10 Minute Rule

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I’m supposed to be halfway done by now, but the process is what the process is, and the process is exceedingly slow this time around. I haven’t been productive with the Butt in Chair time I am spending on the project. I get distracted and chase leads down rabbit holes or discover interesting information pertaining to other projects that I simply must pursue. At least peruse… All of this is part of my ramping up phase. Generally speaking, the ramp up should’ve happened during the last project or two but they were so spaced out that I ended up downshifting and wound up back here at one. All of this is to suggest that I may miss my 15 day deadline.

I don’t want to do that, which is why I shouldn’t put it out in the universe. I should be excited about what I will accomplish over the next few days. I scratched out a general outline of most sections save for the intro and the short story. Of course, I am focusing on the stuff I haven’t done vs what is ready to be worked on. This too is habitual. Part of developing such extensive outlines is about limiting my ability to fret over what I am not prepared to write.

Looking at it from a day to day perspective, I still have 6 days remaining in the project, which requires a little over 2K words a day to get the work done. Sure, the original was 1k, and each day I don’t do the work increases the daily load, but the load is presently very manageable. I’ll buckle down and get to it.

More tomorrow.

My son is in the portal.

It’s been a long time coming. The turn–the final choice came out of his own coach’s decision to accept a position at the University of Northern Iowa. Will my boy go with him? That remains to be seen. The ultimate goal now is to make it to the league and play a few years before shifting into a private business role as a civil engineering contractor. The expectation, I presume, is to allow the funds available from playing in the league to cushion the work need for the rest of his life. To quote Prime, “Look good, feel good. Feel good, play good. You play good they pay good. They pay good you eat good.” He’s trying to climb that ladder towards ultimate success. The wonderful part is that he has the physical talent. He can make the league as a CB. How he gets there is quite the mystery.

I’ve been a believer in his talent since birth. What assured me that his physical and mental skills are up to the task was the playoff game Drake faced against a very good Tarleton State program. He covered Darius Cooper, a talented receiver who averages 88.9 yards a game. In his time against Cooper, he held him to 5 catches for 60 yards and no scores–all in isolated man coverage. Cooper went for 190 on 11 catches and a score in the game. Cooper went on to score 3 touchdowns on 9 catches and 161 yards against double coverage playing South Dakota –a top 4 FCS team. Cooper, a senior, will be drafted in the first 5 rounds this off season. My kid, a 17 yr old freshman, will get a lot better over the next 3 or 4 seasons on the way to his own trip to the podium to shake hands a grab a jersey. I believe it. The talent and the charisma show on tape. He has the tools, and now he is looking for the right opportunity.

Today is the first day of the 20 day portal window. He’s scheduling 4 visits already–including one with UNI–and he turned down 1 visit already. Iowa State will be losing a freshman corner to the portal, which creates an opening there–if he can get a bite. He’s looking for the right opportunity. It will take a lot of searching in order to figure out what that is.

Is 50 too old to be seeking an MFA? Reddit says no, but I am asking for a friend. Okay I’m the friend. Honestly, the MFA is about Job security and finding a structured way/path to develop a novel that I can document and use as a pathway to increase my salary. The MFA matters to a ton of programs–often more than publishing itself. I get it. Higher ed is always about credentials over content. I have the content. Heck, I feel like my word count is significantly higher than quite a few people teaching in MFA programs. Yet, the actual degree matters. You have to have a higher degree to grant someone a higher degree… You get what I am saying (hopefully).

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve had a good day so far. It is a rare thing lately. I also expect it to entirely collapse at the end of this blog.
2. There is a ton of context lost there, but the skinny is that I have struggled with being chill lately. I have heavily struggled with maintaining a calm mood and equilibrium with my partner and, above all else, being a person who is a value to the space I inhabit. The struggle is real.
3. I’ve been trying various ASMR channels to get my mood on chill, but the more I look, the more the oversexualization becomes the norm. I’ve even resorted to hiding the video portions so I can completely ignore that aspect of the telling, just so I can enjoy the voice. Occasionally I find dudes who deliver prime moments.
4. Having the content delivered by a female voice has always worked best for me, but it is becoming harder to get that and not feel like I am just watching smut, which I don’t want to do in general, but is something that is likely to make my partner (or any woman) uncomfortable. It turns me into a person I am not… or at least haven’t been since college.
5. 1300 words. Not great by any means. I mean to lock in this week with a solid schedule to get the work done.

