10 Minute Rule

I’m writing this as the fourth quarter rolls in the ISU v. UNI game. My Cyclones are up by six thanks to a pair of field goals. My kids lost earlier in the week at the high school level and now I am watching my alma mater do their thing on a Saturday. I haven’t watched college football in a very long time. I haven’t had the opportunity to watch Cyclone football for an even longer time. It feels good to see the team look good and play good and I love that the program has evolved from my old ass era to become a top 10 team. It reminds me of how old I am and reminds me of being a part of something that would eventually rise and have a shining moment.

Football is a fundamental part of my existence and largely will be for the rest of my brief time on this planet (brief as in probably only 70-90 years if I am healthy and medtech catches up with the sci-fi version of where it should be now). I want to be able to watch the games and play the video games for as long as possible, but the in-person relationship is already fading as it peaks. Weird, right? I have two kids on Varsity and one of them is a senior. I only get to see him a few more games. His brother has a few good years ahead of him, but also doubles as a JV player. I don’t even plan on going to those games beyond the ones that match up with the youth practices. As for the youth stuff, my youngest is in his last season of youth to be followed by a year off of tackle and then back into it as a freshman. I won’t be going to all of his games either, which means it is winding down for me.

That time in the stands and on the sideline is being replaced, but by what is yet to be determined. Whatever that is, I want it built around a relationship with my partner. We’ll grow together.

I’m heading into a 24 day novel revision. That equates to 5 chapters every six days. That equates to one day for layout for the week and 1 chapter a day in addition to the 4 layout days. This means no days off, which is new, because I am becoming accustomed to taking Saturday’s off. I suppose I could entirely eliminate that planning and review day and still have my Saturday cheat day. What really matters is that I am deep into a revision, which is a fairly new process for me. I tend to put out drafts that aren’t heavily revised post writing. It’s always been a bit of a bad look on my part, so this new way is the cool way. Moreover, I feel very strongly that I can improve this novel immensely by simply sitting down and thinking through the mistakes I’ve made throughout and fixing them until this is not only a coherent story, but one that fields a great deal of emotional understanding that the reader will be able to connect with.

This story did not initially come from the heart. I was telling an adventure tale that hit all the notes of high and raucous adventure but failed in its basic responsibility to tell a story that mattered. The core of it is there, and now it is my responsibility to crack that core open and spill feelings into it.

Storytelling can be very reflective. I am in a place emotionally where I feel I have a lot to work with when it comes to understanding the dynamics of family and of partnerships. This story should be a reflection of that, and of loss, and it also should have quite a bit more mystery than it presently is working with. So, that is the next big step. I need to get all three into the manuscript and I need to help the reader get to know how these characters are feeling.

Long night. The nights the boys play football are going to be long, because I need to pick them up post game and that usually isn’t until around 11pm. It is a day that usually begins around 6 am, so I am awake and active for an extremely long time. I am tired and I’m still not at the point where I can pick up the boys. That will be in a few minutes, so there’s that. It means another trip out and another opportunity to face the demons of the car accident. I feel incredibly fortunate to be healthy and alive and able to purchase another vehicle. Many people don’t have my situation. That situation is emotionally ruined at this point in my life, but I still feel lucky to have experienced all that I have thus far.

Hey, maybe the rest works out too.

I wish I had the ability to take a step back from my life and truly see it from an outside perspective. I believe doing so would allow me to truly take in the breadth of the luck and goodwill that has powered me throughout the years. I struggle with recognizing, at times, how lucky and blessed I’ve been thus far. To walk away from a car accident again without injury is a testament to the beauty of life I’ve been blessed with.

So, to look at it all and to see how difficult and trying that daily life has become makes me want to have a way to, at the end of the day, be reminded of how grateful I should be for all of that. I am grateful, but I am also overwhelmed, and I am also ill equipped for dealing with my stress in a communicable way. Perhaps that is what makes me a writer–perhaps I need and use that stress as the fuel for story, and when I reach into the pit of all of it I find the real story and that is what seeps through–no matter the context. Perhaps that is ultimately how I deal and heal.

The good news: I’m alive.
The bad: I no longer have a car.
I’ve lost two over the course of Covid-19. This latest one was lost to a 2 car collision which was entirely my fault. My brakes went out. What’s worse, the car told me it was going to happen. I’m sure I’ll be sore in the morning and probably suffered a concussion. The entire front end of my car caved in on impact, and as I write this I can feel the adrenaline draining out of me. It is going to be quite the evening.

It didn’t happen very long ago. In fact, it was less than an hour ago that this all went down. I was a few blocks from home, driving the short road to the highway and the truck in front of me stopped. Traffic. I stopped. At least I tried to stop. My car didn’t respond. I slammed the brakes all the way down and the next sound I heard was the thud of my car smashing headlong into the back of a truck. The truck was entirely undamaged. My front end was bent into a V shape. One thing about American trucks: They don’t break from wrecks.

Now I am in that space where I don’t really know what to do next. I contacted insurance, which is a terrible company BTW (Geico sucks and I was ready to change). The app glitched on me so I don’t really know where I am at in that process, and I bet they won’t cover an accident I caused anyhow. So, now I am without a car and too broke to really buy a new one anyhow. I suppose I can drum up enough credit to lease something for a short while and go from there. Whatever I do, I ought to figure it out on the sooner side of the spectrum.

