Tim Dodge's Blog, page 3

Smokey Writers – Day 2

I’m posting a bit late (like, a day late), but I wanted to give a quick report on how the retreat is going. Yesterday was the first full day of writing, and I am very happy with my progress. I decided last week that my daily goal would be 5,000 words, a level of output I’d never achieved before. By the time I stopped yesterday, I had written 5,034 words.

As a personal incentive, I promised myself that when I hit certain milestones, I’d take a guitar break. So, in the morning, when I hit the 1,000 word mark, I went up to my room, closed the door and played three songs (quietly so as to not disturb people who were working.) After lunch, I did the same thing when I got to 4,000 words. It’s a nice little reward system as well as a good way to re-focus, so I’m going to do it again today.

All of the writers here are serious. In the morning, we finish breakfast and within minutes the place is as quiet as a college library. People are scattered around the house, working where they feel most comfortable. I set up camp in the living room, but today the temperatures are supposed to reach the 60’s, so I may sit for awhile on the balcony outside my room, overlooking the mountains.

At 6:00 last night, we all broke into groups of five and read some of what we’d written during the day. Everyone got 10 minutes to read (it was timed), and the only rules are 1) it had to be content produced that day, and 2) no critiquing. My group had a nice variety of subject matter and styles. There is a lot of creative candle power in this house, believe me.

Last night, in addition to another fabulous dinner, we got a preview of a talk that Stephen Granade is giving in Atlanta later this week (it will be terrific), and Bryan Lincoln previewed the first episode of his new audio drama (also terrific). Bryan’s girlfriend Cathy (I hope I spelled that correctly) made personalized gifts for all of us – neckties for the men, journals for the women. Mine has books on it. I also snuck in a half-hour walk before reading time. I brought running clothes, but guess what? I’m in the mountains. The hills are steep. Walking was a workout in its own right.

At night, everyone did their own thing. I played guitar for hours, as I found people willing to indulge my show-off tendencies. All in all, it was a great day and a great start. Look for a report on Day 2 later today or tomorrow morning.

Smokey Writers 2016 – Day 1

I’m writing this from a beautiful house in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in eastern Tennessee. I am here with 20 friends for the third annual Smokey Writers retreat, a week-long gathering where we can focus exclusively on creative writing. This is my first time at Smokey Writers; others are comfortable veterans. For seven hours a day over the next week, we will work on our various projects, share at night what we’ve written during the day, eat, drink, and enjoy our surroundings and each others’ company.  I can’t describe how happy I am to be here (I know, ironic for a writer.)

The house is 7,000 square feet, sleeps 22 people, has multiple hot tubs, video and pinball games, foosball and pool tables, and balconies off the dining room and every bedroom. During dinner tonight, a raccoon wandered up to the glass doors off the dining room and checked us out. No sign of bears yet, though I’m told they’re just coming out of hibernation. I’m also told they can’t climb, and my bedroom is on the fourth floor, so it’s all good.

I arrived in Gatlinburg, Tennessee on Friday. A “pre-treat” was planned for yesterday, and the airfare was $150 less if I flew here on Friday. That night, only three of us were here. Little by little, people arrived yesterday. Everyone is here now. These are some of the best people I know, writers I’ve met at Balticon and other conventions. In real life, we come from academia, accounting, business services, museums, non-fiction publishing, and yes, insurance. One or two are fortunate enough to make their livings writing. All are dedicated to putting words in original and interesting orders.

The house was not available until 4 pm today, so today was all about moving in, getting comfortable with our surroundings, getting acquainted or re-acquainted, and basically settling in. Tomorrow morning at 9 am, the work starts. I am looking forward to a week that will be mentally and emotionally exhausting, exhilarating, filled with laughter, friendship, good food and drink, and immersion in creativity. There are at least four writers here whose books you can find at any Barnes & Noble. Do I feel a little bit like a pretender? You betcha. I also feel enormously privileged and flattered to be invited, and I’m determined to make the most of this precious week.

I hope to blog every day of the retreat. Tomorrow, I will have progress to report. The photo above is a shot of the house from the woods behind it. As the week goes on, perhaps I’ll post some others. In the mean time, I am very blessed to be in this house, with these people, in this place. I can’t wait to get started.

