Tired today. The good kind of tired.
What’s Been Happening
1.
A friend I met recently through my writing group is playing for Kemp FC in the Karnataka Women’s League, which means I’ve been finding myself at the Bangalore Football Stadium rooting for them every weekend.
I don’t usually watch sports, but being in a stadium with excited and cheering fans is fun. I suppose I find football to be a bit like jazz, in the sense that I find it more enjoyable when I’m there.
2.
I wrote for less than ninety minutes this week.
Feeling a certain kind of way about writing fiction right now. I just want to lose myself in some massive JRPG and not think about doing any creative work whatsoever for the next three hundred years. Lash me to my Steam Deck and force me to play Persona until I’m drooling and oblivious.
3.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay continues to astound. I can’t help but notice how Chabon breaks almost every single “rule” espoused in writing manuals and workshops. He:
- Tells instead of showing, constantly
- Employs ten dollar words that send me running to the dictionary every few pages
- Writes long, flowery sentences that I sometimes need to read twice (and they always take my breath away)
- Uses the third person omniscient viewpoint instead of the more common first person or third person limited (I enjoy this viewpoint so much)
- Foreshadows things in a way that sometimes spoils the plot
Of course, Chabon is an experienced storyteller who had several acclaimed novels under his belt before Kavalier & Clay. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and he’s doing it with intent. Yet, there are a few rules in that list that I think every writer should break, even if they’re just starting out:
- “Show, don’t tell” makes sense if you’re a screenwriter, not so much if you’re a novelist. Novelists should feel free to sometimes just tell.
- More writers should play with language, even at the risk of producing purple prose. I’ve read far too much science fiction and fantasy where the quality of prose was somewhere between office memo and Reddit comment. I personally enjoy reading mediocre stories with interesting prose much more than great stories with mediocre prose.
- In the same way, more writers should experiment with different viewpoints. The third person limited is almost a default in SFF/horror, and first person seems to be more common in romance and YA. It would be refreshing to read genre fiction that breaks away from these conventions (one of the reasons I love The Locked Tomb so much is because of how Tamsyn Muir plays with viewpoint, especially in Harrow the Ninth).
4.
I had pretty bad anxiety for a considerable part of this week, which made it difficult to focus on anything except reading and watching TV. It dissipated towards the end of the week, and I still don’t understand what I did to make it go away.
Working hypothesis: my brain is happiest when I’m able to focus all my attention on a single activity for a few hours at a time. This can’t be just passive consumption; watching TV, scrolling through social media, listening to music, or even reading a book doesn’t count. This has to be an activity where I’m doing something, something that will help me enter flow state—for instance, writing, programming, or playing a game.
In contrast, continuous partial attention sends me into a spiral of frustration, dissatisfaction, anxiety, and depression.
Evidence to back up my hypothesis: on the day my anxiety magically dissipated, I was able to spend several uninterrupted hours working on a design for my client, something that I hadn’t been able to achieve until then because of chores and social obligations. Those few hours of intense focus allowed my brain to soak itself in enough happy chemicals to drive away all the negative feelings.
5.
As a privileged male person in my thirties, I enjoy talking about myself. At length. Incessantly. It’s a habit I’m trying to break out of, but holy fuck it’s hard. Siri, how can I be genuinely curious about the other human beings in my life?
What’s Good
Win(s) of the week: got (some) things done, despite the anxiety.
Looking forward to: visiting Blossoms with a friend to sell some of my old books and pick up new ones.
I’m glad that: I’ve been feeling physically healthier than I’ve felt in a while (thanks in part to all the walking and socializing I’ve been able to do in my new neighborhood).
Links of the Week
- We don’t need a boss, we need a process by Miriam Suzanne
- Cultural Stasis Produces Fewer Cheesy Relics like Rocky IV by W. David Marx
- Scenius: why creatives are stronger together by Sheryl Garratt
- Scenius, or Communal Genius by Kevin Kelly
- Discovering Donegality by Robin Sloan
Media Diet
- Reading: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
- Watching: Carol and the End of the World
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