10 Minute Rule

I shouldn’t spend 30 straight minutes worth of blog posts talking about the Giants, but here we are. The truth is that this team means so much to me. Among my earliest and happiest memories are sitting in front of my gammy’s big old TV watching Lawrence Taylor wreck games. I wanted to play football because of the Giants. That desire shaped my childhood and my choices heading into college. The only reason I went to Iowa State was because of that letter from coach that said come play some football. Coach Walden gave me the chance that nobody else did. Yes, I screwed it up, but it still cemented my life path. The Giants are cementing their next decade right now.

This is not a situation where they can tank for a Manning in two years. Having traded back into the first round to grab the kid from Old Miss — another USC -style QB, which is clearly not the way to go overall– They are saying “We are giving this kid time to show he’s the one.” I don’t think he is, personally, but I’m the armchair guy–the basement Troll who hasn’t studied the film enough. My opinion is actual dirt compared to the people who will be coaching him. So… let’s think about those people and what they are thinking:

Dart is a quick release QB designed for systems that stress short to intermediate passing and RPO and Play-Action schemes. This is exactly the stuff that Daboll likes to run. So, he’s making a choice to bring in a system specific guy for his specific kind of system. That means he is sticking to what he does. That formula is safe for him, but it also argues that he is intending to stay and stay in control of the offense. This is fine if those two things align. The only other way this works effectively (and it could) is if they move to a Miami-style system and maintain a core of athletes who can pull this off.

Two problems:

1. The presumed starter cannot pull this off. Winston can. He’s built for it, though he prefers to look for the deep ball. Wilson less so.
2. The line is definitely NOT built for this. They need to invest in quicker linemen and more RBs. We’ll see how that situation shakes out over rounds 3-7… because they shed the round two pick and a 3 over this Dart situation.

Some Thoughts:

1. The memory holes are getting bad. I could not remember Russel Wilson a minute ago…

The Giants are cooked.
They haven’t really locked down anything of value. They didn’t quite blow the draft — they scored a speedy rusher who may end up being good. They did not get a game changing pick and may be defaulting to a strategy of build over the next few years. Hopefully the D is better than it has been and has the right pieces to hold them in games while the offense figures itself out.

Some thoughts:

1. I’m watching the end of the city track meet. The boy didn’t do as good as he wanted but he won some and medaled in others. It’s a growth moment—you cannot just show up and be the guy. Gotta work for it.
   
2. I’m working for a chance to become that novelist I want to be. The story is beginning to take to the reshaping and the chapters are starting to come out faster. This has to go better than last time. This cannot be a miss on my part.
   
3. Part of the struggle is my having so much other stuff on my plate. I need to drop the number of things I am doing. Do less and focus more on what I am doing.
   
4. Helps that the semester is winding down. It means having less to do and more time to focus on the big things.
   

I have been a loyal Giants fan for as long as I’ve loved football. I remember the classic Bills v. Giants battles. I remember all the ups and downs. I remember Simms, Hostetler, all of them. I remember watching LT play. There is so much history there. I spent so much of my energy loving this team–this franchise–and aligning with them. I’ve been big blue forever.

I’m not sure that is going to stick.

Yes, I can vacillate between Giants and Jets freely. Even then the love lives on the blue side. Yes I enjoy the Seahawks. Yes I cheered for Saquon (not his fault they were stupid and he deserves his flowers!). None of this feels like I’ve quit the org. Yet here and now, I’m saying that tomorrow is the line in the sand for me. They’ve been really bead for a long time. We can accept the playoff blip as a surprise moment, but it didn’t help the team grow. It set them back hard. Now we’re in a position to change for the better. Don’t screw this up.

Yes, Abdul Carter is by definition screwing this up if you also keep Kayvon. I am not one to believe in the hype usually about players, and I don’t honestly believe there are a ton of generational talents in this draft. I think people really sleep on how good Shedur is going to be (not quite generational good though). I think Travis is HIM. I think Carter may not be the guy everyone says he is. I want 12 at 3. Period. If he isn’t there you take 11 and you try to get back into the first to scoop Milroe to train him up. He may be a lot better than people think, and that extra option year is needed.

This is what I believe. This is not what I think the G-Men are doing. I think they go with old ass Shough and hope for the best. What will I do? Well, I’ll watch some but I’m sticking with ‘quon for the fun of the game and seeing how Jets football shakes out. The Giants are about to become unwatchable.

The Lady Talis says I am taking on too much. She is in a better position to see these things than I am. I tend to live in the saying, “Can’t see the forest for the trees.” There are a lot of trees lately. I failed at hitting a class deadline yesterday because I was too burned out to give more feedback. That was the moment I knew it for myself. Nevermind that she’d already told me days before.