How To Get Unstuck

Are you feeling stuck, at least in some areas of your life? I know that I always feel like there’s some part of my life that’s not progressing the way I think it should be. Writing, weight loss goals, career growth – at various times I feel stuck in these and many other areas.

I found this Slideshare deck to be interesting. There’s a little bit of a sales pitch for the creator’s Web site, but most of it is advice worth considering. If you’re feeling like things are going nowhere, you might find some of this helpful.

Now, if I can just make a breakthrough on that novel I’ve been writing …

How to get unstuck, moving and productive from Hugh Culver

Farewell to the Thin White Duke

Sometimes, this blog feels like a series of obituaries for musicians I’ve admired. I guess part of getting older is seeing your old favorites pass away. So it is again today, with the news of David Bowie’s death from cancer yesterday at age 69.

When I was in junior high and my first year or two of high school, everything was new – clothes, girls, and especially music. I read music magazines voraciously, and there was always someone new to discover. I was an innocent kid in a small town, and the rock stars I read about were a little scary and exciting at the same time. I wanted to hear all of them – Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Hendrix, Clapton. And in the summer of 1974, I first heard of David Bowie.

The first Bowie album I bought was Young Americans in the summer of 1975. Looking back, that record wasn’t close to representative of his music; it was a brief fling with soul music. It had the great title song, the disco-tinged rave-up Fame, a seriously bad version of The Beatles’ Across the Universe, and not much else that I remember.

The next winter brought Station To Station, which included what is probably my favorite Bowie song, Golden Years (see the video below.) Within the first two notes, I’m 14 again, loving the feel of that song, the way the vocals fade in and out, the way they seem to surround me, rising above and through the disco rhythms, Bowie sneering, “Last night they loved you / Opening doors and pulling some strings / Angelllllll…..”

Very close seconds are two from 1974’s Diamond Dogs album . The title track, with its menacing guitars, dog howls, and one of my favorite opening lines to a song: “As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent / You asked for the latest party.” And Rebel Rebel, with an infectious guitar lick and that chorus:

Rebel rebel, you’ve torn your dress

Rebel rebel, your face is a mess

Rebel rebel, how could they know?

Hot tramp, I love you so.

High school summed up in four lines.

Later on, I found some of his earlier, greatest songs, like Space Oddity (I shamelessly stole the style of that song for a forgettable piece of teenage angst I wrote my freshman year of college). Incredibly, I think I may have been in college when I first heard Changes and Suffragette City. And then, my first summer after college, as I adjusted to the working world, was the summer of Let’s Dance, China Girl and Modern Love. It was the soundtrack of my summer.

Bowie never equaled the commercial success of the period from 1969 to 1983. I pretty much lost track of him. I got older, married, had kids, became … respectable. And yet, somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain, there’s a high school kid itching to jump on stage with a Strat and play the lead part on Diamond Dogs. Just once. Ah well. There are some fantasies that are best left as fantasies.

So, David Bowie has departed this world. I like to think of him fading away, whistling as he walks down whatever path he’s on, just like at the end of Golden Years. And as he exits, he’s left me tapping my feet and singing “Wop-wop-wop.” What more can we ask of a great musician?

On Understanding Other People

Photo by Steven Shorrock. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license.

He wouldn’t stop talking.

He was average height, with a gray beard and hair. He wore glasses and a Bluetooth device over his right ear. When I teach a class, I’m normally the only man in the room wearing a jacket and tie, but he was the exception. He arrived at quarter to eight for a class scheduled to start at 8:30, and he started talking.

In addition to teaching the class that morning in Albany, I also had to monitor it. For those who have never attended an insurance agent continuing education class in New York (I’m guessing that’s most of you), there are normally two people in charge – an instructor and a monitor. The monitor makes sure everyone signs in, presents photo I.D., makes the announcements, distributes completion certificates at the end, and basically deals with any issues that arise (the temperature in the classroom being the most common.) I very much dislike having to act as both the instructor and the monitor. As the person who has to deliver the content and answer questions on my feet for four hours, I already have plenty on my mind. I don’t like having to deal with all the logistical issues on top of that. Nevertheless, my employer could not find an available monitor in Albany for that class, so I pulled double duty.

