random thoughts about my writing

           

            I wanted to write something today, but nothing came to mind.  Hopefully by punching my fingers into this dirty keyboard, my brain will initiate activity that will in turn produce words, sentences, and something worth reading.

(2 minutes later)

Still nothing.  I think I’m going to make a coffee. 

(2 minutes later)

Okay I’ll just start writing as this coffee cools down. 

            The first topic I want to write about is not having a topic to write about.  You see, I’ve always wanted to be a prolific writer.  Not the J.K. Rowling bestseller type or the Steven King thriller type; I’ve just always wanted to express myself through stories.  I’d love to make music, but I’ve never played an instrument, and my voice is on par with Screech from Saved by the Bell.  So my creative outlet comes with writing.  I’ve decided that this is the most difficult avenue of creativity.  Songwriters write 50-100 words of poignant, terse lyrics, and they are finished.  Novelists have to compose thousands of sentences that have to fit into a framework of an overall story that sometimes doesn’t even make sense.

            I love writing, but I hate talking about it.  When friends and family ask about my novel’s progress, I tell them it’s going well. Then they inevitably ask me what my story is about and I cringe.  I don’t have a grand plot where my protagonist travels to the dangerous Saharan desert to avenge his father’s death.  My plot is centered around my own experiences, which has basically been growing up as a white male in a good family in suburbia.  Sounds boring, right?  I guess so, but I believe that all lives, no matter how trivial or lame they may be, are stories that deserve to be told.  Having said that, I've been scrolling through my 900+ facebook friends looking for a story, a character, a setting.  So if any of you think you sound like a character in a story of mine, it's probably you.

and that's all I have time for.  off to the wildwood boardwalk. later.

-JD

If Cole Goes...

The Mayans forewarned us that the end of days will crash to earth December 21, 2012, but for Phillies fans that day may come a few weeks earlier at the MLB annual winter meetings in Nashville, Tennessee.  Those early December days could very well see Philadelphia’s World Series hero and homegrown southpaw Cole Hamels walk away from this baseball crazed city, leaving the Phillies older and more vulnerable than anyone could imagine last season during a run  that saw them win a franchise-record 102 games. 

                In the event the doomsday does occur, the Phillies must have a bomb shelter.  A place to crawl under while the nuclear fallout poisons the air.  How can losing Cole Hamels be a positive thing?  Let’s take a general manager’s look at what the dollars will look like when the Hamels free-agency meteorite comes crashing down on South Philly.

First, the money the Phillies are committed to pay next season (in millions) :

Cliff Lee – $25

Roy Halladay - $25

Ryan Howard - $20

Chase Utley - $15

Jonathan Papelbon - $13

Jimmy Rollins - $11

Hunter Pence - $11.5 (arbitration estimate)

Carlos Ruiz - $5

Kyle Kendrick - $4.5

Ty Wigginton - $4 (or $0.5 buyout)

Laynce Nix - $1.35

Buyouts

Jose Contreras - $0.5

Placido Polanco $1.0 (or $5.5 option)

·         Note: I’m assuming that Ty Wigginton’s option will be picked up and Polanco’s will not.  This could obviously change, but I’m just basing this off of here and now.

Total Committed Payroll = $136.85 for 11 players.  So the Phillies will need to fill 14 spots for their 25 man roster.  The Phillies brass have maintained that they want to stay below the MLB sanctioned $178 million luxury tax.  So this leaves $41.15 million to work with.  Keep in mind I am not only assuming Kid Cole will be gone but Shane Victorino, too.  

Now, Ruben Amaro Jr. could have another trade up his sleeve, but if Free Agency is the only card he can play, here is a list a potential free agents worth looking at.

Josh Hamilton

Michael Bourn

Melky Cabrera

B.J. Upton

Andre Ethier

Carlos Quentin

Ichiro Suzuki

Kevin Youkilis (Boston Option)

David Wright (New York Option)

                Of those names, I can only see Bourn, Cabrera, Upton, Quentin, and possibly Youkilis becoming available at the end of the year.  Michael Bourn would be cheaper than Victorino and would give the Phillies the true leadoff hitter they’ve always needed.  If Domonic Brown continues to wear shoes on his hands in the field, Melky Cabrera could be an upgrade in left.  That still leaves plenty of room for RAJ to acquire Youkilis, a career .288..389/.489 hitter that could come cheap if he continues to struggle this season. 

                Even with these few additions, the Phillies would be left with room under the almighty luxury tax to go out and trade for arms or bats.  Or they could stash their money in one of Ruben’s cigar boxes and wait for the much richer free agent class of 2013 which boasts names like Lincecum and Garza. 

                Don’t look to the farm system for help.  The trade wave of the past few years has left the crops slashed and burned.  The few bright spots in the system include a couple of arms in Reading and Lakewood.  So who takes the fourth and fifth rotation spots if Cole and Joe were to walk?  Here’s hoping Kyle Kendrick doesn’t assume either of those roles.  Ruben needs to get creative, or we will see a nuclear holocaust reminiscent of the late ‘90’s at the Vet.  

Creative Writing Prompt #100

I found this cool website with 345 creative writing prompts.  Some were lame, but some were actually pretty cool.  I am going to try to do a prompt per night.  The first activity I tried is as follows:

(please realize that I make shit up when I write.  it's a way to make us boring people seem like we have interesting lives ;) )

#100

            Write for 10 minutes using “I used to think…” as your starter.

Check below the fold for my entry.....