Long day. I found myself mired in more work than is really needed, because I am woefully behind on a number of things that are achieving critical mass. First and foremost, I need to be in the classroom tomorrow and be able to deliver several different lessons that just are not put together as well as they need to be right now. To make matters worse, I seriously gassed out this afternoon. I hit a hard wall where I could not do any more work. What deepens that drama is the fact that my computer crashed yesterday (and almost again today) and as a result a lot of what I did today was rebuilding what was lost.

None of what I am talking about is novel work. I didn’t write a single word on the novel today and I desperately need to in order to stay on schedule. I am legit struggling. So, what to do? Not sure. I listened to some meditative music as I worked today, and I think that it helped. However, I need more butt in chair time, and I am short on that for certain. The scheduling has yet to work out the way it needs to. I hope it does sooner than later.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am seriously wondering why the interface looks different depending on which mac I use. I find this sus….
2. I need to buy more work clothes.

1. I just don’t have it in me tonight to get to the bloganovella. Let’s hope I kick off Monday the proper way and get back deep into the words. I truly need to. I’m on Chapter a week status now, so I don’t have a lot of time or energy to screw off.
2. Jake Paul won that fight. Sad that it happened because he gets to keep running his mouth. People love that kid for reasons I will never understand–the way I will never understand Qanon or be down with it. Maybe he should fight an actual boxer now? That or stop claiming to be an actual boxer or just climb in the MMA ring and get rocked.
3. Biden deserves the criticism. We ought to be criticizing our leadership when our soldiers are getting killed. Everyone is so amped up about fault and trying to push past all the stuff that Trump did to put us in this difficult position and trying to get Biden to break that deal we–the USA–made. Good for him for sticking to the deal. Guess what? If he didn’t there would’ve been criticism there as well.
4. Things are not the best in the land of Talis, and honestly I don’t know when they will be good again or really understand the steps needed to get there. I’ll keep trying to communicate and be better within myself.
5. Week 2 of classes is rolling up like Hurricane Ida.

This is entirely theoretical but I am thinking I should get back to the bloganovella tomorrow. I need to get moving on that and try to recraft a semblance of normalcy in a life that has been disrupted by a return to a version of near-normalcy in the resumption of classes and especially face to face classes where I am actually leaving the house and going out into the world for more than the end of week kid pickup and the occasional date or even trip to the store. For one, I’m wearing clothes for professional reasons and that requires me to have such things. This is a growing issue as I roll into week two with basically nothing to wear.

Some Thoughts:

1. I figure I ought to just jump right into the thoughts because I am struggling stringing together anything more coherent than a paragraph lately. This is why it has been so long since real creative stuff has come out.
2. I don’t have thoughts though…

I am writing this primarily as a way to understand it in my own head. I have not been in the classroom in a very long time and especially at the end there it was less about the structure and content than it was about creating an environment in which students were encouraged to share their thoughts. I teach with my partner in a learning community that meets once a week and needs a definitive structure that creates space for learning and understanding but also checks off marks on the ‘what should they be learning’ sheet every time they are in the classroom. I am struggling tremendously with this to the point where I don’t know that my partner really enjoys working with me anymore or even wants to as a result of my inability to wrap my head around creating a daily/weekly in-class experience with her. That WITH is an important delineator in all of this. I am having trouble working WITH her and WITH other humans in general in regards to designing learning, because I have not done it in a while, because I am becoming fairly insecure about my contributions, and because I am trying all too hard not to rock the boat or do anything contrary.

Frankly, I don’t know how to solve this issue. The one thing I think I want to start doing is beginning class with a slide that shows what we want them to learn/know by the time they leave the room that day and then work backwards in our planning towards understanding how we hit those goals in a way that is engaging and fun. I’ve largely forgotten how to have fun in class, and that sucks. I’m not the teacher I once was, and I want to get back to that.

Some Thoughts:

1. New keyboard. I hate it. I don’t think it is going to work out. The keys and key placements are far too confined for these long yet fat fingers and I wind up missing letters or hitting the wrong ones entirely. I will need to find a way to switch the wireless dongle from this keyboard to one that actually works for me.

This is the last time I get to talk to you all before the 3 drafts begin. My position in each is, well, terrible. The worst probably being the middle slot in the Beach Blanket Draft where I know the draft will snake back to me absent most of the players I wanted in the early rounds. I have the fourth pick there, which leaves me probably grabbing a running back I didn’t want. The thing I struggle with most in fantasy drafts is the acceptance that I need to pick players that the consensus thinks are good but I just don’t support. Dalvin Cook is a wonderful example of that. I’d rather grab King Henry and will if given the chance.

The key to each of these drafts is being able to recognize who is going to have opportunities beyond the well known and well worn names. It is also being able to take a chance on people who may let you down. Players like Jameis Winston may wind up being legit or may end up on the bench. Sam Darnold may give you solid numbers for a few games before he crashes. This is the fun of fantasy–you gotta watch and react and make moves very quickly. Of course, this is all for fun and money and a wonderful way to keep us folk glued to our seats for games we otherwise would not care about.

There are certainly a ton of those in the NFL. After all, without fantasy who would care about the Panthers?