10 Minute Rule

Consistency. There’s a word/term I am surpassingly good at executing. I am consistently inconsistent. In fact, if I was consistent, I would be 7 novels deep as opposed to two. I would not again be rewriting the second one and would also not be stuck on the breakout one or anything at all, because when you do a thin enough, there are more days you’re good at doing it than there are days that you are bad at doing it. Take this bog for example. I’ve missed eight days over the past decade and a half. So, in that sense, I am a lot better at doing it than not. In fact, the last time I missed a post was 241 days ago. A Monday, apparently. March 10th 2025. It feels like I’ve lived an entire life since that day. I don’t know what I was doing back then at all. I can tell you what I wrote the day after…

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.

Each year feels like I am living an entire life as of late. Each year is a cycle of madness and wonder and my own inconsistency. I don’t remember the man who missed a blog after 828 days and only ten days before his 50th. Heck, I’ve been married and toured the planet since then. What I haven’t done is write enough. So, that is the thing to consider. What we are consistent in is what we are defined by. I am defined by my inconsistency. I am defined by the lapses and restarts as opposed to steady production.

The beauty of life is that we get to redefine ourselves within a window of reason. I can be consistent in my habits and health, though I have not. It will be hard to do, but it will be worth it. I just need to have the courage and the will to follow through. Thus far, I have not. So, what is it going to take? Knowing my life is shorter ahead than it is behind hasn’t done that for me. So, what will? How do I convince my spirit to sing in tune? I suppose if I knew the answer, my financial woes would be gone.

Some Thoughts:

1. What’s crazy about the financial woes is that it would not take much to clear the deck of all of it. Unfortunately, that extra little bit we need to be where we want to be always is just beyond our financial reach.

This is the fifth of November and the 36th day of the government shutdown, I believe. Trump is screaming for the Republicans to kill the filibuster in order to put the government back in business and pass all kinds of legislation. “They won’t be able to stop us” he says, but this is terrifying to Republicans, because they won’t be able to stop democrats once things swing the other way. IF things ever swing the other way. We got the first signs that they might with a series of elections that went the democratic way. The Mamdani election in particular pointed to a people more interested in issues than party. As a native New Yorker, I was proud to see the city raise up and try to move towards affordability. Trump, predictably, threatened the man post victory.

Politics, right? That was the entire argument of V for Vendetta. That film is very punk, and I’ve been trying to clearly understand how to write punk characters for a while now. I’m not sure I’ve done a good job of it. As I am passing through the latest novel of mine, I am reading for punk, and wondering if I got it right. Maybe punk is changing. More likely, my understanding of it is changing.

My understanding of a lot of this world is changing and growing as the weeks and days and years slide by. As I grow, I learn and that learning rebuilds my internal writing compass. It makes me a better storyteller to see how the world works and how it doesn’t.

I dang near blew it this week. I nearly lost both matches thanks to choices made. In one I was going to bench the Giants TE, and didn’t. His 9 points made the difference. In the other league I did bench Rico Dowdle. I’ll never do it again. Fortunately, my opponent’s entire team sold and saved me. He was projected 150. He landed on 132. I landed on 137. I lost 20 points over the choice to bench Dowdle. I won both matches.

That’s luck. This post is about strategy.

In a standard 12-man league you need to dig really deeply in order to find players worth starting. Now that we’re deep in the Byes, every week is about finding a streamer who can make a few points. The Athletic by the NYT has a solid grasp of this fact. They’re harping on Trey Benson of AZ as being a catch. They also think Devin Singletary is worth a pick up. He isn’t. I haven’t respected the dude since he took Barkley’s number. You let 26 sit a year. Maybe two. That’s how it ought to be. He took it before the free agency period was cold. He earned my disrespect that day. Oh, and he’s kinda washed too.

Devin Neal isn’t washed, but Alvin Kamara might be. The lack of points over the past few games has been telling. The Saints are not doing well as a team. They don’t appear to have a plan. Tyler Shough is not the plan. Don’t get him as a bye option. There’s a chance he isn’t the option for the rest of the season.

Back to my mistake. Troy Franklin was my mistake. I had the idea he was going to outscore Dowdle. In my twelve man league, I am desperate for WR help. I have two different Bucs wr’s and cannot rely on both of them. So, look to the Tennessee Wr’s if you can. Dike, in particular. If you’re lucky, Shaheed (traded to Seattle) is going to be available. Snatch him up.

