Five-figure word count

Not to be confused with a five-finger discount. Though you could say I'm making out like a bandit. 

I've written 10,000 words. Unexpected characters and situations have started popping up. Threads and musings from my formative years are creeping into the story, taking on a life of their own. There's a charming, mysterious exchange student throwing parties at the hillbilly mansion. A uniformed interloper whose heavy-booted gait betrays an even heavier secret.

And plenty of melodrama. It's been fun recalling the experience of adolescence, and the thoughts and feelings that took precedence. Maybe it's just me, but things can get kind of philosophical. How do you work against outdated stereotypes in a diverse group of friends? Is it worth changing yourself for what someone else believes? And what happens when your crush takes over your band?

For inspiration on remembering my teenage years, I dug through some old photos. I think this one captures the mood pretty well. I believe this was my brother's freshman year (we called him Eminem for a while), and I was in seventh grade. A year later I stopped wearing American Eagle and started growing my hair out.

Parenting teenagers is not just a job, it's an adventure!

At this pace, I could have a novel drafted by the end of summer. Somehow that always seemed like something that must take years. I guess having the free time helps. And the discipline. Either way, a thousand words per day is a lot less daunting than it was two weeks ago.

I told myself I'd get back to looking for jobs at the beginning of May. Now I might be having too much fun to give up this project. Besides enjoying the story and the writing process, I have more energy lately. Taking on a more youthful, free-flowing mindset has helped me in other creative endeavors. Music, of course, but also problem-solving tasks like designing a patio layout or putting together a website.

This feels more fulfilling than any job I've had, despite my continued doubt that anyone will read it.* That seems important. But then again, maybe it's just the novelty.

A world taking shape...

I've written 5,000 words so far. Might still write more today. 

I think I'm doing something right, because my characters keep developing when I'm not writing. They're mostly reconfigurations of stand-out character traits of people I've known, but I'm learning about them as I go. Then again, they're just parts of me, so maybe I'm learning about myself. 

The plot so far is about a self-professed average teenager and his exceptional group of friends. It starts in the summer after their freshman year, as he's forming deeper connections with all the new people he met during the school year. 

He also has two close friends he's known longer. They used to occupy separate spaces in his world, and now he's dealing with them both being around at once. 

Obviously, the three of them have started a band. I don't think I'll be able to avoid music as a major theme. That's probably okay. I really enjoy describing what it feels like to learn, write, and play music. If I do a good job, maybe it will inspire someone someday.

In a lot of ways, it's the book I've wanted to write since I lived it. Might even be a little therapeutic. 

Writing to see what comes out

I started a story today.

Stephen King's On Writing has had me thinking about my approach to the craft. Like many decisions in my life, my writing has primarily been reactive. I scribble down thoughts when I'm stressed, or I write a few sentences on the topic of the day. I've written to specifications as a tech writer. But I've never sat down with the intent to create an original work from nothing.

I've thought of myself as a writer ever since I started reading. If you'd asked me at any age five to sixteen  what I wanted to be, that was it. I find stimulation and satisfaction in arranging words. I'd write about anything, and teachers would gush at my creativity and precision. My stories set standards and won awards. I was a natural.

That also meant that I was rarely challenged or pushed outside my comfort zone. I could follow the rules and write to an assigned prompt. But I wasn't in the habit of writing regularly just for its own sake. I never came to terms with the mundane part of the creative process. 

In my heyday of songwriting, inspiration was circumstantial. That's the way inspiration is. Faint and fleeting. My songwriting tapered off when I transitioned to a full-time job and the increased responsibilities of adulthood. 

As a technical writer, I found the blank page daunting. But it's usually someone else's job to fill in the information gaps. My task was usually to clean up the language and structure, which was just another instance of following the rules. No personal discipline required.

When writing long-form fiction (or nonfiction, really) the story must continue even when I don't know what comes next. Writing---being a writer---requires consistent, deliberate work on the least inspiring of days. I think I'm in a place mentally and emotionally to do it. A certain level of financial stability helps. Mostly I just need to remember to follow through.

I'm not sure what my new story is about yet. It's fictional, but semi-autobiographical, because I'm conceited enough to think my life is interesting. Also because I want to write what I know. And there's a lot of personal material that's been bouncing around my brain that needs to come out. 

It will probably emerge as a coming-of-age story, maybe in the YA genre. Nothing spectacular, but hopefully something relatable.

