Plant a seed today, it may bear fruit tomorrow.

Recently I attended my daughter’s season-ending cross country banquet. Libby is a senior captain, and so was one of four girls who gave a speech in front of the crowd of about 150-odd athletes, parents, and coaches.

I was blown away when hers began, because, very unexpectedly, my words were coming out of her mouth.

My daughter is a terrific student, ranked no. 3 in her class, and a talented runner. But she’s also a teenager. That means, we often get nothing from her. One-word answers, or silence.

(Typical conversation over dinner: “How was the sleepover at Lia’s last night?”

“Good.”

“Wow, coach must have been happy with the way you guys ran today!”

“Yup.”

And so on).

Of course, we love her just the same. And, she’s far from a robot. I’m generalizing here; sometimes she’s conversational, even chatty. But that’s not the norm. She’s a default teen, as she should be, at 17. She’s also had her share of struggles, but that’s for another day.

Then came her cross country speech.

A year ago I was inspired to write Libby a poem, the day after her team won a hard-fought Cape Ann League championship in the mud and rain. When the results were announced they were overjoyed, and embraced, a group of girls grown into a tight circle, bonds forged through the fire of competition and tough practices.

But I also knew it would not last. It was already becoming a memory as they got their medals on the podium and boarded the bus for home.

That scene of the girls in a circle in the rain inspired me to go home and write a poem, “Running Against Time.” I printed it out with a picture of Libby and a teammate and left it on her desk.

In typical Libby fashion she did not make a big production out of it. I think she sent me a text with a couple of hearts. She did hang it on her wall, so that was a win.

Fast forward a year. I had almost forgotten about the poem until the banquet when she began her speech with those same words I had written a year ago.

It was an incredible moment. To see her so articulate. To appreciate something I had left for her.

To think that I had made an impact, very unexpectedly.

If you want to read “Running Against Time” click the image above. I’m OK sharing it since she did, so beautifully, for a crowd. It was part of a broader speech about the amazing memories she made in cross country, the people who impacted her, and fun memories.

I loved her words of wisdom to the freshmen and sophomores not to take it for granted. Because her race was now run.

So, plant a seed.

Do it without expectation. Many of your seeds/deeds will wither, or remain dormant. But some will flower. And surprise you.

Libby, blue dress/center, and the rest of the Pentucket XC captains. Great kids.

Manilla Road, "Flaming Metal Systems"

Damn, I wish I had discovered these dudes decades ago when they were at their peak circa Crystal Logic or thereabouts, and Mark "The Shark" Shelton was still alive. RIP.

Manilla Road encapsulates everything I like about Classic Heavy Metal. Guitar-driven. Quasi-medieval, swordly-and-sorcerous subject matter. Well-constructed songs that take you on a journey. Varied material, from dirges to headbangers to haunting melodic journeys. A singer that sounds like Skeletor. 

All delivered with attitude. Great example is this week's Metal Friday.

"Flaming Metal Systems" has a lengthy intro, then kicks into a massive higher gear at about the 1:10 mark. It then reaches an incredible crescendo starting at the 4:32 mark that sends chills down my spine. Nice work boys. 

I'm still tickled that bassist E.C. Hellwell writes sword-and-sorcery, and I've got one of his stories, "The Riddle Master," on my shelf, in DMR Books' Swords of Steel.

Beware, the shrapnel flies 

Flaming through the night, this night, tonight 

The fever of blood runs high 

Lightning strikes from the sky, this night, tonight

Your critics aren’t in the arena. Ignore them.

Here’s something I’ve learned from decades of publishing.

When you are a writer (or podcaster, or visual artist) with something to say, you will inevitably attract an audience. 

And you will inevitably become a target of critics.

When you express yourself clearly, with conviction and experience and wisdom as your guide, you will inspire readers. But, you will also piss a segment of your audience off. 

The latter are people who recognize something they don’t like about themselves in your words, and through social media are conditioned to think that drive by insults are permissible (because of course, in the real world, they are not). They will troll you, claim their second of “victory,” and then return to their regular diet of YouTube videos and porn.

Ignore them. They are beneath you.

Because you are something they are not. 

You’re a creator.

This is not a call to be aloof, and wear blinders to criticism. Stay alert. Listen to legitimate feedback. You will be wrong from time to time. I’ve been wrong, and made mistakes, many times in my life. Own up to errors; use them to get better.

But, when you write from a place of strength, genuine expression, and your own unique  viewpoint, i.e., a place of Truth, a handful of haters will have a problem with it. Recognize that the problem is in them, not you. Understand that they have work to do on themselves. Ignore them, and if you can find it in your heart, find pity for them. They can’t see their own limitations and pettiness; one day they may. 

But above all, don’t give them the gift of your precious attention. Time is your only irreplaceable resource. Stay on your path. Keep creating.

Here’s a helpful coping strategy: Critics and haters are an inevitable part of the game. They are indicative of success. Despite my annoyances, I like them because it means I’m writing well. 

This is not a call to be an edgelord, to produce antagonistic and needlessly provocative material. But if you don’t piss anyone off, ever, you’re probably doing something wrong.

