10 Minute Rule

Today marks the start of the 2017 fall work semester for me. A year ago today I was half-burned out and uncertain about the work world I’d helped to create. Two weeks later I was done with all thoughts of professional leadership at that college. I’d discovered what that world was actually about and decided–openly–to shift focus back to becoming a better teacher. The results were mixed. I improved in some areas and drastically fell off in others. I lost all sense of community within the college and became a ghost of my social and often professional self.

For all intents and purposes, this is my New Year’s Day. Everything for the past few months has been summer break-styled downtime, trips to the beach, and mental preparation. This is the fall of my content. I am determined to reach the level teaching ability I ascribe to. Furthermore, I recognize that teaching at the college level is only one leg of my true work. I am a writer first. What I always am teaching is how students can recognize and thus tell their own story. Therefore it is important that I recognize and tell my own. I am dedicated to writing an original novel over the course of the school year. This is not, as with past dedications, a pie in the sky idea. This is tied to classwork, scheduling, and how I expect to lead my life moving forward.

One of the scariest truths of my life is that I now expect to die. I don’t know when it is going to happen. I hope I live well into my eighties. Still there are nights that I am shook awake by the concept that I will one day close my eyes forever. When that moment comes and I am faced with the idea of what life I lived, I don’t want that fleeting forever to be filled with regret. I want to die empty. I want to die knowing I poured everything I had into life. I want to feel like the ideas that fill my head are left to serve as my legacy to those I love and leave.

I don’t mean to be so morbid, but the fundamental truth of life is that we are given a moment to explore, to love, and to make things happen. The person we face in the end is the one we faced all along–our own worst critic–ourselves. I can trace back all of the failures in my life to one person: me. I was always athletic enough, and a good enough writer, and smart enough to accomplish anything I wanted to. Though bothered–even hampered at times–by racism, it never stopped me from being able to achieve whatever I wanted. The only obstacle I’ve ever faced in my life is my inability to follow through. I cannot expect to defeat it all at once, but I can sure as hell give it all I have this semester.

I broke a promise to my writing crew. I promised to develop a new page of writing this week and, blog not withstanding, I did not. This betrayal is fairly typical of my writing slump. I don’t call it writer’s block because I’m not blocked. I’m simply not putting butt in chair to get the work done. As a result the work piles up and becomes this mountain that I need to climb before the semester starts. Let me be clear: The semester starts in 10 days. You heard of 90 days to a novel? This is 10 days to an outline.

In order to further the motivation for what needs doing, I am am going to be using the blog to publish some of that work. I need to create an outline in order to give my students a current sample of work that can be used as an example of the expectations of the class. I can continue driving through the process once class starts, but when I hand out the notebooks and everything on day one I need to be ready with a solid amount of the work in order to get them going and encourage them that the work is doable. Heck, it ought to be encouragement for me to finish the project.

Some Thoughts:

1. The website format is still… up in the air.
2. The Giants dropped a preseason game that highlighted the weaknesses of the O-line. At the same time I was encouraged by the speed and play of their rookie right tackle. My team is in a position to be amazing this year if that line can hold for a split second longer.
3. I did this entire blog with the coffee sitting in the coffee maker. Blasphemy.

My routine went to hell this morning. It fell apart when I woke up 20 minutes before my youngest needed to be on the school bus. Of course, he wasn’t trying to move around fast that early in the morning. We made it, but it broke the routine. Breaking such things is bad for habit. That’s why I wind up here, writing about what went wrong.

It goes back to making smart choices. I chose to snooze that morning alarm, roll back over when I initially woke up on my own around 4:30. My partner has this humorous print on her hallway wall chronicling the normal wake up times of famous authors. I thought of it as I shut my eyes. Again, choice. Not that waking up that early does anything magical. In truth your body finds its own circadian rhythm (I constantly thank spell check for allowing me to spell that word). Mine bounces in and out of sequence, occasionally shifting as far as two hours. This morning it trended upward towards midnight, and I should’ve made the choice to listen. Instead I slept and now I am all kinds of fatigued.

Which is why Ka lends us coffee.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Still working on the right theme for the page. This one, Adamos Pro, looked solid in theory. In practice it needs work.
2. I think this might work a lot better for 2626east.
3. Built a new site: houseofbeys.com. It is wonderfully fun. The site chronicles the in-house beyblade burst league. It even has a schedule of matches! Life is good.
4. Life is love.

Seven days into the post-semester glow I have that hankering for a new semester. I’m not even done yet. I have grading to do and feedback to email to several creative writers (the 5 week format for a writing workshop needs work–actually it needs less work and more focused feedback). I’m falling back into that prep mode and that creator phase where I like building cool stuff and taking advantage of the tools (tech) at my disposal and even using all the wonderful media out there in order to create something amazing for my students. Also for my kids. I am feeling a bit like a creator again, and I need to ride that wave of emotion and start doing big things with it, less the wave crashes against the shores empty and forgotten.