My goal is a thousand words per day, starting tomorrow. By my estimate, that will take me at least four hours of dedicated time. 

I'm not sure if all those words will be part of this new story or not. The main goal here is to push myself into a more intensive writing schedule and see where it takes me. This blog will be a way of sharing and reflecting on my progress.

It's a new adventure. Wish me luck. Ask me how it's going. I'm looking forward to creating.

Sorting through life's bricks

Stevie bought a load of assorted bricks for backyard landscaping last year. The bricks were a deal, to be sure: a local stonemason was downsizing after his recent retirement. Unloading it, we could clearly see a few different shades, colors, and sizes. Once we started trying to edge a path with some of them, we realized there was a lot more variation than we'd expected.

This is just the first load...

Now that it's warming up again, I've been trying to sort the bricks. My first inclination was to group them roughly by color and shade, since they mostly looked the same size. Hole count varied between 3 and 10.  Some holes were square, some round, some a combination. Different edge textures prompted more new stacks. At some point I noticed my sorted stacks weren't lining up. I clearly needed to organize them by height.

That insight made everything else click. The other factors mattered, but starting with height made the rest easier to see.

If you were to list human activities by complexity, stacking bricks on a pallet would likely be near the bottom. It's pretty straightforward when the bricks are all the same. They pack together tightly for easy storage and retrieval. You can even get creative with the patterns; as long as one layer is solid, you can add another on top. Aside from a few strategies for adding stability and a height limit, no special knowledge is needed. It's a life-sized Lego game. 

Growing up, I believed life was like that. Add bricks to the foundation, layer by layer, and watch your creation take shape. New understanding and experiences of science, virtue, and creativity could be added seamlessly to the existing layers, filling out some bespoke model of a life well lived.

But life doesn't come in prefabricated chunks. Sometimes parts don't fit where you thought they did, or don't match at all anymore. Or too much is coming in at once, so you throw pieces on top to sort through later. Life gets messy, and eventually whole layers need to be rearranged before a suitable order emerges. Sorting through it---or even knowing how to sort through it---becomes a multi-armed bandit problem.

My normal habit is to adjust as I go, so by the time I've rearranged it all, it already feels familiar. Life remains continuous, though events are discrete. The main advantage of this Ship of Theseus method is agility. Adapting to new situations is easier when you're always changing things around anyway. However, the approach is reactive. With no part of the whole ever safe from change, it's hard to envision and plan for specific goals. 

With adaptability as my primary survival instinct, I've spent adulthood embracing opportunism. My life choices are based on convenience rather than deliberation. I do what's easy in the short term, despite it frequently complicating my life. Worse yet, I'm stubborn. I end up stuck and sticking with the path of least decision. 

Unsurprisingly, that path is paved with a jumble of assorted bricks. It's functional, but ugly. And though it's gotten me this far, my improvisational engineering has reached a limit.

Recognizing this, I've been trying to step back and reassess my approach. What would I be doing absent outside suggestions? How can I arrange the bricks into something more complete? Music and writing would top the list; my brand of creativity seems to require long periods of alone time. Mundane things like reading, walking, and taking pictures bring me joy and peace. I enjoy solving problems and helping people. Intensive research energizes me.

Knowing the nature of these elements, how do I arrange them into a coherent life path? What should be the main organizing factor? 

Guess I'd better get sorting.

Tesla Diary

Since donating my Mustang a few years ago, I have been renting cars for long trips instead of buying one. Driving a variety of different models and types, I've come to appreciate some of the subtle design features in modern vehicles. For the first time last month, electric vehicles were available to rent at my local Hertz. Naturally, I had to try it out.

Of course, Tesla was my only option. I guess they've made some deals in the past few years with rental companies that have finally trickled into the Midwest. It will likely be a few years still before I can rent, say, a C-Max or an F-150 Lightning. (Why am I such a Ford stan?)

Electric cars make sense. At least, that's what I'd like to believe. My enthusiasm for environment and technology influence that opinion heavily. Even accounting for issues around resource extraction and poor industry practices, electric still seems more sustainable than gasoline.

The clerk at Hertz sounded amused as she handed me the keycard. "You know how to use this thing?"

I shrugged. "Well, I read the instructions!"

