10 Minute Rule

I have come to the unfortunate realization that I am in a slump. Long time readers may have noticed this due to the brevity of the posts and, if you were really paying attention, the unfortunate fact that the last 6 posts were numbered with the 2.XXX system, which ended several years ago. Yeah, I’m not all together right yet. It turns out my immediate response to overwhelming stress is to go into a bubble and forget the basic tenets of life outside of my relationship, and even that seems to suffer. So, I need to chill.

How, you may ask? Renewal activities. I’m going to cut my hair. I’m going to turn on a book and play minecraft. I am going to try to spend a chunk of time with my partner and think about nothing but her. The key to all of this is to get the mind on even footing so I can cope with the nonsense rounding the bend. So, after this post it is off for a shave and a cut and a chill session. Tomorrow I’ll get back to working on classes and working out a sensible schedule in which I can write effectively and feel like I am back on track. I may need to tweak the writing schedule a bit more, but the good news is that I am not way off track. I’m just a little behind on the novel and I’m about due for a recap chapter in the bloganovella before the thing really takes off for its final act.

Some Thoughts:

1. As I age, I deal with stress less effectively. I wonder why that is?
2. Part of what I want to make sure I do is get my sticky notes back up on the board, so I can start feeling that sense of accomplishment. Little things such as that are effective.
3. Sadly, Stephen King continues to teach a master class in a genre of fiction he hardly ever writes and I write prolifically and I am straight learning in every chapter of his book.
4. Maybe that is not so sad. No shame in getting better. No shame in learning something brand new.
5. The 2.xxx thing was a real miss. I had to go back and correct all of it 😛
6. I am looking forward to turning the page on August. I’m really done with this month.

First day in the books. I wasn’t going to write about the experience in spite of prodding from my prescient partner, but here we are.

Above all else the top thing I realized in going back to class is that I don’t really know what students care about anymore. It’s been too long away from the face to face to have a real sense of what their lives and wants and needs really look like in this new reality. Moreover, I didn’t ask. I’ll try to fix that the next time in. Beyond that my Canvas course isn’t quite game ready. There are a few tweaks needed to make that part of the experience flow smoothly. So, that one is on me.

Some Thoughts:

1. Truth be told: I need to get back into a settled routine. That is what tomorrow ought to accomplish for me. I need to get back to where I am coming to the page in the morning excited and ready. I’ve drifted from that space.
2. Stephen King’s Billy Summer is an interesting look into the life and work of an assassin. I write about assassins quite often and I’ve never done it quite this way. I’m still learning from the guy.
3. You can always tell when I’m not into the blog that night because it runs quite short. That is the result of slow typing as a mechanism of understanding how little I truly have or want to say.

Twas the night before classes
and all through my brain
I couldn’t stop thinking
tomorrow will be a pain

It comes from my knowing
that its been so long
Thought I was ready for classes
But it turns out I’m wrong

I don’t even have what to do
this first day
I don’t know what to write
Don’t know what to say

I’ll ask them some questions
and make it seem fun
But inside my heart
I just want to run

I used to be good at
this teaching game
But that was two years ago
I bet now I’m lame

The world has moved on to
a place I’ve not found
Students got smarter
I got fat and round

Yet I’ll still hit the classroom
and hope for the best
That should get me started
I’ll bullshit the rest.

In all seriousness, I’m a mess. I don’t have the first bit of a plan of what to do when I see these kids face to face and I have to do it for 4 straight classes. I’m nervous and unprepared and today was highly reflective of that. I didn’t get any writing done and I basically sat around and stared at the screen secretly hoping it would tell me what to do. It didn’t. The face to face stuff is terrifying all of a sudden and it used to represent the backbone of what I did as an instructor. Now I have to go back and relearn how to be a teacher and do it wearing a mask in a room full of masked faces that hide emotion and don’t betray understanding.

It is going to be a long day.

The thing about Stephen King that makes him so enduring to me is the nature of his writing voice. It feels like a guy telling you a story. Even the false steps feel like the meanderings of a storyteller. I hope to attain that control over my writing voice one day so that I can tell stories that feel so present and meaningful. I’ve never felt that way about George RR Martin. He tells epic tales that tend to feel like dirty fantasies. Even back in the Wildcards days he told the same kind of story. This did not change with GoT. If anything he got worse. He also steals a lot. As my partner continues to work her way through the Dune series (I quit after book 2) I see more and more of Heberts footprints in all of GoT. The characters, the situations, all of it is straight robbed from Dune and fancied up with a lot of sex and a few Dragons.

I am no longer impressed.

I am, however, hoping to avoid that same kind of thievery as I build my fantasy world from the ground up with a careful attention to the details of how and why. I’m looking forward to what I can create.

Some Thoughts:

1. The new update is still a hot mess. I’m strongly considering changing themes in order to compensate.

As I write this I’m noticing a notification from my iPhone that one of my passwords appeared in a data leak. That isn’t ideal. What is also not ideal is the amount of time between bloganovella posts. That has to be corrected. No, not tonight. I’m on the phone again fresh off my first round of madden 22 and feeling weird about the experience. Let’s start with the fact that I had to be told what buttons to push to load into the game… I’m worried about my mental health. I have gaps that shouldn’t be there and appear more often than they have in the past. It troubles me.

