10 Minute Rule

The hardest thing to do when taking feedback isn’t to recognize that what is being offered to you is being given to help you create better work. The hardest part, for me at least, is recognizing how poorly what I created was received. My upcoming novel clocked in at a little under 80,000 words. The feedback consisted of 568 comments spread across those 180 pages. None of them were positive. The comment were so thick that google is unable to open the document in drive. It just keeps crashing from the load of notations. The system, it seems, wasn’t built for that level of distaste.

The hardest thing to see when taking feedback is that what you thought of as good work is actually not perceived that way at all. You may in fact be far worse, at least on first draft, than you believed and as such there is a tremendous mountain to climb in order to reach a place where your work is readable. That is where I am right now. I sit in the shadow of that mountain questioning every sentence I put together. I am wondering not only about plot but about voice, characterization, etc. Feedback is difficult and painful. It may leave you feeling like there is no way to make what you created worthwhile and that you should quit writing altogether. I felt that. I am still feeling the echoes of that emotion as I write now–as I question every sentence that I am writing.

No matter how it is prefaced, brutal honesty is important to a writer. As a writer you need to be strong enough to take it. You need to be strong enough to accept that you are not yet at the place where you may believe you are. At the same time you need to believe you are still capable of getting there. You need to believe that you are not an imposter. All of this is easier said from the pulpit of a ten minute blog than it is carried out in real time. It takes time. It takes sadness and courage and reevaluating why you are doing what you’re doing. It also takes a fighting spirit to stand up to the criticism and say, I can make this ten times better.

The choices you have after receiving criticism are threefold, but only two exist in the publishing world. You can ignore the criticism if you’re publishing on your own. If you aren’t your choices are reduced to quitting or making the necessary changes. I’m choosing the latter for my work. I just need to pick myself up off the ground and get to the point where I have the courage to actually get started.

The big thing I thought about in the transition from 7 to 8 was why I failed. There were a number of factors that contributed to the slow decline and eventual failure to write. For a while I didn’t have much to say. I eeked out a few hundred words a night if lucky. I didn’t have a coherent thought maybe two or three times in a week. That is not a good state for a writer to be in at any hour. Yet, those days were days when I did do good things earlier in the day or expended a great deal of energy teaching and so on. What was it about blogging for ten minutes that was so very taxing? Perhaps the answer to that is the same as the answer to why people find it so hard to write. The expectation.

I want this space to be meaningful, but if I am going through it–if I am not of sound mind–then I cannot be meaningful in the words I put on a page. Often I wish for direct translation. I wish I could stir my emotions into words in real time, and let that feeling be my guide in my writing. I’ve constructed, after a fashion, a way to do that in novels. I have intense emotional sections throughout the outline and if I am feeling that, I write that. However, with this blog I wanted to do things in a regular way. Friday is fiction (fail). Tuesday I look back to the past (sometimes) Wednesday I look at sports (because it is the day of the waiver wire in the fantasy football league). All of these blocks don’t let me be free to write what I feel. Often I overlooked them, but largely I thought about them as guardrails on my thinking.

As we move to the new iteration I will focus on writing what I feel. I will endeavor to lock in for these ten minutes and let my mind and mood connect with the page in an unscripted fashion. I will be looking to the page as a form of catharsis. The days of my life are filled with all kinds of madness and strangeness. The blog is an opportunity to share a bit of my insight with the world on a daily basis and, through that, get you locked into how to be better writers. Understanding how I write may be helpful to others down the road (so long as this thing exists).

That is the charge. That is the goal and the hope moving forward for this 8th iteration of the Ten Minute rule. I will be better this time. I will take these ten minutes seriously and vitally. I may not hit 500 or 300 or even 100 each time, but I will make sure that what I do say comes from the heart and soul. That is why I started this process publicly and that is the main reason to keep going. Anyone can do ten minutes a day and come up with heartfelt content. I’m here to prove that.

I’ve been doing the math a bit more on my 2 hours for 1000 words or 500 WPH process. This has been working for me for a few weeks now, and I am developing the novel exactly on pace. There are days where I write more, of course, but I haven’t missed the mark. I am at 26,000 words, which given how much I have NOT written, puts this thing in the 60 K range at least. Still no idea if I will sell it or not, but I don’t really think that is as important as proof of concept. I believe this method works. I recognize that the last stage of this is 24 hours of revision over the course of seven days after seven days off to not think about the novel at all. Honestly, if you put that kind of time into your writing you are definitely going to perform peak revision. So, the three phases of writing–planning, drafting, and revising are all to be neatly laid out and developed. I have yet to touch the planning. I think that is going to require the same 24 hours as the revision process. There is more to be discovered in these bookends, but I am in the middle part right now and here is what I have learned.

It is hard to write for two hours without stopping to stand up and walk around. Thus, I suggest breaks at 40 and 80 minutes. Take ten minutes each time. This aligns with the 100 minute grid, which leads you to the 10 words per minute number as suggested in the title. You will be surprised how easy base ten thinking changes your mindset on writing. The stuff just flies out of your brain and on to the page–even in the tough sections. I am sticking to the 5 days a week. I skipped yesterday so I wrote today. That means I get tomorrow off as well. Then, come Monday it is back to the page.

