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a truck paper rhino

Posted on By Wil

This thing I’m working on has lived in my head for about a year, so it’s kind of stale and not as interesting to me as it was when I had the idea. But I decided that writing and finishing what I start is really important, just like knowing the difference between “I’m bored with this” and “this is genuinely not good” when assessing whether or not to keep on going.

There’s a point in my creative writing process where I always decide that the whole thing is shit, I am shit, the world is shit, and I should set the whole thing on fire. It took me years to realize that it’s just a normal part of my process, and it’s more the frustration of wanting the thing to be finished, than it is any of the other things. I used to worry that this thing sucked, and therefore I sucked, and Carrie’s mom was right: they’re all gonna laugh at me.

But this is the hard part of the work (and it’s still better work than real work) and everything is worth doing is hard. Getting past this, I think, is what separates professionals from everyone else. I’ve committed to finishing a book of short fiction by the end of this year, and the only way that happens is when I do the work.

So I’m doing the work.

The big challenge today, so I could get past this step where I hate it and hate myself and hate the whole idea, was forcing the main character to tell me what his primary conflict was, and why he cared about The Thing He Cares About (and, consequently, why we are supposed to care about it). So I had him ask a character who wants something from him, literally, “Why me?” And we found out, together, what was missing, and what was making me hate this thing. Now that the question is answered, I can finish the draft I didn’t write very long today. It was only a few hours of work, and I only got 470 words down when I clicked save for the day, but that’s more than I had before I started. And, to be honest, once I got into this scene that is forced me to define exactly what was missing from my protagonist, it was really fun to do the work.

At the moment, this draft is mostly crap. But it’s crap I can fix and turn into something I’m proud of, instead of a series of blank pages.

So.

I screencapped the title image from MetroLyrics, because I thought it looked cool.

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My Keynote Address to the 2016 Mensa Annual Gathering

Posted on By Wil
IMG_20160701_201803
Seconds before I started my address.

This is a slightly edited copy of my prepared remarks for the Mensa Annual Gathering. These remarks are meant to be heard and performed, so some of the nuance may be lost in the text.

Mental Hopscotch
If I’m so smart, why is my brain so dumb?

When Mensa invited me to speak to you tonight, it was easy to say yes. Though I am not a member – and I’ll get to that in a minute – my son is. In fact, he took and passed the test when he was 16, the youngest in his group. Joining Mensa was something he’d wanted to do since he was in sixth grade, and because I am a loving and supportive father, I thought that I’d help him prepare. I was in GATE, then AP, then honors, then Starfleet, so I figured that I could be a useful resource for him … and holy shit was I wrong. It was a humbling moment for me, eleven years ago, when I discovered that not only did my son not need my help, but I was wholly unable to give it. Like, I’m a smart guy, but as far as I am concerned, the Mensa test may as well be administered in Aramaic to subjects who are blindfolded and underwater. On Europa.

What I remember from the practice tests I looked at and then quickly ran terrified away from was that they tested my ability to reason and extrapolate the solutions to problems both complex and relatively simple, often from incomplete information. I didn’t have too much trouble with that part of it, but it was the math that killed me, because even though I’ve tried over and over again since I was in third grade, when it comes to math, I am talking Malibu Stacy.

Still, I accepted this invitation to speak tonight because one of my fundamental rules for living a successful and happy life is: don’t be the smartest person in the room, its corollary is: if you look around and see that you are the smartest person in the room, find a new room. This is the only way you keep growing and challenging yourself to be the most interesting human you can be.

The thing about that is … well, when you’re literally put on a pedestal in front of that room? It’s … really fucking terrifying to stand here. What could I possibly tell a room full of people who are smarter than me? Something geeky? Okay, that’s … well … right. Something geeky. Talk about something geeky that’s going to be relevant to a massively diverse group of people who probably aren’t judging me, but I’ll just proceed as if they are because that’s how my stupid brain works.

Okay … something geeky … something geeky …

I’m a geek! Everything in my life is geeky!

It’s going to be okay, Wheaton. Just sit down, and write about what you know. (more…)

blog Photo Credit Tony Case on Flickr

Not because it is easy, but because it is hard.

Posted on By Wil

Doing the reboot check-in a little early this month, because I’m going to be too busy at the end of the month to do it then.

So last time, the big question was:

The real challenge this month, and the 54,000 dollar question is: is it worth it?

Objectively, yes. Yes, it’s worth it. I’ve stopped seeing the significant changes and rewards that were happening in the early months of making these major and fundamental adjustments to my life. That’s to be expected, and it’s important to stay focused on the positive benefits of the long term commitment, even when the short term rewards aren’t as substantial as they were as recently as 60 days ago.

Because I have the delightful bonus of living with mental illness, it’s an additional challenge for me to identify when my Depression is lying to me, and then separate the irrational lies and their related feelings from objective truths. This month, and probably going back into much of last month, my Depression has been a real dick. It’s been taking tiny, unimportant, insignificant things that really shouldn’t matter, and blowing them up into catastrophic things that are totally about me (even when they really aren’t). I’ve been having a super neat existential crisis as a result, and I’ve just now realized — like, literally at this moment (11:25 am on 22 June 2016) — that if I wasn’t taking care of myself with these reboot choices, I would be really messed up and in a very bad place. Having these seven things to focus on and work on has given me a positive way to feel empowered, because I’m doing something about feeling kind of stuck and frustrated.

So before I get into the specific things, let’s do this in a couple of broad strokes.

First, my physical health is great. I’m at my target weight, and I don’t have any chronic aches or pains. My diet is healthy, and even though I’ve definitely developed a whole thing for ice cream, it’s in moderation — in fact, everything in my life is in moderation — so it’s not a problem.

Second, my mental health isn’t as good as it could be, but thanks to the patience, kindness, and advice of some wonderful people in my life, I’ve been able to work through this most recent existential crisis, and while I’m not like, “feeling fine“, I’m getting there. There’s a lot to unpack, and it’s all pretty personal, so that’s about all I’m going to say about it for now.

Finally, since I started making these changes a little over six months ago, and especially since they’ve more or less become routine in the last six to eight weeks, I’ve stumbled into a lot of clarity about the fundamental reasons I was unhappy, frustrated, adrift, unfulfilled, and needing to make big changes to my life in the first place. That clarity has been valuable and super useful, and will ultimately lead me where I want to go … but at this moment, it’s uncovered a lot of pain and sadness that was being covered up by bad habits and all those things I decided to change. This is really, really good, even if the in the immediacy of the moment (exacerbated by depression) it’s making me uncomfortable. Again, it’s a lot of personal stuff, and I’m not going to go into it, but I bring it up because I suspect that someone who is at the same point in their personal reboot is feeling some of the same things, and because it was reassuring to me to know that it’s a normal and healthy part of the process, I’m sharing it.

Okay, so let’s look at the specifics and see how it’s going. (more…)