10 Minute Rule

I decided to write first thing this morning–mostly to keep me off of Madden. I have a real love-hate relationship with that all-consuming game right now. I turned the min-speed slider all the way down to zero in order to express that some players are just faster than others. I was really getting tired of watching 99 speed players be chased down from behind by players with 88 or lower speed and far less acceleration. Travesty. Trash.

Madden is meant to make me happy. Video Games fall into a shrinking category of things that perform that function. I’ve been trying to reshape my psyche around the things that bring joy. Thus far the work is difficult with little of the expected reward. Instead it feels like spring cleaning for the soul but without the satisfying cleanliness at the end. 

I am likely to base my next character sketch on this idea. I’ll make him an emotional hoarder. He keeps ideas and thoughts and plans–often in the form of baubles that trigger the memory/emotion. Therefore his space winds up remarkably cluttered–at least to his mind–while to everyone else it is just a typically male (read: messy) space. 

Some Thoughts:

1. 351 didn’t publish because I didn’t hit publish twice. I really dislike that feature of the new Gutenberg editor for wordpress. In truth, I cannot point to much I like about the new editor. I was happy with what I had before, and it also appeared to be easier to embed code into the former interface than this strange text box-driven environment. However, I haven’t tried so there’s that.
2. Starting the sports season — 8 regular season football games (7 left for one kid!), 8 soccer games, 7 more High School football games. The bulk of the season should be over by Halloween. This is going to cause strain on a lot of different areas–including my partnership. Yet, when I think about the things that really bring me joy I must number watching my kids excel at sports high on the list… It would be different if they sucked. Perhaps the balance is to have a sports season such as this and then a matching stretch of months where there is none of this rigamarole. Three months on and then three off with some less drastic balance in between.
3. I will make sure to hit publish twice this time.

The worst thing that I can have is free time on my hands. Given the time I will obsess over the things I cannot change or decipher. It could be anything. Today it is youth football–specifically not knowing the scores of games that I want to know the scores for. I can wait till tomorrow. I don’t want to. I’m curious and I feel like this is a minor thing I can sink my mind into easily.

In other words, I am between stories and projects. If I am so quick to consume myself with useless nonsense, the key to my productivity is to constantly stay on task and create something of value as often as possible. I could have been writing a story today. Instead I played a lot of Madden, looked up youth football scores for the better part of an hour, and spent more time thinking about what those scores could possibly mean. 

I wasted time. I waste time a lot and I want to be better about how I use my hours on this plane of existence.

Some Thoughts:

1. RIP John McCain. I liked the guy. I felt he stood up for what he believed in and what I felt was good for our people and this country. I didn’t always agree with his policies, but he was a good man and a good leader. He wasn’t a piece of dookie like the guy we all put in the office now.
2. Long day. Did not do much with it. I did however learn that I am convinced that I will lose weight faster by being in the heat and exerting myself a little. That just makes sense.
3. I had noodles today and cheated a little on my diet. It did not end well.

I was really tired last night. As I was trying to repost the blog from yesterday I found myself reading over it and noticed the writing mistakes. This is the hallmark of first drafts and of sleep-drunk writing sessions. Knowing what does not work helps me to focus in on what does work. Lately I have taken to using the sounds of rain and thunder as a white noise backdrop to my writing time. This is a better measure than music (which can distract and often mellow) and YouTube (which completely co-opts my attention). The method is working and I believe that I am starting to adopt a rhythm in terms of when and how I write. It is working to make me fall back into the process and be less concerned with the outcome. 

Writing is a process. It is the slow pressure build and boil off of life to me. I get to sit in a space and create something almost every day, and every day that I do I am proud of myself for being able to get there. Think about that for a second: How many times a day do you really think about being proud of yourself. Most things are either disappointment or expectation. Video games are a perfect example of this. I expect to win a game of Madden. I am disappointed when I lose. The joy of winning comes from knowing I should win and fulfilling that prophecy and not from any particular innate joy of the process of winning. Here as a writer I am proud of the process and I am working to place as little expectation as possible on the outcome–at least in terms of a first draft. 