This particular gentleman started chatting upon his arrival. That’s not unusual; some people like to make small talk while they wait for a class to start. However, most people eventually decide to grab a cup of coffee and a danish, check their email one last time, or otherwise occupy themselves. This man didn’t. Instead, he talked to me. And talked. And talked.

When a participant would arrive, he would pause as I got the person signed in and examined her I.D. Then he would pick up his narrative from the exact spot he’d left off. And it was a narrative; my contributions to the discussion (for lack of a more suitable word) were to nod, utter the occasional “That’s interesting” or “Huh”, or simply make periodic eye contact.

None of his sentences completed a thought; each led inexorably to another. This made it quite difficult for me to say, “Good talking to you. Have to attend to other things now.” Eventually, though, I had to get the class underway, and I cut him off. I made the announcements, introduced the topic, and dove into the material. He sat in the front row and interjected with some frequency. That’s fine; I prefer to have a group that participates. Speaking to 15 faces who don’t say a word can be pretty deflating for an instructor.

The first break came up, and I got complaints about it being too cold in the room. I hustled off to notify the hotel’s front desk. When I returned, my new friend started up a new monologue. As I listened to him, several thoughts ran through my mind. I wondered how a person could so completely lack self-awareness. I fixated on how I could keep things running on schedule without seeming rude. I speculated as to whether he was always like this.

The time allotted for the break was drawing to a close. I told him that we had to get started again. He said, “Okay,” and resumed his monologue. After another minute or so, I said again that we had to resume class, and this time I stepped away and back to the front. I plowed into the second segment, my explanations of each topic interrupted by the man in the front row at every turn. At one point, he began to speak of the dangers of certain anti-depressant medications and to describe a particular web site. As kindly as I could, I got us back on topic.

After an hour, we took another break. This time I somehow managed to avoid a new conversation, but that wouldn’t last. As I went through the material in the final segment, he repeatedly poked up his hand and added his thoughts. The subject didn’t matter; he had comments on flood insurance reform, recent changes to New York laws and regulations, drones, medical marijuana – whatever I spoke about, he had something to say.

The class ran a few minutes longer than scheduled, and at the end I made sure everyone signed out and got their completion certificates. Part of me knew that he would be the last one out of the room. That part of me is undeniably psychic. Because he was the last one out, he had me all to himself. From 12:30 until almost one, he talked. I listened. I assembled the sign-in sheets and placed them in their envelope. I collected the pens. I put the materials in their original box. And he talked.

As the time drew close to one, I remarked that my organization’s hold on the room was about to end and that I needed to retrieve my equipment and leave. I got up and started edging toward the entrance to the room (the sign-in table was in the hallway outside.) He kept talking. I edged closer to the door. He kept talking. I shot nervous glances at my watch. He kept talking.

At last, his bladder overruled his tongue and he headed for the restrooms. With a sigh, I went into the room and began disconnecting the laptop and projector. As I was stashing the equipment in their respective bags, he returned. This time, I made no pretense of giving him my undivided attention as he expounded on whatever his subject was. I wrapped up cables, picked up leftover books and evaluation sheets, and threw out trash while he went on. At some point, he said goodbye and left, only to return a minute later. He made some additional points, then left again, this time for good.

It was more than a week ago, but I find my thoughts returning to him often. The longer he talked, the more I began to think that he was troubled. I am far from a psychologist, even an amateur one, but this man’s behavior was so far outside the norm that I suspect that he may indeed have mental health problems. I could be completely off-base, but I don’t think so.

All of us have, from time to time, become mired in conversation with people who monopolize the discussion. Probably most of us have been that person occasionally. However, very seldom do we encounter someone who is completely unaware of how he may be coming across. This man was one such person.

It’s sad. He certainly seemed like a gentle person, one who posed no threat to anyone, and if nothing else he is passionate about the subjects that interest him. If he has a health condition that interferes with his ability to connect with other people, he needs professional help, just as does someone with a chronic physical condition. Someone in his position may be very lonely. The very thing that animates him may well be driving away the other people in his life. I may be reading too much into this; I only met the man for a few hours. But I keep wondering what his life is like.

