Reading, Writing, Ranting, Recommending: The Week That Felt Like A Year
August 29, 2024
Hello on a Thursday. This newsletter typically comes out on Wednesdays, but this week has been something else. Amy has been out of town tending to a family emergency (and our beloved dogs treated me to a middle-of-the-night adventure in which they convinced me that they needed to go to the bathroom, but what they actually “needed” to do was chase something around the yard while I wandered around in the dark begging them to come in), I have had meetings every day after school, had back-to-school-night tonight and had my first packet of my MFA due today.
I have very few coherent thoughts now, so let’s dive into the RWRR part of the newsletter.
Reading
This list of fall book releases has me so excited I can barely stand it. You can get links to all of these books here, but also, let me recommend Jami Attenberg’s Substack, Chelsea Bieker’s Substack, Garth Greenwell’s Substack, Marian Schembari’s everything, and Lyndsay Rush’s Instagram while you’re waiting?
When I enter full hibernation mode, please understand that it’s not personal, it’s that I’m reading all of these incredible books and I’ll see you when I’m done.
Writing
I’m writing a novel. This is a note from my outline that makes me laugh every time I see it. A few thoughts about how it’s going so far:
I had always thought people sounded a few cards short of a deck when they said that when they wrote fiction, they would be “surprised by their characters” and “had to see where the story went” because I was like, um, you’re in charge here, my dudes. But I get it now: as I write, I’m constantly surprised by what unfolds and the direction I feel the story heading. It feels as if I’m being guided by something outside of myself. It’s creepy and cool, and I’m very into it.
I wrote my critical thesis last semester on the differences between writing nonfiction and fiction, and one thing that has stuck with me was a writer who said that creative nonfiction is about taking events in your life and finding ways to make meaning from them, whereas in fiction, you have ideas about what you want to say, and then you orchestrate events to convey that meaning. It’s so refreshing to get to create things and yet still process the emotions I feel, or the things I want to write about. It still requires connecting to my emotions — and in some way, on a deeper level — but it feels less raw and there’s less pressure to force myself to find something to make an experience meaningful.
I’m reading Christopher Castellani’s The Art of Perspective, one of the little books from Greywolf’s The Art Of series (a collection of truly outstanding craft books) and it’s excellent when considering narrative and voice. I’m learning so much from reading it.
Ranting
We have been on a bit of a true crime binge at our house and watching some of the worst re-enactment murdery shows on earth and I swear on all that is holy that if I hear one more person describe their “small town” as a place where “no one locked their doors” I am going to lose my mind.
Help me understand why this is a brag-worthy privilege that people are excited about. WHY ARE YOU NOT LOCKING YOUR DAMN DOORS? Do you not have a good enough imagination? I don’t care if I was the last human being on earth: my front door would be locked. But every single one of these shows starts with some b-roll footage of some small town where “Friday night lights” bring the town together and “everyone knows one another” and then someone pipes up with “it’s the kind of place where nobody locks their doors.” Why are you testing your own safety night after night?! Do you want random folks wandering into your home?
If you’re a “this place is so safe we leave our doors unlocked” person, let me introduce you to Richard Chase, the Vampire of Sacramento, who took unlocked doors as a sign he was supposed to enter a home.
Hells bells, people, LOCK THE DANG DOOR!
Recommending
This might be silly, but I am currently obsessed with voice memos. I have been using them for years — my dear friend Joy started sending them to me long before Marco Polo and all that (I find Marco Polo stressful because I feel like I need to wear a bra AND I am sorry y’all, but too many of my friends would eat while recording and I cannot abide the lip smacking/loud chewing of it all) but I have ramped it up with friends lately and it’s so lovely to hear people’s voices and have a conversation. I did send a truly unhinged number/length to someone recently to tell a long story which is probably not ideal? But in general, I truly love hearing my friends tell stories and checking in like a phone call without a phone call. In a season of life where I am busy/stressed/not super social because I’m working or writing or staring at a wall, it’s so nice to have a way to feel connected beyond a text or sending emojis on an IG story.
I have to force myself to not lock my car in between trips inside when bringing in groceries, cannot compute the lack of door locking overnight in a house!!!
My dogs employ that same trick where they wake me up in the middle of the night, assuring me it is most urgent and if I don't comply there will be a big mess to clean up in the morning. Only to have them run out of the door as if ejected by a cannon to chase something in the back yard that cannot be allowed. They also realize I will not fall for this trick very often so they only do it about twice a year. The rest of the time they quietly shit on the floor if they really have to go-with no notification whatsoever.