Author: J. Thorp

If It Doesn’t Help, It Hinders (Addendum)

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

I had the most productive work day I’ve had in weeks today, by implementing a few relatively minor changes. First, I closed my browser when I wasn’t using it, and relegated email to first thing in the morning, mid-day, and late afternoon. This kept the browser closed most of the day, and kept me feed-free (except for the red flashing light on my smart phone, which I’ll need to deactivate).

I also removed all the the buttons from my web browser’s Favorites or Bookmark bar except my work email login, the U’s homepage, and the college intranet site. Yesterday, if I wanted to check Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, the Yankees score, or blog comments, I had only to click the button at the top of the browser – this afternoon it was disconcerting to notice the number of times my mouse-arrow reflexively climbed the screen to click on distractions that were no longer there, each time forcing a conscious decision on my part about whether I needed to log in. The vast majority of the time, the answer was no. (I didn’t use the timer, but I would estimate that, this blog post included, I’m in the 30 minute range for today.)

Finally, I imposed a gentler discipline on my schedule. I had been forcing myself out of bed at 5:30 a.m. in order to stretch, shower, pray a rosary, and eat breakfast, and still have time to write fiction for a while before starting my workday. The alarm sounds, it’s dark, I’m inevitably tired; my shower’s slow, I drift in and out of awareness as I pray, and it takes a full hour and a half to ready myself for…what? I stagger downstairs and doodle as I try to write something worthwhile, yawn and drink some coffee, trying to awaken some creativity.

So today, I set the alarm for 6, with the same goal of 7 a.m. for fiction writing. I urged myself to move briskly, but also told myself, “If I’m 10 minutes late, the train is not derailed, it’s only delayed.” (Truth be told, I didn’t articulate it that way until just now; my actual thoughts were more abstract but no less compelling.) I started writing at a little after 7, set a deadline for myself, and stopped more or less on time, resisting the urge to write until I hit a block, and resisting the urge countless times throughout the day to take “just a few minutes” and do a little more. As a result, right now, I can’t wait for morning and the chance to write more.

As I’ve transitioned to working from home, I’ve tried to impose discipline, filling my work calendar with blocks of time for reading, writing, responding to email, etc., and when I’ve fallen off the pace, or run over the time allotted, I’ve basically said, “Well, forget that; I’ll never get caught up now.” Today I was a bit more flexible, and it paid off. When a colleague called unexpectedly, I wasn’t distracted by what I Ought to Be Doing, and at the end of the day, I accomplished more than I set out to. That feels so good, I should try it again tomorrow.

If It Doesn’t Help, It Hinders

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Following a session on social media at last week’s retreat at work, I decided today to re-open a Twitter account. Approximately five minutes ago, I closed it again.

I had been reading (for work) that classic of business management literature Good To Great, navigating two or three chapters devoted to the importance of an organization identifying that one thing at which they reasonably, realistically become the best, and then, with equal discipline, eliminating all those opportunities and activities, however valuable, that distract from that one thing.

It through me into a personal tailspin, and I posted a question to Facebook: “at am I going to stop doing that is keeping me from writing fiction?”

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

  • Twitter (completely re-eliminated), as well as much of my daily Facebook, blog, and general internet surfing (I’m thinking 30 minutes maximum across all platforms, and I have a timer. I post things quickly…but then  I let myself get sucked in.).
  • My fledgling sourdough baking habit. Brewing takes precedence; it is becoming a communal activity with friends and fellow parishioners.
  • Leisurely mornings,  snooze alarms, and any notion I can afford to sleep past 6 a.m.
  • New volunteer commitments, and any old ones I can reasonably abandon.

I also need to make the most of my work hours, to get my 40 hours in each week in as close to 40 hours as possible. I need to devote at least two hours a day to creative writing and the reading and research that will support it. And of course, regular prayer and exercise will help me stay the course, but that takes time, too. I need to cultivate these habits before the new wee one arrives in December. Wish me luck!

Fiction Writing Reading List

/ J. Thorp / 4 Comments

So I’ve promised my famous writer friend Jacqui Robbins that I will continue to read to the end of her 15 Classics in 15 Weeks challenge (no matter how long it takes; the challenge began in Summer 2008), and I’ve promised Fr. Tyler that I will read a favorite of his, Brideshead Revisited, next (especially since his first recommendation, East of Eden, proved to be perhaps the best thing I’ve ever read). And so I shall.

In the meantime, however, I’m diving headlong into fiction writing, because, quite frankly, it’s about damn time. Sorry, Coach Robbins, this isn’t the book you’ve seen parts of. This one requires more from me, but it’s already giving more in return. I’ll say no more, except that it’ll be like nothing I’ve every seen before, and I’ve compiled a reading list, along with a few flicks, to help guide this journey. (If you make it to the end of the list, I have a few questions for you.)