This guy doesn’t need my pity, and probably doesn’t want it. If he does need professional help, I hope he’s able to get it. I hope my growing impatience with him that morning was not completely obvious. I did receive an email from another class participant a few days later, saying that it looked like I wanted to choke him at one point. This makes me think that I did a poor job of concealing my thoughts. Bad on me. He was a challenge for me to meet, a person for me to treat with kindness, compassion and respect. If I was unable to do that as well as I should have, then I have some growing to do.

We get up every morning not knowing who we may encounter during the day ahead. It makes life interesting and exciting. We may meet people who amuse, entertain, educate, annoy, or upset us. In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius Loyola called on us to always give other people the benefit of the doubt. Stephen Covey put it another way in his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” I tried, imperfectly, to do this with the man in my class. Maybe next time, I’ll do it a little better. I hope, after reading this, that you will, too, the next time you’re in a situation like this. You and I should always remember the words of one of America’s greatest poets, Theodor Seuss Geisel, who wrote, “After all, a person’s a person, no matter how small.”

For Your Late Summer Reading Pleasure

With just one week left until Labor Day, there’s still time to sneak in some good summer reading. Courtesy of EssayShark.com, here is a list of 10 summer books. Take a look and discuss in the comments what they got right and wrong and what you would add to the list.

10 Best Summer Reading Books from EssayShark.com

The Art of Juggling Writing Projects

Photo by Gabriel Rojas Hruska. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

Tee Morris discusses a problem that most of us struggle with – too many projects going on:

You’ve got project upon project, and suddenly you are at the point where I find myself presently. It’s not what you want to work on but more about what you need to work on. This may seem like an easy call to make but if any of these projects-in-progress carry multiple deadlines, the decision process gets a little trickier.

And here’s the thing about us crazy, kooky creative types: we love to do a lot of things at once. It makes us feel productive. It makes us feel accomplished. It makes us feel alive. The problem comes in when you can’t make a deadline, and poor organization can lead to missed delivery dates which can lead to a reputation of commitment but not coming through on your promises. Falling back on “I am so poorly organized…” really is a lame-ass excuse, too. If you want to get organized, you’re going to have to nut up and take control of your projects before your projects take control of you; or start controlling you more than how they are currently.

Tee presents five ways to deal with the I’ve-got-too-much-to-do syndrome:

Prioritize
Set realistic production goals
Create a realistic editorial calendar
Accept the fact that you can’t do everything
Make time for yourself

His post and advice were well-timed for me, as I’ve been wrestling with this all year. I have a steady freelance writing gig that pays moderately well, and I’ve given it higher priority than I have my other writing projects. Consequently, I’m still only 45,000 words toward the 120,000 word target for my latest novel. The only short story I’ve produced this year is the one I wrote for the Tales From The Archive podcast. I haven’t blogged nearly as much as I should. In short, the fun writing has taken a backseat to the paid writing.

One approach I’ve considered doing is a version of what Tee recommends – assigning certain days to certain projects. Perhaps Monday, Thursday and Saturday can be for freelance work and the other days can be reserved for fiction. I’ve also considered asking my clients for a rate increase. Yeah, I might get less work, but each assignment will pay a little more and that might free me up for more creative writing.

The only thing I would add to Tee’s list is negotiating for later deadlines. Suppose you get offered the chance to write something for an anthology that really pushes all your buttons. Unfortunately, you’re already juggling three big projects. This is the time to chat with the editor. Is that deadline absolutely firm? Would it be possible for you to turn the piece in a week or two past the stated deadline? Of course, this assumes you haven’t already agreed to the deadline. Once you’ve committed to a date, meet the date. If you haven’t committed yet, see if the editor has some flexibility. If not, then you may have to pass with no hard feelings. On the other hand, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Let’s face it, all of us have too much going on. I think it’s a requirement of being an American. We want to honor our commitments and deliver our best work. That takes planning, discipline, good communication and common sense. It can be done.

Now, if I can just figure out how to sleep faster…

Science Made Fun by Mary Roach

Mary Roach, sans plastic rectum and anus

One of the great things about living in Syracuse is the Rosamond Gifford Lecture Series. A fundraiser for the Friends of the Central Library, the series brings in six authors a year, spaced throughout the fall and spring, to give lectures. I attended my first one last year, when Neil Gaiman came to town. Judging from the size of the crowd, I can safely guess that it was a sellout. This year’s lineup featured Erik Larson, Scott Simon, Mark Bittman, Daniel Handler, and Julia Alvarez. And science writer Mary Roach.