This method is stackable up to the boundaries of your brain capacity. I may be starting a grad program soon, which entails a ton of writing. That means stacking another two hours to get the words done. It will be an entirely different beast, and I am ready to take it on.

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.

I’m excited for March 13th. This is the day the AIA High School Football schedule drops. It is the first look at what my kid will be facing his Junior year. I was talking to another dad last season and we both had the same thought: You can get away with a lot being a Sophomore on Varsity, but your JR season comes with major expectations. Chief among them is increased production, power, and the ability to think through the game much faster. We are going to work on the mentals this summer once he finished boosting his speed for track season. He is on his way–so long as he gets it in his head to dig in and work hard these next several years. He has the physicals to get to his goal. He needs to track in the mentals.

Meanwhile in the NFL… What the wild. No seriously. What the actual hell is going on? The Chargers released Joey Bosa, instantly making San Fransisco great again. Then there is the great QB saga unfolding, with my sad sauce Giants being considered a prime destination for A-Rod. No. Just no. Fire everyone if it goes down. That is a Doncic level mistake. Like Doncic if it happens you’ll hear these guys talking about how they are measured by championships and are doing what is right for the future. Sure, A-Rod is a bridge QB, but try to tell him that.

Worst still, Metcalf asked for a trade! The Seahawks are not in good shape right now. All the teams I like are falling apart. Hopefully they don’t have to hit rock bottom before getting better. Speaking of which, University of Northern Colorado is going to be better this season. They basically have to be just to stand a chance. They face FBS Colorado State and its potential first rounder QB along with five FCS playoff teams including the current champs. Tough sledding. It also gives the kid the chance to show out against the best possible talent. We’ve been dreaming for this opportunity and it is getting closer and closer.

Some Thoughts:

1. What is all this about the ‘transing’ of our children. The powers that be (repubs) are making seem as though kids are being forced to involuntarily change gender, often for the purposes of sports. I am a sports dad. No shot I try to turn my boy into a girl so he/she can ball out. Not to mention how nobody is even talking about female to male as though that is not an issue at all–at least in terms of sports. It isn’t even part of the law, which by default should make it discrimination.

I suppose I should be looking backwards right now. Instead I am staring into a dangerous and troubling present. I realized what the actual problem/situation is a few hours ago. It all comes down to bullies, cowards, hanger-ons, and children. This is in fact what the democratic party is lacking and has been since Obama left. I remember very clearly the Republicans feeling like Obama and his Chief of Staff were bullying them. This 2016 post is evidence of that. Nobody likes a bully… bullies are bad. Forbes even got in on it back in ’13 calling him a bully. They expressly stated how wrong it is for him not to heed the voice of the minority. Yet… Here we are in 2024. Where are those dissident voices?

Trump is a bully and a petulant child. He acts on instinct and says whatever he wants with the expectation that he will not be challenged or stopped. If he is then he chooses to attack even harder. He holds grudges and puts people in power who are ‘loyal to him first.’ None of this is a good thing for a President who is supposed to lead a nation. It is very good for a small collective of people who choose to believe they are the voice of the majority (and flail angrily like children and make up lies when they are seen as not being that). I believe Trump won for a handful of reasons–the unwillingness to elect a woman to be prime among them. Yet right behind that is the fear that people would continue to cry foul. That squeaky wheel therefore got ALL of the grease and we are sliding right out of a democracy into something far more autocratic.

I am very exhausted by all of it already. I am not looking forward to several more years of this continuous madness. Just recently the Director of Homeland Security acted like an absolute child, taunting “51st state” repeatedly while straddling the line between Canada and the US. I’m sure it will be spun as a joke. Yet the need to spin it at all–the willingness to act in a way that insults a neighbor and ally while questioning their right to be a sovereign nation is straight up in poor taste. Yet, that is who we have chosen to be as a country. Bullies who behave arrogantly, flagrantly, and in poor taste while demanding to be respected no matter what we do. Or, as the creators of South Park put it TWENTY+ years ago…

I never published the Sunday Post. Maybe I wanted to give myself time to retract. Maybe the depression stayed my hand from making things all too public. Yet when I logged in today for this Monday moment, I realized that I wanted to kick this thing into the matrix. Kids do in fact suck. I will love my kids for the rest of my consciousness, but I will not allow myself to continue to be disrespected and walked on. I suspect they learned that little trick from my ex-wife. Yeah, okay. I’ getting too dirty here. Time to back away from the topic and fall into…

Some Thoughts:

1. I missed the voting window for the Nebula Awards this year. Like a punk. I’m slowly getting into the responsibilities of being an SFWA member…
2. Speaking of getting in, I did get into an MFA program! Stoked to see where it takes me.
3. Still on track with the exercise. Still fat though. I need to be able to fit the tux. Moreover, I need to look very good in it. These are my forever wedding photos.
4. Started reading TR Napper and his curious brand of Australian cyberpunk. Dude has the pulse of the thing and it isn’t trapped in the 80’s like so much other stuff. It has the feel of the era and the genre, but offers post modern technology that thrums with an understanding of the now and the after. The backmatter is a whos who of the expanded genre. I have a lot more to go through to get through the man’s canon but 36 Streets is a good start. Bugs a bit that shades of it are reminiscent of the novella (growing into novel now) I’m working through.
5. Speaking of which, I hit 22,000 words today. At a 1000 more per day (less weekends) I should strike novella-sized completion in six weeks. I’ll give it a few more than that to see what actually shakes out.