Books (in no particular order):

Goethe’s Faust (and other tellings)
The Spiritual Combat by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli
The Book of Job
The Book of Tobit
Genesis Chapter 32: Jacob wrestles the angel
The Book of Revelation
The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio
Silence by Shusako Endo
Shogun by James Clavell
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
The Way of the Samurai by Richard Storry
Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics by Scott McCloud

Movies and Television (also in no particular order):

Ghost Dog (1999)
Twilight Samurai (2002)
The Godfather series
The Departed (2006)
Scarface (1932)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
The General (1998)
Road to Perdition (2002)
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967)
Gangs of New York (2002)
Kung Fu (seasons 1-3)

That’s a decent hodge-podge of material, isn’t it? Now, the questions I have for you (all three of you):

  • Does anyone know of a solid (ideally non-fiction) account of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the mafia or Irish mob?
  • How about organized crime and the occult? (But I don’t want to go too far down the rabbit-hole.)
  • How about recommendations of books or films about saints, especially St. Nicholas (not Santa so much) or other saints and their intercessory roles after death?
  • Good explication of the biblical books and accounts above: Job, Tobit, Jacob and the Angel, the origins and history of belief around St. Michael?
  • Accounts of missionaries and martyrs in Japan (in addition to Silence)?
  • Does anyone have any of the movies listed that they would be willing to loan to me?
  • Other stories about ancient beliefs and codes colliding, sold souls, angels and demons in our world, evil appearing to be good, love and loss, fathers going to great lengths to protect their children? Recommendations?
Much of the material above is adult-oriented, but this book will not be. Basically, it’s a fantasy about a boy who is trying to regain his deceased mother and a distraught father trying to regain his lost son. With St. Nick and a samurai thrown in. As wacky as it all sounds, I think it’s gonna be deeply personal, even though it’s nothing like my life.
It’s going to be terrible, isn’t it? But you’ll still read it, won’t you?

The Second Third, Week 40: Put Up or Shut Up

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This will be my final Second Third post. I had planned 52 – one per week of this 36th year of life – outlining things about myself that I hoped to cultivate or cull, change or discover, in the years between now and age 70, when I enter my third Third: the long glide to age 105, which seems like a good age to wrap things up. However, over the course of the past 40 weeks or so, I’ve noticed something: these posts are adding up to summary of The Jim In My Head (TJIMH) – the best version of me I’ve been able to conceive of, a man happy, convicted, faithful, healthy, and (most importantly) deeply content.

I used to think I was not TJIMH because he is perfect and I am not, but in the course of the last few days I was struck with a revelation: TJIMH is not perfect. He merely tries harder. I am not TJIMH because I have never tried to be. Never, even for one day, let alone many days. I have become a better husband and father (two important aspects of TJIMH) in the past few years because I decided to be, and made changes in my life to do so. I am out of shape and sore, an unpublished poet and an incomplete novelist, an occasional fisherman and infrequent hunter, because I don’t push myself in the same way. I am dissatisfied, not with the hand I’ve been dealt, but with how I am playing it.
When I was younger and tried to teach teens to write well, I used to quote Shakespeare’s Macbeth (admittedly completely out of context): “Be bloody, bold, and resolute.” Today, given the political sensitivities of even my new my job, I am painfully cautious what I publish on these pages. When colleagues in my new workplace ask what I want to be, I laugh, shake my head, and say, “Well, if I didn’t have a family to feed, I’d be writing fiction.” I’m almost apologetic, and I told a new friend the other day that it’s tough to commit extra time to completing a novel that “may never amount to anything.”
Bloody, bold, and resolute?
My last post was about getting in shape physically. This is about getting in shape mentally – and not wasting time and energy on activities that don’t make me a better writer, husband, father, man. I am a writer, and I am going to complete a novel. I don’t have time for another dozen navel-gazing Second Third posts. Got a problem with that?

The Second Third, Week 39: No Sympathy for Sympathy Weight

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I’ve heard these hardheaded Russian devils eat fat. In my Second Third, I hope to feed it well.
My senior year of high school, I stood about six feet, two inches. During football season that fall, I weighed around 175 pounds; I started wrestling season alternating between 171 and 189 — wherever the team needed me — and by midseason I was a lean, mean 152 pounds, wrestling 160, 171, and 189, plugging holes in the lineup to keep us from forfeiting. I could make weight with my gear on most days, was well-fed, had good energy — and wrestled my best season (which was only a little above .500, but still…).

A year later I entered an intramural wrestling tournament at Yale, weighing in at around 185. All-you-can-eat dining halls and student lethargy were taking their toll; was exhausted even wrestling short periods, and threw up in a snowbank after my first.

I was still hovering under 200 when Jodi and I met in Wall. We married, settled in a bit, started having kids…and I have always joked that I put on sympathy weight with each child, only unlike Jodi, I’ve never taken it back off. This explains why, 15 years after we married, I’ve gained 40 plus pounds. Ten per child, see?

I’m told by friends that there’s no way I weigh 240 these days; when I insist, they say I carry it well. Perhaps so (and thanks!) — but what had long been a joke seems less funny this summer. After seven years, we’re expecting again, and I feel as though I’ve been busier and more active than I’ve been in a long time — except that the scale today is pushing 250.

Two hundred and fifty pounds? An eighth of a ton?!

I’m 36. I don’t have the energy to pack that extra weight around for no reason. Plus my 13-year-old is getting bigger, faster, and stronger by the minute. Thus far I still intimidate him. I need to keep it that way — but more Chewbacca, and less Jabba the Hutt.

So. My training komrade is a 35-pound cannon ball with a handle. It’s simple, compact, and I’m told it will kill me or cure me. I say cure, since I plan to live to 105. Wish me luck.