One of the quotes I return to again and again is Teddy Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena. You probably have heard it before, but if not, here it is:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I am the man in the arena. I’ve written thousands of newspaper stories, and newsletter and journal articles. Thousands more blog posts, for this blog and a dozen other websites. I’ve written dozens of print essays. And now a book. I’ve hosted and produced hundreds of podcast episodes. Spoken in front of audiences larger than a thousand, for more than a decade. I’ve mentored young writers and editors, and led teams.

And, I’ve been paid well to do it. I earn my living at the keyboard. I’ve won multiple awards.

This is not boasting; these are facts. I am now at the place where I can distinguish cheap attacks from legitimate critiques, because I know far more than just about all my critics. More about my own work, and about what it means to be a professional, then they do.

If you’ve written, or painted, or coded a website, built a house, made anything using your creativity and your heart and soul, you too are that man in the arena. You are a striver and doer of deeds; your critics are the cold, timid souls hurling insults from the sidelines. Never donning the pads and getting dirty in the playing field, where it counts.

Win or lose, you are striving, and your striving is admirable. That makes me your fan. 

My advice to anyone reading this who creates for a living: Keep doing it. You’ve already accomplished more than 90% of the world ever will. Don’t take praise as a sign you are unassailable; stay humble. But likewise, don’t take criticism personally; stay the course. 

If you can do this, you will win.

"Thunder Road," Judas Priest

Point of Entry is not a beloved Judas Priest album. In fact, most view it as a stumbling block in between the off-the-charts iconic brilliance of British Steel and Screaming for Vengeance. A misstep in their career.

I don't share that opinion... but I understand it.

I recognize PoE as oddly out of place, incongruent with what Priest seemed to be building toward. Priest's sound was evolving over the 70s, and the album prior is as pure a metal album as you will find; British Steel is steel purified. The album after, Screaming for Vengeance, is probably their best. In contrast, PoE is far more commercial sounding, thanks to songs like "Heading out to the Highway," "Hot Rockin" and "Don't Go." I like all these, but it's an obvious departure from what fans were expecting, and presages what we'd later see with "Turbo." Vengeance was a return to form.

Nevertheless PoE has some gems on it, and a unique sound that's hard to explain. I love "Desert Plains," and also the underrated "Thunder Road." It's a simple, up-tempo, kick-ass rocker. Just what I need this Metal Friday.

Red light, green light
I'm coming home tonight
Burning the freeway
Out of control

Red light, dead lines
We streak from town to town
It's too much, I need your touch
I've been away too long

Piecing together Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword

My review/revisit/recap of/love letter to Anderson's magnificent 1954 novel is up on the blog of Tales from the Magician's Skull. Check it out here.

I wrote this without re-reading the book, but writing it prompted me to pick up The Broken Sword once more and go to war against Trollheim. It's as good as I remembered; I don't feel betrayed by my considerable nostalgia.

TftMS has a 1,000 word cap which I sometimes stray over a little but is nevertheless challenging to write within. I allude to some things in my review that are deserving of a standalone essay. Like Skafloc/Valgard being two halves of a broken sword. Tyrfing feels to me like a symbol of unleashed weaponry best left on the scientists' notebook. I can't help but wonder if Anderson felt the shadow the mushroom cloud, writing as he did in 1953-54. "Yet this is the curse on it: that every time it is drawn it must drink blood, and in the end, somehow, it will be the bane of him who wields it."

We have a potential end to unending conflict in the teachings of the new White Christ. "Was the White Christ of whom she had told a little not right in saying that wrongs only led to more wrongs and thus at last to Ragnarok; that the time was overpast when pride and vengefulness give way to love and forgiveness, which were not unmanly but in truth the hardest things a man could undertake?"

Alas we have forgotten the lesson. No one turns the other cheek, but strikes back with harder force. And so it escalates.

I love this line too; we can meet Ragnarok with bravery at least:

"None can escape his weird; but none other can take from him the heart wherewith he meets it."

Raging against Twitter and the dying of the written word

“Does anyone go sit down and read an entire blog post anymore? Most people aren’t going to go read an entire 500 word blog.”

These sentences were posted, unironically, on LinkedIn by a VP of Marketing (B2B, SaaS, and other fancy business acronyms). Just yesterday. He seems to have quite a following too. This post got many “likes.”

As the young kids say, “I’m shook.”

We’re now officially at the point where information must fit into a Tweet, or a 60-second TikTok video, if it is to be read or consumed. No one has longer than that to spend on learning, apparently.

Makes sense, we’re all too “busy” these days to possibly read something 500 words long. Not quite 2 pages in a book.

“Too busy.”

Too busy doing … what?

We’re not too busy. We’ve been hijacked into thinking we are. By our devices, by sensory overload, and the accompanying mental fatigue that comes with consuming a cacophony of shit.

We’ve been trained by the limitations of the platforms on which we’re consuming surface-level content. By Twitter. And when these get old, we switch to the next platform to keep consuming. Gotta get on Mastodon, on Discord, while still juggling Facebook and YouTube. “My project will be a success once I figure out how to optimize Instagram.”

