10 Minute Rule

Wednesday’s in the land of the talis is date night. We partake in a number of interesting and off the cuff experiences, but most often we retire to watch movies. Our movie last night was Shakespeare in Love, a John Madden film starring Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow. Let me start by saying this is among the best work I’ve seen these two leads do, and they work very well together. This is not the point of the argument, however. Instead, I wanted to write about love and about the bard and about the muse and all of the things that come together in my writer’s mind.

I first saw this film in my late college years. I was already pretending to be/working at being a writer of sorts. I was a Shakespeare guy at the time and, though my knowledge has faded, was most in love with the idea of love and romance be it unrequited or not. Here is a simple truth. The most romantic love is the tragic love. When those who want each other are kept apart it makes the longing ever so deeper. Such is the way of this film, such is the way of Shakespeare’s work, such is the way of all things that are good and far from abundant. I forget from time to time that desire is the thread that connects us all and connects us each to something ephemeral. Often motivators stress that you ought to find what you love and do that. I suggest you ought to find what you want and pursue that, for it is in the chasing that you find the most pleasure. Thi is as true of work as it is of love, for isn’t it when we are most complacent that we are most lost?

This, I think, is where I have forgotten myself. I became complacent in writing. At times I do become complacent in love. Such things never end well. Instead, I think, the wanting is the thing. The finding new things to want within what you have is too the thing. So, I mean to turn my pursuits in that direction. Love can be deeper, richer, and more meaningful. Such a quest can be endless. Writing can be more visual, more effective, and too, more meaningful. I don’t need to chase Gibson or King. I need only to chase that ephemeral 8 yr old who believed he could write for all the world.

The Jets are practically screaming, “Watch me!!!” They traded away Elijah Moore shortly after signing Mecole Hardman, the erstwhile speedster who could not quite fit in the KC scheme. He does fit the new Jets mold as a field stretcher opposite or even teamed with Lazard, and a host of very scary WR options in what is clearly shaping up as a four wide set. The reverberations of that move can be felt all the way in KC where former NYG WR ‘Joka’ Toney is looking more and more like their guy. I like it. I’m excited to see these fellas excel.

I’m more excited to see my own kids excel. I get the feeling my little one may get a chance to fill a spot on the Varsity roster. The team looks rather thin as is, and while this isn’t a good thing, it is a chance for the coaches to evaluate everyone, and figure out who can play and at what level. I went through the team meeting tonight and enjoyed Coach Molander’s level of preparedness and clearly shaped and nuanced gameplan for the offseason. He is starting from scratch and he’ building traditions and he clearly gives a damn. That is enough and maybe it will be enough to get my kids inspired and team-facing for the first time in a while. It is what they need in order to achieve the success of college offers they so clearly hope to gain.

Meanwhile, I’m just living the good life in my Madden season. I took over the Giants and, after a couple of SB losses, have them rocking an undefeated season with eyes on the big prize at the end. I’m building the dynasty I alway wanted and I’m doing it from the draft–not free agency–so I have cash to resign players. Perhaps not all of them. Some big name trades will be inevitable. Saquon is probably getting traded for picks next season, so the new RBs can get some growth in the system. All of this is fun and games. Sports are fun and games, but we put so much on the process and the outcome.

I wanted to write about a lot of different things today, and I am sure that some of them will exist tomorrow and even Thursday when I get around to talking about them. I feel it is important to look in the rearview mirror before you go too far forward, less you forget where you’ve been and get lost in the going. I’m back to over a year ago now, a post that read as 7.682, though it wasn’t. I’d flipped the first two numbers in haste one day and lost the thread of it for at least ten more days. This is how disconnected and deep into my wanderings I was then. I wasn’t looking in the rear view at all.

The post itself tells the tale of self reflection and assessment. I was doing a series of prompts that were intended to go in my CRW summer workshop. They didn’t. I kept the same old stuff and taught the same old shell, because I wasn’t truly focused on change then. I wasn’t trying to improve experiences. I was still lost and just trying to find a thread to follow back to somewhere or someone I recognized. I get lost like that sometimes. I forget what my goal is for pursuit of some new strategy or fly by night hope to get me going or get me to a point of success faster. The truth I’ve learned in my life is that fast isn’t fast. Fast is steady and without deviation from the pursuit. You write four pages a day for a month and you get 120 pages. You write ten pages a day a few days and take a few days off to reset, maybe get five or six a few days more and take another few days, and you’ll get through the month wondering how you topped out under sixty and maybe even feeling good that you got that far along. Still, it was half of what you had in you had you done it the right way. That’s mercurial. That isn’t fast or steady or, by the very nature of the term, sustainable.

When I took that pause back at 7.682, I was pausing in order to catch my breath and hget away from what I was doing because I was getting run down. I wasn’t having fun as much as I thought I would, and sure enough, I broke that habit soon after. Steady. That’s the message I needed to learn from it. Better late than never.

I’m writing this post on a dying macbook and thus is the subject of the post. I bought this book a few years back. It is a mid 2012 model and, by all accounts, it ought to already be dead. Still, I’ve used it for some time and taken good care of it. The book is a good system that only now is starting to show major lag. The problem, as I diagnose it, is the hard drive. This old boy is probably not running a ssd. It is a TOSHIBA MK5065GSXF, which a brief search indicates as a 2.5 inch SATA drive with 5400 RPM… running Catalina. This is why this computer doesn’t get out much.

I used to be a step behind in tech. The reasons were clear: I didn’t have cutting edge money or even need. Now I am so far behind that everything I use feels obsolete. I listen to people on games talking about frame rate and I’m just happy I can actually play the dang game at all. So, one of the things on my 2023 list is to get back to an understanding of tech where what I write is still reflective of an understanding of the speed of the tech curve. I’m not there yet, obviously. First I gotta grab a Solid State Drive.