Even so, it took me a moment to enter the car. Subtly, the key must be swiped under the sensor rather than on the sensor. This would confound me throughout my Tesla experience, though I'd gotten used to it by the return trip.

Climbing into the vehicle, I thought first of my roommate's advice: "Make sure you look up where the manual release is. You wouldn't want to get trapped." Ah, yes. No visible door handles on the inside---just an electronic release and a subtle mechanical button built into the arm rest.

At this point, I synced my phone to the car and called my friend to gush: "Clinton. I'm calling you from the future."

"Ooh, so you're driving the iPad, eh?"

As we chatted, I tapped through the icons in the main screen interface, lamenting the ongoing design trend of pictures without words. For a moment, I hoped the joystick icon stood for Autopilot. Nope---it's for video games. Glad we have our priorities straight.

At this point I found a display of general car information. The thing was brand new: manufactured in December 2022, and only 2,866 miles on it. Excellent. In principle, fewer miles should mean greater battery capacity... Right?

I mapped the trip on my phone and gave Clinton an estimate of my arrival time the next day. I zipped home in the car of the future.

A dumb Jarvis with clever butt jokes

Snow fell overnight, so the car was covered when I went to set off in the morning. The handle was difficult to jiggle loose in the frost. I pondered at what extreme low this flimsy-feeling mechanism would just break. Clearly, these cars were not designed with frigid Midwest winters in mind.

I didn't see a defrost button anywhere, but after fiddling with the dials on the steering wheel for a moment, I discovered the voice interface. Worth a shot. "How do I defrost my windshield?" WHOOSH! Immediately, the heat was on full blast. Helpful, but a little startling. 

Encouraged, I tried another: "Turn on rear defrost." This activated my seat warmer. Hilarious, and technically correct. But not useful.

Most other questions/statements seemed to confuse it. I hoped it would make up for the clunkiness of the interface, and perhaps give access to It didn't understand "cruise control" and told me that Autopilot was unavailable in this car. And Tesla seems to have a butt thing? Every time I said something that might be construed as a reference to a butt, it turns on the seat warmer. I could almost excuse it for "rear defrost," but interpreting "driver assist" this way seems egregious.

Touchscreen is touch and go

When driving, the touch interface felt clunky to me. It has a few useful features, but it obscures crucial options like battery statistics and driver assist within layers of menus. Instead of understanding any of it intuitively, I had to memorize a few specific button sequences. 

Worse still, I had to look every time thanks to the lack of physical buttons. That's not just an eyeball glance, either. With the only screen in the middle of the car, it's more of a head-cocked-to-the-side display. After a while I started to feel like a confused dog.

Screen access to the different camera views is helpful, but I had to adjust my driving habits to use them effectively. The graphical display that shows nearby objects can also be a bit misleading. If someone were to take the representations too literally, they might swerve to avoid someone they think is driving more erratically than they actually are. It's more just a visual representation of local conditions as interpreted by the Autopilot system. 

Sometimes it's the little things

It didn't seem that quiet on the highway until I noticed the clarity of the bass in my music. 

Up to this point in history, a car stereo's main challenge was to cover up the chaotic engine noise with the better defined pitches of music. The result was always muddy and inconsistent, since the engine's frequency (and thus pitch) varies with its RPM. Essentially any music in the low to mid frequencies, 50 - 600 Hz or so, would get sonic interference from the sound of the car itself.

Not so in an electric car. This almost made me giddy. 

Taking charge of charging

Let's talk about the battery life. Suffice it to say, I was not prepared for the implications of a long trip through Illinois in winter.

Mapping the trip on Google, the drive from here to St. Louis is about four and a half hours. I reasoned that leaving at 9am should get me there well before 2:00, which was what I told Clinton. The battery indicator suggested I had around 240 miles, which would be just enough to get me there without charging. When I mapped the trip on the Tesla navigation, I did a double take. Fuck you, four o'clock! 

Turns out the battery life estimate doesn't factor in the weather, although the navigation system evidently does. It added three supercharger stops along the way, putting the trip closer to seven hours. Perhaps I could make up some time the old-fashioned way...

After a few miles going 80+ MPH, I realized my battery estimate for the next stop was going down. I guess it estimates battery life based on the recommended speed? Anyway, even at legal highway speeds, I was only getting about 1 mi per percentage of battery.

It wasn't so bad. I'm a patient person. But it did make me late for my suit fitting appointment. 