Flag for unnecessary darkness there.

What I am trying to say is that I am happy and I am ready to work. I don’t know what writing projects I want to work on, but I am ready to move on from the past and dive headlong into whatever awaits.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve long marveled at my eldest’s athletic prowess, but lately I have come to see some of that as location. The last few years he’s been close with a kid who is a superstar athlete. He can hang with the kid to a certain extent, but is clearly the smaller, slower, less agile athlete. This kid has two brothers in the NFL. So that says a lot about where my kid isn’t. However, it also offers an opportunity to see the ceiling and push himself to the level this other kid is at. This is an opportunity for all of my kids to grow.
2. Staying on that path, motivation is a big deal to me right now. I don’t have a tremendous amount of intrinsic motivation, but I’ve been bolstered by the Tony Robbins of the world. I use that kind of media to jumpstart my own engine and get it up to revving potential. I have to accept that I’m not that same 26 yr old kid sitting at a house party full of writers spinning tales. I’m a dad and a teacher and a coach. I’m someone different with different inputs. I have to accept where I am and use that to power forward to where I want to go.

I reminded myself halfway through the movie that what I was seeing on the big screen had no bearing on what was being told on paper.

Game of Thrones really screwed me up. Just yesterday I was having a conversation about Jeyne Poole, the character who actually dealt with the rape and marriage storyline involving Ramsey Bolton and Reek. Poole’s story is so much worse than what Sansa faces in her place and highlights one of many inconsistencies between print and screen. However, given the lack of any print books beyond The Winds of Winter, the HBO team can be forgiven.

The Sony Pictures Team cannot.

What’s that line? ‘You had one job.’ They failed miserably at that job. In fact, there are several moments in the movie where it feels as though they could have succeeded in creating a film that launched the series as a viable franchise. No such luck. The movie sank like a man wearing armor in a lake.

There was some good here. Idris Elba’s portrayal of Roland was dark, brooding, and occasionally outstanding. The kid who plays Jake Chambers was solid throughout. Heck, there even were moments where it felt like the book. Unfortunately there were more moments where it felt like a drinking game–take a drink every time a different Stephen King book is referenced. Short of ‘Under the Dome’ it felt like the major novels were fairly well represented. This of course, is not the point of the story. That is the problem of the film. It doesn’t tell a story related to the text in ay substantial way. It goes off course in a direction that will never lead it to the books.

Or the Tower.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I started a list!
2. A conversation with my partner reminded me that my lack of motivation affects more than just me.

The key to my productivity is lists. When I don’t have one staring at me I tend to behave as if I don’t have anything truly pressing to accomplish. I allow myself to fall into this stupor of lazy inaction and it eats away my hours until only sleep remains. Of course I do have things to do. Plenty of things need doing on a daily basis, but lately I cannot convince (motivate) myself to do much of anything. Depression? I’ve addressed that side of it already on this space. The other side of the equation has to do with desire and goal setting. This equation needs to be better balanced. That is where lists come in.

When I am low everything feels out of reach. Get a soda? No, it is too tough to go all the way upstairs. Besides, it will certainly fatten me up, which will lead to heart problems and then I die. This is the classic slippery slope. A list helps with that. I can alter my thinking around measurable and reachable goals. Get a soda? Check. Then add to the list: fold laundry. Because I’m upstairs it seems a bit more feasible. Now I am feeling a sense of accomplishment and I’ve organized my day into a series of expected events and I am not left to my own devices.

My devices suck.

Now getting to the point where I actually write this stuff down is a chore in of itself. Perhaps it slides into the daily 5: Contact, Coffee, Write, Tabata, List. Yeah… that sounds fantastic. What a recipe for success this is! Now all that remains is the follow through. That topic is a post all of its own.

Contact. Coffee. Write.

When I went dark for those few days I was truly in a dark place. I had, for the first time in memory, abandoned a writing project. I took on the project because I had a solid idea and felt the due date would motivate me to write. It didn’t. My will to write was sucked into the black void that was my relationship problems and after a while everything went dark. I cannot say that I’m back 100%. I will admit here on this blog that I was suffering from a terrible bout of depression, and I don’t believe I’ve fully emerged from that void.

Lately I start my day by reaching out to loved ones and making that human connection. The most important thing to me is the people I love most in this life. Once I make sure to connect with my love I feel grounded in something other than myself. This is important right now, because depression often means you are unaware of how negative you are towards yourself and of the people in your corner. In fact, the only reason I know I’m depressed still is because I found myself sitting at home most of Sunday watching bad Zac Snyder films and the Sharknado marathon. Yep, I sat through a chunk of Batman v. Superman and then went on to watch most of Sharknado 4 and part of 3 (why they’re playing in reverse order is beyond me. Sharknado makes no sense).