What saddled me with worry and guilt was the concept that the first draft needed to be the finished draft. It hardly ever reached that standard, but I sent out first drafts all the time. In fact I published so many first drafts that I am either an exceptional author or I am not the only one practicing this way, thus lowering the overall quality of published writing across the spectrum. I think it is B. 

If it is B, imagine the upper hand I get with a well revised draft!

Due to technical issues, this did not post last night…

Recently the Oakland Raiders cut a 2nd round pick. This is a rare
occurrence. When a team invests a high level pick such as a 2 or 1 they commit to seeing that effort out. The Raiders have behaved more like an unemotional video game than the wild ideas of a group of curious fans.

It is my experience that when a first rounder goes bust we hear about that individual for some time. The Jets have been holding on to a Linebacker who has been hurt more than healthy over the past few years. Teams still think RGIII has something left. Other qb fails (Jared Lorensen, anyone?) become stories of failure and hopefully redemption. 

The story is what matters and by cutting the 2nd rounder, The Raiders end that story but start a new one: This is a team willing to cut ties with anyone in order to get to where they want to be. That’s Madden mode. That is Gruden Mode. 

A week into the new way and I am still searching for a rhythm. Part of the issue is the way things are constantly changing. It is all moving pieces and not ever knowing exactly what is expected tomorrow. I’ve already had to shift my writing schedule back an hour. Now 10-12 feels more like a comfort zone than the 9-11 initial option offered. It is a question of responsibilities and finding holes in the schedule (like on the field) where I can just sit down and have my moments. 

I don’t expect the world from myself this time. I expect to settle in and remember how to grind. I will learn from that grind and hopefully make better choices and develop better habits. That is more realistic than trying to shoot the moon every time. 

Some Thoughts:

1. The openly two-faced nature of politics is absolutely showing itself as forces begin scripting their stories behind the murder of a young Iowa girl and the once unrelated conviction of two Trump aides. These represent the opposite sides of the political divide.
2. Picked out a gift for the 14 yr old. It is a bit lavish, but I think the personal xbox really does benefit everyone. Now to move everything into one space and wire it up nicely…

I’m in bed earlier than usual, because I have a 4:45 wake up call in order to get my mid kid to practice pickup by 5:15. He is doing the equivalent of two-a-days three times a week in order to fit in his two main sports. He plays soccer and football and hopefully will be able to go to the next level in one or both and then to the level beyond that if possible. I’d love to see him use his foot skills to become a high school kicker and soccer player and then scholarship in both areas in order to cover the cost of college. Once in college I would like to see him find his way and be happy. I want that for all my kids. I found it myself, but it took a damn long time. Up till a few years ago, in fact. 

As I reflect on my happy I find that this diet is really harshing my mellow (more than the leaky faucet). By reducing my meals to basically walnuts and coffee a few times a day I am limiting the nutrients that flood into me when I am eating well. The lack of nutrition shows so much that I am starting to pick up on it. Maybe the best plan is some sleep and good food in the early morning.

Some Thoughts:

1. My leaky faucet is going to cost me my pension. Seriously, it has to be costing a fortune, but I have yet to find the time/energy to fix it.

Sitting here at the loading screen for Hard Knocks and considering my relationship with the manufactured reality of football vs. the true reality. Hard Knocks is reality tv designed to make a story of rookies and veterans returning to their jobs. I like it. I like the storylines. I’ve read and watched enough narratives to recognize how these things will go and what it is I get out of them. This is going to be about returning heroes, new hope, and an underdog. All of them are that way and most stories contain trace elements of those pieces. Still, that I find more interest in the unreality than the reality does say a bunch about my relationship with the sport. The reality is a disappointment. Two of my three boys are finding themselves in the path of such disappointment. For the eldest, this comes in the form of realizing you are not good enough, fast enough, or big enough to play (and actually get PT) at the Tier One High School level. For the mid kid it is recognizing that what you were sold as an all star organization is really just bad pre-game coaching and empty promises.