Well, I got things done. I can sleep well tonight knowing that I did some of the things I needed to do. What’s going to keep me up (or wake me in the dead of night) is what did not get done and continues not to get done. The writing for one. I’m living at a negative in terms of getting through all of the stuff I want and need to do, and it has a lot to do with how I spend my hours. I ought to be grading right now, but I am not. I’m learning more and more about what is required at work, as well as the time needed to accomplish this and it creates a block of time needed. The more blocks that form, the more my life is squished into the margins.

What is that life, anyhow?

I am not sure. I suppose the writing and the research that goes around the writing alongside watching shows and doing projects would constitute a life. My life with the Lady Talis is an entirely separate matter, as one cannot have a life together composed of things that you do alone. I believe there is a set of things people do for self and that is a compartment of a larger life. In this matter I am talking about that compartment. It grows tiny as I find there is more and more to be done, and I have less and less energy to do such things that bring me joy.

“It’s easy to clap when it’s going well, but when all hell breaks loose, ain’t nobody there but the criticism and the negativity on social. I’m trying to do a great job of being a good steward of my relationship with these young men and helping them progress the right way.” ~ Deion Sanders

I’m not one of those people waiting for Prime to fail. I can be a Monday Morning QB at times–I tend to look at my kid’s High School team and think, “this is a badly coached team” and I’ve worked to step back from that. It is easy to be on the outside of something and decide that you know the root cause of the bad. In terms of the Colorado Football team, there is a lot of bad. There is also a lot of good. For starters, he took full responsibility for what happened. He shielded his coordinators and his players from dealing with the press.

The game sucked. Last week sucked. They’ve been sliding, and while he takes responsibility for it, a lot of it is on these players. Prime said, “thinking that you’re doing the right things, and you’re not.” I found that idea particularly on point and particularly damning. It is something that can be seen from the outside at times. When Ray Lewis went into that locker room he said that it wasn’t a team. My own son, who’ve I asked about the culture of that team, says he sees what it going on from connections he has in state, and it is about that locker room. It is about that respect and trust and relationships.

There is something going on in Boulder and it isn’t good. Those who hate are rejoicing in the moment. They want to see him gone and that will make them feel better–the way it has for other operations this season. There is a ton of turnover out there. What crushes me is how the hate (and the media is often an amplifier for that hate–especially the unchecked social media) pushes people to make decisions. I don’t know what will happen in Colorado, but I do know that there will be a lot of noise and a lot of clamoring for Prime to get fired. Two huge losses on top of a losing season. This is year 3–usually the turn around year or progress year in a program. However, for this org, it is clearly a fresh rebuild. They haven’t found the answer at QB. The secondary is terrible. This team needs to come together now more than ever. Unfortunately, I see them falling apart.

What I want to see is who is left after the fall. Those are the Dogs who will determine the future.

Watching your kids play football can be tough. On the one hand I am proud and grateful that my boys have the opportunity to play on a high level. One at the High School level and one at the FCS d1 level. I believe these kids are both capable of power 4 football and, eventually, the league. I’m a dad, so I am supposed to believe in them. I am also supposed to be a realist. That part of me says that one needs to play faster and both need to get bigger. When I look at what happened over the past two days, It makes me realize only more that teams are smart and they aren’t going to do the things that are needed to highlight my boys. In the case of the High schooler, he gets opportunities. He doesn’t get many so he needs to hunt his down. He needs to play faster to get there. He has one game left this season before he goes off into the spring of 7s (and track) and summer of camps. He’s running out of time.

The college kid does not get targeted very often. He’s a very good coverage corner, so he doesn’t get picked on by QBs who know they can attack the middle or the other side of the field. They attacked one guy this week and it shows. That guy wasn’t him.

This is a 6 am edition of the ten minute rule, because my dog woke me up at 4 in the morning because the Amazon driver was at the door dropping off a package that I’d completely forgotten I’d ordered and had no idea was an overnight delivery. It was a new harness for said dog, bringing this entire thing full circle. Welcome to my life. It isn’t as hard as some. It isn’t as easy as others. It has frills, and occasionally those frills cost me time and sleep.

I’m awake now though. Still. I abandoned the bed an hour after trying to return, because the Lady Talis could feel every toss and turn and, provided access to a shiv, might have killed me. I would have accepted my death on the spot. That’s fair. So, I left. So, I’m here. I did homework for a while, played pokemon online, read a few articles about football and a few more about how Trump is going to ruin the USA (too late, btw, he already accelerated our downfall tenfold). All of that put me in a proper mind to recognize the constant despair that is the daily life here.