I confess, I was unfamiliar with Mary Roach’s work before I attended her lecture here in April. This is something I have corrected since then. I bought the audiobook of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex from Audible, downloaded the audiobook of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers from the library, and currently have her latest book, Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal on loan in print from the library.

Her books are educational, entertaining, and just downright funny. If any of you have read or listened to my book Purgatory, you know that I have a special place in my heart for humor. Mary Roach delivers in spades. Take this passage from Gulp, for example. It’s from the chapter on chewing food:

The study of oral processing is not just about teeth. It’s about the entire “oral device”: teeth, tongue, lips, cheeks, saliva, all working together toward a singular unpicturesque goal: bolus formation. The word bolus has many applications, but we are speaking of this one: a mass of chewed, saliva-moistened food particles. Food that is in – as one researcher put it, sounding like a license plate – “the swallowable state.” [Footnote: I nominate Rhode Island.]

Or this from the same book, in which she discusses the Biblical story of Johah being swallowed by a whale:

Would a man in a whale forestomach be crushed or merely tumbled? Is the force lethal or just uncomfortable? No one to my knowledge has measured the contraction strength of the sperm whale forestomach, but someone has measured gizzard squeeze. The work was done in the 1600s, to settle an argument between a pair of Italian experimenters, Giovanni Borelli and Antonio Vallisneri, over the main mechanism of digestion. Borelli claimed it was purely mechanical: that birds’ gizzards exerted a thousand pounds of force, and with that kind of grinding going on there was no call for chemical dissolution. “Vallisneri, on the contrary,” wrote author Stephen Paget in a 1906 chronicle of early animal experimentation, “having had occasion to open the stomach of an ostrich, had found there a fluid* which seemed to act on bodies immersed in it.” [Footnote: Vallisneri named the fluid aqua fortis – not to be confused with aquavit, a Scandinavian liquor with, sayeth the Internet, “a long and illustrious history as the first choice for … special occasions,” like holidays or the opening of an ostrich stomach.]

I love the little payoff in that last line. She lets us know that, despite her fascination with biology, she too finds opening an ostrich stomach to be a little weird. Still, she revels in the realm of the gross, venturing to bodily parts and functions that most of us have been told not to discuss in polite company. For her lecture in Syracuse, which was actually a conversation between her and a physician from Upstate University Hospital, she took the stage carrying a gift she had received during her tour of the hospital earlier that day. It seems the hospital has a 3D printer, and an admiring staff member printed for her a 3D replica of a cadaver’s rectum and anus. It was in plastic and colored a rather attractive shade of red. She declared her intention to place it on her desk as a pen and pencil holder.

If you haven’t read any of her books yet, or watched her TED Talk, I encourage you to check her out. You’ll laugh, and you’ll learn something. I know I have. And I haven’t even gotten to chapters 13 and 14 of Gulp, which concern “the intestinal arts”. [Footnote: Farting.]

On Our Devotion To Sports Teams

The axe fell on my beloved Syracuse University Orange men’s basketball team last Friday. After an investigation that commenced when my oldest son was a high school senior (he is now a practicing attorney,) the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s committee on infractions handed down penalties that, by any standard, are quite severe. The Orange loses three scholarships in each of the next four seasons; coach Jim Boeheim, who is an icon in Central New York, is suspended for the first half of the 2016 Atlantic Coast Conference schedule; a large number of wins (the exact number is in dispute) are stripped from the team’s record for the past 10 years; and the university must return revenues reported at more than $1 million.

The infractions that earned the team this kind of wrath are pretty serious. Over a period of many years, but particularly during the 2011-12 season for one player, basketball team personnel stepped over the line (“jumped” over the line is more like it) when it came to making sure the players had grades high enough to keep them eligible to play. The NCAA reported that staff logged into players’ email accounts and sent messages to professors; completed homework assignments and wrote papers submitted under the players’ names; and generally did whatever they deemed necessary to keep the guys on the basketball court. At one point, a group of seven people, including the university’s athletic director, met to discuss how to solve a star player’s academic eligibility difficulties.

