adammclane.com » hmm… thoughts

Sitting down to write

adam mclane — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:22:17 +0000

I’m on a three day writing retreat to finish one manuscript and begin two others. It’s weird. I write 700-1000 words every day before work and it’s not unusual to write a few thousand more per day for my work. But I’ve never actually set aside 60 hours from everything else just to write.

Some learnings….

Working on a book is really jacking with my writing mojo. On a typical morning I can write a 500-1000 word blog post in under and hour. It’s a whole lot harder to write a chapter, then another chapter, then another chapter all on the same topic in a single sitting.
This is a skill I think I can get into. What I write every day comes so easily. I think if I had the right space I could be a 10,000 words per day writer 4-5 days per week.
Pausing in a solo retreat is an additional animal to manage. Sitting down and creating this space to work on the book was easy. But being alone, taking long walks, eating meals by myself… that’s all slowing me down and making me really self-reflective and I’ve got ideas flying in from every direction. I might need to create writing retreats and solo retreats as two separate habits.
I really like being in Mexico. I’m in a small beach town just 45 minutes from home. It has everything that makes me happy. (Minus having my family here) Ocean breezes, long beaches, nice hotels, in-room kitchens, street tacos. We’re a long way from this but it has me dreaming of having a beach house down here.
Mexicans are the Americans the typical American thinks they are. I’ve now been down here enough to pick up on some cultural insights. Hang with me for a minute. Most of us who have had exposure with border areas have spent time with the poor or working poor. But when you get a little deeper into Mexico, away from the craziness of the industrial border zones, you start to bump into middle class Mexican families. These are people whose culture is hard-working, prides themselves on their law-abiding nature, are modest in how they dress, and define themselves by being very, very polite. These are the shared values with middle class Americans I wish we could build bridges on.
It’s fun staying at a hotel that hosts big, fancy Quinceañera parties. For about $700 you can host a massive party here at the hotel for 500 guests, including food and liquor a tent (or rooftop) and DJ for 8 hours. If you’ve never seen one of these it is somewhere between a first communion party and a wedding. Last night I watched a young woman do a video and photo shoot in advance of her party this weekend. She had a full film crew profiling her complete with a make-up person, lighting director, sound direction, TV-style video camera, and producer. After that she had 3 photographers. Two took pictures while a woman overseeing the shoot laid on the grass showing her all the girly poses she should be making to get the perfect shot. Hilarious to watch.
There’s no way to hide from my task. Yesterday I had a period where I fought through procrastination. It’s hilarious when you don’t have any distractions how you can get desperate to distract yourself. I spent an hour organizing files on my computer and deleting stuff I didn’t really need. While it was nice to get that done I totally wasted an hour and was annoyed at myself for it.
Nailing down jello is impossible. Since I’m writing on social media and basing so much of my work on current statistics, it feels really weird to quote statistics in a book when the statistics will have new variations by the time this is published. I’ve just had to convince myself that this is why I’m writing about principles and not exact responses to trends.
Turning off the creativity. This is non-fiction piece so I’m having to force myself to limit creativity. That’s really hard.

OK, time is up. Time to turn off the internet until dinner. (I’m cracking my own whip here, people!)

The Absence of Hope

adam mclane — Thu, 17 May 2012 04:06:25 +0000

Mike Yaconelli on Busyness

adam mclane — Sat, 05 May 2012 15:22:03 +0000

More Yaconelli quotes.

Pivot Points

adam mclane — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 15:44:50 +0000

Four years ago, I was minding my own business when Marko called me and asked me to think about moving to San Diego to work with him at Youth Specialties.

It was around Easter, we had a house full of guests, and a list full of projects to manage at the church. (Ironically, our house guests were the family we co-owned YMX with.) Nothing was further from my mind than leaving our ministry in Romeo when Marko called. We had a life we loved, lived in a house we wanted to retire in, loved our neighborhood, our kids school, and the people we ministered alongside.

That phone call was a pivot point in our lives. The opportunity made no sense and perfect sense at the same time. That phone call lead to dozens of hard, honest, open conversations which ultimately lead to us walking away from the life we knew and stepping into a life of unknowns.

I was reflecting on that last night during the Good Friday service. Four years later and its still surreal to sit in a worship service with no responsibilities. It’s surreal to not hang out and talk to people until everyone leaves so you can turn off the lights, lock the doors, and go home. It’s surreal to sit in a service and not know what’s next. (Or care) It’s surreal to sit in a worship service and not have people whisper reminders in my ear. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it’s just surreal.

That’s the thing with life’s pivot points. You remember the life you once lead while you carry on with the new life before you.

Are you listening? Do you have a faithful life posture? Can you discern between the voices in the desert?

Open Journalism

adam mclane — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:05:54 +0000

So this is how The Guardian, a U.K.-based news entity, would like to see themselves. They are the hero allowing justice to flow through the free and open exchange of information. In their vision The Guardian isn’t necessarily a news agency but rather a conduit by which emerging facts and opinions flow. In their vision, as a conduit for new media, people get the information they need to revolt against the government.

It’s a very slick commercial. And it’s not a bad vision for a news agency.

But does anyone really believe that this is who the big players in the news work?

