RonnMcCarrick.com

The year, not my novel.

I had to get up crazy early this morning to get the wife to the airport by 5:30 AM. She’s flying off to Chicago again for work. She’ll be back Thursday night.

The month of January is nearly done. It hasn’t been a great start to the year. Money, writing, fitness, they’ve all taken a hit. But I’m not discouraged. Everything will work out and fall into balance with the appropriate amount of foot to ass. I’m just going to pick things up in November and carry on. I mean, really, what other choice do I have?

This is a football post that isn’t about football. I played my playoff game tonight against the Eagles and lost badly. Final score was 41-7. But the score doesn’t really tell the whole story.

The score was twenty to seven at the half and I’d already made two mistakes that were gnawing at me. I’d rushed through one set of downs late in the first quarter trying to show that I could even the score before the quarter ended. That didn’t work. No big surprise. Punt. And I’d thrown one end zone interception to a receiver who wasn’t even close to being open. Losing the chance to bring the score to within three points. Both were more errors of decision than things I had no control over and I was getting edgy.

I started the third quarter with the ball and a chance to score some much needed points. Instead I threw an interception. No story there, just a bad throw. It happens. The Eagles scored on their next play pulling even further away. And I lost it. Lost my fucking mind. There wasn’t any screaming or cursing, but I snapped. Gave up on the game. Wanted to shut it off right there and walk away. Would have been better if I had.

Instead of playing the rest of the game conservatively and trying to do damage control and look for chances to get back into the game I got stupid. Fake punt stupid. Fieldgoal defense stupid. Go for it every fourth down stupid. Basically I played like as asshat.

I have a bit of a history of choking when the pressure gets turned up. Tonight was not an exception. Only this time I did it with little or no grace. To my opponent, I apologize. I’ve been kicking myself since the game ended. The wife says it’s okay, these things happen. She’s wrong. I’ve lost before, but I’ve never so totally lost my composure. I feel like I’m better than that. I know I’m better than that.

So the best two teams in the league made it to the Superbowl. As the league commissioner I’m happy about that. My season is over. I had a lot of fun. I’m embarrassed by the way I ended it, but you live and you learn.

Afterward we played a couple games of Settlers of Catan. I won both times. Not sure how that happened, must be my freakishly unpredictable luck.

Later still, after everyone else had gone home, Joel and I sat and had one of those rare one-on-one adult conversations about life. You know, the ones that make you feel like a certified adult. The conversation steered clear of the usual games, hobbies, and pop miscellanea, centering instead on children, career, finances, and real life stuff. The kind of thing I just don’t do often enough.

Anyway, that was my Sunday. Hope yours was as much fun.

I should be going to bed, but instead I think I’ll play some Guild Wars and see my wife off. She’s going to tip-up town to go snowmobiling with her sister. Party, party, party. I’m sure she wishes I was far less lame. Oh well, I can hear the charr attacking the gate, I must be off to help those in need.

I started to write another critique partner post, but stopped when I realized that I was just rewording the advice from the comments. You’re better off to just go read the comments in that post for yourself.

Things are going to get a little rough around here. I can feel it in my bones. I woke up too early yesterday, 8:30 am, and after working through the night I’ve got a 2:00 pm meeting today. I’m expecting to be a little groggy for that. Then the usual shift tonight followed by an 11:00 am meeting tomorrow. Today’s meeting I can just sit there like a drone, but tomorrow I’m expected to participate, give opinions, be creative, it’s going to be ugly folks.

I don’t read everything that Miss Snark puts on her blog, how could I? She’s crazy with the posts. But I scan and try and pull out the nuggets of wisdom I can use. This one was on meeting agents at conferences, I thought it was helpful. Maybe you will too. Boils down to say hello, ask the agent what they would like to know about your book, then answer their questions. Seems easy enough; sounds like a lot of folks get it wrong.

Do you like the look of McVane’s blog? I do. I’m thinking of changing up again. Something simpler with less graphics. We’ll see, seems like a lot of work right now.