Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 390

I worry that George R.R. Martin will die before finishing his Song of Fire and Ice series, and yes, that’s not a nice thing to think.

George R.R. Martin is the author of the popular Song of Fire and Ice series which you may know better as Game of Thrones.

He’s currently writing the sixth of that was originally going to be seven books in the series, though he recently hinted that there may be an eighth.

Martin is 65 years-old. He’s not exactly the picture of health.

It took him six years to write the most recent book in the series, A Dance with Dragons, and it has taken him 15 years to write the five books written so far.

At this pace, he will complete the final two books by the time he is 72 years-old, and if there really is an eighth book planned, he will be close to 80 when he finally wraps the series.

For these reasons, I have decided to wait to read the books, fearing his demise before the series is complete.

This is not an entirely unfounded position. Stephen King’s Dark Tower series (which you should all read immediately) was nearly cut short when King was hit by a van and nearly killed in 1999 with three books to go.

When I first heard about the accident, my first thoughts went to The Dark Tower’s Roland and his ka-tet. As saddened as I was to hear about King’s death (it was originally announced that King had died in the accident), I was equally distraught over the idea that Roland’s journey to The Dark Tower would never be realized.  

Perhaps fearful that he may never finish the series if he didn’t work quickly,  King promptly completed the final three books in the series  in 2004 (publishing one in 2003 and two in 2004).

Then he added a book for good measure in 2012.

So yes, I worry about Martin’s ability to complete his masterpiece. He’s not a young man, and he seems to require about five years to finish a book. I was nearly left hanging in the midst of a masterpiece once before. I don’t want that to happen again.

Apparently I am not alone in this sentiment. Others have expressed this concern openly and often. Martin recently addressed the many people who have expressed concerns over his ability to complete the series before his demise:

“I find that question pretty offensive, when people start speculating about my death and my health. So f**k you to those people.”

He added a middle finger for good measure.

I deserve the rebuke. He’s right. It’s not exactly polite to speculate about an author’s longevity. If I were him, I’d be angry, too.

But when you want to stick it to someone like me, there are four words even more satisfying than simple vulgarity:

“I told you so.”

Finish the books, George. Make me look like a fool for ever doubting you.

Productivity tip #8: A succinct and accurate description of my work flow

In the past month, three people have asked me to describe my work flow.

I wasn’t sure what to say at first (because I honestly still don’t understand the question), but I’ve settled on an answer:

My work flow? I’m busy getting things done while others are pondering their work flow.

Nothing is ever as complicated as people make out to be.

No one talks baby off the hill

For about 15 minutes, my daughter had no interest in my cousin’s wedding. While the bride and groom danced, she opted to sit on the side of a hill and pout, as give year-olds are wont to do from time to time.

Then this little boy went over to her and chatted with her for about five minutes.

A minute later, she happily rejoined us.

I have no idea what he said. But I watched him like a hawk for the rest of the night.

 

The exuberance of elderly warriors

One of the students in my writing camp introduced me to this beautiful, amazing, perfect video.

I can’t recommend this enough.

Sigur Rós – Hoppípolla from sigur rós on Vimeo.

Serious geography geek material

I am a geography geek. When I was eight years-old, I was given an atlas and a globe for my birthday. I was in heaven.

Unfortunately, this was also was the first and only birthday party that I ever hosted for friends, so the three boys who attended my party stared in disbelief as I opened these gifts.

 

I later used my knowledge (and some free maps that I ordered from AAA) to help a friend plan an unsanctioned hitchhiking trip to visit his uncle in Ohio.

Thankfully that friend never made the trip, though the incident led to the plot of my second novel, Unexpectedly Milo.

If you are a geography geek or just generally curious about the world, I have two truly outstanding videos to share with you today.

The first brilliantly explains the American empire, with its many islands scattered throughout the world.

The second describes the surprising and bizarre border between the United States and Canada.

The boys at the Big Swim Meet had no idea how fleeting boyhood is. Once gone, you will long for it forever.

This bit of newspaper was printed circa 1930. It describes the “Big Swimming Meet” at Yawgoog Scout Reservation, the same place where I would spend my summers half a century later.

As a boy, I also participated in swimming meets as the paper describes. Every Saturday afternoon, troops would gather at the waterfront to compete against each other in events not unlike the ones described in this clipping.

Like the boys who finished last in the competition so long ago, I also camped at Tuocs for a time.

Amongst the many events in which I competed was The Marathon Swim. One Scout from each troop competed in a sprint through water and over floating docks. It was the final event of every swim meet, and the honor of competing was given to the troop’s strongest swimmer. I won the event three years in a row and was awarded a “Mr. Marathon Swim” certificate from my grizzled Scoutmaster that I still have this day. It’s a small, handwritten, fairly generic certificate, but at the time, it meant a great deal to me.

Good times. Sadly, good times now lost forever.

I look at a newspaper clipping like this, and photos like these, taken at Yawgoog in the 1960s, and think about all of these boys, now old men if they’re lucky and dead if they’re not, and feel a deep sadness for all that has been lost.

 

For all that they have lost. For all that I have lost.

