In Which Writing With Depression Is Like Being In A Krill Ball Narrated By David Attenborough (You're The Krill)
The first thing about my depression I noticed before I knew it was depression was that I couldn't handle narrative television anymore. Any sort of tension KILLED me. I couldn't even re-watch Star Trek episodes I'd seen a dozen times. It was: animated shows for kids (over and over again) and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (in very small doses). I couldn't figure it out. I don't remember why I started watched Hidden Houses of Wales, but it might have saved my life. The Netflix algorithm suggested Secrets of Great British Castles, and from there on out, I was on something of a documentary journey, and that brought me to David Attenborough.
At this point, I knew two things about the book that I'm now calling AETHERBOUND. I knew that Pendt's magic was fueled directly by food, and I knew that the whole thing took place on a space station. I was very determined NOT to just copy Deep Space Nine in terms of shape and layout, so I was noodling around with sizes and shapes and the limits of everyone's superpower. Nagging away at the back of my mind was: "The enemy's gate is down", a thing from a book I wish I could shake, but haven't managed to yet. I needed to make sure that my orientation in space was "right", even if there was no real direction to speak of. That was the only way to write the story. I needed to get myself some kind of hook, even if it was just for me.
The first David Attenborough I watched was actually Planet Earth 2, because the first series wasn't on Netflix yet. I remember clicking on it, thinking "Well, at least I know I like his voice". About ten minutes later, I was already tweeting about how emotionally invested in the dude sloth's dating life I was. There's a narrative cadence to that series that I quickly became addicted to. It's a story I don't mind being told, and I dove in headfirst.
Aetherbound was growing very slowly. I missed deadline after deadline with it, and Andrew gave me space. We decided to write The Afterward first, and I had a lot of Star Wars going on. We decided that 2018 wouldn't have any book publications at all. We decided I would recharge, something I really, really needed, and something I absolutely did not do. But I did start to travel a bit more, and that was nice.
I also watched literally every David Attenborough thing I could get my hands on. Netflix had the entire BBC collection at one point. I went back and watched Planet Earth, and finally saw the footage of the great whites breaching that had turned the oceanography community upside down when they filmed it. I loved Blue Planet, because the ocean episodes are always my favourite, but my favourite series was The Hunt. I am very much Team Predator when it comes to the chase (except for when the orcas are dicks, which is ALWAYS), and The Hunt did a good job of framing the story to make you root for the carnivore. Also, there was the bit with the blue whale.
Breakthroughs come when you least expect them. A fictional character in a videogame dumped me and restarted my fiction-producing brain. A BBC documentary actor played Edward II in a several episodes of a show about castles, and his moustache made me think about Arthurian mythology again. I drove home from Newfoundland, my brain full of fish, and suddenly I knew what Brannick Station looked like, and how the Stavenger network connected the old solar system to the new. My career had been a lot of A HA! moments, but no one really talks about all the parts in between.
We don't know much about blue whales. They're the largest thing that's ever existed, and they're a mystery to us. There has been a lot of advancement in the past few years (the NatGeo docs on Disney+ aren't too bad, though generally I find those shows too anthropomorphizing), but the COOLEST thing is when the camera dudes for The Hunt got their footage. They shot for WEEKS, hoping to get LITERALLY ANYTHING, because so little about blue whales has been observed. And then, they went to shoot more krill ball b-roll, and accidentally hit paydirt: the whale did it's gulping pass, and they had the cameras on it when it did.
The thing about writing is that it's not just writing. It's a lot of thinking. A lot of things that don't work, and then a run of things that do. It's a lot of administration, and answering the same questions over and over again. Sometimes it's tax season. When you're depressed, it's easy to make a mess of it. When you're not Actively Engaged, you're failing, and when you fail, you spiral. But the footage reminded me: sometimes it's a perfect storm.
This is how it happens: The krill come into the light. The dolphins or seals or tuna herd them into a ball. The shearwaters dive down from above. The whale comes up from below. And the BBC documentary filmmakers get it all on camera. In the edited version, you see flashes of silver and hear dramatic music. In the raw footage, you hear two guys crying from happiness as they make the scientific record of their lives. If you watch the series, you get to hear David Attenborough narrate the whole thing.
Depression was the dark. I was the krill. Eventually, I dragged myself into the light. I was the dolphin. I made a ball of silver and tore it apart. I was the shearwater. I skimmed the bits I wanted off the top. I was the whale. I took huge gulps to clean up the mess. I was the camera crew. I waited weeks and weeks, then I got it all down in writing. The cycle continues. And that's okay. The work gets done. You just have to take advantage of the good days.
Attenborough has a deal with Netflix, so now OUR PLANET and the autobiography are the only two things left (there's also one on Disney+ about different biomes in India). They're narratively different, so I don't like them quite as much. The Planet Earth series was designed to educate. Our Planet is written to scare. Both are important, but I find the latter much less of a comfort watch. I'm glad that Aetherbound grew out of the former. I needed all the comfort I could get.
Originally, I liked the krill ball scenes for the multi-directionality of attack. It's a good way to visualize the way vessels might move through space. Eventually, they became my touchstone for the way I approach writing when I can't trust my own brain. I can lean into whatever feature of the cycle I need, and that helps me get through. Then I can go back into the dark, to grow and regroup, and it's not as bad as it used to be. It's less crowded for a start.
Circle of life, and all that. :)
Aetherbound comes out on May 25th. For signed copies, preorder here.