I said it before and I will say it again and again: Mindset controls everything. We will what we want into the universe. I believe people overlook this because it is not an absolute. Will does not replace action and activity. It aids it. Will powers these things. Will reminds us that what we are doing has purpose and shall, eventually, yield the results we wish. I see it in my 17 year old, whose portal experience is heating up. I see it in my 23 and 15 year olds who wait idly by for life to happen and fall deeper and deeper into routines and habits which will crush any hope of them becoming more than what they presently are. I see it in myself when my mind shapes my actions towards better things and belief in my abilities… and when it does not.

Me without will is an angry and distracted person. I allow the ‘feels’ of the world around me to swallow me in anger and everything –like every single thing– I do is harder and clouded by that anger. I can do no good in this shape. I can do nothing in this shape. This defines how the last few weeks have hammered out for me. Gradually, I was sinking into a darkness of anger, self doubt, and disconnection. However, to quote my childhood Joe’s…

I know that I cloud my mind with negativity at times and I am presently in a space where I need to have more and more positivity around me to offset the weight of the darkness and distraction that is the norm. I know that I need to get more positive. I gotta get my head to break away from the anger monkeys and get to a place where I am clam and focused and above all else, self-assured in the major phases of my life.

I wanted to quit writing several times this year. It came down to the amount of time I spent writing as opposed to spending time with my partner. It felt like I was always working when she wanted to hang out. I structured it as a choice between her and the words. She wins. She will always win. However, she made it clear that it is not a competition. It isn’t even a choice between her and the words. It is a matter of how I use my time and where I find my joy in and outside of writing.

Over the past few years I’ve watched a lot of static behavior and, imho, slow decay. I’ve watched my kids peak and reach a state where they do what they need to do–do what is required of them at the very minimal level–and then slide into a video game or a tiktok death scroll or a youtube video or some systemic combination or routine of all three. I wasn’t raised like that and I really want to believe they weren’t either. There is a time and place for that kind of consumption, but when it becomes the focus of your life it creates a depression around you–one that I am very easily sucked into. I watch this behavior and it makes me question why I bother working so hard when so many others I love and practically every living being in my close orbit is satisfied with having a shitty, meaningless, and repetitive existence. It isn’t only depressing, it sucks the life out of you. It makes the hard work you do seem less valuable and even pointless. So, I decided to quit and fall into spending time with the one person in my close physical orbit who is about something other than wasting hours. Want to guess what happened? The less I wrote, the more depressed I grew. Even trying to get back into particular writing projects felt less like joy and more like work. I was infected with this sensation of not giving a damn. Once I let my surroundings get to me, I was doomed.

My surroundings still get to me every day. I’m working my way out of it with headphones (filled with Gongs, rainfall, and ASMR). I am trying to separate from the world I am in to reach a state of peace in which I can reach for the joy writing has brought me. That joy is why I write. It is a form of catharsis to tell stories–regardless of if anyone ever bothers to read them. I write not to be read but to create. Creation is a non-static behavior. It is lurching and lunging and growing and filling yourself up only to empty yourself out again. It is everything I’ve ever wanted to do or be outside of sports. I write because it remains who I am, and I am not who I am when I don’t.

I haven’t posted word count over the last few days because word count hasn’t actually changed over the last few days. 611. That is it. School got me. That slowed me down, but what stopped me was not really being balanced in my use of time. So, here I am nearing noon on a Thursday and realizing that I have 10 days ledt to come up with the other 11, 400 words. Doable? Sure. Is the research phase done? No. Not hardly. However, I am much further down that long dim road of understanding than I was a few days ago and I have a sense of voice in terms of what it is I am trying to create in the work.