Old photographs like these remind me of the inexorable grinding away of our lives by the specter of time. I see the smiling faces of boys in this singular moment of their lives, with the unadulterated joy of boyhood mixing with the promise of so many summers ahead, and I think about how fleeting boyhood truly is.

It’s one of the most special times in a boy’s life, and it’s over in the wink of an eye.

For the boys of Tuocs, Frontier and Musketeer campsites, that Big Swimming Meet was everything to them on that day. It was a moment that many thought would never be forgotten. It was simplicity, comradery, competition, and laughter. It was a time before the demands of life, the pressures of romantic love, the weight of regret, and the sadness of loss began chipping away at their innocent spirits.

Yawgoog was a blessing for me and so many boys because it removed us from the real world for a short time and brought us back to simpler days. No homework. No part time job.  No parents. No girls.

Just wind and water, dirt and stone, and boyhood friends, living amongst the trees and clouds in a quiet, enduring peace.

Those boyhood days are so fleeting.

I find myself wanting to reach into the photograph, reach back through time to the boys at the Big Swimming Meet, and warn them of how quickly adulthood will seize them by the throats and thrust new pressures and responsibilities upon them. I want to tell them to breathe in the air, squint into the sunshine, dip their toes into the pond water, and mark their moment in the sun in some way that will make it last forever. For them and for us who will follow. 

I want to tell them to remember. Remember hard. I want to tell them that there will be days, long after the Big Swimming Meet is finished and their time at Yawgoog has come to an end, when they will long for that happiness and simplicity again, if only for a day.

Someone ruined cookies, too.

Yesterday is was bastardized ice cream. Now someone has gone and ruined cookies, too.

Actually, I don’t think these qualify as cookies anymore.

Vegetable ice cream is wrong.

Look. Some artisanal jackass managed to find a way to ruin ice cream.

Sometimes a cell phone holster can tell you a lot about a person

I know. I shouldn’t’ judge. At least that’s what I am told.

I’m not really sure why judging is bad. I think the general feeling is that by abstaining from judging others, you promote kindness, compassion, and cultural sensitivity.

You also don’t arbitrarily place your lifestyle choices ahead of others. 

But judging isn’t always bad.

Judging the men in a patriarchal society that doesn’t allow women to vote or drive cars and beheads them for doing so seems perfectly acceptable to me.

They suck. Right?

Judging a parent who is smoking in their car while their baby is strapped into the car seat in the backseat also seems acceptable to me.  

These parents suck, too? Right?

Still, some judgments are probably more appropriate and productive than others. So when I saw the man’s cellphone holster, affixed to his belt like a modern day gunslinger (except not nearly as cool), I immediately thought poorly of him.

I knew that casting such aspersions was not right.

I recently adopted a policy of never making negative comments (or even having negative thoughts) about people based upon physical appearance. If Bermuda shorts in a blizzard makes you happy, who am I to think otherwise?

It’s been four months since I adopted the policy, and I have yet to make a negative comment about physical appearance aloud and have substantially curbed my negative thoughts as well.

It’s actually not hard. Once you tell yourself that everyone’s physical appearance is off limits, it’s only when you encounter an extreme example of physical appearance that those negative thoughts appear.

Half-naked teenagers. A woman struggling to walk through the parking lot in her three-inch heels. A man wearing a shirt that doesn’t entirely cover his gut. A boy wearing a shirt emblazoned with profanity. Women wearing large amounts of makeup.  

I haven’t been completely successful in avoiding negative thoughts about physical appearance, but I’m working on it.  

The same should apply to cell phone holsters. Right?

Then the man with the cell phone holster followed me into the restroom. He sidled up to the adjacent urinal. That’s when I noticed that he was holding a Styrofoam coffee cup in one hand as he worked the belt and button on his pants with the other. A moment later, he began drinking his coffee as he conducted his business. Slurping it, in fact, as if needing to maintain some sort of fluid equilibrium.

Liquid out. Liquid in.

The grossest thing that I ever saw was a man standing at a urinal, conducting his business while eating a hot dog, but this came close.

Then the man flushed the urinal, tossed his now-empty cup in the trash, and walked out of the restroom without washing his hands.

Nope. I was right to judge. The man was stupid and disgusting.

The cell phone holster was merely the tip of the iceberg.

My wife is annoyed by our 10% deal. I’m so glad.

My friend and I struck a deal about ten years ago at the poker table.

In the unlikely event that either one of us earns one million dollars or more on a single deal, he will give the other 10 percent of the earnings.

At the time, I had yet to publish a novel. I was a third grade teacher dreaming of someday becoming the next great American novelist.

He was also a teacher at the time, but he was also a property manager, slowly accumulating real estate.

It was exceptionally unlikely that either of us would earn that much money on a single transaction. It remains exceptionally unlikely.

Still, my wife thinks it’s a terrible deal and was annoyed that I made it. She still doesn’t like the deal at all.

I love that. 

Imagine the amount of confidence (unjustified and misguided as it may be) that she must have in me in order to even think that I could earn a million dollars someday.

I work hard and strive to achieve goals for many, many reasons, but mostly, I do it to impress my wife.