There were other infractions, including failure to follow up when some players tested positive for marijuana use, and a few thousand dollars that a local YMCA employee paid some of the players, who apparently did not work in return for the money. All in all, it’s pretty sordid business.

As a longtime fan of the team, I find this all incredibly sad. The players who benefited from the rule violations are long gone – it’s the current players who are paying a price. For the first time that I can remember, our team is not playing in the postseason; the university self-imposed a ban on it participating in any tournaments this year. This is particularly unfair to the team’s star center , who is one of the most improved players in the country this year. His play carried the team through a lot of games this season. Oh, and by the way, he finished his undergraduate studies in three years and is pursuing a graduate degree now. Don’t put him in the category of players who need office employees to do his homework.

The NCAA’s committee decided that, as the man in charge, Jim Boeheim bears ultimate responsibility for what happened. Their report does not allege that he participated in these shenanigans or even knew they were happening. Nevertheless, they threw the book at him. Nine conference games is the harshest suspension I can ever recall the NCAA imposing on a coach. The vacated wins affect him the most, as he was within shouting distance of 1,000 wins for his career and had the second most wins in men’s college basketball history.

Clearly, people associated with the program did some pretty bad things, and the university has punishment coming. Whether the punishment it has received is fair, I don’t know. I can tell you that the whole thing has come as a shock to the people in this area, at least those who care about the team. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it now – in Syracuse during the winter, there are two topics of conversation: The snow and the SU men’s hoops team. To say that people here are passionate about basketball is like saying that children kind of like birthday presents. To illustrate: In the evening on Valentine’s Day, a winter storm moved through the area, dropping snow at the rate of an inch or two an hour, producing winds gusting to 40 miles per hour, and pushing temperatures well below zero (Fahrenheit) with the wind chill factored in. The conditions were inhuman.

The Orange hosted a game against Duke University that night. More than 35,000 people showed up.

The community and the university will survive this scandal. The players will be back on the court in November, and Coach Boeheim will be on the sideline for some of them. People will pack the Carrier Dome and boo the referees. But for now, there’s a sense of gloom here, even as temperatures popped into the 40’s today, sending a clear sign that the winter that has abused the northeast will eventually wane. We love our team, and the news of the wrongdoing, and the subsequent punishment, hurts.

We as a society tend to take sports too seriously. People agonize over the fortunes of their favorite football teams on autumn Sundays. In some places, the performance of high school football teams are all that matters. I’ve watched grown men behave shamefully at children’s baseball and basketball games. I personally had trouble sleeping the night the Boston Red Sox lost the 1986 World Series to the New York Mets (I still have bad dreams about game six of that series.)

And it’s not just in America. Football (we call it “soccer”) fans in Europe riot when their teams lose. Brazilian fans at last year’s World Cup were literally in tears in the stands as Germany destroyed the home team in the semi-finals. The Olympics have been plagued by scandals for decades over doping of athletes and abuses by various countries in preparing their youth to compete and win on the international stage. Sometimes, it feels like we’ve all lost our collective minds.

There is something, though, about devotion to a team. I can’t even really explain it. It’s not always explained by geography. Yes, I became a Syracuse basketball fan when I moved here 30 years ago. But I was also a kid from rural upstate New York who saw his first major league baseball game ever as a 10 year-old on July 3, 1972 at Fenway Park in Boston. I fell in love with the Red Sox that night and have never fallen out. To be devoted to a team, to feel the joy when they excel and the pain when they fall short, and to share those feelings with other people whose names you don’t know but who share your passion for the team – these are all parts of the human experience that pull us in, wrap us up in strong arms and refuse to let us go.

Sometimes, people involved with those teams lose sight of the important things. Huge amounts of money ride on the success of university football and basketball teams. Pressure comes from the fans, the media, the alumni, the boosters. So someone decides that, if it means keeping that winning streak alive, then why not write a paper for that academically-challenged center? The pressure is no excuse: Maybe athletics does take priority over studies for these young men, but they are students at least part of the time. No one will do their work for them when their basketball days are through. The people who thought they were helping by making homework problems go away were just plain wrong.