I will say, I am still debating offering some (albeit unwanted) advice to the mid-kid’s coaching staff. I am good at seeing things from a distance (Quality Control) and I can see how a few well-placed moves can really open up the opportunities and play into the skillsets of the talent that team has. I can offer up 6 plays that are based around the idea of what they say they want to do, but in a fashion that works with a lot of what they have already put together. 

I don’t know that I should.

I want to. I want to drop data and move along, and maybe that is just me pretending–injecting the elements of unreality into the reality the kids face in order to help things meet in the middle. Or maybe I just think I know better. 

This is going to be a rant. Well, it is going to be several. I want to start with the idea of privilege. I’m not even talking about racial privilege or economic privilege yet. No, this is positional. I just had a rather stupid and pointed text exchange with my son’s high school head coach, because –late yesterday–the ‘team mom’ (I hate that damn term) sent out a request for someone to film the game. I offered to help. She explained that they would provide the camera and a booster would contact me to let me know more information. This evening I get a text from the coach asking how we can connect and he can get the film. He explains that since I never contacted him he assumes I already had a camera and handled things. I did not. By the end of the exchange it was made clear that I was somehow to blame here. That, dear reader, is leadership privilege. Or as my college buddies were fond of saying, “shit always rolls downhill.” He decided he could blame me for the situation and remain faultless. As he is the defacto boss of that world and completely controls my boy’s playing time, I cannot do anything. In truth, anything I do wouldn’t matter. He matters in that world and I do not. So, I straight up am not going to engage. Ever again. 

Of course, no discussion of privilege can go by without talking about the idea of race. I was thinking about the latest iteration of the Daily Show as it is hosted by Trevor Noah. I often find myself thinking, ‘Wow, he has a lot of black guests.’ It is a noticeable thing. However that right there is the very evidence of privilege. When I see other talk show hosts and what not have a lot of white guests I never even think about it. Why? Because that’s how it is, that is how it always has been, so it is something that is different from the accepted normal seems strange or at least noticeable. 

I can’t wait to the time when I don’t think that it’s weird that someone has a lot of black guests

Settling in to write for the day. I have a few projects that I am working on and I am also thinking about what kind of teaching I want to focus on now that I don’t have a novel writing class to work with. Odds are I am just going to refocus entirely on writing. The slow restart of the idea archive has really helped me recognize that I still have a little bit going on up there and I want to harvest what I have and keep using what is happening in the world around me to replant the seeds of creativity. 

44 days into this process I am started to see the remake as something actually possible and I am getting excited about the person I am becoming. This is me moving forward and not trying to be a version of who I was. Always Forward. 

Some Thoughts:

1. The Phantom Time hypothesis has me thinking. It is based on an academic paper suggesting that the formation of the Gregorian Calendar got things wrong–perhaps on purpose. If the research is right, then we aren’t actually living in 2018 but at some point in the 1700’s. I’m going to need to use this for class…

The preview text in the box said, ‘write your story’ and I felt it was an invitation. I need to write my story. I have lost count of how many blogs I wrote talking about how I need to write my story and to write stories in general. Writer’s Day was about that. The days in general have been adding up to a strange sort of chorus of write, write, write. 

Yet I am not writing with the courage and certainty of a man who has done this for as many years as I have.

Yet I am writing.

Maybe it is best to start with that. Yesterday an idea fell out of me and it felt very good. Tomorrow I am going to complete a project and then move on to a story I am slowly becoming excited about writing. This is a good moment and step in the process. It feels like things are starting to come together for me in so many ways. It feels like the universe might want to knock me off track, but I am going to flow with the energies of the universe and turn this life back towards something special.

Some Thoughts:

1. Turns out you have to click Publish twice to publish in Gutenberg. I haven’t decided that I like the interface yet, but I can tell you it is making me feel like I am forgetting to blog or just losing my mind. When I sat down to write this tonight I saw that I had not published yesterday. I wrote. It did not publish. This is not acceptable.