The Fight

adam mclane — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:16:37 +0000

For Rocky & the Karate Kid, they knew who their enemy was. They knew who to train to beat. And they were desperate to win.

But what about you… Who is your enemy? What are you fighting for? When is your battle scheduled?

Discover something brand new

adam mclane — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:30:51 +0000

One of the biggest lies floating around is that there is nothing new under the sun.

That’s only true if your name is God.

But God is creative and He has shown us before that He can create something brand new whenever He wants. (Genesis 1) Yes, Ecclesiastes 1:9 does say, “there is nothing new under the sun.” Again, it’s all about perspective. If you’re God that is true. If you’re a finite being we learn and discover new things all the time.

Case in point, check out this tiny chameleon discovered off the coast of Madagascar recently.

Children’s Book Idea: The Martyrs of Jesus

adam mclane — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:55:51 +0000

I’m an idea guy. And one thing I’ve learned over the years is that every one of my ideas has value. That doesn’t mean every idea is a good idea. It just means that every idea is worth writing down and coming back to later.

Several months ago I had this thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have an illustrated children’s book for 3-5 year olds that taught the real-life stories of Christian heroes?” Before I got too far with it I realized– This is one of the worst ideas EVER.!

Here’s what some of the pages would have been:

Polycarp – He was an old man who was burned at the stake because he refused to burn incense to honor the Roman Emperor. When he didn’t catch on fire, they stabbed him with a spear.
Cyprian – When he refused to sacrifice to pagan gods, he was first banished. But then he was brought back to Carthage and beheaded. On his way to be killed he took off all of his clothes and put on his own blindfold.
Agnes – Agnes was martyred because she refused to marry someone who wasn’t a Christian. But since the law in Rome was that a virgin couldn’t be executed, Roman soldiers dragged her to a brothel first. Then when they tried to burn her at the stake the wood wouldn’t catch fire, so a soldier stabbed her in the throat.
Jovan Vladimir – He was beheaded in front of his church because he refused to lead his country into war.
William Tyndale – After being jailed for over a year in a castle, Tyndale was choked, impaled, and burned at the stake. His crime? He translated the Bible into English.
Hugh Latimer – Why he was killed isn’t all that clear. But people in charge of the church just didn’t like him because he was teaching truth about salvation and had a habit of preaching at places that weren’t the church. So they had him burned at the stake.
Thomas Baker - A missionary to Figi who was killed and eaten by cannibals.

I dunno, this might be my best idea ever…

A storied life

adam mclane — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 15:10:50 +0000

Last night I had a night to myself. I have three kids, happily married, and am aggressively launching two businesses. I never have an evening all to myself. Just one of my favorite towns on the planet, Chicago, and 6 hours.

I drove over to one of my favorite hole in the wall restaurants, Irazu. (Oatmeal shake, steak el tico, you need to try it.) I hate eating alone! But the food there is so good that it was totally worth it. Then I took the long way back to my friends house… just enjoying the fun vibe of the city. I drove up Western Avenue, across to Lake Shore Drive, then back up Clark to the North Side.

Even with the scenic route and trying to find parking I was back in 2.5 hours.

So I sat down and pretty much vegged out watching Sportscenter, which kept my attention for about 45 seconds before I grabbed my laptop and started surfing around on Facebook.

The new timeline feature has a little app called “map” that I started fiddling with. Essentially, it’s asking you to tag your photos based on location so that you can see a cool map of the places you’ve been. So I started going through my photos on Facebook. Lots and lots of photos. Each with a story and a memory.

This lead to me looking at pictures on Facebook for a couple of hours. Tagging, remembering the name of the place I was at, and moving on to the next set of images.

Looking at all of those pictures reminded me of all the amazing places I’ve been in my life. I’ve lived in several states. I’ve lived in Europe. I’ve visited tons of places in the United States, Europe, parts of Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

If I’m honest– I’ve lived a pretty storied life. Being in my hometown of South Bend this week reminded me that my life didn’t have to turn out the way that it has. Just like my dad, I could have chosen to live in the same community for 65 years and been perfectly happy.

All of that reflection lead me to this single thought: Is it that I’m living a storied life or is it that I’m living a life worthy of telling a story?

Sure, some could say I’ve been fortunate. They could say I’ve been at the right place at the right time lots and lots of times. But I’d be quick to point out that I was and always am looking for opportunities to better my story.

It’s not so much that I’ve lived a storied life. It’s that I’ve maintained a posture looking for a story.

That’s the choice we face each day. Is today a story worthy day or not? You get to decide.

14 Must-Have Gadgets for the Geek in Your Life

adam mclane — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 11:00:23 +0000

Let’s face it. For many of my readers I am the geek in their life.

I’m the nerdy friend you tell your IT guy about when you don’t know what else to talk about because you want to talk about the latest political news about Herman Cain or what happened on SNL and all he is knowledgeable about is Leo Laporte’s ugly shirt in his last episode of This Week in Tech.

You don’t even know who Leo Laporte is. And that’s OK.

So what do geeks want for Christmas? What are the things that will make us shout “sleigh ride” on December 25th? I’m glad you asked. Here’s my list of 14 geek toys that I will happily tweet about when the UPS man drops them off.