I cannot talk about the work–NDA–but I can talk about the process. Research always comes first. See what has been written before. Next do the real world stuff that melds what has been written with what is legitimate in the place I am writing about. Then the futurist in me does what I like to call ‘proper extrapolation’ to reach a sense of culture and vibe to reflect what it is I am trying to create.

I am trying to create a lot lately–especially outside of the NDA work. I’m finding a story in the fantasy writing. I found a way in, but I need to play with the world quite a bit before I get there. I wish is that I could load up all the characters and regions and cultures into a total war simulator and just build it out from the game. That would be really cool… actually, I think there is. Perhaps that becomes a neat summer project for me.

The key is that I am ready to do some technical world building and story shaping in the fantasy world and try to create a world and a story that is worthwhile. I have the titles of the first two volumes of the tale and they directly correspond with what is happening in these volumes. Still, this is not what is going to launch me financially. I think the Justice Engine accomplishes that–if I can actually get around to writing it.

I am mathematically eliminated from the playoffs in two of the three leagues I am in this season. The reason: 9 losses. each league. I cannot give a good reason for what happened–for why I fell apart for extended streaks in these leagues. I didn’t have the same players, but they shared the same fate: sucking. This is a hard lesson to learn in a fun activity–you may be the bottom. It turns out I was bottom two years running in this sad sauce situation. I refuse to make it three. Part of that will be dedicating legitimate hours to study the game and make sure I know who to get and who to back that up with. The only thing I was certain of this season was that Barkley was the guy. I got him via trade, but I made other trades that absolutely tanked my squad in the family league. I was DOA in the money league because of the CMC keeper flatlining my team. I dropped the dude in that keeper league in order to force someone else to shoot their shot on him for next season, giving me a chance to grab a higher draft pick by holding on to a different keeper… best laid plans and all.

I still enjoy it. But it is nothing like the intrigue of the real thing.

On that note, my kid has entered the portal. His head Coach took a better paying position and took the entire coaching staff with him. My boy hopped in the portal the day it was announced. Now he’s looking at options across the board. I know what he wants and I hope he gets the chance to climb to the next level and show he can ball. The tape he put out was solid evidence that he can play. 7300 views on the first day (11 hrs) argue that people are paying attention. It isn’t enough to catch fire, but enough to get this thing moving in the right direction. He has a tough road ahead of him, but he is resilient and talented and will get offers.

I hope his little brother learns from the experience. He needs to learn what it is really like out there.

My son and I were talking about confidence. Particularly we were talking about understanding what it takes to be who you want to be and how that is an actual switch that gets thrwon in your soul. Mine feels like a GFI these days, and the green light popped off. He’s in a better state than me. He made the mental decision to do what he needs to do to get to the league. I can remember being exactly where he was 31 years ago and making the decision to go the other way. It is, for all intents and purposes, a state of mind. I’ve spoken about this in bits and pieces in many posts….

Most recently I listened to a speaker who was discussing arrogance and confidence. The speaker, a social psychologist, talked about how confidence is positive and arrogance is poisonous and how we can see the effects of each in people in our society.

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He has that confidence and understanding of how there is a clear path to be successful. He has the athleticism to be sure. He also is not arrogant as mentioned above. Instead he realizes that most of the individuals who play at the college level are playing. They are not plotting and studying. They are not drawing up plans of how to attack an individual coverage or connecting each opportunity dot to dot in order to form a picture of what the next step could look like. They are instead as I wrote of how I became as a writer:

Over time that confidence (or was it lack of concern or fear) faded and the slow tear away rose in my mind. This is when writing resembled chore more than pleasurable work. Even then I would have occasional nights of sitting at the laptop and being tickled by a turn of phrase or excited to see the words of a conflict unfurl themselves in slow pecking succession.