Kids suck.

That’s really the long and short of things. You try to raise them to be the best versions of themselves and to (i’m going to say it) honor the idea of who you are in some version of their action and in the end, it doesn’t happen. These oft ruinous creatures choose to do exactly what you don’t want them to. They lie and disrespect and then, after all of that, come back begging you for money and attention. What is it then that we are supposed to do as parents? Roll over and feed them funds? Buy them new phones because theirs are broke and they won’t get a job? The idea that money doesn’t grow on trees is infinitely older than I am yet still resonates to this day. When did I have to become the parent who reminded his kids of that… well into and past their teens?

As I said, kids suck. One of my is about to feel the harsh reality of having a dad who is completely out of fucks. It’s going down. For real.

I am depressed at a fundamental level. I’ve been depressed–even suicidally so–before in my life, but those moments were always internal. It was about my interactions with the world, my value in the world, my relationships. What I am feeling now is not all about me. I am watching at least two of my kids fail in slow motion. One seems to be charmed in life and will likely pull through. The other, an angsty privileged teen, appears to be on a very short road to doom. When I can lift my head away from that horror, it is only to see a home government teetering on the edge of fascism. The oval office meeting yesterday in which the President and Vice President berated a world leader as if they were not only better than him, but as if he needed to bend the knee was disgusting. To make matters worse, even the news is treating the matter with patronizing, downplayed headlines like, “Trump and Vance Rebuke Zelenksy.” Is that what was happening? Or was this a scene from the Apprentice? Was this an angry dad telling his kid he needed to say thank you and stop being disrespectful? Or simply a scene from WWE when Vince McMahon had his infamous Kiss My Ass Club? We know where Trump finds his material. He’s a pretty simple guy…

If this wasn’t enough, my financial issues are crippling me, my writing is not reaching people, and my health is absolute shit. So, things are pretty bleak in the land of Talis. Or, it’s just another Saturday in the good ‘ol US of A. At least we get good distractions–media, sports, games, etc… I’m a cynic now. I am also debating not being an American Citizen. It sucks to feel this way. It sucks to feel like this lifelong fight towards some version of equality was all just smoke and mirrors. Even my college is removing all of what they refer to as DEI, which is to say any awareness or understanding towards anything that is different from white and heterosexual. Well, at least I’m hetero… See, cynic.

Things are the worst I’ve seen them in my lifetime, and I am the same guy who stood and watched my friends be arrested on the steps of Iowa State University for being black. I am the same guy who was asked to stand in a line up as a kid because I was ‘close enough to the description’ of who the cops were looking for and they needed people to ‘just stand there.’ The people making these laws and have not been on the other side of those laws. They don’t know what it actually feels like to be oppressed or to be the ‘other’ or to fear for your life because the people in power are being given the right to kill you. No, the people making these laws are afraid that they will someday become like me and they are doing anything they can to prevent that from happening.

I spent the last forty minutes watching the premium sections of Avengers: Endgame and it took me through the gamut of emotions. I laughed, I cheered, I got super hyped (multiple times and generally around Mr. Rogers and his moments) and I teared up… often. That film, released 6 years ago now, represents the best of what Marvel is capable of in terms of storytelling. I fear there will be nothing like that ever again for them. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they can string together an incredible story that weaves all of these characters into a narrative thread (I’m mixing metaphors again) that makes me feel for them the way that I did. I love comics and hero stories for this reason. I have a Mk II helmet on my desk for this very reason. Stories brought to life by remarkable (and well cast) talents make us feel. I can get this from a book, because my imagination allows me to. However, it doesn’t work that way for everyone. Movies make that range of emotions far more accessible. It also happens faster for the viewer than it does for the reader.

I’m still wiping my damn nose as I type this blog. Downey’s “I am Iron Man” moment ended me, and they just kept on piling on after (the work of Gwyneth Paltrow is entirely underrated–even if she felt like she mailed it in). All of this leads me to a curious understanding. I want to script a comic series. I want to do more. I want to tell more stories that get people and that people get. I miss being able to go that deep into a character that you actually feel what they are going through and understand the struggle. I spend so much time telling story that I don’t tell story. I think the latter is what people need most. I think we need to see ourselves in characters, but I also think we need something to believe in. Something accessible and relatable. Someone who, given opportunity, access, and power, makes bad choices and, eventually, learns to make really good ones. We need hope–especially now. We need to see the better part of ourselves. I think that I’ve been writing about this my entire life and never been quite able to get there. I think, above all else, it is time for me to work a lot harder at it.

I think I’m going to make that my thing.