Madden 22 troubles me. Basically it’s a fresh paint job on a game that needed real upgrades and repairs. It didn’t get any of that at the game level for current generation. There was supposedly work done at the next gen level but I can’t find a ps5 under $800–twice the value of the thing—so no. What I’ve seen of the game so far is a weak attempt to replicate the success of 2k sports’ nba franchise by monetizing the single play story mode. They worked to integrate the single player intro story with the Yard mode and even create what resembles a MyCareer but that isn’t what people play Madden for. The stuff we want—the on field and franchise is not good. More on the franchise later as I do a real deep dive. Tonight I’m only prepared to offer a grade: C. It passes but only because it added the new players and I happen to enjoy playing… less so as the years go by and the game retreats into sadness.

As part of the new writing strategy I am working on multiple projects at once. It gives me a day or two a week to not think about the novel and get caught up in going down a wrong path–especially in this intense layout and brainstorming phase. That brings me to Fantasy Day, in which I am taking the day to think about about a project entirely different from science fiction. The fantasy project is a culmination of ideas I’ve been living with since the 1st grade. Now a lot of those ideas are clearly evolved or have been removed from consideration as a result of learning more about medieval culture and reading fantasy over the years. I feel that I’ve come to a point where I am ready to build the world I’ve always wanted to build. So, every week I am taking a day to hop into fantasy land and see what I can come up with.

Some Thoughts:

1. School is about to hit come Monday and I’m not there yet…

Safe to say I’ve been in a lurch the past few days. Call it a rough transition. Between some body issues hampering me (kneck and back because I’m old as crap) and preparing to move headlong into a semester I’m not quite prepared to begin, I’ve been a bit of a mess. Thankfully I have a partner that keeps me grounded. I’m probably not the best version of myself for her lately either, and that is something else to work on. People don’t seem to be the best versions of themselves right now. Just this morning I found myself in Walmart and in the middle of a series of unfortunate moments; each desperate in their own way. It started with the man who’d wet his pants. I felt bad for the guy, but he tried to act like it didn’t happen. He openly worked to pretend there was nothing going on and when people did look he said, “Nothing to see here.” proving that he knew what there was to see. I want to imagine he was there to grab new pants, but I didn’t stay in the moment long enough to find out. Later I wound up in a conversation with a wheelchair bound worker who really just wanted to have a conversation with someone. I didn’t want it to be me, and that was tough, because I have always had a hard time breaking away from those moments. There is something about people who need people that has always made me want to stick around and be supportive. Put that on my gravestone: He was supportive.

It’s something at least.

Normally this would’ve been an evening of football, but Covid took that from us this eve. Politics did additional damage at the high school level as several players transferring to the school were ruled ineligible to play for the season. These ineligibilities were handed down unfairly from school to school as some kids who transferred were not allowed to play and other who transferred–often from the same school but to other, more football-known programs were allowed to play immediately. There are lawsuits in the work as I speak. Football is crazy. I think it may finally be getting to be too much.

I haven’t said too much but I’ve said enough for now. Ten minutes, you know.

Let’s get right into it. I believe the TE position is where a fantasy coach can make a lot of points. However, I also believe that the position is a late draft position and needs to be handled after QB and RB but before Defense and WR. Yep. Take the qbs and backs early and then go back for the pass catchers. I know, I play PPR so what the hell? Here’s the truth: There are a lot of solid pass catchers out there. 8 guys had 100+ catches. 15 had 80+ and that tells me I can wait for a 25+ point seasonal difference. I can find someone in round three who can catch, but can I find someone in round 3 to run the ball effectively or throw it?

Tight End

Waller and Kelce are an absolute lock, but Dalton Shultz caught 63 balls last year, people! That was on only 89 targets. He’s quality points. I believe that you should be looking for guys like that who will get looks especially when their team has a bad D like the Cowboys do. He’s a guy to look for. Any others? Yeah, I have a few sleepers. One of them is the mad dropper Evan Engram. He has some serious hands issues from time to time, but he has to be fantastic this season if he wants to get extended. So, he will be. I trust that Danny Dimes has learned to bailout faster and that will put Engram in a space with a linebacker who doesn’t really have a chance.

late Tuesday eve and I am blogging from the phone because I didn’t get it done in the office earlier in the day. I didn’t get a lot of what I wanted done today but I do feel like I made progress. I got a little bit off my plate and found myself a step closer to creating a mental schedule that makes sense. Now I need to execute and get on page with what I need to be doing every day and not slipping back into the land of not writing…

of course I am also blogging from bed so…

it feels like I have a lot of loose threads being tugged and in need to tie them up as I roll into the first week of classes. I’m not properly excited for the school stuff—largely because I am not properly prepared. I expect to get the office back in shape tomorrow and then sketch out a schedule where I can be productive and have the time with my partner and family I want and even carve out a little me time that isn’t writing—read: game

I stumbled into a chain of progressively more awkward conversations tonight only realizing three in that they were in fact the same conversation with the same purpose, though the subject matter shifted. What it was really about was an outpouring of negativity. The boys in question were talking badly about everything as if as a part of an exercise to get it out of their system. I hope it worked. My inclusion in the conversation only made it tougher for what they were apparently trying to accomplish. I suppose their vocal release is the equivalent of how I play some video games. I need to get it out of my system and until I do it just builds up and makes me a worse human being. Instead of calling this the negativity cycle I probably should have called it outlets, because thats what I am really talking about and what is really going on in these interactions.

Some Thoughts:

1. Tripping and stressed out tonight. No clue what brought it on. I just need to get out of that cycle.
2. Looking forward to practice tomorrow.
3. Not looking forward to Madden so much. The entire thing is loosing its luster. I think they’ve gone in a wrong direction by focusing on next gen and forgetting the millions who still play current gen. It is a mess.