I live in a culdesac. The people in this culdesac are largely retired. They are in the twilight of their lives. The ones that aren’t don’t leave their homes during daylight hours. I am not suggesting they are vampires. They could just have really nice backyards. My kids (who still live here) also do not leave. Everyone in this area seems content with where they are, as if this is the destination and the journey is over. I don’t feel like that. I feel like I’m stuck in neutral here. Maybe everyone else feels that and just accepts it. I’m not here for that.

I am not sure what I’m really here for at this point. It is a daily grind that results in a paycheck to continue the daily grind. Perhaps its time to go grind elsewhere, and find that life can flourish outside of grind… definitely seems to flourish outside of here.

Recently I began compiling all of my ‘On Writing’ posts into a singular file and processing them through Chat GPT to find ‘themes’. The goal here is to take another step towards writing my book on writing. No, I’m not successful enough to sell it. That doesn’t meant that I won’t try. There is a robust book economy out there on amazon that might earn me fifteen or twenty bucks for getting my thoughts together. Once I can get it all organized and laid out, I think there is enough there to start to build on those core ideas and posts to develop what I am ultimately after: A foundational guide on developing a writing life. This guide is probably going to have levels/sequels. I don’t think there is one writing life. I think it is modular and based on the time you have to devote to that sort of life. I don’t work at the level of King and I have still produced multiple novels, novelettes and novellas. I’ve even sold a few of them. So, it works for me. I think it can work for others.

I have a structure in mind of how to design/create these. Based on the feedback showing me what I most often talk about, it isn’t how to write but when and how often. That truism ought to be further explored over the next year as I develop this alongside the other five or six projects I have on my mind. In fact, today is largely about getting a schedule and putting in the time to develop a sense of when X, Y, Z, etc are going to be done, so I can ride the backtrail of that expectation to this singular point of origin, learning how these things are developed along the way.

If I can teach myself how to do it effectively, I can teach someone else. I know this, because I am a stubborn SOB who is often too smart for his own good. By smart I mean sly and contrarian. Just like my six shit-ass kids.

Some Thoughts:

1. Learning about the foundations of the writing craft reminds me that I don’t really want to learn about someone else’s foundations. I am not entirely clear on how that will help me at this point. Thirty years ago, sure. I’ve walked too far down the path to not have a solid starting point leading to my ultimate writing destination.
2. Two weeks of High School football left. @whee! I’m looking forward to it being in the past for now and for my kid to finally get a car so he can drive himself next season. It’s part of growing up. It is also part of not wearing me down.

I gotta say, the internet is a lousy place to spend your time. Sure, there is a ton of wonderful out there, but there is a lot more madness, despair, and straight up false information. That last bit is probably the worst. There is a long standing theory that most of the internet is bot activity–pre-AI algorithms roaming around and churning up madness. Maybe it wasn’t but with the proliferation of click farms and high end digital production, there is more fake than real. You can hardly trust the news anymore. In truth, you can decide what news you want to believe and there is a stream of it out there just for you. There is also a version of any reality you want to reside in. I’m not sure that is a bad thing, so long as you stay in that reality. This was, after all, the main idea behind Ready, Player 1.

The book (and later movie) told of a digital utopia masterminded by a singular corporation through an extensive online realm which simulated a living universe. The ‘verse had a world game built in where you could solve a puzzle and win, well, everything. However, it was the casuals (as it always is) who powered that world. It was the scores of players who didn’t play that world game and instead preferred to lean into different kinds of games and realities, escaping the dark and dreary one that they actually existed in. We’re not there yet. We have to get past this whole AR era, but that deep digital era is definitely coming. Art imitates life, some say. Art preludes life when it comes to science fiction.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking about the opportunity to buy a tiny house and power it through solar so I can escape into a space we control. That seems to be the only way these days… very sci fi.

I made it through day one of two. The two day in class format gives me more time to plan and develop an excellent presentation to those students for the day I am with them. Some instructors believe there are better opportunities to connect with more touch points, and I get that. I used to stand by that, but I no longer do. Now I believe that students are looking forward to that entertainment hour and they want to get on with their lives and enjoy the one moment in the space–if they can. Not sure that they all can, but that’s the new goal. I want to give my students a moment.

Turns out I’m really into moments anymore.