so far away from my wasteland

It turns out that my 24 hour trip to New York, followed by a full day of intense creative work, pretty much kicked my ass. I’m so tired, I don’t even have the energy to go to Staples Center to watch my beloved Los Angeles Kings take on our crosstown rivals, the hated Ducks. I thought about maybe homebrewing some wootstout today, but I don’t think I can even do that. It looks like I’ll spend most of today — and maybe all of tomorrow — watching movies and catching up on TV shows, so I can regenerate HP and Mana, but holy mother of balls am I tired.

But it’s a good kind of tired. It’s the kind of tired that seems to start out in my bones. The kind of tired that I feel has been earned, by lots of hard work. Sure, it’s not the kind of hard work that people who actually work for a living would consider work, but since my job basically entails me creating things and then enthusiastically sharing those creations with an audience, the last week has been some of the hardest work I’ve done in a long time.

While I was in New York to promote the awesome videos I made with Newcastle, I did seventeen interviews in about eight hours. Seventeen times, I found new and interesting ways to answer the same fundamental questions, each time making sure that the person I was talking with got 100% of the energy I had to offer, so that each interview felt like it was the only interview I did.

I did that seventeen times, and by the end of the day, I was completely exhausted. In fact, I had a beer at the end of the day (which was funny, because drinking it was technically part of working), and I fell asleep in the car moments after it pulled away from the curb to take me to the airport.

So, about that … the car took me to the wrong airport. In the wrong state. And I found out when I was inside the airport, at the wrong ticket counter, 90 minutes before my flight was scheduled to depart.

I had the most panicked panic I’ve felt related to travel in a very, very long time, as I hoped against hope that the cab I got into at the wrong airport could take me all the way across Brooklyn and Manhattan and get me to the right airport. The entire way, I did math in my head every few minutes to update my anticipated arrival time, and each time it told me that I’d make it or miss it by about five minutes. I didn’t have any checked luggage, and I had my boarding pass already, but it was going to be incredibly close.

When I got to the right airport, I tipped the driver 100%, and ran as fast as I could to security. “I’m going to miss my flight,” I said, “if you delay me at all. Please help me.”

By the grace of the old gods and new, I encountered a string of very helpful and friendly TSA people who all assured me that I’d be fine, since I had nearly 20 minutes before departure (the airline says that if you get to the plane with less than fifteen minutes before the departure time, you’re screwed).

Here’s the thing about me and travel: I’m good at it. I’m efficient. I know how to get my belt off, and I kick of my slip-on Vans quickly and easily. I have the laptop pull and bin deposit down to a fluid move that is like a ballet.

Only this trip, I was wearing Fluevog boots that tied near my ankles, and when I tried to untie them, the laces knotted themselves tightly. This trip, when I tried to take my laptop out of my bag, I nearly dropped it, and then I fell over while I was removing the knot from my shoe. I nearly forgot to take my belt off. It wasn’t a ballet so much as it was the flailing of a crazy person that would have been a perfect visual for Yakkity Sax.

Somehow, I got through security, and when I slammed my feet back into my boots, I knew that I had to run as fast as I could to get to the gate on time. I didn’t even stop to tie them — which was a mistake, it turns out. If you ever have to run in boots, tie them — and I got to my gate with less than five minutes to spare. I was the second to last person to get on the plane, and thanks to the Lords of Light, I had checked in online and they hadn’t given my seat away. I fell into my seat, explained to the bewildered man next to me why I was sweating and gasping and shaking, and when the adrenaline finally wore off, slept for most of the trip.

Yesterday, I slept straight through my alarm and was fifteen minutes late for my meeting at Geek & Sundry, where I worked with a Top Secret Team of Creative People on the Tabletop RPG show.

I spent the entire day building the world, figuring out what was important for the players, characters, and audience to know, and eventually ended the day with an outline for the adventure we’re going to run. I’ve never broken a season in a writer’s room before, but I imagine that the experience I had yesterday was similar: exhilarating, inspiring, challenging, incredibly fun, and exhausting.

There’s that word again: exhausting.

Exhausted.

Spent.

Drained.

Did you know that intense use of your brain for things burns a ton of calories? I didn’t, either, until recently. There’s no entry for “concentrated on storytelling and worldbuilding and character development for eight hours” in MyFitnessPal, but if there was, I would have checked it off, yesterday.

