal. It was about my interactions with the world, my value in the world, my relationships. What I am feeling now is not all about me. I am watching at least two of my kids fail in slow motion. One seems to be charmed in life and will likely pull through. The other, an angsty privileged teen, appears to be on a very short road to doom. When I can lift my head away from that horror, it is only to see a home government teetering on the edge of fascism. The oval office meeting yesterday in which the President and Vice President berated a world leader as if they were not only better than him, but as if he needed to bend the knee was disgusting. To make matters worse, even the news is treating the matter with patronizing, downplayed headlines like, “Trump and Vance Rebuke Zelenksy.” Is that what was happening? Or was this a scene from the Apprentice? Was this an angry dad telling his kid he needed to say thank you and stop being disrespectful? Or simply a scene from WWE when Vince McMahon had his infamous Kiss My Ass Club? We know where Trump finds his material. He’s a pretty simple guy…

If this wasn’t enough, my financial issues are crippling me, my writing is not reaching people, and my health is absolute shit. So, things are pretty bleak in the land of Talis. Or, it’s just another Saturday in the good ‘ol US of A. At least we get good distractions–media, sports, games, etc… I’m a cynic now. I am also debating not being an American Citizen. It sucks to feel this way. It sucks to feel like this lifelong fight towards some version of equality was all just smoke and mirrors. Even my college is removing all of what they refer to as DEI, which is to say any awareness or understanding towards anything that is different from white and heterosexual. Well, at least I’m hetero… See, cynic.

Things are the worst I’ve seen them in my lifetime, and I am the same guy who stood and watched my friends be arrested on the steps of Iowa State University for being black. I am the same guy who was asked to stand in a line up as a kid because I was ‘close enough to the description’ of who the cops were looking for and they needed people to ‘just stand there.’ The people making these laws and have not been on the other side of those laws. They don’t know what it actually feels like to be oppressed or to be the ‘other’ or to fear for your life because the people in power are being given the right to kill you. No, the people making these laws are afraid that they will someday become like me and they are doing anything they can to prevent that from happening.

I spent the last forty minutes watching the premium sections of Avengers: Endgame and it took me through the gamut of emotions. I laughed, I cheered, I got super hyped (multiple times and generally around Mr. Rogers and his moments) and I teared up… often. That film, released 6 years ago now, represents the best of what Marvel is capable of in terms of storytelling. I fear there will be nothing like that ever again for them. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they can string together an incredible story that weaves all of these characters into a narrative thread (I’m mixing metaphors again) that makes me feel for them the way that I did. I love comics and hero stories for this reason. I have a Mk II helmet on my desk for this very reason. Stories brought to life by remarkable (and well cast) talents make us feel. I can get this from a book, because my imagination allows me to. However, it doesn’t work that way for everyone. Movies make that range of emotions far more accessible. It also happens faster for the viewer than it does for the reader.

I’m still wiping my damn nose as I type this blog. Downey’s “I am Iron Man” moment ended me, and they just kept on piling on after (the work of Gwyneth Paltrow is entirely underrated–even if she felt like she mailed it in). All of this leads me to a curious understanding. I want to script a comic series. I want to do more. I want to tell more stories that get people and that people get. I miss being able to go that deep into a character that you actually feel what they are going through and understand the struggle. I spend so much time telling story that I don’t tell story. I think the latter is what people need most. I think we need to see ourselves in characters, but I also think we need something to believe in. Something accessible and relatable. Someone who, given opportunity, access, and power, makes bad choices and, eventually, learns to make really good ones. We need hope–especially now. We need to see the better part of ourselves. I think that I’ve been writing about this my entire life and never been quite able to get there. I think, above all else, it is time for me to work a lot harder at it.

I think I’m going to make that my thing.

Perhaps the hardest thing for a spec writer to do is budget. You have to be able to project yourself far far far into the future in order for the numbers to actually add up. The majority of my contracts that are either half upfront and half upon publication (novels) or pay on print type deals. Doing so means that you’re not getting paid weekly or even monthly. It comes down to when things actually get pushed out. I am waiting for seven contracts to pay out right now. Most of that writing was done in ’24. Some was done in ’23. This is not money I can rely on, which is why the full time job remains necessary. In fact, the math I relied on in previous posts really suggests having someone who pays on a regular schedule or doing the sort of copywriting work that is still needed in this fledgling period of AI.

Work harder… not smarter? Perhaps there is some truth in flipping that dynamic as such. If I put out more writing then I have more chances to see that money come back to me sooner. Part of the issue here is working for role playing companies who tend to pay as little as 4 cents a word. Part of the issue is not working for enough different fields of writing–magazines, etc. to have the steady line of income that would be needed to make this full time work. While there is always the self-publishing route, you are definitely waiting on readers there. Amazon is not buying your work. They and others are providing a platform for that work to be moved.

I’m thinking about this as I am writing a Shadowrun novella that is not under contract and will take me a considerable number of weeks to complete. I am not, as I say, working smarter. I am following the passion (and dodging the one story I need to finish, yes). I expect to see that passion pay off if only in the satisfaction of getting the story out of my head and onto a page. It’s a life. It isn’t a living.

I’m forecasting today. Having finally had the chance to sit down and consider the upcoming sports year, I am ready to think about what the boys need to do in order to be successful. I’m going to start with the High School and move up from there. The High School is a question mark. To Transfer… Or Not to Transfer. That is the question. There are certainly options. We are in a situation where if he stays he has an opportunity to see minutes on both sides of the ball. He could be pretty good on offense given this style of play the Thunder tend to go with. On offense there is a good line and one of the top 5 running backs in the state (if the rb stays). The problem is compounded by a slew of seniors who want to believe they have what it takes to be top D1 athletes (most don’t), a coach who is daddy coaching his kid to get more playing time than he deserves (on both sides of the ball), and a staff who has extremely limited connections at the next level in terms of bringing in coaches to see our kids.

So, what do I do? I have to find a way to get the kid on film and get him seen. That could be about transferring. It could also be about falling into the strength of schedule and hoping his impact vs. these other teams (who are getting the college coaches to come out) shines through. It worked to a certain degree for his big brother who was playing out of position and still got an offer.

He took that offer, played meaningful snaps as a 17 yr old freshman, and now he’s a prospective starter for a new team in year 2. He still hasn’t even turned 18, and he is likely to tear up the FCS as a top CB. He has the confidence and the ability and the defensive scheme to get looks. The strength of schedule is a serious thing. The Big Sky Conference is often the #2 conference in the FCS. Add to that a ’25 schedule that includes FBS Colorado State and FCS champs South Dakota and we are in for a ride. Can’t wait to watch.

Some Thoughts:

1. Blog done. Now onto 2 hrs of writing and then the dreaded workout. Maybe one day I’ll find joy in that workout. It’ll be after I start looking beach ready tho.