I don’t ever want to believe I cannot take on the challenges in front of me. Even today I argued that the work should not wear on me. It does, because, as she is quick to point out, I am in fact human. Yeah, I want to be more. I want to have my subconscious wired to a data feed that allows me to absorb and send out writing. I want that ability to be prolific.

I don’t know that I want to shave off the amount of life that is required in order to be prolific. Well, maybe not so much want as unable to do so in certain aspects. I cannot stop teaching and become a full time writer in this economic climate. I don’t have the name or the big name stories for it yet. If the Justice Engine hits, then we can talk about change. Until then we’re talking about balance and coping with the things I cannot change.

What can I change? I can lock in more. I can make sure I use the time I do have effectively and not spiral out into distractions as is all too common. I can reinforce my writing time by listening to better fiction. I can be smart about how I take classes and how I teach them. All of this is about gearing up for the next act–the next challenge in my life. I am getting ready for whatever change may come, and my eyes are open for what it could be.

I happen to be taking a graduate course on science fiction, which is the genre of the story I plan to pursue for my thesis. I recently listened to a video she posted on the role and value of feedback, during which I reflected on all the ways that I did experience feedback in her course. It was really helpful to review her approach after having faced critique from an interesting assortment of students. 

She feels like workshops are one of the best parts of the program. I don’t know that I agree. Here’s the thing: Not everyone in a workshop is willing to give critical feedback first. When the critical stuff rolls in (as it should) those comments can polarize the discussion. Students often try to be too nice or too critical without thinking about the text as a stand alone thing. Part of that comes from what they know or don’t know about the work.

She encourages students to give background information on the piece. I am always excited to do that when it isn’t chapter one, but if it is that opening moment then I want the readers to take it in cold. Still, this was an important takeaway. Context is the seat of writing. If people understand what I am trying to do and where I am coming from, I think the feedback will probably be better and more directed towards what I am trying to do with the work itself. 

Criticism is kind of scary, but I don’t want my classmates to be gentle. I want the work to be bulletproof. It hurts. It hurts really bad sometimes, but I feel like that pain is also a moment of growth and understanding about the work, about your voice, and especially about the things you are doing that aren’t really translating to the page. 

I want to work on being more critical in my feedback in a gentle way. I recognize how sensitive I am as a writer and I want to respect other’s sensitivities. I want to deliver information that can be helpful while being mindful of that fear that is associated with the critique.

It feels like we are missing the approaching singularity in a haze of all else that is happening in the world. We’re missing a lot of things. We’re missing how Israel is taking over Gaza. We’re missing how relatively quiet China actually is right now. We’re missing all the weird happening in space and under the waves. Yet for all of that I still believe the biggest turn we are missing is the thrust towards the singularity. AI is poised to allow us to make great leaps and bounds in technology over the next decade. Interlinked systems and wild robotics are happening at the same time.

All through it I keep thinking about the Ancient Flyer wall carving and how that could relate to the flattening of space-time. This singularity could have all sorts of impacts. It could in fact mess us up on a level in which the end of human time has already occurred and we are beginning to experience the bleed of that as we get closer and closer to that moment that takes us there.

Some Thoughts:

1. I cannot remember things nearly was well anymore. I am only 5o, so this is a serious problem–a flaw in the system if you will. I don’t know if it means anything. On any given day I become convinced that I have early onset Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease, or both. It’s as if I was cursed and it was a moderately effective curse. For example, I could not remember the term singularity and needed to replace it with my standard XX while typing. I wouldn’t ever have figured it out if not for the book The Singularity is Near, which happens to be near enough that when I turned my head to the left there it was.
2. Sad.

I’ve been looking at smart glasses again. Doing so forces me into an existential conversation about privacy, freedom, etc. Nowadays everything has a camera and or mic. Everything can listen to you. Some things can see you. Consider the beach cam phenomena. We spend a good deal of time in San Diego and there are beach cams everywhere pointed towards the shore. It isn’t obtrusive like, say, London, but there is that constant sense of knowing you are being observed. I plan to tackle that in the next novel (with hints about the state of observation in this novel). We are going to the beach in Spain and there are cameras there as well. I can sit in my home and see how the wind is blowing and how the waves look lapping against the shore. Now can people see me seeing? Can people see me out there? All of these questions point to a level of global connectivity that says we are all linked and observed…

But who controls that data?

The best smart glasses (outside of the submersive apple gear that I won’t wear) are a product of meta. Moreover, the data includes video and audio and I have no way of knowing what is being shared with the company itself. This makes me feel strange inside, but it also is entirely the digital future I expected. I went into this smart glasses search because I fell in love with the overpriced apple system as a result of falling in love with the clunkier Meta Oculus center. The Ray-bans are not exactly an evolution of this (no visual AR) but they are pointing down the road of where things are going.