So here I am, so tired I could probably just go back to bed, but feeling compelled to write and share my experiences with the world, because that’s what writers do, and I’m spending the next six months being a capital-W Writer.

But more on that another time, because now I need to rest.

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27 thoughts on “so far away from my wasteland”

  1. Hey will How was your Trip To New york i’m sure it was awesome i’m Moving up Too Agoura here Real Soon and Leaving isla vista iv’e Pretty much Seen Enough of this place To Last a Life Time.

  2. Glad you go to your flight on time, Nothing more heart sinking than knowing the doom of a missed flight. Last flight I was on my Plane was touching down 5 minutes before departure for my connecting flight.

    You would think they would let people with connecting flights off of the plane first, Nope. 10 minutes of everyone standing in the aisle as soon as we pulled into the gate.

    Luckily my travel agent was able to book another flight 1 hour later. I hope you use an agent and don’t have to do all the airline wrangling yourself.

  3. Glad you made the flight. I definitely Know that grinding, brain squishing exhaustion. Over the last weekend until this Tuesday I was attending a martial arts intensive training
    with the only living lineage holder alive of the Yin Fu Bagua system. Four days of physical and mental working out. Needless to state, I’d stumble back to the hotel each night and pass out only to awaken at 0600. Worth it? Yes!

  4. I liked the commercial…thought it was really well done.

    Off-topic but not sure how else to tell you? I follow you on Twitter and noticed that I hadn’t been seeing posts from you, investigated and I’m blocked? I had just posted a congratulations on the new episode of Tabletop and you started having issues with your tweet program thing, so wasn’t sure if it was deliberate or something buggy. If deliberate, it’s cool…your choice 🙁 but on the off-chance it wasn’t, I’m @Jensownzoo

  5. I had the same issue in NYC! Wrong airport. My traveling companion and I were already so late that the cab approach was hopeless. We settled in for an 8 hour stay in the airport until the next flight.

    I know that great exhaustion feeling. I have been there many time during the creation of Weather Zen game, running the Kickstarter is not an easy haul either!

  7. “Exhausted. Spent. Drained.”

    How I feel after what I call having to be “ON” for people!

  11. I’m curious about the RPG as well although I’m sure we’ll have to wait to find out which one it’ll be.
    My dream would be Changeling: The Dreaming, even though there are a hundred reasons that speak against it.

  12. Wil
    If your UK sponsor actually has you over I can recommend a great little pub in the hinterlands east of Newcastle. It is pretty much the Prancing Pony from Tolkien, the clientele in spring and summer is mostly long distance walkers and archaeology hobbyists. Also the officially certified Worst Pub Quiz in Great Britain. Magical spot, alas threatened by Modern Development. Orcs with briefcases, they are on the march everywhere…
    Badger

  13. Hey, as an amateur creative person (boardgame design, blogging, podcasting), I have to ask you as a professional creative person: How on earth to you manage to be creative on demand? I mean, I do it when I’m inspired and it coincides with some free time. How do you do it to a deadline for people that pay money for it? I think I’d have a hard time being truly creative under those circumstances.

    Big fan, love your stuff, keep being awesome…

  16. Really looking forward to the RPG show. The RPG episodes during the second season worked quite well so watching a campaign unfold should be similarly exciting to watching a weekly TV show with an ongoing storyline.

  17. Hey, truly odd question here and I don’t really expect a reply back, but here goes: I just started playing the Star Trek video game that came out after the movie reboot. There’s one Vulcan scientist early in the game. He is apparently just a background character, no real development to him, but he does talk to Kirk and Spock briefly. It sounds JUST LIKE you. Was that a small uncredited role that you had?

  21. FWIW, I’m super psyched to hear that you are diving back into Writing (TM), and can’t wait to see the RPG show.

    I have loved your books, and your more contemplative blog entries, and hope we can read more “daily life of a geek” type material too, once your current whirlwind calms down.

  22. Frankfurt… Taxing to jetway 15 or so minutes before connecting flight departs. Wife shmoozed customs agent. Boots stayed off after security checkpoint ran through airport in socks…. Made it to plane seconds before jetway pulled off. I feel you 😉

  24. I know what you mean about brain-use and calorie consumption. I don’t remember the exact figures, but I remember being a little shocked to learn that roughly 25% of our daily metabolic energy is dedicated to mental activity.

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