Sitting in my office on this Sunday Morning with my cup of decaf and watching my own Zima Blue scrub the sides of my pool, I’m struck by what my life is right now. I’m a professor and an author. I’m working on a sequel to my first major market novel and thinking about the opportunity to turn that two into four and then move on to the next thing. I’m considering all of the possibilities in the world, yet I am held back by this understanding that I’m not entirely right. I’m dealing with serious hypertension and, following the recent death of Lance Reddick at the age of 60, I’m freaked out. He died of natural causes, which for people who look like us generally means a heart condition. 41% of African Americans have high blood pressure. So many of us ignore it or at the least don’t change our habits or monitor the situation early enough to fix the problem. I don’t. I haven’t. I’m walking around pushing 148/95 on a daily basis. I’m basically the walking dead unless I get this situation under control.

But how? Medication is not helping. Lack of sleep is making it much worse. In the early hours I read about this device called a Resperate, which in essence monitors and directs you through a 15 minute meditative breathing session. This is the Way. It is what I’ve been running from for some time now. I have avoided silence and peace out of fear of my inner thoughts, and here I am learning that I need to confront those thoughts and fears and feelings in order to not die. So, that’s step one on the agenda. Get back to the breath.

Yesterday continued a long string of very short blogs with that occasional burst of energy and information that makes me feel like I am getting back some of that old juice that make me feel like I am legitimate producer as a writer. However these lulls–these ten minute poop fests of 50 words or less are becoming more common. I think there are a number of reasons that I need to dig through in order to make sense of them. The primary one being stress. More specifically, high blood pressure and the ever-increasing fear of impending death. We all gotta go sometime, but nobody ever thinks it’s right now until its too late to do anything about it. Well, I’m starting to think it is right now unless I do something about it. As such, I haven’t been much for the words.

I don’t talk about birthdays much. I find them to be extremely self reflective moments but often they are done in such an external fashion that it is hard to ignore what a person thinks or feels about themselves and their own aging. I, for one, hate getting old. As a reflection I tend to do really childish stuff. Thus I spent today playing games and watching superhero movies in search of that young me who is locked in this old body. It actually felt really good.

I’ve been talking a bunch about being ill and not having the mental energy to write. It cost me a few days worth of productivity so far. In fact, I was only able to work on two chapters today and minimally at that, vs. doing three or four or more. I’d like to be further along at this point vs. hovering around 1% a day. At that pace it is likely 100 days to a first draft. That is way too long. In the eyes of the top publishers, a novel ought to be ready in 6 months. A solid writer should therefore turn out at least two books a year or even more. I’d like to be able to get to the point where I am a 4 month guy and turn out three solid pieces of work a year, and possibly do so while being able to roam the planet like some writerly Kane without the Kung Fu. Thus the legend must continue onward through this re-motivational period.

In essence it is about routine and rhythm. I have yet to find either, but I am getting closer. I have the schedule book at my fingertips in which I plan to script out something workable with room for change based on location (we travel a lot) and finding ways to squeeze in writing time in all situations. For example, writing on a plane has become impossible. One of two things has happened: I’ve either grown too large and the writing space has thus become cramped, or the planes in which I fly are offering less space. Since I can do nothing to fix the latter, I ought to be finding time in my schedule to defeat the former. I’m not. I should be.

These are the little things that cling to my daily thinking like barnacles on a ship. I need to be better at clearing away such distractions and getting myself right and in the proper headspace to write. Look, I was better already. At least better in these ten minutes than what I put forward yesterday.

Some Thoughts:

1. Giants… trying to trust the process here.
2. Food… Gotta get back on a better page with food. Especially having a better and fuller breakfast. It all starts with Raisin Nut Bran.

Busy week in the football world. The Giants traded for a legitimate receiving TE in Darren Waller and they got that trade by shopping the pick they received for, wait for it, Kadarious Toney. Ok, Schoen. I see you. Seriously. He’s worked some serious magic over his brief tenure. Now if he could conjure a receiving corps, and at least one lockdown corner we’d be about that conference championship. Perhaps he appeals to Zeke’s better nature and convinces the hard-nosed running back to join the G-men and run it back against the Cowboys? Depends on if Bijan is still available draft day.

The draft is roughly a month out and the free agency moves are definitely shaping what teams are going to do on draft day. Hopefully the Giants can grab a Bijan or similar talent. I fear the CB crop isn’t really that solid, despite the early hoopla about who is good. Several mocks have the first 4 picks being QBs. Will Levis is getting that Zach Wilson treatment and he’s about to have that Zach Wilson failure. He and Richardson are getting the smoke whereas Bryce Young and CJ Stroud have already been talked about so much that the media clearly wants a new story to pitch; a new name to put out there. Of the 4 corners supposed to go in the 1st, none is the Georgia CB who locked up top WRs all season. That is a curious one to be sure…

Some Thoughts:

1. Slowly trying to crawl back to health. I slept away the middle of the day, which is totally not like me. In fact, I abhor it.

New Novel at 8% completion. That is not a high number, but it is nice to see that there is a number, and that I am falling back into the writing way. Writing is about patience and dedication and butt in chair. Those are the big three things you have to be able to accomplish in order to be successful at any level of the craft. I’m a patient person and my dedication has remained steadfast for decades. My butt, however…

You gotta do it all to make it work. Each story demands a process, and occasionally that process changes. I am still searching out my process in all of this, and I know I’ll get there and it won’t look anything like I expect it to (which is also part of the process). The organic nature of it makes me happy.

Some Thoughts:

1. Yesterday was a sham of a blog. I hit a wall and slid to the floor.
2. Today is better. It isn’t long, because I am slow, but I am getting better.
3. Sucks to be sick and mentally off balance.