Sure it will man.

Take a look at what you’re actually doing. Scrolling your phone. That’s not busy. That’s an addiction.

You’re not making progress, or creating. You’ve become a consumer of the shallow.

Fuck that.

I’m holding the line, and you should too. On my side of the line is immersion, and an attention span. And comprehension. That’s one of the reasons why I steadfastly keep blogging, even though I’m writing to an audience so small it could comfortably fit in my living room. 

Its principle. And the people who I serve here are the ones I value. By the way, these folks have gone on to buy my book, Flame and Crimson, and I hope they choose to buy my next book too.

Not because I need the money. Because I like producing things of value, that might last, after I shed my mortal coil. You won’t find anything of lasting value on Facebook.

The “content” this VP of Marketing is talking about is not actually meant to inform, or enlighten. Its sole purpose is to grab the attention of the attention-less. It’s the equivalent of shooting colorful fireworks into the sky, a pop, a “wow.” Then … gone. It’s the type of content we consume by scrolling on our phones, skim with the eyeballs, and shed in seconds. No thought rendered, just a few seconds of time stolen from you in this “attention economy.”

But that shit doesn’t last. It's ephemera, like so much of the garbage we’re getting online. You’ve learned nothing by consuming it. In fact, you not only haven’t learned a thing, but your mind has been weakened, atrophied.

If you want to understand anything at more than a surface level, sometimes you have to … read more than a Tweet.

Finally, its not even good for the person producing it, the junior marketer who at heart wants to be a better writer. The only way to do that is to put in the work and write something with some substance and length to it. Every day.

If you want to be a good soccer player, you’ve got to put in long hours on the pitch, improving your footwork, conditioning your body.

If you want to be a good guitar player, you’ve got to learn your chords, learn how to read music, how to hear a note and replicate it with your fingers on the strings. This takes thousands of hours.

And if you want to be a good writer, you’ve got to read and write. A lot. 

There are no substitutes, I’m afraid. But that’s how it should be.

A question for the skeptics: Do you think you will learn more about fantasy fiction reading Wizardry and Wild Romance, or spending the same amount of time scrolling r/fantasy? 

An attention span is a muscle that you must cultivate, practice, and strengthen, or it will atrophy. We’re losing it, thanks to enlightened “VPs of marketing” who spread the kind of nonsense above. Who themselves think they are being “productive” by rapidly skimming their social feed on LinkedIn and liking memed photos. 

Imagine if instead of “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie” Ursula LeGuin boiled down her magnificent essay into an infographic. No one would remember the fantastic advice that she herself followed to write the timeless A Wizard of Earthsea and Tombs of Utuan.

Imagine Tolkien trying to fit “On Fairy Stories” into a TikTok video. I’m sure someone has done this; I’m sure no one who has consumed that video remembers it. They certainly have no comprehension of what Tolkien actually wrote. They’re too busy looking at a single bone, instead of enjoying the complex soup.

I’m not immune to this. I dumped Facebook, but I’m a LinkedIn user, heavy, for work. I like some of what I see on the platform but am also dismayed by the inevitable dumbing down going on. I do too much scrolling.

To play nice for a moment, there is a place for infographics, short videos, and chopped up Twitter-esque posting. But this blanket “does anyone even read 500 word blogs” is not a sign of enlightened sophistication by a marketing pro. It’s a sign of rot. It’s the words of the athlete who no longer thinks he has to practice. Who thinks he can just show up on Sunday and win football games.

I know that guy. His name is Ryan Leaf.

Innovation is real, but you have to learn how to block and tackle. Master your craft, before you can tell others how to do it better.

A truth about writing: It’s hard. The blank page is a fearsome opponent. It challenges us with its blank stare: Better blankness than your drivel, it seems to say.

But when you beat the resistance and really get rolling the process of writing is generative. It activates parts of your brain that are numbed by scrolling, snow-blinded from the flash of images and video and sound.

We’ve got to hold the line, each in our own way, against the decline of writing and reading, and comprehension over consumption. I’m holding the line on this one. In the voice of Aragorn at the Black Gate: 

For Long Form Content! 

(Or at least, 500 words. Max).

If you want to fight this battle yourself here are some practical tips.

1. Write every morning. A good word count to aim for is 500 (yeah, that same mark no one has time to read). I'm a morning person and my mind is freshest then; write at night if you are a night-owl and/or have no other options.
2. Read every night. Opt for paper if you can get your hands on it. If not, make sure your tablet is disconnected from easy internet access. Place your phone out of reach.
3. Limit your phone usage. Instead, observe the world with your eyes. Take a walk and think. Listen to people, and see how they behave.

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. You’ve read more than 1,000 words in a sitting and proved that VP of marketing wrong. 

Sea of Red

Late Judas Priest, off their most recent studio album, Firepower.

Hits me right in the melancholia/nostalgia sweet spot, remembering those who came before us. Lovely song.

As the sun goes down
The silence is profound
For they gave so much
So we might go on and live
Laying peaceful they forgive

Rob's voice is of course not what it was 40 years ago, but it works quite well with material like this.