When driving around St. Louis, I made another amateur mistake. I searched for "charger" without specifying "supercharger." It took several eight-hour estimates from standard chargers before I figured out what I was doing wrong. Charging stations are abundant in the St. Louis area; supercharging stations, not so much. 

Also, I didn't realize until way too late that there was a standard household adapter in the trunk. I could have charged the thing overnight at Clinton's.

Autopilot, engage!

Illinois is flat and windy, and it really emphasizes how light this car is. Unfortunately I don't have access to autopilot, but I'm curious how well it would deal with these weather conditions.

Finally figured out how to use the autopilot on the way home. I probably should have read the manual. It still isn't a full autopilot, but I now have steering assists and cruise control. You'd think that's telling the voice command module I want cruise control would have gotten me there, but no matter. I am now happy blaring Green Day and allowing my Tesla to drive me. Grasping to control, so I better hold on.

This thing really doesn't seem to like how I drive. Every time I turn the autopilot on it swerves me toward the middle of the lane rather than the outer edge where I tend to hang. And at least a couple times, I forced the autopilot to disengage because I felt uncomfortable with where it was going. But it does a pretty good job, honestly. Once I get past my insecurities about the whole thing, I have no complaints with its driving. That said I'm not yet ready to trust it in too complex a situation.

Fun toy, wouldn't buy

Driving the Tesla Model 3 had its bright spots, but frankly I wasn't impressed with the overall design. In trying to be revolutionary, it forces a new rule set for operation. It's a bit much.

But never mind the car. Elon Musk is deplorable, and I'd like to do as little as possible to support him directly. Even if Tesla made a model that made sense to me, I'd pass.

Leaping into the semi-known

Major life change can be like falling from an airplane unexpectedly, trajectory unknown. The wind is disorienting. Movement is limited with nothing solid to push against. In the few seconds of airtime, all thoughts focus on landing safely---and frankly, by this point it's too late to change much. Tucking in limbs might help, or maximizing your landing surface area. Statistically, the best move is to relax and breathe slowly during the most terrifying moments of your life. 

If only "fight or flight" worked literally, and we could instinctively wrest control mid-air a la Arthur Dent. A universe with the absurd, self-reflecting rules of a dream or video game would allow for countless obvious solutions at the last moment. Manipulating reality is not so simple.

The real meta moves here are foresight and inner calm. Form a plan for what to do in case of a "sudden change in cabin pressure." Visualize the scenario, practice your reaction diligently, and your muscle memory will take over during the real-life event. Build a set of tools, both mental and physical, to deal with any eventuality. Implement feedback systems to make your life antifragile. 

On March 22, I lost my job to first-round layoffs at Indeed. My former company was kind enough to provide a financial parachute. And with the recent upheavals in tech and finance, I'd been preparing to take this dive for some time. Still, I was caught off guard by the timing. My descent is under control, but I don't know where I'm going to land.

That's where the inner calm helps. When I'm gliding instead of falling, I can shift modes from anxiety to thoughtfulness. The birds-eye view provides a new perspective on possible destinations. I can take a minute to appreciate the spread of options.

I skydove once. It was a tandem jump; one expert diver was strapped to my back, and another was diving with us to get a video. The experience was exhilarating: air pressure stretching my face, the curvature of the horizon, and the overwhelming sense that nothing lay in the vast but ever-closing distance between me and the grass below. I was a momentary satellite observing its own final approach with a cold calm.

Upon reviewing the footage, my friends said I was "too cool for school." They, like many others, see skydiving as a death-defying, adrenaline-inducing sport, an occasion for screaming, gesticulating, or perhaps passing out. Scary as it may sound, statistics suggest it's relatively safe. The fatality rate is about 1 in 500,000 for tandem jumps. Closer to 1 in 1,000 for injuries, but generally nothing major. 

These facts helped me appreciate the experience fully, without dreading the dire possibilities. Far from negating the thrill, it added a new kind of excitement. A sense of abandon. I controlled no part of the experience; my only obligation was to live it.

I'm approaching this period in my life in a similar way, though it's a solo jump this time. Chute and landing are mine to control. Perhaps abandon would be a poor direction, but wonder is crucial. 

To quote a favorite artist of mine: Perspective pries your once-weighty eyes, and it gives you wings. 

Next time your life is up in the air, I hope you can take a moment to soak in the view.