So, more and more we will be recorded. More and more we will lose the ability to remain private and off the grid. How do I feel about it? Well, we have all been trained to love the camera. We take pictures of ourselves and store them in the cloud or hand them to others to develop. Where is the privacy in any of that. It feels like I’ve been conditioned for exactly what is coming. Therefore accepting it is the likely response.

As a writer I do have a way to protest. I will be doing exactly that in this and the following text. Who knows, maybe that protest will become my practice.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am 117 comments into the 600+ on the novel I need to work through. I found a good one!
2. Some of them are very useful in terms of helping me clarify information and write better passages/dialogue.
3. I was thinking last night that I might want to take a turn at screenplay writing again. Feels like a moment to be had.

The toughest thing about being a writer is being able to hear criticism and not let it cripple you. For instance, I learned in a recent workshop that I use he/she far too much. He/She is indicative of telling vs. showing. By the very nature of “they did this” I am literally telling the reader what happened. My immediate reaction to this revelation was, “Well, I don’t know how else to describe!” I do know how else to describe. I’ve seen it. Done it. I know what needs to change in order to make these pronouns fade into the background of a story.

In the moment it felt like I was powerless. It felt like I was shit at writing.

There is this moment of helplessness one experiences when you’ve done the job and failed at it. Avoiding this experience is a large reason why I spent years turning in first drafts. Fire and Forget. This meant I didn’t have to feel helpless or feel as though I could do more. I gave it my all on that first go. If it didn’t take, it didn’t take. This is juvenile thinking… that I did through my 30s. And partially into my 40s.

It ties into a larger philosophy of what you do and how capable you are of doing and doing more. On my sidescreen there is a Cyberpunk 2077 comic book turned to the middle pages. Cyberpunk 2077 is a vibe. The more I examine it, the more I want to write a development plan for a Shadowrun comic and a Shadowrun video game. I want to use my knowledge (hell, I teach this stuff) in order to develop things that could reach people in different ways. What does that have to do with anything? By understanding I can get better I understand that I can do more.

My power isn’t capped. I just need to unlock the next level.

What I intend to do this summer is to build around that idea. I spent a lot of years locked in on one thing. There is an opportunity here to grow. There is an opportunity to be and do more. No, I won’t be good at a lot of it right away–maybe never. However, I am not afraid of that. I need to be afraid of never trying in the first place.

Criticism can cripple. It can make you afraid to try. It can also unclog your sense of what is good. It can unlock you from your conceived notions of perfection and allow you to finally be better.

It is hard to get back in the groove of writing one thing when I’ve been writing a bunch of different stuff and trying to generate new content for a couple of classes. I’m pretty burned out, and heading back to the novel today felt not like coming home, but trying to get back into a pair of pants you wore before you got fat. This is not how I want to feel. To make matters worse, I cannot stay focused. I am so supremely distracted by everything else going on in the universe that I don’t stay locked into the writing mode for long.

Doesn’t help that I don’t sleep.

I think, if I add all of these stressors together, I am running from the story because it was so totally obliterated in the edit and now I am afraid of not being able to turn it into a gold seller. All of that is in my head, but my head is where the fiction happens. I need to get clear and develop a sense of how to stay writing and stay focused so I can get back into the mindset of these characters and help them reach the end of the journey.

I have the slightest inkling to purchase and play NBA 2K. No, not park mode. That can be fun, but it isn’t my thing right now. I occasionally catch sight of my kid playing a season on his PS5 and it makes me wanna hop on and run it back. Basketball has largely lost its appeal to me, thanks in part to the Knicks. They are why I started with that game in the first place. I used to want to make a Knicks team and be a player who was carrying the squad. I wanted them to be good again so desperately. Now I do the same thing with the Giants and experience that same lack of real life hope.

They will screw up this draft.

I shouldn’t put that energy into the universe, but unless they make some trades or some talent falls far, they are not going to be getting the pieces they need. Take for example the suggestion that they should draft Abdul Carter. People are comparing him to Giants starter Kayvon Thibidieux. They are also calling Thibs an underperformer. So, why the heck do you draft that dude?! Is he Thibs? Is he Micah Parsons? How about you don’t and take a spot you have a need for. I’m thinking an actual generational talent like Hunter (if available) or trading back and getting two picks out of the deal that can stockpile you the talent you need.

Yes, the 1st round allows for the 5th year tag. That does matter. Still, it feels like the Giants are planning to either trade into the back end of the first and snag whomever remains of Sanders, Milroe, or Shough and letting them learn behind the two guys they got. Cam Ward is probably going #1. That means, based on what the pundits suggest, a QB to Tennessee or Carter or Hunter. The spot the Giants are in sucks, but you don’t want to trade up to 2 in order to control your fate, because ir really puts you on the hook down the line (losing a first next year at least).

I say take the best player available at a position of need or trade Thibs during the draft and see what comes of it.