This is what depression looks like for me: A cluttered desk filled with unopened bags of supplies thoughtfully purchased in an effort to boost my awareness of what needs to be done and how it can be done. Meanwhile what needs to be done piles up on the desk amidst wrappers and old paper towels and loose change I haven’t the energy to deposit in the change cup. All of this happens in the near dark, because the light would reveal too much… okay that last part was pure melodrama, but the rest is accurate.

The real problem with depression is that knowing is only ‘half the battle’ (thanks, G.I. Joe, you’re a real American hero–I wonder why there has not been a stronger re-release in this war-driven economy… oh wait there was. We called it Transformers and snuck you in on the back end). The other half of the battle is figuring out how to fire through it and keep going until you’re clear.

Some Thoughts:

1. Going to see The Dark Tower today. The books carry weight in my life. The movie… I’m going to go in without reservation.

Traditionally sundays are tied to writing, reflection, and football. I have a little bit to say about some of those things. I don’t have anything coherent enough to design an entire 10 minute post around. So, I’ll just dive into…

Some Thoughts:

1. The Dragon Ball Hunt is officially back for 2017, and I am looking for ideas to make the hunt amazing. I’m thinking seven or maybe even an 8th clue this year and tying the whole thing in with Naruto as both sets of kids are Naruto crazy right now.
2. It reminds me that I am hosting my kiddos for thanksgiving this year. Ugh. I don’t have a clue what to do. Maybe I can piece together a turkey bowl? That seems quite ambitious though.
3. Starting tabata training with the boys this morning. They need to get ready for a long and rough football season (all three are on new and largely raw teams) and I need to not die from the fat belly.
4. Tabata. One more responsibility I’m adding to my not so short list. It might be time to write down the list of responsibilities and figure out what stays and what doesn’t.
5. Coffeenerdness: I have issues with the Ninja Coffee Maker. Issue #1: Once the cleaning light goes on it never ever goes off. I cleaned it about 10 times. #2: And this is a good issue. It definitely tells me the quality of my coffee. Largely this is discovered through the condition of the coffee in the filter post brew. Some brands look ready to brew again. Some resemble the nastiest variety of sludge.
6. My son’s cat is crazy lonely. She mewls about it to me once or twice a day, like a patient coming in for therapy.
7. I had a lot of fun experimenting with plays on friday, but I am not sure the team felt the same. It can’t instill confidence if the coach changes the play as you’re repping it. However, I plan to pitch that Tuesday as my process and seeing what players are capable of and building around that. It is true: You play to the talents you have, and not what you wish you had.
8. That being said, I maintain doubt that we field a team at all. 11 kids is the most I’ve ever had show up at a practice and that does include most of the regulars. We are not even allowed to go to war with less than 14. Current roster size is 15. Of that number there are probably 4 kids who shouldn’t be on the field at the same time because of size. They’re all too small and a such limited in what they can do. Likewise, there are two players who are over the weight limit, which means that we really only have 13 or we go unweighted and kids will get hurt bad.
9. My kids are spending their allowances on beyblades. This is cool, because it means they will truly enjoy the stadium. Down the road we will have a fun tournament with only the leftover extra parts.
10. I’m still stupid in love. At this point it has become a permanent state of mind.

I just spent $100 on a 39″ satellite dish. I didn’t buy it to pick up cable signals. I bought it to use as a Beyblade stadium. Since the first time we played Beyblade my kids have been wishing and hoping for a colossal stadium like the one on the show:

Now that is a massive arena–at least 6 feet in diameter. I didn’t manage that, but 3.5 feet isn’t half bad and is a sight larger and more impressive than anything we’ve had in the past. In other words, I went all out. It makes me happy to make them happy by doing stuff like this. I feel like they deserve a crazy wish-fulfilling childhood that makes them pass that tradition down to their kids. My own childhood was the opposite. My wishes and dreams unfolded in my mind or were played out in the handful of action figures I got from my dad. I stopped getting toys all together after he died.

I’m not saying my childhood was utter trash. You learn from everything you experience in your life and I am fortunate to have lived a life where I did not face sexual abuse or anything so awful. I wasn’t spoiled, and it is clear that they are, so there are downsides to what I am doing too.

What I am doing is working it out and excising my own ancient demons and having a damn (pun!) good time in the process. Maybe I still am that twelve year old kid, only now I have a steady income and three other mini me’s to fuel my devious imagination.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am right back in that wonderful yet terrible space–right near the edge of something yet afraid to look over and engage. I don’t feel like I am quite ready to take in a story. It sounds very odd, I know, but that is the way I am about such things. I have to be prepared to accept it and ready to give it the attention it deserves. Too many distractions. Too much on the plate. What I need to do is clear up these distractions, get organized, and get ready to take on story.