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Most players lose the ephemeral quality that makes them great. This is the same way in which writers such as myself lose that same quality. It is in how we approach the work and what we believe is possible in any given moment. This is the core difference between, say, Russell Zimmerman and myself or Mel Odom and myself to name two authors who write in the same line as I do yet are far more prolific because they choose to be and have maintained the mental state that allows them to be as they choose.

It all comes down to belief and focus–not as big picture items but in the very minutiae that makes us individuals. It is cellular and, in a sense, undefinable by one such as myself. I am still struggle to unlock it, because if I can then I can get back to where I was when I was a kid sitting on a bus writing stories and wanted to share with the world. I miss that kid. I miss what he could do.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m starting with this one and then going to the post itself, because I had to get it out: People need to get better at patience. There is an entire ecosphere based around the lack of patience. For example, I was trying to see today’s CFP official rankings. I found a dozen articles predicting what would happen and one solitary post simply stating that the rankings are dropped at 7 tonight. So, instead of reading the dozen articles and stewing needlessly about what some pundit with no actual say thinks, I decided to shut that thread off until 7pm. It is easy. Just let yourself experience patience. I guess maybe that isn’t so easy for a society built on the now now now…

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First week of the project, last week of classes. I’m overcoming the challenge of balancing teaching and writing. While my number count is low, this is the research side of the project where I am gathering information and developing headers which I intend to use to further the writing. I am also thinking up the short story component–3000 words there. I have a solid concept and I think it is pretty cool and on the nose for setting a tone for the work. In short, I am cooking.

I like that there are terms from the now generation that I can enjoy. I’m not trying to get with Skibidi or anything like that, but I love the cook. I often think that I’m too old for how I feel mentally. This is especially true of how I define success. I still want crazy things like a batcave. I want all these things that younger men would enjoy experiencing. I want to be at the place in my life where I can have the wealth and still be at an age to enjoy the things that wealth can bring. What does wealth look like to me? 5 million–after taxes. That’s enough to do what I want. I have no idea how to get there…

Butt in chair.

I don’t know how many times I’ve referred to the BIC philosophy since beginning this blog thousands of days ago. It’s been a lot and yet even I still fail to grasp the tidal power of the simple habit. If you put your butt in the chair for a specified amount of time and just write, you will produce work. I am not saying you will produce good (or even decent) work. You can write a bunch of crap for weeks at a time–every single day of crap–until writing something that is not terrible. That is how writing works. Good writing is lightning striking the rod. Writing is lightning in the skies above. You need to keep writing in order for good writing to hit. You cannot expect to just produce good stuff. I’ve written a lot of very bad stuff. Some of it even got out into the world…

Your mental focus is a habit just like everything we do with any regularity stems from habit. Your mental focus and the habit thereof is how good writing happens. It all stems from the idea of production. You have to be able to produce. I’ll say it again. You have to be able to produce. This is the only pathway to success. Anyone that tells you otherwise is gaslighting you for their own purposes.

AI is billed as the greatest shortcut to production, and maybe that will be true one day. AI is not there yet. I spent a little time playing with AI in regards to an unpublished novel I’ve been toying with. I have a solid outline–the kind of thing that a guy like Patterson writes and hands off to another talented writer to turn into a full feature. I handed it off to AI to see what might happen. What happened was terrible. Flat characters, no insight, no vibe whatsoever. I trained that AI to have a sense of what it was like to write this kind of novel and it failed so miserably at the job that I now have the proof (if anecdotal) to argue that you gotta put your butt in chair and write the darn thing yourself.

This is a pep talk. Not just for you but for me as well. I am here in front of a trio of screens staring at windows of data that constitute the start of research for a 12000 word project I intend to complete over the next 15 days. It only happens if I keep my butt in this chair on a regular basis and put in the time and effort to get the words on the page. I’m telling you now because, as we look in the rearview at NaNoWrimo, it doesn’t end because of the fanfare. Writers keep writers going. We find ways to keep ourselves going when nobody else will. We hold ourselves accountable the way we expect our fans to hold us accountable for producing. So, that is what I’m going to do over the next 15. I’m at Zero. I’ll see you at 12k.