But I have to be honest – I’m part of that mob howling when a layup is missed. I’m part of that culture. I’m one of those heaping that pressure on. Yes, university staff did some bad things, but they did them with my encouragement – with all of our encouragement. This seems like a good time for all of us who love the thrill of athletic competition to take a step back and gain a little perspective. Sports is part of life, but it’s not life itself.

We are blessed with so many types of beauty – the vibrant flowers that will bloom as we escape winter for the comforting warmth of spring. Clarence Clemons’ saxophone solo on Jungleland by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The bird call of the clarinet line that opens Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. And those graceful moments in sports: The loopy swing of David Ortiz’s bat as he delivers an errant curve ball into one of the bullpens in Fenway’s right field. A crisp pass to the low post that sets up a reverse dunk on a basketball court. The impossible catches that two different wide receivers have made to help the New York Giants win Super Bowls. Breanna Stewart nailing a jump shot from downtown. These are all things that we should and do appreciate. But we need to appreciate them for what they are, for what these gifted individuals can do, and not make them into life-or-death struggles.

Syracuse University basketball fans are in sorrow today. Maybe the experience of that sorrow will teach us what is crucially important and what is less so. Winning is not worth breaking the rules and allowing young men in their formative years to get a pass. Their universities, and we as fans, owe them more than that. Let’s try to remember that going forward.

See you at the Dome next season.

Awards, and Why My Insecure Mind Wants Them

 

 

 

 

 

Chuck Wendig has a good take on the annual awards season in which we are now knee-deep:

Awards are not infallible.

The best book will not always win an award.

The best book sometimes won’t ever even be nominated.

Sometimes, it will be nominated, and it will win, and you’ll cheer — at the same time someone else boos that very same decision. The book you love isn’t a book everyone loves. And vice versa.

Awards are subjective, strange, and imperfect.

They’re not the whole elephant; they’re just a blood sample.

And at the same time: awards are awesome. The people who win them? Awesome for them. And deserved. Those who are nominated but lose? Awesome for them, too. And also deserved. Those who are never nominated? Hey, fuck it — awesome for you, because you’re out there writing books and reaching an audience and doing what you fucking love to do. You didn’t win an award? Most people didn’t. A hundred other amazing authors and books and pieces of art failed to win awards. Most failed to even score nominations. You’re in good company.

Awards generate interest, conversation, controversy — they’re bubbles in the boiling pot of water. Not always relevant to your world, not always ideal, but it keeps the whole thing cooking.

So, we should celebrate awards and those who win them.

And, at the same time, we should be able to celebrate not winning them. Because awards? Not the end all be all. They’re one part — an admittedly small part — of the total equation. My advice? Relax. Write the stories you want to write. Try to reach an audience, not an award. Awards are too weird, too unpredictable. You win one? Victory lap. You don’t? Then you still get your victory lap.

Just remember that an award doesn’t validate you.

You were valid when you got here. You already have the cake — an award is just icing.

I will confess here and now that part of me is still that kid in junior high school (that’s what it was called in my town in the mid-1970’s) who craved awards. I’ve entered the Parsec Awards competition three or four times, fantasized about what I would say when they handed me the little statue, imagined myself texting photos of it back home, and humbly accepting the congratulations from my peers. However, I’ve never made the finals.

Anyone out there feel sorry for me? Yeah, me neither. Some of my favorite podcasts, interview shows, full-cast dramas and solo-read novels alike, have not won. Murder At Avedon Hill? Nope. Guild of the Cowry Catchers? Made the finals a couple of times but never won. Cybrosis? Uh-uh (though P.C. Haring did take home a well-deserved Parsec for a short story he contributed to Tales From The Archives.) Jennisodes (which has since ceased production)? Functional Nerds? Morevi Remastered? The 7th Son trilogy? None of them. Were they excellent podcasts? Absolutely. WAY better than mine. And they give me a level of excellence to aim for.

Chuck has done us all a favor by reminding us that awards, while freaking awesome when you’re fortunate enough to win one, mean relatively little in the long run. What’s important is to be in the game, producing words and stories that connect with readers and listeners, that touch them on some level and leave them wanting more. If I can make a reader laugh or cry or feel frightened or angry or just FEEL, then I’ve accomplished something important, something that will last much longer than the glow from winning an award.

I’ve got to tell you, though, I had one hell of an acceptance speech prepared…